Innehållsförteckning för April 2025 från Edge

As this issue goes to press, the news that more one-time Xbox exclusives, including Forza Horizon 5, are coming to PS5 is still being digested. It’s easy to understand why Microsoft is putting its biggest and most successful franchises onto Sony’s console – where they can become even bigger and even more successful – but it does raise questions about what happens next. Although in some respects it rekindles memories of Sega’s dramatic exit from the hardware business, when it called time on its struggling Dreamcast and committed its resources to PS2, GameCube and Xbox, there was no such thing as Game Pass in those days. In 2025, Microsoft’s subs service looks like a runaway success next to its console hardware sales, which slumped by 29 per cent in the…

There are few certainties in game development, particularly in 2025. And yet Alan Hazelden, founder of the puzzle game design team Draknek & Friends, thinks he’s hit on one: “I don’t think there’s ever going to be a world where I feel bad about giving people money to make something that is exciting and interesting.” The money in question is the Draknek New Voices Puzzle Grant, which has just awarded its second round of grants to six developers of ‘thinky’ puzzle games, with the likes of Terry Cavanagh and Lucas Pope among its sponsors. The grant’s launch in 2022 was in part a result of the success of Draknek & Friends’ A Monster’s Expedition in 2020. Hazelden explains that he found himself with “a bunch of cash sitting in the…

“I think he is interested but he is so successful and so busy, he cannot do it himself – but he doesn’t want anyone else to touch it.” Shuhei Yoshida shares his slightly Gollum-with-The-One-Ring theory for why we haven’t seen Hidetaka Miyazaki return to Bloodborne “It’s fundamental to what Xbox is… I look at hardware as a critical part of what we do.” New Xbox console coming right up, says Phil Spencer “The actions of the spoken and unspoken will tell you the true intent versus the flavour of the day…” If it’s Zen you want, give Xbox socials chief Joshua Stein a try “What has happened is that, after a decade of automation and algorithms, we have a generation of digital illiterates.” Raccoon Logic’s Alex Hutchinson takes a ball-peen hammer…

Has magic lost its magic? People have been saying so since the sociologist Max Weber popularised the idea of the “disenchantment of the world” over the previous several centuries in a 1917 lecture. The growth of the scientific method and the industrial revolution removed humanity from a world in which spirits mediated between humans and the divine. But Weber was unable to play The Elder Scrolls, Diablo III or Magic: The Gathering. So what do the ludic magic systems of videogames do for us in our own postmodern condition? The question is posed by an intriguing new paper, Mikael D Sebag’s ‘A Definition Of Enchantment: A New Approach To the Analysis Of Magic Systems In Fantasy Games’. In the author’s view, games could make more of an effort to make…

Developer/publisher Ubisoft (Ubisoft Québec) Format PC, PS5, Xbox Series Origin Canada Release March 20 Ubisoft’s signature series finds itself at a crossroads. After Valhalla concluded Assassin’s Creed’s trilogy-length RPG pivot back in 2020, it was three years – which felt like an eternity for this once-annual series – before Mirage arrived, with its promise of a return to the concept’s stealthgame roots, and no pretence to the scale of its immediate predecessors. Another change in direction, yet to be revealed, is promised by the forthcoming ‘Codename Hexe’, one of two vanguards of what was once known as Assassin’s Creed Infinity (see ‘Hub crawl’). Shadows is the other, turning its attention backwards, to the divergent paths this series has taken to this point – and then trying to walk both at once. Hence…

Developer Lululu Entertainment Publisher Popagenda Format PC Origin Switzerland Release 2025 You only need to look at Henry Halfhead’s huge eyes, Pinocchio nose and protruding ears to feel a spark of mischief. They’re a funny little character, and in a world where being only half a head (the top) could lead to limited mobility, the lack of the rest of a body doesn’t stop Henry in the slightest. Thanks to an oddball ability, they can possess any object within reach; playing as Henry, you can jump into a tap to run an overflowing bubble bath, launch your breakfast egg across the kitchen as a frying pan, or leap out of a fruit bowl as an apple and roll along the floor on a daring escapade. Working out how to incite…

