Game Pass – will it continue forever? (Microsoft) The Monday letters page struggles to predict what’s going to happen with the PlayStation 6, as one reader sees their opinion of the Switch 2 change over time. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk Final Pass I agree with a lot of what was said about the current state of Xbox in the Reader’s Feature this weekend and how the more Microsoft spends, and the more companies they own, the less the seem to be in control. Which is very strange really.The biggest recent failure has got to be Game Pass, which has not had the impact they expected and yet they don’t seem ready to acknowledge that. If they’re thinking of increasing the price again, like those rumours say, then I think that will be the point at which you can draw a line under the whole idea and admit it’s never going to catch on. But would Microsoft ever shut down Game Pass completely? I feel that would almost be more humiliating than stopping making consoles, so I can’t really imagine it. Instead, they’ll make it more and more expensive and put more and more restrictions on day one games until it’s no longer recognisable.Grackle Panic button Strange to see Sony talking relatively openly about Nintendo and Microsoft as competition. I can’t remember the last time they mentioned either of them, even if they obviously would prefer not to have, if they hadn’t been asked by investors.At no point did they acknowledge that the Switch has completely outsold both their last two consoles, so I’m not sure where their confidence comes from. I guess it’s from the fact that they know they’ve done nothing this gen and still come out on top, so from their perspective they’ve got plenty in reserve. Expert, exclusive gaming analysis Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. Having your panic button being ‘do anything at all’ must be pretty reassuring really. Nintendo has had to work to get where they are with the Switch but Sony is just coasting it.Lupus James’ LadderJacob’s Ladder is a film I’ve been meaning to watch for a while, and I guessed the ending quite early on, but it feels like a Silent Hill film. I don’t know if you guys have seen it but it’s an excellent film and the hospital scene near the end, and the cages blocking off the underground early on, just remind me of the game. A depressing film overall but worth a watch.Simon GC: Jacob’s Ladder was as a major influence on Silent Hill 2 in particular, even the jacket James is wearing is the same. Email your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk Seeing the future I know everyone likes to think of themselves as Nostradamus, but I have to admit I have absolutely no clue what Sony is planning for the PlayStation 6. A new console that is just the usual update, that sits under your TV, is easy enough to imagine but surely they’re not going to do that again?But the idea of having new home and portable machines that come out at the same time seems so unlikely to me. Surely the portable wouldn’t be a separate format, but I can’t see it being any kind of portable that runs its own games because it’d never be as powerful as the home machine. So, it’s really just a PlayStation Portal 2? Like I said, I don’t know, but for some reason I have a bad feeling about that the next gen and whatever Sony does end up unveiling. I suspect that whatever they and Microsoft does it’s going to end up making the Switch 2 (and PC) seem even more appealing by comparison.Gonch Hidden insight I’m not going to say that Welcome Tour is a good game but what I will say is that I found it very interesting at times and I’m actually kind of surprised that Nintendo revealed some of the information that they did. Most of it could probably be found out by reverse engineering it and just taking it apart but I’m still surprised it went into as much detail as it did.You’re right that it’s all presented in a very dull way but personally I found the ‘Insights’ to be the best part of the game. The minigames really are not very good and I was always glad when they were over. So, while I would not necessarily recommend the game (it’s not really a game) I would say that it can be of interest to people who have an interest in how consoles work and how Nintendo think.Mogwai Purchase privilege I’ve recently had the privilege of buying Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 from the website CDKeys, using a 10% discount code. I was lucky enough to only spend a total of £25.99; much cheaper than purchasing the title for console. If only Ubisoft had the foresight to see what they allowed to slip through their fingers. I’d also like to mention that from what I’ve read quite recently ,and a couple of mixed views, I don’t see myself cancelling my Switch 2. On the contrary, it just is coming across as a disappointment.From the battery life to the lack of launch titles, an empty open world is never a smart choice to make not even Mario is safe from that. That leaves the upcoming ROG Xbox Ally that’s recently been showcased and is set for an October launch. I won’t lie it does look in the same vein as the Switch 2, far too similar to the ROG Ally X model. Just with grips and a dedicated Xbox button. The Z2 Extreme chip has me intrigued, however. How much of a transcendental shift it makes is another question however. I’ll have to wait to receive official confirmation for a price and release date. But there’s also a Lenovo Legion Go 2 waiting in the wings. I hope we hear more information soon. Preferably before my 28th in August.Shahzaib Sadiq Tip of the iceberg Interesting to hear about Cyberpunk 2077 running well on the Switch 2. I think if they’re getting that kind of performance at launch, from a third party not use to working with Nintendo hardware, that bodes very well for the future.I think we’re probably underestimating the Switch 2 a lot at the moment and stuff we’ll be seeing in two or three years is going to be amazing, I predict. What I can’t predict is when we’ll hear about any of this. I really hope there’s a Nintendo Direct this week.Dano Changing opinions So just a little over a week with the Switch 2 and after initially feeling incredibly meh about the new console and Mario Kart a little more playtime has been more optimistic about the console and much more positive about Mario Kart World.It did feel odd having a new console from Nintendo that didn’t inspire that childlike excitement. An iterative upgrade isn’t very exciting and as I own a Steam Deck the advancements in processing weren’t all that exciting either. I can imagine someone who only bough an OG Switch back in 2017 really noticing the improvements but if you bought an OLED it’s basically a Switch Pro (minus the OLED). The criminally low level of software support doesn’t help. I double dipped Street Fighter 6 only to discover I can’t transfer progress or DLC across from my Xbox, which sort of means if I want both profiles to have parity I have to buy everything twice! I also treated myself to a new Pro Controller and find using it for Street Fighter almost unplayable as the L and ZL buttons are far too easy to accidently press when playing. Mario Kart initially felt like more of the same and it was only after I made an effort to explore the world map, unlock characters and karts, and try the new grinding/ollie mechanic that it clicked. I am now really enjoying it, especially the remixed soundtracks. I do however want more Switch 2 exclusive experiences – going back through my back catalogue for improved frame rates doesn’t cut it Nintendo! As someone with a large digital library the system transfer was very frustrating and the new virtual cartridges are just awful – does a Switch 2 need to be online all the time now? Not the best idea for a portable system. So, the start of a new console lifecycle and hopefully lots of new IP – I suspect Nintendo will try and get us to revisit our back catalogues first though.BristolPete Inbox also-rans Just thought I would mention that if anyone’s interested in purchasing the Mortal Kombat 1 Definitive Edition, which includes all DLC, that it’s currently an absolute steal on the Xbox store at £21.99.Nick The GreekI’ve just won my first Knockout Tour online race on Mario Kart World! I’ve got to say, the feeling is magnificent.Rable More Trending Email your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk The small printNew Inbox updates appear every weekday morning, with special Hot Topic Inboxes at the weekend. Readers’ letters are used on merit and may be edited for length and content. You can also submit your own 500 to 600-word Reader’s Feature at any time via email or our Submit Stuff page, which if used will be shown in the next available weekend slot. You can also leave your comments below and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter. Arrow MORE: Games Inbox: Is Mario Kart World too hard? GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

As a former Xbox 360 owner I don’t understand Xbox today – Reader’s Feature GameCentral Published June 15, 2025 1:00am Xbox 360 is coming up to its 20th anniversary (Microsoft) A reader looks back on the Xbox 360 era and is frustrated at how things have evolved since then, with ROG Xbox Ally and the move towards multiformat releases. I though the Xbox Games Showcase on Sunday was pretty good. Like Sony’s State of Play, it was mostly third party games but there was some interesting stuff there and I think overall the vibe was better than from Sony. I liked the look of High On Life 2, There Are No Ghosts At The Grand, and Cronos: The New Dawn the best but there was a lot of potentially cool games – I’d include Keeper, because it looked interestingly weird, but I don’t feel Double Fine are ever very good at gameplay. The biggest news out of the event was the new portable with the terrible name: Asus ROG Xbox Ally. I bet you can just imagine some parent asking that for that at shop at Christmas, to buy their kid? Not that that would ever happen because the thing’s going to be stupidly expensive. It seemed like a distraction, a small experiment at best, and I didn’t really pay much attention to it, especially as I already have a Steam Deck. But then today I read that Microsoft has cancelled its plans for their next gen portable and that actually this ridiculously named non-Xbox device may end up being the future of gaming for Microsoft. I’ve always preferred Xbox as my console as choice, probably because I was always a PC gamer before that. Although now I look back at things I have to admit that I only got the Xbox One out of brand loyalty and I wouldn’t have if I’d been thinking about it more clearly. By that point I was in too deep and so I bought the Xbox Series X/S out of muscle memory more than anything, wasn’t I proven to be a chump? What frustrates me most about Xbox at the moment is how indecisive it seems. I almost didn’t watch the Xbox Games Showcase because I knew I’d have to see Phil Spencer, or one of his goons, grinning into the camera, as if nothing is wrong. And, of course, that’s exactly what he did, ‘hinting’ about the return of Halo, as if everyone was going to be pumping the air to hear about that. Expert, exclusive gaming analysis Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. News flash, Phil: no one cares. You’ve run that series into the ground, like all the other Xbox exclusives, to the point where they just feel old fashioned and tired. Old school fans don’t care and newer ones definitely don’t. It may sell okay at first on PlayStation 5, but only out of curiosity and as a kind of celebration that Sony has finally defeated Microsoft. To all extents and purposes, Xbox is now third party. The only thing that makes them not is that they still make their own console hardware but how long is that going to last? The ROG Ally is made by Asus and if Microsoft don’t make a handheld are they really going to put out a home console instead? That’s going to cost a lot of money in R&D and marketing and everything else, and I don’t know who could argue that it’s got a chance of selling more than the Xbox Series X/S. Phil Spencer has been talking about making a handheld for years and yet suddenly it’s not going to happen? Is there anything that is set in stone? I even heard people talking about them going back to having exclusives with the next generation, if it seemed like things were working out. I loved my Xbox 360, it’s still my favourite console of all time – the perfect balance between modern and retro games – but its golden era is a long time ago now, well over a decade. Xbox at the time was the new kid on the block, full of new ideas and daring to what Sony wouldn’t or couldn’t. When was the last time Xbox did anything like that? Game Pass probably, and that hasn’t worked out at all well. More Trending Nothing has, ever since that disastrous Xbox One reveal, and I just don’t understand how a company with basically infinite resources, and which already owns half the games industry, can be such a hopeless mess. I’m just sticking with PC from now and in the future, I’m going to pretend the Xbox 360 was my one and only console. By reader Cramersauce Xbox One – not a good follow-up to the Xbox 360 (Microsoft) The reader’s features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro. You can submit your own 500 to 600-word reader feature at any time, which if used will be published in the next appropriate weekend slot. Just contact us at gamecentral@metro.co.uk or use our Submit Stuff page and you won’t need to send an email. GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

