Author: News Room

The Sonic and Mario franchises have been intertwined since the dawn of Sega’s flagship series, so it’s only fitting that Sonic’s kart-racing return occurs the same year as Mario’s. However, much like how Sonic brought a different flavor to the platforming genre in the ‘90s, the Blue Blur approaches the kart-racing genre from a different angle than Nintendo’s mascot. The result is a much more streamlined, yet still ambitious product that sits alongside Mario Kart World as the best the genre has delivered in 2025.Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds delivers a trimmed-down arcade-style racing experience; there’s no open world or story mode,…

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 stirred up controversy among fans for its DLC strategy, particularly in how it was locking away two of the game’s six vampire clans as launch-day DLC. Publisher Paradox Interactive and developer The Chinese Room have walked this back; the Lasombra and Toreador clans will be part of the base game at release.Originally, the Lasombra and Toreador clans were going to be offered as DLC for $21.99 and as part of the $89.99 Premium Edition. Since this extra content would be available at launch, many fans, who were already upset that the sequel features significantly…

Hollow Knight: Silksong is an exemplar of its form. Games like Metroid and Castlevania helped establish the fun of an exploration and platforming adventure filled with upgrades that open up new paths to progression, and Team Cherry’s second Hollow Knight game takes that concept to a profound level of depth, sophistication, and scope. Pacing issues and a punishing approach to forward progression prevent a full-throated endorsement to every type of player, but those with significant patience can uncover a true masterpiece. While there are some scant references to the prior game, players should be comfortable thinking of Silksong’s story as a…

Dispatch, the narrative adventure game that puts you in charge of dispatching various superheroes and reformed villains to those in need in a city, launches next month. More specifically, Dispatch will launch on PlayStation 5 and PC on October 22, marking the beginning of its four-week release. Developed by AdHoc Studio, a team comprised of Telltale alumni, Dispatch consists of eight playable episodes, with the first two scheduled for release on October 22. Two episodes will be released each week for four consecutive weeks. The full season will cost $30, or you can purchase the Deluxe Version, which includes a digital…

Developer Pocketpair has announced that its hit creature-catching open-world survival game, Palworld, is finally launching out of Early Access and into version 1.0 in 2026. Palworld has been available in Early Access since January 2024, and centers on catching Pokémon-esque critters called Pals, which you can equip with guns to battle other monsters while aiding players in farming and crafting. In a developer update video, Pocketpair promises that a “massive amount of content” is being planned for the 1.0 update. However, the studio also acknowledges it wants to clean up Palworld’s remaining technical bugs before it hits 1.0.  As such, the studio says…

Valheim, the hit indie Viking survival game from developer Iron Gate AB and Coffee Stain Publishing, is finally coming to PlayStation 5 in 2026. It’s currently unclear, though, if this version of the game will be 1.0 or Early Access. Valheim launched into Early Access on PC back in 2021, quickly climbing up the Steam charts to become one of the most popular survival games of the year. That excitement continued well into 2022, with the audience growing in 2023 when Valheim launched into Game Preview on Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One, featuring cross-play as well. Now, Valheim is finally…

Poland-based studio Reikon Games has only been around since 2014, but in its decade of development, it has made a name for itself creating stylish, action-forward cyberpunk games. Its debut, 2017’s Ruiner, was itself a great isometric shooter, but in hindsight, it was a look toward the studio’s future and its second game: Metal Eden. Like Ruiner, Metal Eden is a futuristic neon-lit shooter set in a cyberpunk dystopia, but this time, from a first-person perspective. It blends excellent first-person gunplay with movement tech that turns the city of Moebius into a parkour playground, and the resulting gameplay is hyper-fast,…

Dungeons & Dragons, despite its unparalleled popularity in the tabletop role-playing space, is undeniably tough for newcomers to approach. There are so many elements to keep track of, and if you’re playing analog, not enough space to do it on a standard character sheet. While Dungeons & Dragons has released Starter Sets and Essentials Kits for Fifth Edition in the past, their latest iteration, Heroes of the Borderlands, is the most accessible version yet. It provides a simplified version of the game, chock-full of physical elements like cards and tokens that make the game easier to grasp. After getting a…

Every completed Lego set is a collaboration between the designers and the builder; it’s fun both because a team made a beautiful set and because you’re the one who put it together. Lego Voyagers, a co-op puzzle platformer from Light Brick Studio, made me feel the same way. Its adorable aesthetic and wordless storytelling make this brief adventure one worth sharing with family or a friend, but its distant camera angle and visual filters were frustrating obstacles on an otherwise picturesque road. At the end of the journey, though, my partner and I are the ones who completed the puzzle,…

Nintendo has announced The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, a sequel to The Super Mario Bros. Movie that hit theaters in 2023, and it’s coming to the silver screen in April and will also be made by Illumination. Shigeru Miyamoto opened today’s Nintendo Direct with a look at Super Mario Bros. for its 40th anniversary, and he revealed The Super Mario Galaxy Movie will be the main attraction of the celebration. Alongside this news, we learned that Brian Taylor will be returning to compose the score, and that various actors, including Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Jack Black, Charlie Day, Keegan-Michael Key, and…