What is it about westerns that inspired Arco’s scenario? I think the level of technology they had then was intriguing. It’s very human still, but humans have these insanely powerful weapons that can kill someone in an instant, and there’s nothing around to control it. It’s also the combination of technology and physical [ability], like in the quickdraw duels. How does the combat reflect that? I feel like it merges [the lead up to] the quickdraw moment with frantic game playing. You always have those tense moments in westerns where everyone’s waiting to see what’s going to happen. One thing about that is who’s going to [react] faster, but another thing is that one character always thinks two steps ahead and wins that way. Why the anti-colonialist narrative? That wasn’t…

Games are an extraordinary cultural tool for considering our engagement with the past. Few series have been academically dissected as much as Civilization for this reason, often to critique the view of history it implies – that civilisation is always a matter of aggressive expansion. In Civilization VII, Firaxis responds with a more playful approach that destabilises notions of singular historical accuracy. Here, civilisations crumble while leaders endure to govern societies they had nothing to do with in reality. It makes for some odd coupling, but compared to guiding a civilisation through progress over millennia, it better reflects how empires rise and fall. Then again, it now risks indulging another contested interpretation of history: that visionary individuals, above material conditions, are the motors of change. In short, historical fiction is…

Developer Obsidian Entertainment Publisher Xbox Game Studios Format PC (tested), Xbox Series Release Out now Avowed, much like its setting, is a thing of contrasts. In this RPG, which shares a universe with the Pillars Of Eternity games, you’ve been dispatched to the Living Lands as the envoy of an expansionist empire. Ostensibly, your role is to root out rumours of a plague blighting the land and the people who live on it with rot and madness. The implication that your real role is to clear the way for further colonisation, however, is obvious. Even without the issue of a plague, the Living Lands do not lend themselves to being settled. Corpses of illprepared adventurers lie scattered about, sometimes with expository notes, but more often the nature of their death…

Developer/publisher YCJY Games Format PC Release Out now Summer’s here. School’s out. You’re in the prime of your life. Outside your parents’ house is a vintage sedan; in your hand an envelope containing a ticket to a music festival on the other side of the country. With admirable economy, Swedish studio YCJY sets the scene for a classic road trip. Yet if OutRun 2 represents the romantic ideal (blue skies and landmarks whizzing dreamily by as you belt along with the top down), Keep Driving strives to deglamorise the experience, sometimes capturing the fantasy but more often presenting the quotidian reality of your maiden voyage of self-discovery. So, yes, you’ll grin broadly as dawn breaks and you find yourself hurtling past stretches of parallax-scrolling orange groves, a mixtape of revivalist…

What kind of person wants to play the games from Squid Game? Honestly, I don’t get it. The Netflix show is an unbearably tense thriller, with some incredible production design and an excellent twist to the death-game genre in that its contestants volunteer. But it never really makes any of the activities look fun, does it? Surely the entire point is that these are simplistic children’s games, where success is as arbitrary as it is in the real-life systems being satirised. And yet people quite literally fell over themselves to take part in first the bootleg YouTube version organised by Mr Beast and subsequently Netflix’s official game-show version, The Challenge. Watching the latter’s contestants cheer at the sight of the Red Light, Green Light killing floor – just like on…

Developer Claymore Game Studios Publisher Kalypso Media Format PC, PS5, Xbox Series Origin Germany Release April 9 There is a special halo around a videogame level that gives you an entire island to play with. Operation Blindfold, an early mission in Commandos: Origins, drops players onto the Channel Islands in the first half of the Second World War. The main objective is to take down enemy radar installations, but for a few moments, as the camera pans over rock and grass and farmland, none of that matters. Instead, here is a complete island, with a huge military base dominating the higher ground and a handful of beaches and coves to pick over. Everything on display hints at tactical possibilities, but for now this looks like a wonderful playground. Origins is the latest instalment…

Developer Slipgate Ironworks Publisher 3D Realms, Knights Peak Format PC Origin Denmark Release April 24 How times change. The militarised rush for Tiberium in Command & Conquer used to seem dystopian, but in the icecold light of 2025 there’s something quaint about a global power struggle being so simple. Given the choice between salute-throwing techbro oligarchs or a good old-fashioned Tiberium harvester rolling by, it’s hard to say Westwood’s vision doesn’t look preferable. This statement proves particularly true for Slipgate Ironworks, founded by a former C&C obsessive who used to“design the perfect base in my school books during class”. Many RTS references bleed into Tempest Rising, but for Frederik Schreiber and his team, the Brotherhood Of Nod is still god. “We’re extremely passionate about RTS games, but specifically the Westwood-Blizzard era,”…