I’m going to say it: Mario Kart World is not as good as it should be – Reader’s Feature GameCentral Published June 15, 2025 6:00am Mario Kart World – is it a let-down? (Nintendo) A reader is unimpressed by Mario Kart World on the Nintendo Switch 2 and argues that the controversial free roam mode is not its only issue. As a day one Nintendo Switch 2 owner I have to admit I’m a little disappointed. Not with the console itself, which I think is pretty much prefect for the price and what it has to do, but with the only game worth getting at launch: Mario Kart World. Now, I don’t think it’s terrible, but I do think that not only is it not as good at Mario Kart 8 but that it’s kind of a flawed experiment and one of the weakest entries in the whole series. But I’ll talk about the positives first, just to show it’s not all bad. Knockout Tour is great, I think everyone would agree. A bit boring in single-player, but fantastic online and the game’s best feature. I also like all the weird extra characters, although how you unlock them and the costumes is very random and unsatisfying. The open world is also very nicely designed in its own right, and very large, but… that’s kind of all I’ve got in terms of praise. First, I’ll get the obvious thing out of the way: the open world is completely wasted. None of the challenges in it are interesting, if you can even find them, and a lot of them are overly hard and frustrating. There’s no story or dialogue or anything. You just drive around at random in free roam and hope you come across something interesting, which you almost certainly won’t. If any game was born to have fetch quests in it, it was this and yet there’s nothing like that. It all feels like it’s waiting for the actual game to be dropped onto the world but there’s nothing there. Maybe it will come in DLC, but even if it’s free why wasn’t it there from the start? Why wouldn’t you go all out for basically your only launch game? It’s baffling. But for me that’s not the real problem because, rightly or wrongly, free roam is really just a side show. My problem is that the actual racing in the two main modes is very dull. It may not seem that way when you’ve got a dozen people firing shells at you at once, but that gets old very quickly, and it doesn’t actually happen that much, especially in single-player. Expert, exclusive gaming analysis Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. Most of the time you’re just driving along (even 150cc isn’t that fast) and taking slow bend after slow bend in what aren’t even really courses at all. Knockout Tour is worst for this, because you’re essentially driving point-to-point and it really does feel like you’re just road racing, with nothing in terms of exciting or unexpected track design. Grand Prix is barely any better either, with very few lapped races and too many wide roads that are too easy to take. I went back to play Mario Kart 8 and it’s filled with tightly designed courses and weird and physically impossible track designs. It seems a weird to say but Mario Kart World is basically too realistic, or rather too mundane in its design. Everything about it feels flabby and under-designed. Sure, occasionally you fly vertically up into the air or down the side of a volcano, but when you get down to the actual racing it’s so plain and boring. The tracks aren’t designed for time trials and racing skill, they’re designed for power-ups and 24 player online races, and that has ruined everything. More Trending I’m sure other people will enjoy the game but as someone that has enjoyed every previous Mario Kart it’s not for me. Which means I’m now left with a neat new console with nothing to play on it, except for old Switch 1 games. And that will definitely include Mario Kart 8. By reader Lambent What is the future of Mario Kart World? (Nintendo) The reader’s features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro. You can submit your own 500 to 600-word reader feature at any time, which if used will be published in the next appropriate weekend slot. Just contact us at gamecentral@metro.co.uk or use our Submit Stuff page and you won’t need to send an email. GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

Best of Summer Game Fest 2025 trailers – Mortal Shell 2, Game Of Thrones and more GameCentral Published June 7, 2025 3:33am Updated June 7, 2025 7:01am The Resident Evil and friends show (YouTube) Watch all the most interesting trailers from the biggest summer preview event of the year, including Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, Code Vein 2, and Wu-Tang: Rise Of The Deceiver. You never know what you’re going to get with Summer Game Fest, the would-be replacement for E3 hosted by The Games Awards creator Geoff Keighley. Some years there’s tons of big name reveals and some years it’s mostly just AA and indie titles. This is one of those years. That doesn’t mean there was nothing of interest, but the mic drop reveal at the end of the two hour long show was Resident Evil Requiem, and it was by far the biggest game to be featured. Despite being only a day after the Nintendo Switch 2 launch, and Nintendo registered as a partner, the only time the console was even mentioned was a brief ad for Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition. Although that does probably increase the chances of a Nintendo Direct later in the month. There were a few notable trends for the games at this year’s Summer Game Fest: a lot of Soulslike titles with dark grey visuals, a lot of anime games, and plenty of live service titles still trying their luck at hitting the big time. So, if the thought of that doesn’t appeal you may find the pickings relatively thin. Although there’s also Jurassic World Evolution 3 and the Deadpool VR game if you fancy something different. Mortal Shell 2 Expert, exclusive gaming analysis Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. The first annoucement was Mortal Shell 2, a sequel to the 2020 Dark Souls clone that is still one of our favourite Soulslikes not made by FromSoftware. Developed by a mere 30-man team (Keighley was keen to highlight that many of the games were by surprisingly small developers) the sequel seems to be going for a more overt horror atmosphere, while there was a lot more gun combat than usual for the genre. It’s out sometime in 2026. Death Stranding 2: On The Beach It’s never a surprise to see Hideo Kojima at a Geoff Keighley event but the cut scene he decided to show for Death Stranding 2 was not exactly the most enthralling. It featured Luca Marinelli as Neil and his real-life wife Alyssa Jung as therapist Lucy, arguing about the fact that he’s forgotten who she is. Neil is apparently the villain of the piece, and the one dressed up in Solid Snake cosplay in some of the previous images. The game itself is out in just a few weeks, on June 26. Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds Sega had a strange little dig at Mario Kart World during their reveal of Sonic’s latest kart racer, pointing out that it has cross-play… even though Mario Kart is obviously only on Nintendo formats. The game looked good, but the focus of the demonstration was crossover characters from other games, including Hatsune Miku, Ichiban Kasuga from Like A Dragon, Joker from Persona 5, and Steve from Minecraft. The game will be released on September 25 for every format imaginable. Code Vein 2 We’re really not sure the art style in this unexpected sequel to the 2019 Soulslike works very well, with its anime characters and realistic backdrops, but at least it’s something a bit different. The original didn’t seem quite successful enough to justify a follow-up, but the action looks good and at least it’s one Soulslike that’s not copying FromSoftware’s visuals as well as its gameplay. It’ll be released for Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5, and PC sometime next year. Game Of Thrones: War For Westeros It does seem madness that there’s never been a console action game based on Game Of Thrones. There still isn’t, but at least this real-time strategy game isn’t just some seedy mobile title. Unfortunately, the pre-rendered trailer never showed a hint of any gameplay, so there’s no clue as to what it’s actually like, but apparently it involves ‘ruthless free-for-all battles where trust is fleeting and power is everything’. It’s out next year and seems to be PC-only, which is a shame as it could have worked as a spiritual sequel to EA’s old Lord Of The Rings real-time strategies. Onimusha: Way Of The Sword It’s been a very busy week for Capcom this week, with Pragmata re-unveiled at the State of Play on Wednesday and Resident Evil Requiem being the big reveal at the end of Summer Game Fest. But we also got a new gameplay trailer for the reboot of Onimusha, which looks extremely pretty and continued the series’ tradition of not even trying to have anyone sound like they’re actually from Japan (like Resident Evil, the originals only had English voiceovers). There’s no release date yet, but it’s out next year on Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC. Felt That: Boxing One of the strangest reveals of the show was what seems to be a Muppet version of Punch-Out!!, with the potty-mouthed puppets taking part in what also probably counts as a homage to Rocky. The gameplay does seem almost identical to Nintendo’s old boxing game but hopefully there’s a bit more to it than that. The game doesn’t have a release date and is currently scheduled only for PC. ARC Raiders Expected to be the next big thing in online shooters, the only thing ARC Raiders has been missing is a release date, but it finally got that at Summer Game Fest. It’ll be out on October 30 for Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC, which is interesting because that’s right around the time you’d expect this year’s Call Of Duty to come out – and the new Battlefield, if EA launches it this year. ARC Raiders’ strong word of mouth gives it a head start though, which could make for an interesting autumn shootout. Out Of Words When we interviewed Jospeh Fares about Split Fiction, we asked him why he thought no one had ever tried to copy his games, despite their huge success. He didn’t know but finally another developer seems to have wondered the same thing and Out Of Words does look very reminiscent of It Takes Two in particular. The hand-crafted, stop motion visuals are neat though and it’s definitely one to watch, even if it doesn’t have a release date yet. Lego Voyagers Another game taking inspiration from Split Fiction, at least in the sense that it has a friend pass that means only one person has to own a copy of the game to play online co-op. It’s by the creators of the very good Lego Builder’s Journey and rather than being based on Lego licensed sets, or any other established toy line, it’s all about solving puzzles by building Lego structures. If it’s as good as Lego Builder’s Journey it’ll be doing very well indeed, although there’s no release date yet. Mixtape Between South Of Midnight and The Midnight Walk, and Out Of Words, stop motion animation Is suddenly very popular for video games. The art style in this new game from Annapurna was notably different though, and while we’re not entirely sure what’s going on in terms of the gameplay the 80s soundtrack sounds like it’ll be the best thing since GTA: Vice City. Acts Of Blood Made by just nine people in Indonesia, this very bloody looking beat ‘em-up looked extremely impressive, and also very reminiscent of the violence in Oldboy. We didn’t quite gather what was going on in terms of the story but we’re sure revenge has something to do with it, as you beat down hordes of goons and get a Mortal Kombat style view of an opponent’s skeleton, when you manage to put a big enough dent in it. It’ll be out on PC next summer. Scott Pilgrim EX We can’t say we’ve ever been fans of Scott Pilgrim, either the comics or the film, but the 2D graphics for this new scrolling beat ‘em-up look gorgeous. It’s clearly intended as follow-up to Ubisoft’s film tie-in from 2010, which was well received by many, and is by the same team behind Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge and Marvel Cosmic Invasion (which was also at Summer Game Fest and announced Rocket Racoon and She-Hulk as characters). It’ll be out on current and last gen consoles and PC next year. Hitman: World of Assassination Although 007 First Light did get a quick name check on stage, developer and publisher IO Interactive instead spent their time talking about Agent 47 in MindsEye and Mads Mikkelsen in Hitman: World of Assassination (aka Hitman 3). He’ll be reprising the role of Le Chiffre as the latest elusive target in the game – a special character, usually played by a famous actor, that is only available to assassinate for 30 days, starting from today. That’s neat but it’s also interesting that it implied IO has a considerable amount of leeway with the Bond licence and what they can do with it. Lego Party! The other Lego game to be unveiled was an outrageously obvious clone of Mario Party, only with 300 different minifigures instead of the Mushroom Kingdom crew. These can be rearranged in trillions of different combinations, in order to compete for stars golden bricks and play 60 different mini-games. We’re big fans of Mario Party (and Lego) so if this manages to be as fun as Nintendo’s games then we’re all for it. It’ll be release for both consoles and PC this year. Blighted A new game from Drinkbox Studios, makers of Guacamelee! and Nobody Saves The World is immediately of interest but this Diablo-esque role-player looks a bit more serious and horror tinged than their previous games. It also seems to be channelling Hades creator Supergiant Games, none of which is a bad thing. Whether it’s a Metroidvania or not isn’t clear but at certainly points in the trailer it definitely seems to have co-op. It’s not certain which formats it’s coming to but it’s out on PC next year. Infinitesimals A lot of people are probably going to compare this to online survival game Grounded, but the plot makes it sound like a more serious version of Pikmin, with aliens visiting Earth and battling with both insects and some sort of mechanical robot menace, as you search for your lost crew. It’s out for consoles and PC next year and while there’s very little concrete information on the gameplay the visuals certainly look impressive. Wu-Tang: Rise Of The Deceiver Whether you care about the Wu-Tang Clan or not this had some of the nicest visuals of any game at the show. They seemed fairly obviously influenced by the Into The Spider-Verse movies, but that’s no bad thing, and we’re only surprised that hasn’t happened before. The idea of a Wu-Tan action role-playing game was leaked quite a while ago, where it was described as Diablo meets Hi-Fi Rush, which does seem to fit with what you see in the trailer. There’s no release date so far. Into The Unwell There were a lot of great looking games at the show, but this might have been our favourite, with its 40s style animation reminiscent of a 3D Cuphead. It’s a bit hard to tell exactly what’s going on with the story but you seem to be playing an alcohol abusing cartoon character who’s been tricked by the Devil into… taking part in a third person action roguelite, that also has three-player co-op. There’s no release date but if it looks as good as it plays it’ll be doing very well indeed. Stranger than Heaven The final reveal before Resident Evil Requiem was what was previously codenamed Project Century and while it looks like a Yakuza spin-off it’s not actually part of the franchise, even though it’s by the same developer. Sega didn’t explain much, but when the game was first introduced it was set in Japan in 1915 and yet this trailer is set in 1943 (i.e. in the middle of the Second World War). More Trending Given the codename that probably implies you’re playing in multiple time periods across the whole century. There was no mention of formats or a release date though, so it’s probably still quite a while away from release. Resident Evil Requiem was the biggest news of the night (YouTube) Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