Croteam, if you don’t know, is a portmanteau of ‘Croatia team’ – and naming the studio was an act of patriotism. Such flag-waving might seem alien to anyone with the luxury of taking their countries for granted, but the decision was made against the backdrop of Croatia’s four-year war of independence. Back then, it felt existential. “Croatia proclaimed its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991,” points out co-founder Davor Tomicic. “So it hadn’t existed as a country. It was a big thing to put it on the map, because nobody knew what Croatia was. Our sports teams and the most famous stuff from Croatia had the task of bringing it to the world, and we wanted to contribute to that.” For many people, their first encounter with Croatia was Serious Sam:…

Developer Warhorse Studios Publisher Deep Silver Format PC, PS5 (tested), Xbox Series Release Out now This is a thoroughly uncompromising creation. Its medieval world is vast and detailed. Its plot is a preposterously knotty web of treachery and espionage. Its battles are huge in scope, intensely choreographed and now feature added gunpowder. Yet while Warhorse Studios’ sequel is made to be an epic tale of dynastic conflict in the late Middle Ages, it’s far more interesting away from the lacquered chambers of scheming lords. In its forests and villages and one brilliantly devised city, the game’s rich roleplaying systems, open-ended quests and winningly wonky AI behaviour collide with thrilling results. Imagine attending the world’s most lavish history lecture, but where the audience is composed of NPCs from The Elder Scrolls…

Developer/publisher Rebellion Developments Format PC (tested), PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series Release Out now Reduce the volume of Sniper Elite: Resistance’s tinny Casio-synth soundtrack and its nighttime levels soak you in a rich, noir atmosphere. The third mission in particular, in which you creep through an occupied dockyard under cover of darkness, is one of the game’s genuine highlights. You’re infiltrating a hotel on the far side of the river, which means inching along and around the streets of Paris in search of classified intelligence, Resistance cells and collaborators marked for death. It’s wonderfully immersive, and allows us to scratch the same Nazi-bashing itch as last year’s Indiana Jones And The Great Circle. It’s a shame, then, that Resistance can’t produce such compelling hooks with nearly enough frequency. It…

Developer Odd Bug Studio Publisher United Label Format PC (tested), PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox Series Release Out now The multiple lacerations, the snowy white but matted fur, the expression of contempt and defiance. They only point to one truth: Arlo, the hero of Tails Of Iron 2, is Geralt Of Rivia in rodent form. The similarities don’t end there either. Consider the Witcher-like weapons that Arlo lugs around – one handed swords, heavy axes and crossbows among them. Arlo can also wield elemental magic, casting fireballs and summoning hailstorms to pulverise his monstrous foes. Add to that the medieval grubbiness of the game’s setting, backgrounds replete with derelict castles and charred trees. And most definitive of all, Doug Cockle, the voice of Geralt himself, is the game’s narrator, his gravelly…

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Make London the games capital of the world. This was the brief that Michael French was handed by City Hall when he joined Film London in 2015, to set up its videogame division. Since then, his primary responsibility has been the annual London Games Festival, a sprawling week-long affair that spans BAFTA’s Games Awards, public exhibits in Trafalgar Square and experimental art-game showcase Now Play This. (And, once upon a time, EGX Rezzed and its successor WASD, before the latter’s organiser went into liquidation in 2024.) Across April 2–13, London Games Festival is returning for its tenth edition (it has not missed a year, and even carried on during the pandemic). To mark the milestone it is launching New Game Plus, a ‘boutique games expo’ stepping into the gap left…

Issue 407 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 It’s a shame about Roy I recently finished playing Still Wakes The Deep. The atmosphere was excellent, along with the game design, but I found myself taken out of the experience by the completely inaccurate depiction of type 1 diabetes, which my partner suffers from. Caz’s best friend, Roy, dies from not having insulin for a few hours, but the only thing that could have killed him that quickly would have been a lack of sugar or glucose. Yes, eventually diabetic ketoacidosis would have got him, but not in the timeframe given by the game. I think manipulating history, physics or geography to create an interesting…