Mario Kart World – is it a backwards step? (Nintendo) The Friday letters page is surprised the Sony State of Play didn’t go down better with more people, as readers share images of the Switch 2 midnight launches. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk Initial experience I’ve spent a few hours playing Mario Kart World in single and multiplayer, and my first impression is that it’s a bit… boring.The free roam aspect of the game seemed like it had heaps of potential but, for the most part, it feels aimless. Sure, there are things to collect and discover, but in-between there’s just driving. Lots and lots of driving. It’s not exactly a world brimming with things to do in the same way as the sandbox areas in Super Mario Odyssey, for example. As for the races, in principle it makes sense that the tracks need to be wider to accommodate 24 racers. However, the races themselves don’t generally feel any busier because you’re still, generally, just competing against those closest to your level of ability. Consequently, I felt the game lacks the chaotic energy of jostling your rivals to get ahead because there’s so much space on the otherwise well-designed courses. I know it’s unfair to compare Mario Kart World to Mario Kart 8 at this point, given the latter spanned two consoles, with a plethora of content reflecting that. But it’s hard not to feel that while the free roam section is a solid demonstration of technical advancement (even if the inability to integrate it with Grand Prix mode seems like a missed opportunity), the core gameplay is consistent, at best. In some respects, I’d say it’s more of a step backwards, if anything. That being said, I don’t think this is the same version of Mario Kart World we’ll be playing five years from now. Free roam mode feels like a playground in which Nintendo can experiment, and I fully expect them to do so. There’ll undoubtedly be a slew of DLC and perhaps better integration of the various modes into one seamless experience. Expert, exclusive gaming analysis Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. In the unlikely event that this is the final iteration of Mario Kart World, it’s currently a six or (generous) seven out of 10 and probably the least enthralled I’ve ever been with a new Mario Kart title. But I’ll give Nintendo the benefit of the doubt for now because this doesn’t feel like a game that’s even close to being finished.Needlemouse Just add SonyFirstly, I’m surprised by the relatively lukewarm response to the State of Play from some people; I thought it was one of the best in recent memory and there were only a few games that I personally had little interest in. The main reason for writing in is the recent addition of Destiny 2: The Final Shape to PS Plus subscription. In short, I played a lot of Destiny 2 back in the day but have subsequently not played any of the most recent DLCs/additions. Can The Final Shape be played as a standalone? (both logistically and in terms of the story)?John GC: We think people were upset that Sony themselves had nothing to show from their first parties, even though we agree it was overall a good show. As far as we understand, you don’t need any other expansions to play The Final Shape. Only one Just a quick heads up for anyone buying digital content on either a Switch or Switch 2 console, if you are Switch online subscriber you can purchase a voucher for £84 that lets you purchase any two titles from a list of games.This reduces each game to a reasonable £42 and the vouchers are valid for a year. I didn’t get an alert about this until after I’d purchased Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which I paid £59.99 for. I did at least then go on to buy a voucher for £84 and redeemed each token for Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Super Mario 3D Land + Bowser’s Fury.Charlie H. GC: It’s important to note these can’t be used for Switch 2 exclusive games. Email your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk Midnight gathering I’ve seen a lot of pictures from the Switch 2 launch, so I thought I’d send you a picture of the queue at Smyth’s in Dublin city centre, a couple of minutes after midnight.I think there were a couple of hundred people there when I arrived. if I’d known then that I wouldn’t get out of the store until 2:30am, I might have gone home and tried again in the morning. But in the end, I’m glad I waited. I’ve just been tinkering with it so far, hooked it up to the TV, and played a little bit of Mario Kart World and Cyberpunk 2077, so I can’t really give any conclusions. But when my (dedicated non-gamer) wife saw it, her reaction was, ‘Oh, it looks much better! Can I play it?’ So I think Nintendo are on to another winner.Mickah Night-time rendezvous (Mickah) American retail I was on my way down to Smyths Leeds to collect my Switch 2 Mario Kart bundle, that I had pre-ordered a month ago.I called in at Costco on the way and was surprised to find they had the Mario Kart bundle for £419.99, so I decided to get one from there. It was late afternoon Thursday and they looked to have plenty left. It is limited to one per customer. I will let my pre-order lapse so it will cancel in two days.Martin GC: We had no idea Costco existed in the UK. Maybe we’re not the only ones and that’s why they have so many left. C’mon DoreenSomebody (not me, don’t know how) should start a petition to get Squirrel Girl in that Marvel game for you guys. How good did it all look? How good was that showcase? What have Sony been up too? That’s what. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is already on my wishlist. That surfing sword game wasn’t bad either. With Nintendo too, great times ahead.Indiegaz (PSN ID) GC: At least she’s in Marvel Rivals. Autumnal purchase So I won’t be buying the Nintendo Switch 2 at launch. I’ll be instead visiting Tenerife in August. But I do hope the system reviews well and those who have purchased it are zooming around on Mario Kart World. I’ll be hopefully purchasing the device before autumn of this year. But you never know what could happen.So my sister paid for my ticket and it of course must be paid back. A debt is a debt. Which is quite fitting, since I just finished my playthrough of Red Dead Redemption and just as John Marston paid his debt to a life of crime and Edgar Ross paid his debt to a vengeful son. I’ll be hopefully paid up in less than three months, then I’ll be purchasing the Switch 2 and with more information on the games, reviews, and what’s to come for the future. For now however, I look towards a week spent in the beaches of Spain and my focus on the remainder of my maths course. Also, a playthrough of Resident Evil 3 remake. Only six hours long. Can’t complain.Shahzaib Sadiq Free for all Borderlands 2 and Hellslave are currently free on Steam on PC. Hellslave is available for free until Sunday, 15th June. Also, Deathloop is currently free on Epic Games Store.I hope everyone who gets a Switch 2 enjoys it. I will have to probably get one next year now, as I need to buy a new gaming computer because my current gaming PC will not upgrade to Windows 11, unfortunately.Andrew J. Old reliable Just writing this after a couple of hours with the Switch 2. I always end up with whatever Nintendo’s latest console is at some point in its lifetime (going back to the Game Boy Advance) but for the first time I decided to jump onboard day one.The price rises for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X have shown that the assumption consoles will get cheaper in the medium term isn’t a guarantee, and the feature list for the Switch 2 ticked pretty much every box I wanted from an upgrade to the original. Bump in specs, sturdier Joy-Con, and a new interface with the mouse controls. What I’ve not seen many people comment on yet is the set-up experience. It isn’t always a given with Nintendo that this is going to be smooth, but I found that the transfer from my original to Switch 2 was seamless. I had one error message in setting up GameChat, but restarting the process fixed that, and now I can settle into at least another few years of Nintendo gaming joy. As I approach the business end of 40 years old, it’s a comfort to know that the likes of Mario, Yoshi, and the other inhabitants of the Mushroom Kingdom are still karting away 30-odd years after the SNES original.Electric Crocosaurus GC: That’s a cool name. Inbox also-rans Yes! My Switch 2 has turned up and have the rest of the week off, and it’s Summer Game Fest on Friday night. Now that is what I call eating well for games fans!LemptonAs promised, here is the pic from the queue at Smyths toy store at midnight. Sorry I couldn’t get one from inside but they were only letting two at a time in. Not a bad turn out. I had about 20 people behind me too.woz_007 (NN ID) The way launches used to be (woz_007) Email your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk More Trending The small printNew Inbox updates appear every weekday morning, with special Hot Topic Inboxes at the weekend. Readers’ letters are used on merit and may be edited for length and content. You can also submit your own 500 to 600-word Reader’s Feature at any time via email or our Submit Stuff page, which if used will be shown in the next available weekend slot. You can also leave your comments below and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter. GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

Nintendo Switch 2 games list – everything you can play right now Michael Beckwith Published June 5, 2025 9:35am Updated June 5, 2025 9:43am Mario Kart World – the Switch 2’s first must-have (Nintendo) The Nintendo Switch 2 is finally out now and there are over a dozen games available, but which are the most exciting and which can be safely ignored? While the Nintendo Switch 2 is backwards compatible, allowing you to continue playing through your backlog of Switch 1 games, chances are you’re more interested in checking out what’s new for the console. As it stands, the Switch 2’s launch line-up is solid. There may only be a small handful of first party Nintendo games, but Mario Kart World alone justifies a day one purchase and, if you don’t have a PlayStation or Xbox, there are lots of third party ports of excellent games you’ve missed out on. So, ahead of the Switch 2’s launch on Thursday, June 5, here is a quick rundown of every launch game available for the console, all of which can be pre-ordered now or purchased on launch day. Every launch game for Nintendo Switch 2 Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour Will you be paying for this? (Nintendo) Expert, exclusive gaming analysis Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. Essentially a glorified instruction manual, this interactive museum teaches you all the features of the Switch 2 through a series of mini-games. Shockingly, this isn’t a free add-on and costs £7.99. Mario Kart World The Switch 2’s big first party exclusive and the first truly new Mario Kart game since 2014 (not counting the mobile game). It’ll be hard to top Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, but Mario Kart World aims to do just that by introducing a massive open world to drive around. Here’s our review in progress so far. The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition This upgraded version of The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild is a great demonstration of the Switch 2’s more powerful hardware by offering an improved frame rate and HDR support. If you own the original on Switch you can pay a fee of £7.99 for the upgrade or get it free if you’re a Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscriber. The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition Both Zelda games will also be compatible with a new Zelda Notes mobile app (Nintendo) Like Breath Of The Wild, the Switch 2 version of The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom only offers visual and performance improvements, although there is the new Zelda Notes mobile app to keep track of and get hints on side quests. As with Breath Of The Wild you can either pay for the upgrade or get it free with Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack. Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the most technically impressive Switch 2 games, with a performance comparable to the PlayStation 4 Pro. It also comes with the Phantom Liberty DLC and mouse support. Split Fiction Arguably the best co-op game of the current generation, Split Fiction is a more than worthy follow-up to It Takes Two. Thanks to the Switch 2’s GameShare feature, you and a friend can play together with only one copy. Hogwarts Legacy Although Hogwarts Legacy is already available for Switch 1, the new console will be getting an upgraded version that works similarly to the Zelda games. Not only are the graphics improved but you can even use the mouse controls for casting spells. Street Fighter 6 Street Fighter 6 is still going strong among fighting game fans and now Nintendo owners can join in the fun thanks to online cross-play. A standard version is available for £34.99, but you can spend an extra £15 for a version that bundles together all of the DLC characters. Hitman World Of Assassination – Signature Edition There is already a cloud version of Hitman 3 for Switch 1, but this will be the optimal Hitman experience for Nintendo owners going forward. This compiles all the content from IO Interactive’s modern Hitman trilogy alongside a seperate roguelike mode. Sonic X Shadow Generations One of Sonic’s better 3D outings gets an equally good remaster, coupled with an even better adventure centred around Shadow the Hedgehog, in Sonic X Shadow Generations. Unfortunately, Sega isn’t offering any sort of upgrade path for people who bought the Switch 1 version. Yakuza 0 Director’s Cut The Yakuza games have started to find a new home with Nintendo thanks to the Switch 1 port of Yakuza Kiwami and now there’s this updated remaster of Yakuza 0, which adds new cut scenes and an online multiplayer mode. It’s a timed exclusive so it’ll come to other platforms eventually. Kunitsu-Gami: Path Of The Goddess It’s not for everyone, but Kunitsu-Gami: Path Of The Goddess’ blend of action and real-time strategy gameplay is wonderfully weird and fascinating. It being on Switch 2 means it can make use of the console’s mouse controls and it comes with new content that’ll also be added to the PlayStation, Xbox, and PC versions. Deltarune The episodic successor to Undertale, it’s been four years since Deltarune’s second chapter launched. For the Switch 2’s launch, not only are the game’s first two chapters being ported to the console (as well as PlayStation 5), but chapters three and four are dropping at the same time as well, for all formats. Survival Kids We’re still surprised Konami opted to reboot this long-forgotten franchise, but as fans of the original Game Boy Color game we’re glad it did. Simply dubbed Survival Kids, it’s less a survival game and more a co-op puzzle adventure where up to four players must explore a series of islands. Puyo Puyo Tetris 2S Sega’s second crossover puzzle game featuring Puyo Puyo and Tetris will find new life on Switch 2. So far only confirmed for Nintendo’s new console, Puyo Puyo Tetris 2S offers a unique doubles mode for two teams of two to play against one another. Fast Fusion German studio Shin’en Multimedia continues to fill the F-Zero shaped gap in peoples’ hearts with the newest entry in its Fast series of racing games. Aside from online multiplayer and GameShare compatibility, Shin’en promises you can create hundreds of new racing machines by fusing vehicles together. Bravely Default Flying Fairy HD Remaster The original Bravely Default gets a much deserved second lease of life with a full Switch 2 remaster. Aside from HD graphics and quality of life updates, the remaster adds two new mini-games and reworks the original’s online features. Sid Meier’s Civilization 7 – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition With the Switch 2’s mouse controls, strategy games like Civilization 7 will hopefully become more commonplace on Nintendo’s platform. If you already own the game on Switch 1, you can upgrade to the Switch 2 version for £8.99. Nobunaga’s Ambition: Awakening Complete Edition Another upgraded port of a strategy game, this complete edition also coincides with the 40th anniversary of the Nobunaga’s Ambition series. Aside from mouse control support and all of the original game’s DLC, this includes six new story scenarios. Rune Factory: Guardians Of Azuma Nintendo Switch 2 Edition A new spin-off for the Rune Factory series of role-playing/social sim games, Guardians Of Azuma has you battling monsters one minute and cultivating your own farm the next. It will launch for Switch 1 as well, which you can later upgrade to Switch 2 for a £10 fee. Suikoden 1&2 HD Remaster: Gate Rune And Dunan Unification Wars This compilation of two Suikoden remasters from Konami brings the role playing series to Switch 2 just a few months after its original multiplatform launch. Sadly, there’s no option for Switch 1 owners to upgrade to the new version. Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time Nintendo Switch 2 Edition Level-5’s own role playing life sim hybrid only just arrived on Switch 1 and other consoles, but it too is seeing a Switch 2 version at launch. There’s no exact UK price for upgrading from the Switch 1 version, but it’s only $2.59 (about £1.91) in the US, so expect something equally cheap over here. Arcade Archives 2: Ridge Racer For the first time ever, the original arcade version of Ridge Racer from 1993 will be playable on consoles. Although it was initially announced for Switch 2, it is launching for PlayStation and Xbox as well. Fortnite What else is there to say about Fortnite? You know what it’s about. It’ll be free to play as usual and make the most of the Switch 2’s hardware to look and run better than its Switch 1 counterpart. Fortnite fans on Switch will want to think about upgrading (Epic Games) Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

Mario Kart World comes at you fast (Nintendo) After a dozen hours with the biggest game on Nintendo Switch 2, GameCentral tries to evaluate the surprisingly controversial new Mario Kart game. It’s very obvious why Mario Kart World is the main launch title for the Nintendo Switch 2: it’s been over a decade since the last one and Mario Kart 8 is one of the best-selling video games of all-time. Much of that success is due to the innate simplicity of the concept and the easy accessibility of its controls, so it’s surprising that Mario Kart World has been so difficult for people to get their heads around. We’ve played it three times now, for increasingly long lengths of time, the previous time being at a press event with a host of other journos. But now that we have a Nintendo Switch 2 of our own, we’ve been able to spend even longer exploring the game at our leisure and we’ve come to the conclusion that Nintendo’s marketing for the game is doing it a disservice. It emphasises the fact that the game has a massive open world but as soon as you start playing, it becomes obvious that the designers must consider that to be a relatively minor part of the game. Or at least the idea that you can roam around at will, looking for secrets. You can do that, but despite what we and many others assumed it’s very much a side activity. This is made obvious by the fact that the option to free roam is not part of the main menu for the game, instead there’s an easily missed prompt to press the ‘+’ button and explore the open world at will. This is a lot of fun, because the open world is phenomenally well designed – full of secret pathways and tempting scenery to jump off and grind on – but what’s putting people off is there’s very little structured gameplay for it. There are a variety of objects to look out for – such as P-switches, ? panels, and special medallions – but all they do is unlock small stickers you can customise your vehicle with. The P-switches activate missions, which are the most complex activity, but most of the time they involve simply collecting blue coins or competing in a mini-race. There are a few more unusual examples but most barely last 60 seconds, when you beat them, and that’s as complicated as the open world gameplay ever gets. It is enjoyable, and we’ve spent many happy hours already searching for secrets, but there’s no question that the open world feels underutilised – an afterthought almost. Expert, exclusive gaming analysis Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. Although other AI racers can occasionally be seen driving around you can’t interact with them, there’s no story or dialogue, and no complex mission scenarios. What’s more, you can’t meet random online players in the open world and even if you invite friends all you can do is take photos with them. You can choose to start one of the other modes from within the open world but we’re very surprised that you can’t set up your own point-to-point races (which would surely have been perfect for the mouse controls of the new Joy-Cons). Instead, all you can do is create a custom Grand Prix by choosing which track to go to once each one ends. We point all this out because these details weren’t clear beforehand and because it’s almost certainly going to be the main complaint against the game. But while it is certainly a missed opportunity, it doesn’t negatively affect the actual focus of the game. It seems that the ability to free roam is intended as essentially a bonus. The real changes to the game are in terms of the nature of the tracks, which rather than being a succession of completely unconnected circuits all flow from one to another. Often they’re not circuits at all, but linear races from one point to another, as you work your way across the world map. Since they’re all in the same corner of the world, a Grand Prix often has a consistent theme, such as snowy or desert levels, and specific elements, like dinosaurs or boos, can appear at the beginning and end of adjoining tracks, reinforcing the impression that it’s all one giant race (these sections are removed for Time Trials). The graphics are very impressive (Nintendo) That concept seems to have come first and the open world followed, even though technically it’s not needed – or at least not to the level of detail that Nintendo has gone with. But either way, the courses in Mario Kart World are excellent, with wildly different designs even for returning tracks. The new ones are especially good though, with Boo Cinema, where you travel through the screen and into the film itself, being our current favourite. Although the ones with Wave Race 64 style water physics are also all uniformly excellent. The action may seem similar in video clips but it’s really quite different to Mario Kart 8. And not just because of the wider roads, new enemies, and the fact that there’s now 24 racers on every track. There’s now far more shortcuts and alternate routes, which seems like it should end up making races feel disjointed and unbalanced but it doesn’t, thanks to the levelling effect of items and the fact that sooner or later everyone is still being funnelled down the same path. The abundance of point-to-point races is a significant change to the Mario Kart norm and not only does it spice up Grand Prix mode but it allows for the superb Knockout Tour. This is a far more significant addition than free roam, even though it’s a simple sudden death mode, where you have to reach a certain position by the end of a track or you’re out of the game. In Grand Prix you can try and make up for a bad performance in the next race but with Knockout the tension is sky high throughout, and it works brilliantly, especially online. When we started playing the game, on Wednesday afternoon, there were only a handful online, but over the course of Thursday morning the matches became full and everything came alive. Playing against 23 other humans also helps to emphasise the fact that while Mario Kart World does make certain things easier – like automatically holding items behind you as a shield or allowing for a little more leeway when escaping shells – this is absolutely still a game of skill. Playing online, we could see the same names consistently doing well and ourselves… enjoying the mid-table mediocrity that we usually do, when faced with talented opposition. Not that that ever put us off. On the contrary, we spent almost every match grinning inanely at the sheer Mario Kart-ness of it all. We will still need to play more to do a full review though – we haven’t played a lot on 150cc yet and we only got an hour or two with the online. However, at this point we do feel we’ve seen the basics of what the game is. More Trending It’s a strange one to be sure, in what is usually one of Nintendo’s most straightforward franchises, but while anyone can look at the open world and think of a dozen other things that could’ve been done with it, the actual racing is top notch. Mechanically it’s not significantly different from Mario Kart 8 but then the series is not a very malleable one, and this does as much as it can to mix things up – and all without resorting to gimmicks. In terms of a score, we’re not looking at a 10/10. Mario Kart World is many things but it’s not perfect, not like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. We’ll have to spend more time with it to determine if it suits an 8 or 9/10 but longevity has never been a problem for the series, so we imagine it’ll be the higher of the two. Given how late Nintendo was in sending out consoles that’s all we can say for now but while this is not quite the game many will have been expecting, and it does leave a lot on the table (possibly to be picked up by DLC, but naturally Nintendo isn’t saying), it’s still an excellent game and a great introduction to the Switch 2. Formats: Nintendo Switch 2Price: £74.99 (physical) or £66.99 (digital)Publisher: NintendoDeveloper: Nintendo EPDRelease Date: 5th June 2025Age Rating: 3 There’s unlockable costumes for all the named characters (Nintendo) Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