Sometimes, the only way to go forward is to start again. To make a strategic withdrawal, if necessary, take stock and return to square one. Certainly, the soldiers of the Commandos series have found themselves doing exactly that, long on hiatus until Kalypso Media acquired the property and set about reviving it. Now they’re back in Commandos: Origins, a prequel that wipes off the intervening years to leave them less war-fatigued and more agile in their tactical exploits. A similar effect is achieved by Tempest Rising, which circles back to the classic formula of Command & Conquer, while applying a few modern twists. Having keenly felt the absence of the ’90s realtime strategy king, developer Slipgate Ironworks hopes it will capture our imaginations (and bases) once again. If you’re viewing…

Developer Effort Star Publisher Joystick Ventures, Gamera Games Format PC Origin Australia Release TBA Like many a reputable indie production, Enter The Chronosphere had its start in the game jam scene, its creation fuelled by late nights and a sprint-like burst of creative energy. “We had the most productive week of our lives,” Effort Star co-founder Rhys van der Waerden says. “And the game was pretty successful.” The results of the jam back up this claim. The game’s early prototype snagged the top spot in its Scope, Fun and Completeness categories, enough to prompt van der Waerden and fellow Chronosphere creator Ned Kirner to pursue further development. Lifting the lid on the latest build, many of the core mechanics and components, we’re told, remain the same as in the prototype:…

Developer The Outer Zone Publisher 11 Bit Studios Format PC Origin Denmark Release 2025 The death howl is a kind of anguished expulsion of the soul. Each of your foes – animals in the spirit world – cries out as you deliver a fatal blow, a visible energy escaping its maw. For you, as a shaman, this becomes a currency of sorts. Howls are drawn into your body, where you use their power to your advantage. You also pick up material trophies from your kills – the snout of a boar, a feather from a crow – combining these with the magic of the howls to craft cards, supplementing primitive techniques such as throwing rocks with more incisive weapons and skills. As such, there’s a freeform nature to this sombre…

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Format PC, Switch Developer Franek Nowotniak, Max Cahill, José Ramón García, Antonio Uribe Publisher Panic Inc Origin Poland Release 2024 Disparate characters, each from a different background and with their own personal aims, banding together for a common cause. This is the premise of Arco’s story, but it could just as well be a description of how this indie RPG/western came to be. Set within a reimagined Latin America, each chapter follows a new protagonist from another regional tribe, seeking revenge against murderous colonials, until plotlines converge and the survivors decide to combine their skills. Meanwhile, the making of this game brought together a group of four strangers, all hailing from different lands. Our tale begins some years ago, in Poland, with Franek Nowotniak. “I had a shitty restaurant job…

Like its predecessor, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is marketed not only as a medieval RPG, but a historically accurate one. From its meticulous recreation of an early 15th-century city to its voluminous codex that references and elaborates upon characters, locations, and ideas depicted in-game, it strives to demonstrate how its world and story is built upon the unyielding pillars of the past. There’s little question that the game’s Bohemian setting is extensively researched. But still, historical accuracy is a dangerously elusive target, especially when approached with an absolutist mindset. This has led to numerous fiery arguments about the series’ depiction of history, from its representation of women and the first game’s lack of non-white characters to the sequel’s inclusion of a black character, Musa of Mali, as well as depictions…

Developer Firaxis Games Publisher 2K Games Format PC (tested), PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series Release Out now Anyone who’s engaged with Sid Meier’s strategy series during its 34-year existence knows that the most exhilarating turns in a game are the initial ones. Sure, the mid-game can be an absorbing juggling act, requiring you to manage diplomatic crises and placate the citizens of a sprawling empire, while choreographing your battalions’ advance into enemy territory. And, almost invariably, the finale will trigger a hectic rush toward whichever victory goal you’re pursuing, whether a technological breakthrough, establishing a global religion, or military domination. But there’s nothing like those uncertain first steps with your lone settler and their immediate surroundings, the obscured landscape suggesting a world that brims with resources, natural wonders,…

Developer/publisher Megagon Industries Format PC (tested), Xbox Series Release Out now When you want to paint white cloth, you should never use white paint. You should instead use greys and pinks and gold, and through the interplay of texture and light and perception, the true sense of the colour you’re chasing will emerge. So goes the old artist’s maxim, and there’s something of this visual approach at play in Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders. There’s so much snow and ice and frost in this game, yet you’re never faced with a screen of pure, unbroken white. Instead, the cold winter sun renders the smooth slopes a gauzy afternoon purple at the edges, or a chill green when there’s water nearby. Ice is blue and sometimes a shocking turquoise. The rocks that…