RoboCop: Rogue City – Unfinished Business preview: ‘We created something bigger than we expected’ Adam Starkey Published June 3, 2025 9:00am Stay out of trouble (Nacon) GameCentral goes hands-on with the standalone expansion of RoboCop: Rogue City, which dials up the action and gory splatter of 2023’s surprise hit. For a franchise that has arguably done nothing of worth since the early 90s, the future of RoboCop is looking surprisingly bright. Following Amazon’s acquisition of MGM, a new TV show is currently in the works, with rumbles of a new film as well. Whether this leads to a major rejuvenation for everyone’s favourite cyborg law enforcer remains to be seen, but the original source of any RoboCop redemption arc has to start with 2023’s RoboCop: Rogue City.  Developed by Polish studio Teyon, RoboCop: Rogue City was the kind of unexpected surprise you rarely get from licensed games. It recaptured the original’s wit and 80s aesthetic, but also found a way to deliver the fantasy of playing as the half-human cyborg without streamlining any of the character’s personality. The bloody action was built around his hulking, slow movement, dry one-liners were in abundance, and missions weren’t always reduced to mowing down thugs in corridors – you also handed people parking tickets, settled trivial civilian disputes, and, in one wonderfully mundane side mission, did the rounds in the office for a get well card.  The game became publisher Nacon’s ‘best ever launch’ with 435,000 players within two weeks. Now, a year and a half later, developer Teyon is back with a standalone expansion. Marketing around Unfinished Business has purposefully dodged the term *DLC*, but as explained by the studio’s communications manager, Dawid Biegun, it started out as exactly that.  ‘When we released RoboCop: Rogue City, we were thinking about, this story has many things [we can] do in the future,’ says Biegun. ‘We had many paths we could choose. So we basically started slowly developing some new storyline. The game was planned to be DLC but it grew out of control. It was a really rare situation where we created something bigger than we expected, so it became a standalone expansion from then.’ Unlike Rogue City, this expansion, which we’re told spans around eight hours on average, is centred around one location in the OmniTower. Like most things in the RoboCop realm created by OCP, this promised idyllic housing complex quickly goes south when a band of mercenaries assume control. To restore order, and after a creepy opening where an attack on the Detroit police station leaves several officers frozen solid, RoboCop is assigned to the case.  RoboCop has new moves at his disposal (Nacon) Unfinished Business wastes little time in throwing you into the action, and quickly amps up the chaos. For anyone who has played Rogue City, all the original tenets of the combat are here, albeit with a slight increase in difficulty. You’ll be looking for explosive cans to blast, illuminated panels to ricochet bullets off walls, and all the while trying not to expose yourself to too much gunfire. The combat purposefully doesn’t have the slick speed of Call Of Duty, but it is still aggressively punchy, with headshots resulting in satisfyingly bloody splatters and RoboCop’s famed Auto-9 machine pistol still having the kickback of a pocket pneumatic drill.  From the get-go, Unfinished Business pushes back in a way Rogue City never did. New enemies equipped with riot shields are a real nuisance if you don’t utilise the ricochet panels, while the ability to slow down time is a much bigger crutch to chip down the enemy numbers from a distance. Health pick-ups felt in shorter supply too, even on the normal difficulty, to the point where we barely scraped through several encounters.  While it’s unclear if this applies to the whole game, Unfinished Business feels like a gnarlier experience, when compared to the original. RoboCop has some new context sensitive finishing moves, like throwing enemy heads into concrete walls or vending machines, which is a satisfying addition to the melee arsenal. There’s greater enemy variety too, between fierce minigun heavyweights and flying drones, along with some neat action set pieces. In one standout, we had to operate a walkway bridge to deactivate a giant turret at the end of a room, dashing between cover as it rains down bullets and destroys the surrounding environment. Anyone who has played action games before will recognise all the mechanics at play in this scenario, but it was still well executed and effective. Another had a whiff of Star Wars, as you rush around shooting electrical panels to stop a trash compactor from crushing you via the descending ceiling. The action shift in Unfinished Business is best defined by a later sequence we got to play, where you take control of the franchise’s signature mech, ED-209. If the power fantasy of playing as RoboCop is tested in this expansion, ED-209’s section was pure mental catharsis, where you blast away enemy hordes with miniguns and rockets, and clean up any stragglers with a rigid, robotic stomp. The rush of piloting ED-209, with its cacophony of explosions and bullets, felt like a throwback to vehicle sections in a long lost Xbox 360 game – but in a good way.  While there’s a definite lean towards combat, rather than gift card signing, when compared to Rogue City, it hasn’t entirely abandoned the detective side. According to the developers, if Rogue City had a 60/40 percent split between guns and detective work, Unfinished Business ‘would be like 70/30, or 80/20’ in comparison. More Trending We saw some of this , with one memorable encounter seeing you quizzed by a RoboCop superfan who is unconvinced you’re the actual RoboCop, leading to a series of questions based on the history of the franchise. There is optional side missions too, although the time we had with our preview limited our chance to fully delve into them. The sales and positive reviews for RoboCop: Rogue City emboldened Teyon’s vision and scope for Unfinished Business – and that confidence shines through in what we played. Some might be disappointed by the steer towards action, and we were heading into this preview, but by the end, this felt like a welcome extension with its own unique flavour. This is RoboCop: Rogue City with its pedal to the floor, confined and concentrated into a lean, tightly focused machine.  As for the studio’s next steps, the success of RoboCop has only reaffirmed Teyon’s strengths and identity as a team. Between its three studios across Poland and Japan, with over 140 employees in total, Teyon wants to maintain its grip within the AA space. ‘We feel strong here in such games,’ Biegun said. ‘We wouldn’t want to grow like 200, 300, 400 people, because we’re going to lose our soul this way. We want to stay as we are right now.’ ED-209 needs be wary of stairs (Nacon) Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. Arrow MORE: How to get a Nintendo Switch 2 this week in the UK GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

The original Switch is still a better option than the Switch 2 – Reader’s Feature GameCentral Published June 1, 2025 1:00am The Switch 1 isn’t going anywhere (Nintendo) A reader argues that the original Switch will still be relevant even after the Switch 2 launches, and that for some it will be the preferred choice. I haven’t been playing games as much as I did, say, three years ago, mainly because I’ve found interest in other things, such as reading and creating content. However, I still delve into games and my love for Nintendo is still there, but I did consider parting with some of my gaming collection – which is mostly a curated list of mainly Nintendo games and consoles. I did see the announcement of the Switch 2 in early April and initially I was hyped for it but I think that has subsided somewhat, mainly due to the pricing of both the consoles and games; I am still going to be receiving it day one though. I don’t think Nintendo has done themselves any favours though and the landscape has changed, with regards to mobile gaming in general, with the advent of the Steam Deck and other options from different manufacturers which makes this a crowded market. [The Steam Deck has only sold around 4 million units worldwide, compared to over 150 million for the Switch, and yet it’s still the most successful of the PC handhelds – GC] I find myself purchasing games on Steam vs. Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. In fact, I ended up parting ways with my Xbox Series X and am considering the same with my PlayStation 5, as I mainly play games in portable form, with the Steam Deck and Switch being enough for me. With Nintendo it is mainly the first party titles that I would purchase on Switch 2, but it will make me think twice due to the price tag on the games (£60+) and with Nintendo the pricing of their games don’t really go on sale that much, if at all. I know a lot of people are still considering getting rid of their original Switch in favour of the Switch 2, however I think it is still relevant in 2025 and beyond. Games, Games, Games With over 10,000 games, the Switch has a diverse library of titles. I love the fact the I have a big and robust library of physical games that I can play for years to come. The pricing on new games are anywhere between £25 to £50, with Zelda being the exception at £60 to £70. A lot of third party games you can pick up on sale. A lot of games are physical and most come with the game on the actual cartridge, so even in the future, if Nintendo decide to pull the eShop for the original Switch, you can still play games offline. Games are still being released for the original Nintendo Switch for the foreseeable future. It will stop being supported one day but there is still plenty to choose from, both used, digital, and new. I truly believe that the Switch 2 won’t be as popular as the first Switch, mainly due to pricing £60+ on games and switching their strategy on physical games, with partial downloads or game key cards, which in theory is easily shareable but having to download the entire game isn’t the most user friendly and there is still a reliance on the digital ecosystem. Backwards Compatibility Watching a YouTube video by ModernVintageGamer, I’ve come to learn that backwards compatibility with Switch 2 isn’t all it is cracked up to be. Nintendo is fully supporting backwards compatibility with most of their games, however third parties are left to patch games on their own discretion due to different system architecture in comparison to the original Switch. So it will be a bit hit and miss, more than likely they would rather release another ‘remastered’ version which they can sell to consumers again, rather than patch games. Also, bearing in mind some publishers don’t want the costs associated with patching a game. Different consoles At this stage in the original Switch’s lifecycle there are a bunch of form factors to choose from. I have all three and use them in different environments; my Switch OLED gets used at home in portable mode and connected to the TV, while the original Switch is good for family party gaming, which I take around for family gatherings. The Switch Lite is small and portable and that it is great for single-player games with the cross-key but also great for travelling and going on holidays. You can pick up the Switch Lite for dirt cheap now, used, and I expect prices to fall further whilst they clear stock. Simultaneous play I haven’t seen too much details around this but Nintendo did announce original Switch compatibility with the Nintendo Switch 2 to allow for simultaneous multiplayer gaming with one cartridge, so that Nintendo Switch 2 acts as the main (host) console whilst the original Switch can be used for multiplayer gaming. So in essence you can all play Mario Kart from one Switch 2 console, by having your own screen, similar to the Wii U. I think this will be valuable for me with family gatherings, as most of us have Switches. Cost So, I did mention costs for games earlier. However, as the original Switch has matured there are a plethora of cheap accessories that can be had on the cheap, compared to Switch 2, such as extra Joy-Cons, controllers, games, cheap microSD cards, plus others. Best Nintendo console? I still love my Switch, and it won’t be going anywhere, and I think it is Nintendo’s best console in the past 20 years. I have a special place in my heart for the NES, SNES, Game Boy and GameCube, as being S-tier consoles but I think the Switch could be argued as being their best console. Ask me on a random day and my answer will probably change, because Nintendo have created timeless consoles as far as I am concerned, so it is difficult to choose one. But the original Switch makes a compelling choice especially for the younger generation. More Trending By reader wetbandit Not everyone’s going to jump in straight away (Nintendo) The reader’s features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro. You can submit your own 500 to 600-word reader feature at any time, which if used will be published in the next appropriate weekend slot. Just contact us at gamecentral@metro.co.uk or use our Submit Stuff page and you won’t need to send an email. GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

Why is nobody talking about the PS5 anymore? – Reader’s Feature GameCentral Published June 1, 2025 7:00am Whatever happened to the PS5? (Sony) A reader worries that Sony’s strange behaviour over the last few years has seen the PS5 become sidelined and ignored compared to other formats. For years now, I’ve been reading people, both here and elsewhere online, asking what has happened to Sony and why they’re acting the way they do now. The lack of showcases, the general lack of communication, the obsession with live service games, and the reduction in new single-player games… it’s obvious to everyone and yet we’ve never had an explanation or an acknowledgement from Sony that anything unusual is happening. I think it’s pretty obvious that we’re not going to get one either. Sony are just going to carry on being weird and pretending that’s what they were always like. They’ve been like this for well over two years now, so anyone buying a PlayStation 5 in that time will never know anything else. There is a problem though – well there’s multiple, obviously – but the thing I can’t help but notice at the moment is how little people talk about the PlayStation 5 anymore. The Switch 2 is eating up a lot of bandwidth right now but it’s not just that. The PlayStation 5 feels played out, a disappointment and unexciting, just part of the gaming furniture and nothing more. The Switch 2 launch is coming up, but people have been talking excitedly about it for months now. A new console is obviously a rare thing, that’s always going to draw attention, but the PC as a gaming format has also been a big topic for the last year or so. It’s far more popular than I have ever known and now seems to be the default format for games, rather than any console. That’s the position the PlayStation 5 should have but it’s not really how it’s turned out. You could argue even the Xbox has been more a topic of conversation recently, even if that’s in a negative way. But at least people don’t forget it exists. It looks like we probably won’t get a PlayStation showcase this month, since they’ve already missed their usual May slot, and the rumours say maybe not one until September. That’s ridiculous. Not only do we know virtually nothing about Ghost Of Yōtei, but there’s nothing confirmed for next year yet, except Saros (had to look up that spelling). Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet and Marvel’s Wolverine don’t have any year confirmed yet and that’s all we know about in terms of games made by Sony themselves. I’m not going to speculate on why this is happening or when it might end, because frankly I haven’t got a clue, but I do know that it’s having a very negative effect on PlayStation’s reputation, in a way people aren’t talking about enough. The PlayStation 5 just seems invisible now, something that’s always there but which nobody cares about and definitely something nobody is excited about. Will this change if they announce a new game? Well, it didn’t with Ghost Of Yōtei. You could say that’s not really their biggest franchise, and you’d be right, but the longer Sony carries on in zombie mode the harder it is going to be to get anyone’s attention. It won’t be long before it needs The Last Of Us Part 3 or God Of War 3 before there’s any kind of a reaction, but I don’t see those games happening anytime soon. Sony is so out of touch they think fans will wait forever for whatever news they can be bothered to tell us, and then we’ll be amazed and excited, but I don’t think that’s true anymore. More Trending The PlayStation 6 seems to be only a year away and the sad thing is that means the PlayStation 5 is just going to fade away, forgotten and underused. How can a console be this successful and yet be such an utter failure and disappointment at the same time? I wouldn’t have thought it possible and yet here we are. By reader Corsair PC gaming has seen a major boost in the last few years (Microsoft) The reader’s features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro. You can submit your own 500 to 600-word reader feature at any time, which if used will be published in the next appropriate weekend slot. Just contact us at gamecentral@metro.co.uk or use our Submit Stuff page and you won’t need to send an email. GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

Nintendo is bringing one of its exclusive games to PC claims Microsoft website GameCentral Published May 31, 2025 3:51pm Updated May 31, 2025 4:02pm Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition – not available on PC (Nintendo) A listing for a Nintendo first party game has appeared on Microsoft’s Edge Game Assist webpage and it’s either a mistake or the biggest news in gaming for a decade. Although Sony has finally embraced the PC market it seems impossible to imagine that any Nintendo-made game would ever appear on a modern PC, especially given some of the failed experiments in the 90s, with titles like Mario’s Game Gallery. The question must certainly have come up, amongst Nintendo’s execs, and you can guarantee that Microsoft has encouraged them to release games on the format, but there’s never been any outward sign that they’ve considered it… until now. To be clear, this is almost certainly a mistake of some kind, but nevertheless, the recently re-released Xenoblade Chronicles X is currently listed as one of various ordinary PC games that are ‘enhanced for Microsoft Edge Game Assist.’ We’ll be honest, we’ve never heard of Edge Game Assist until now, and we imagine most other people haven’t either, but according to Microsoft, ‘for a selection of popular PC games’ it highlights ‘helpful resources whenever you open a new tab. Many popular PC games are already enhanced for Game Assist, with more on the way.’ While there is an infinitesimally small chance that Microsoft has convinced Nintendo to release games on PC, and that fact has been accidentally revealed early – ahead of the Xbox Games Showcase next Sunday – the much more likely explanation is that this is some kind of error. Perhaps it’s a disgruntled employee or intern but it’s a very odd mistake to make for a human and yet seems like exactly the sort of error an AI would make. Microsoft is obsessed with AI at the moment, in terms of both using it and selling it to others, and don’t seem to care whether it does what it’s supposed to or not – reportedly Xbox use it for language translations in Europe, even for things as important as the Xbox dashboard, and there are often very obvious mistakes. Given how unpopular Xbox is on the Continent you might have thought they’d learn from that, but it seems not. As it is, at time of writing, Xenoblade Chronicles X is still listed amongst the supported games. You can’t see what kind of assistance is being offered though, as you have to start the game first… which doesn’t exist on PC. More Trending Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition was released on Nintendo Switch this March, as the last major Wii U game to be ported to the format. That means that all the Xenoblade Chronicles games are now available on Switch, following Nintendo’s move to buy 100% of developer Monolith Soft – who they also use as a support studio for major games such as Zelda: Breath Of the Wild. A new Xenoblade game is expected early on in the Switch 2’s lifespan, and Monolith Soft is already working on a new role-playing game of some sort. So, the chances of Microsoft teaming up with Nintendo to release Xenoblade, or any other exclusive, on PC seem miniscule. And mistakes like this are only likely to put Nintendo off the idea even more. Another AI blunder? (Microsoft) Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

to a T – what a strange thing to happen (Annapurna Interactive) Having your arms stuck in a permeant T-pose leads to a wonderfully surreal narrative adventure, in this new indie treat from Katamari creator Keita Takahashi. Keita Takahashi seems to be a very nice man. We met him back in 2018, and liked him immensely, but we’re genuinely surprise he’s still working in the games industry. He rose to fame with the first two Katamari Damacy games but after leaving Bandai Namco his assertion that he wanted to leave gaming behind and design playgrounds for children seemed like a much more obvious career path, for someone that absolutely doesn’t want to be stuck making sequels or generic action games. That’s certainly not been his fate and while titles like Noby Noby Boy and Wattam were wonderfully weird and inventive they weren’t the breakout hits that his bank balance probably needed. His latest refusal to toe the line probably isn’t destined to make him a billionaire either, but we’re sure that was never the point of to a T. Instead, this is just a relentlessly sweet and charming game about the evils of bullying and the benefits of being nice to people. It’s frequently surreal and ridiculous, but also capable of being serious, and somewhat dark, when it feels the need. Which given all the signing giraffes is quite some accomplishment. The game casts you as a young schoolkid whose arms are permanently stuck in a T-pose, with both stretched out 90° from his torso. If you’re waiting for an explanation as to why then we’re afraid we can’t tell you, because your character (who you can customise and name as you see fit, along with his dog) doesn’t know either. You find out eventually and the answer is… nothing you would expect. This has all been going on for a while before the game starts, as you’re by now well used to sidling through doors and getting your dog to help you dress. You’re also regularly bullied at school, which makes it obvious that being stuck like this is just a metaphor for any difference or peculiarity in real-life. Although the specific situations in to a T are fantastical, including the fact that the Japanese village you live in is also populated by anthropomorphic animals (most notably a cadre of food-obsessed giraffes), its take on bullying is surprisingly nuanced and well written. There’re also some fun songs that are repeated just enough to become unavoidable earworms. The problem is that as well meaning as all this is, there’s no core gameplay element to make it a compelling video game. You can wander around talking to people, and a lot of what they say can be interesting and/or charmingly silly, but that’s all you’re doing. The game describes itself as a ‘narrative adventure’ and that’s very accurate, but what results is the sort of barely interactive experience that makes a Telltale game seem like Doom by comparison. There are some short little mini-games, like cleaning your teeth and eating breakfast, but the only goal beyond just triggering story sequences is collecting coins that you can spend on new outfits. This is gamified quite a bit when you realise your arms give you the ability to glide short distances, but it’s still very basic stuff. One chapter also lets you play as your dog, trying to solve an array of simple puzzles and engaging in very basic platforming, but while this is more interactive than the normal chapters it’s still not really much fun in its own right. More Trending Everything is all very charming – the cartoonish visuals are reminiscent of a slightly more realistic looking Wattam – but none of it really amounts to very much. The overall message is about getting on with people no matter their differences, but while that doesn’t necessarily come across as trite it’s also not really the sort of thing you need a £15 video game, with zero replayability, to tell you about. It also doesn’t help that the game can be quite frustrating to play through, making it hard to know what you’re supposed to do next, or where you’re meant to be going. The lack of camera controls means it’s hard to act on that information even if you do know what destination you’re aiming for, either because the screen is too zoomed in, something’s blocking your view, or you keep getting confused because the perspective changes. As with Wattam, we don’t feel entirely comfortable criticising the game for its failings. We’ll take a game trying to do something new and interesting over a workmanlike sequel any day of the week – whether it succeeds or not – but there’s so little to the experience it’s hard to imagine this fitting anyone to a T. to a T review summary In Short: Charming, silly, and occasionally profound but Keita Takahashi’s latest lacks the gameplay hook of Katamari Damacy, even if it is surprisingly well written. Pros: Wonderfully and unashamedly bizarre, from the premise on down. A great script, that touches on some dark subjects, and charming visuals and music. Cons: There’s very little gameplay involved and what there is, is either very simple or awkward to control. Barely five hours long, with no replayability. Score: 6/10 Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox Series X/S, and PCPrice: £15.49Publisher: Annapurna InteractiveDeveloper: uvulaRelease Date: 28th May 2025Age Rating: 7 Who knew giraffes were so good at making sandwiches (Annapurna Interactive) Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

Sam Fisher has been away for too long (Ubisoft) Activity on Ubisoft’s social media channels points to a potential Splinter Cell announcement, but is it connected to the remake? It’s been four years since Ubisoft announced it was working on a remake of the first Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, and we’ve heard nothing substantial about it since. Aside from some early concept art, a report last year claimed that, despite fan fears, the project hadn’t been cancelled and that it could launch at some point in 2026. Despite years of silence from Ubisoft, it seems they might finally be gearing up to make an announcement regarding the franchise. Either that, or someone on the social media team is feeling particularly torturous towards its fans. In an X post on Friday, May 30, the official Ubisoft account shared a head shot of series protagonist Sam Fisher, with eye emojis and ‘#SplinterCell’ in the caption. Weirdly, the screenshot itself is from the sequel to Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, titled Pandora Tomorrow, which was released in 2004 on PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, and PC. While many fans are hoping this is a tease for news about the remake at Summer Game Fest on Friday, June 6, or at the Xbox showcase two days later, there’s a chance it could be connected to something else entirely. On Saturday, May 31, Netflix is holding its annual Tudum event where it shares trailers and announcements about its upcoming release slate. You might have forgotten about it entirely, but Netflix is developing an animated TV series based on Splinter Cell, called Splinter Cell: Deathwatch, which is slated to be released in late 2025. More Trending There’s a chance Ubisoft is teasing an announcement regarding the latter, but that doesn’t mean we won’t see an update about the remake at some point soon. In fact, it makes sense to line up the animated series with the launch of a remake, but that depends on whether Ubisoft is feeling logical. One potential ding against the chances of an update at Summer Game Fest is the fact Ubisoft hasn’t been listed among the event’s partners so far. This in turn suggests the company is planning its own Ubisoft Forward presentation again, like it did in June last year, but there hasn’t been an official announcement yet. The last mainline instalment in the series was 2013’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist, which continued the series’ action-orientated shift, following Splinter Cell: Conviction. Ubisoft was working on a VR spin-off, but that was was cancelled in 2022. Could we get an actual trailer soon? (Ubisoft) Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

It’ll be out in less than a week (Nintendo) A reader explains exactly how they’re going to spend the next seven days, and it seems to involve a lot of Switch 2 games and Summer Game Fest. It’s over eight years since the launch of the original Nintendo Switch and it seems like both yesterday and half a lifetime ago. I absolutely agree with suggestions that it’s the best console ever made, and I couldn’t be happier with my purchase and all the many games I’ve bought for it. All the previews of Switch 2 have been very positive, but I don’t need to read them; I’m completely happy to take a risk on getting it day one, and I’ve already planned the days off. I’m actually a little gutted I can’t go to any of the midnight launches. I’m very glad to hear they’re still going but by the time I knew about them I’d already pre-ordered from Nintendo. So I’ll be stuck at home on Thursday, desperately hoping for the postie to ring the doorbell. He’ll be bringing the console with the Mario Kart World bundle and I’ll also be buying Welcome Tour, Split Fiction, Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition, Civilization 7, and upgrades for the two Zelda games and Super Mario Party Jamboree. (I’m not rich, I’ve just been saving and haven’t bought a new game yet this year.) I’ve seen it said that the Switch 2 launch line-up is not that good, and I will agree I had expected more in the way of exclusives, both first and third party, but I think we have to remember this is June and, hardware launch or not, that’s not exactly prime video game-buying time. In fact, it’s the opposite. Still, I think you’ll agree that little lot should keep me busy for a while, which is why I booked the whole week off to play it. Which is not quite as crazy as it sounds. The console comes out on Thursday and then on Friday it’s Summer Game Fest, which starts late at night, so I’d rather not come home knackered from work to stay up to watch that. Sunday is the Xbox summer showcase – which I’m not super interested in but could have some Switch 2 news – and, well… with luck the weather will be nice so I thought, sod it, I’ll just take a full week off, or at least to Wednesday. That gives me enough time to play my new console, to watch and recover from the showcases, and to still have some quality time with the missus. It’ll be a week of full-on video game indulgence, and I can’t wait. In an increasingly bleak world, I find the thought of doing nothing but wasting my time with video games very appealing. We all know Mario Kart World is going to be amazing but as well as that I can play through Cyberpunk 2077 and its DLC, try out the mouse controls for Civilization 7, and play co-op with my wife on Split Fiction – which I’ve been purposefully holding back on till now. Plus, I get to play remastered versions of the two best Zelda games and a bunch of fun new party games for Super Mario Party, that also use the GameChat camera, which I’m also buying. It’s a lot at once, I agree, but I feel I’m worth it and for once I do have time to play it all. As for what I’m hoping for from the showcases. Well, mostly I’d like there to be a Nintendo Direct, which there seems a reasonable chance of but which, at least as I’m writing this, they haven’t announced yet. Obviously, I’d like there to be a secret Nintendo game for Christmas, ideally a 3D Mario, but I really don’t think that’s very likely. I do imagine they’ll have some kind of small extra though and maybe a tease of what’s to come next year. More Trending I do still have my PlayStation 5, so I guess I’d be interested in anything that announced for that, especially Resident Evil 9 or Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 3, but at the moment I’m all about the Switch 2. I hope it lives up to the legacy of its predecessor but at the moment I have no reason to think it won’t and all the time in the world to find out! By reader Onibee Mario Kart World is out in less than a week (Nintendo) The reader’s features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro. You can submit your own 500 to 600-word reader feature at any time, which if used will be published in the next appropriate weekend slot. Just contact us at gamecentral@metro.co.uk or use our Submit Stuff page and you won’t need to send an email. GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

MCM Comic Con is still worth it for gamers even without EGX – Reader’s Feature GameCentral Published May 31, 2025 9:00am There’s never a dull moment at Comic Con (Credits: Aidan Synnott – ASV Photogrpahy) A reader reports back from his time at MCM Comic Con in London and gets to play a lot of video and tabletop games, despite a lack of big name attendees. Last week I attended yet another MCM Comic Con at the ExCeL Centre in London, along with my son, who this year decided to dress up as Super Mario. As you all know by now, MCM Comic Con is a three-day celebration of all things popular culture. However, this year’s show was not linked with EGX, as was the case at last October’s exhibition, so there was less emphasis on video games – but there was still a lot on offer. Our first stop was the Mattel stand, where they were promoting Barbie, Masters of the Universe, and Hot Wheels. There was a sit-down setup of Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged on the PlayStation 5. This was one of the highlights of the day, as we ended up returning a few times in an attempt to win the race. I’ll probably pick it up this up, as we enjoyed it so much. Up next was the chance to play Magic: The Gathering – Final Fantasy. This was one of the first opportunities to play the game before its release on 13th June. While I’d never properly played Magic before, I had dabbled in Final Fantasy’s own trading card game but stopped some time ago. We played using the starter deck kits featuring Cloud and Sephiroth and battled it out, with me emerging victorious. The cards looked amazing and feature characters, weapons, spells, and locations from all 16 mainline Final Fantasy titles. The only downer was that there were no promo cards being handed out. The next port of call was Artist Alley, where hundreds of independent artists showcased their wares. I was after one in particular: Stanley ‘Artgerm’ Lau. I first came across his work while playing Marvel Snap. I had a quick chat with him and got him to sign some artwork prints of Tifa and Rogue. Sticking with Final Fantasy, I noticed actor Ben Starr on the show floor – the voice of Clive Rosfield, the protagonist of Final Fantasy 16. I didn’t get a chance to speak with him, as he looked in a rush, probably due to the fact that he was part of the show with his Natural Six Dungeons & Dragons Actual Play panel. Final Fantasy is always at every Comic Con in some way (Tom Pozzetti) After lunch, we headed off to the Family Gaming Zone, where around 20 consoles were set up with a variety of family-friendly titles. Games that we sampled included Conduct TOGETHER! on the Nintendo Switch, a puzzle-type game where you manoeuvre trains and switch tracks to avoid collisions. Then, on to JellyCar Worlds, a driving and platforming game where you hav to work your way through various obstacles. It reminded me of both the Trials series and World Of Goo, with its physics-based gameplay. We proceeded to play Tower Of Babel – No Mercy, which was a shape-dropping game where the aim is to stack as high as possible. We played the co-op mode, where we each took turns placing rectangular-shaped blocks. On paper, that doesn’t sound like the greatest game, but the dormant competitive side of me came out and I was desperate to beat a nine-year-old child. The last game of the day was Astro Duel 2. The two of us joined four other convention players in a mix of retro pixel platforming and spaceship battles. It’s a combination of Smash Bros. and Asteroids, with players fighting fast on the ground or in the sky. Very hectic but a lot of fun – and great to play a six-person game with all players sitting alongside each other (although one kid did rage quit a few times!). Last call before heading home was the Bandai Namco zone. They had a strong showing, with multiple games available to try. It was great to see a major game publisher represented at the event. They were showcasing several Dragon Ball Z titles and Shadow Labyrinth, while Elden Ring: Nightreign was also on display – though sadly, not in a playable format. Finally, a quick spin on their gacha machines rounded off a wonderful day. More Trending Overall, another successful show and the next show’s dates have already been released. MCM returns to ExCeL London this October, along with EGX, for another three-day celebration from 24–26 October. By reader Tom Pozzetti (eyetunes – PSN ID) Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged proved to be a favourite (Tom Pozzetti) The reader’s features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro. You can submit your own 500 to 600-word reader feature at any time, which if used will be published in the next appropriate weekend slot. Just contact us at gamecentral@metro.co.uk or use our Submit Stuff page and you won’t need to send an email. GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

Hell Is Us – not a Ubisoft adventure (Nacon) GameCentral goes hands-on with an original sci-fi action adventure where the emphasis is on unguided exploration, with some throwback Zelda inspirations. You might already have heard the name Hell Is Us, as the game was first announced way back in April 2022. We previewed the sci-fi tinged adventure title, developed by Rogue Factor, for the first time last year but now it’s now on the home-straight, with a launch slated for September 4, and it’s shaping up to be a peculiar but intriguing mix of influences and ideas. Our original preview covered the opening portion of the game, so we’ll avoid recycling the same beats here. But for the general gist, you play as a United Nations peacekeeper named Rémi who absconds to the war-torn country of Hadea to track down his parents. A stroll through the tutorial woods later, however, and you realise this isn’t your average civil war.  If you’re a fan of Alex Garland’s Annihilation, the strange, faceless alien from the film’s conclusion seems to have been a major influence here. The Hollow Walkers, as they’re called, are very creepy, as they lurch towards you unpredictably, with morphing limbs which give way to vivid, crystallised attacks or, in some cases, attached entities you have to kill first. Their glossy white exteriors act as a stark contrast to the muted eastern European landscapes and dungeons you explore.  As a game, Hell Is Us is somewhere between Bloodborne and The Elder Scrolls. Combat wise, it’s pulling from the former, as you manage a stamina bar, study enemy patterns for the best moment to strike, and rely on aggressive play to replenish a magic gauge for special skills. You also have access to a drone which has various uses tied to cooldown meters, between distracting enemies for crowd control andmaking a charging lunge to dash across the field.  Rogue Factor has stressed Hell Is Us isn’t a Soulslike though. You’re not scrambling for bonfires or any equivalent, but exploring and chatting with characters to piece together where you need to go next, discovering new places of interest, and encountering side objectives which bleed into the overall experience of navigating each semi-open world area. The ethos behind Hell Is Us is discovery and the organic feeling of finding your feet through clues in the world, rather than using obvious quest markers.  This might bring to mind acclaimed games like Elden Ring and The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild, in their attempt to declutter open world exploration, but the game’s director, Jonathan Jacques-Belletête, believes the roots of what Hell Is Us is aiming for goes much further back. A cosmic horror vibe (Nacon) ‘Honestly, something like Zelda: A Link To The Past is much closer to what we’re doing now than a Breath Of The Wild,’ said Jacques-Belletête. ‘Sometimes people are like: ‘I really can’t put my finger on what kind of game it is, what is it?’ It’s just a bloody adventure game man. Look, you’ve got a combat system, you’ve got enemies, you’ve got a world to explore, there’s a mystery, you’re not exactly sure of this and that, there’s some secrets, there’s some dungeons, we did a game like that. It’s called an adventure game,’ he laughs. ‘There were even side-quests in A Link To The Past that didn’t tell you they were side-quests.’ Hell Is Us might have roots in classic adventure games but Jacques-Belletête, is keen to highlight the fatigue around Ubisoft style open world bloat, where checklists and quest markers are traditionally used in abundance. With the success of Elden Ring, there’s a sense many players are craving a return to the hands-off approach, where you discover and navigate without guidance – something which Hell Is Us is hoping to capitalise on after being in development for five years.  ‘It’s so much of the same thing,’ he says, when talking about Ubisoft style open worlds. ‘It loses all meaning. Things within these open worlds lose a lot of their taste because too much is like not enough. Do you know what I mean? You have to fill up these spaces with stuff and they just become a bit bland. Like once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen all of them.  ‘It’s not Assassin’s Creed, it’s not that, it’s all these things. We’ve all played them. I’ve got hundreds of hours in Elder Scrolls, all the Elder Scrolls, and that’s not the point. It’s not that I don’t like them. It’s just trends do their time and then you have other ideas. It’s a pendulum as well. Games used to be a lot more hardcore that way, we’re trying to go back to that.’ The crux of my time in Hell Is Us is spent in the Acasa Marshes, the second semi-open area where the game lets you off the leash. The swampy lands are crawling with Hollow Walkers in various forms, from hulking monstrosities to mage-like foes that hurl projectiles from clifftops. A swirling black vortex is a key focal point but it’s surrounded by enemies, while a settlement of villagers sits on a hill in the distance.  According to the developer, this area is one of the largest areas in the game, ‘if not the biggest one’, and it seems pretty expansive. We found ourselves heading towards the village, whose militaristic leader points you towards your main objective with only a vague mention of going ‘north east’. You have to dig out your compass to get a grasp on your position, as you try and navigate towards, and identify, the next location based on this information.  The lack of quest markers makes the experience more involving, as you have to pay more attention to your surroundings and what characters say, but I wasn’t entirely sold on the story or writing. It’s something which will hopefully become more engrossing as you get a better grasp of what’s going on, but I wish I was drawn to interact with the characters based on something beyond the need to progress.  When you are exploring aimlessly though, Hell Is Us offers some captivating chaos – even if some areas did appear to be gated off. We fought our way to the aforementioned swirling black vortex, encountering enemies beyond our skill level, only to find it was inaccessible due to not having a specific item. We later found an underground tunnel filled with enemies, where an individual connected to a side0quest was trapped at the other end.  Surprises lurk in the marshes (Nacon) Along with these open areas, Hell Is Us also offers dungeons built around puzzles and combat encounters. Aside from the opening introduction, we were shown a later example in the Lymbic Forge, which offered a nice dose of visual variety, with flowery gardens surrounding the boggy marshes. We didn’t get a whole lot of time to explore, but it did highlight the breadth of the combat upgrades and customisation with late-game weapons.  Hell Is Us is a melting pot of influences, and while we’re not sold on everything it’s trying to accomplish, it’s certainly another AA game with big, exciting ambitions – a trend amplified this year by the success of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. For the game’s director, who has a long history in the AAA space working at Eidos Montreal, the jump to AA, with a smaller team and less financial pressure, means you have a better chance of striking gold.  More Trending ‘Look at what’s happened to the industry over the past few years,’ Jacques-Belletête said. ‘Everything is crumbling. The big ones are crumbling. It’s unsustainable. And the games are so bloody bland, man. Everything is starting to taste the same.  ‘I find there’s nothing worse than starting a game and right away, in the first two minutes, you know how everything’s going to work. You know how every single mechanic is going to work. They might have a little [extra] in how it’s going to feel, or this and that, the user interface will change a bit, but you’ve gone through the ropes a dozen times.  ‘A game has to occupy a space in your brain that your brain can’t really compute just yet. When you turn your console off and it stays there, that’s because something is going on. Your brain is processing. And I think that’s a lot easier to do in the AA space than the AAA.’ Formats: Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PCPrice: £49.99Publisher: NaconDeveloper: Rogue FactorRelease Date: 4th September 2025Age Rating: 16 The combat it(Nacon) Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

Elden Ring Nightreign is From’s worst-rated game in years but it is a hit on Steam Adam Starkey Published May 30, 2025 1:59pm Updated May 30, 2025 2:00pm A good team is hard to find (Bandai Namco) FromSoftware’s multiplayer Elden Ring spin-off has hit over 300,000 players on Steam, but it’s proving a divisive experience. Elden Ring Nightreign launched today around the world and while it doesn’t necessarily play to developer FromSoftware’s strengths, it has had a strong start on Steam (its success on consoles is much harder to track). As recorded on SteamDB, the co-op multiplayer spin-off has hit a concurrent player peak of 313,593 within its first day on Steam. This is significantly lower than Elden Ring’s overall peak of 953,426 players, but it’s pretty good for a lower profile and lower budget game. At the time of writing, Elden Ring Nightreign is the fifth most played game on the platform, behind Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, PUBG, and er… Bongo Cat. However, not everyone is happy with the experience so far, and it’s already become FromSoftware’s lowest rated title on Steam. As of May 30, Elden Ring Nightreign has a ‘mixed’ rating on Steam, with only 66% of 9,000+ reviews being positive. This is technically the lowest of all FromSoftware’s available PC games (if we aren’t counting the delisted Ninja Blade), although technically DLC The Ashes Of Ariandel for Dark Souls 3 is lower at 59% rating. Many of the negative reviews for Elden Ring Nightreign have highlighted the lack of voice chat, the absence of duos mode, and the minimal variety during runs as particular sore points. Nightreign isn’t hitting Elden Ring numbers, but it probably never will (SteamDB) ‘I hate to say it, but I think we’ve finally see a bit of a miss from FromSoftware,’ one user review reads. ‘One that I think is still salvageable, and really could be turned into a much more interesting game – but as it is right now, it’s got a bit more bad than good going for it.’ However, some are seeing the positives even if they do come with caveats. ‘Super fun game,’ another review reads. ‘Your enjoyment will most likely be based on your teammates and how good your communication is.’ In terms of critical response, Nightreign is currently at 77 on Metacritic, which isn’t a disaster but is well below that of any of From’s other major titles, since they hit the big time with Dark Souls in 2011. The only games to score lower are experimental VR title Déraciné and a suite of mech games, including Armored Core 5, in 2012. More Trending Speaking in an interview with IGN earlier this month, the director behind Elden Ring Nightreign, Junya Ishizaki, said they are considering adding a two-player mode post-launch, so there’s a chance some of these issues could be fixed further down the line. The big question is whether Elden Ring Nightreign will attract a dedicated player base in the coming months to make these updates worthwhile, or if it’s simply riding the popularity of Elden Ring. This multiplayer experiment, which many suspect started life as Elden Ring DLC, is perhaps also a test for FromSoftware’s next multiplayer offering: The Duskbloods. The PvPvE game is set to be released next year as a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive. Elden Ring Nightreign is a smaller release from the studio (Bandai Namco) Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

Nintendo Switch 2 fans expecting secret Christmas game at Summer Game Fest 2025 Michael Beckwith Published May 29, 2025 2:02pm Updated May 29, 2025 2:46pm Mark your calendars (Summer Game Fest) The big N has joined Sony and Microsoft as an official Summer Games Fest partner, sparking hopes for a big game reveal for the Switch 2. Next week is going to be an exciting time for gamers, since not only is the Nintendo Switch 2 coming out but Summer Game Fest, Geoff Keighley’s replacement for the long-dead E3, takes place almost immediately after. The event kicks off only a day after the Switch 2’s launch on Friday, June 6, and will run across the whole weekend, and is set to feature over 60 different publishers and developers. A lot of the usual names will be in attendance, including Sony and Microsoft, but surprisingly so is Nintendo, making this the first time it’s been an official partner since 2022. Considering Nintendo was a no-show at the previous two Summer Game Fests, its appearance this year naturally sparks theories that it’ll have something to announce during the showcase portion on Friday. What will Nintendo show at Summer Game Fest 2025? Many fans have already been hoping that Nintendo has a secret Switch 2 game planned for this Christmas, especially after the recent confirmation that Pokémon Legends: Z-A – which is coming to both the original Switch and Switch 2 – will launch this October. The period afterwards is notably lacking any major Nintendo releases, particularly Switch 2 exclusives. Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, another cross-gen title, is meant to launch this year, but while it’s likely to be a critical hit the series has never been a big seller. There are also Switch 2 exclusives Hyrule Warriors: Age Of Imprisonment and Kirby Air Riders, but they seem even lower profile and strange choices to release in the launch year. While Nintendo is unpredictable, it’s still hard to imagine it saving any major reveals for an event like Summer Game Fest, rather than one of its own Nintendo Directs. It typically has Nintendo Directs every June and it is rumoured one could air next week, after the Switch 2’s launch – possibly even as a part of Summer Game Fest. The most likely explanation though, is that Nintendo is simply attending to promote the Switch 2 and the games it has already announced. As such, it wouldn’t be surprising if Nintendo’s only contribution to the Summer Game Fest showcase was a new montage and some kind of on stage appearance. What other games will be shown at Summer Game Fest 2025? At the time of writing, no new reveals are confirmed or even heavily rumoured for Summer Game Fest, although the list of attendees is promisingly long. Microsoft will certainly have new announcements at its annual Xbox Games Showcase on Sunday, June 8, which will be followed by an in-depth look at The Outer Worlds 2. With any luck, Microsoft will have new trailers for games like Perfect Dark, Gears Of War: E-Day, Fable, and maybe even a new Halo. As for Sony, while PlayStation is listed as one of Summer Game Fest’s partners, it’s suspected it won’t have any big first party reveals for the occasion. Instead, it’s rumoured that Sony will have a smaller scale State of Play later this summer, or possibly not until autumn. But what about third party companies? Hopefully, Capcom’s presence means a Resident Evil 9 reveal is around the corner, even though it doesn’t look like the game will be out till 2026 at the earliest. Square Enix has at least two big games fans hope to see at the show: the long rumoured Final Fantasy 9 remake and Kingdom Hearts 4. There is some circumstantial evidence for both making an appearance (the former is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year and the latter recently received new screenshots), but that’s all there is to go on. The third Final Fantasy 7 Remake game is also a possibility. A Persona 4 remake from Sega and Atlus could very well show up at either the Summer Game Fest showcase or the Xbox one (Xbox landed a marketing deal for Persona 3 Reload and Metaphor: ReFantazio after all). More Trending The remake’s been rumoured for a while, but just recently one of the original game’s voice actors, Yuri Lowenthal, gave its existence away by revealing he won’t be coming back for it. His social media post has been deleted now, but one of his co-stars, Erin Fitzgerald, has since corroborated it by saying she’s being replaced too. Hideo Kojima’s guest appearance guarantees new footage for Death Stranding 2: On The Beach, especially since it launches on June 26. He may also have something to show for OD, the new horror game he’s working on for Xbox. At the very least, we can rule out seeing anything for his new stealth game Physint since Kojima admitted it won’t be ready for another five or six years. Another remake before Persona 6? (Atlus) Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

Nintendo Switch 2 is getting an old school midnight launch at major UK toy store Michael Beckwith Published May 27, 2025 5:51pm Updated May 27, 2025 5:51pm A midnight rendezvous at Smyths could nab you a Switch 2 (Nintendo) If you’re yet to secure a pre-order for the Nintendo Switch 2, you may want to consider attending the console’s only public midnight launch. Midnight launch events used to be guaranteed whenever new video games, and especially new gaming consoles, arrived but the whole concept has slowly disappeared over time, along with the shops that used to host them. This is because people are buying fewer physical games than they used to, as well as the decline of local high street shopping in general – something the lockdown-inducing coronavirus pandemic only accelerated. As such, it seems like very few people will be camping outside their local gaming shops to be among the first to grab a Nintendo Switch 2 next week, although one retailer is keeping the dream alive with a country-wide midnight launch. The retailer in question is Smyths, which already offers online and in-store Switch 2 pre-orders. Unsurprisingly, it’s sold out at the moment, but the idea is that there’ll be more stock in for the countrywide midnight launch events. According to its own website, all Smyth stores in the UK will have a limited selection of Switch 2 stock to purchase from 12:01am until 12:30am on June 5. If you’ve already pre-ordered for Click & Collect or In-Store Collection, you can pick yours up during the midnight launch too, but you must have photo ID with you. Be sure to use Smyth’s store tracker to check if there’s one near where you live or at least within reasonable driving distance if you’re interested in taking part. Smyths has also scheduled a separate launch event that’ll run from 11:30pm on June 4 until 12:30am on June 5, where you can play a Mario Kart World demo and, if you’re among the first 100 attendees, claim free Nintendo themed goodies. This is only happening at a small selection of stores, though, at the following locations: Belfast Glasgow Hull Romford Stockport At the time of writing, there’s no mention of any other retailers offering similar events, at least in the UK. US retailers Best Buy and GameStop will open at midnight for people to buy a Switch 2, but that seems to be it. More Trending Aside from a couple of YouTubers who aim to be the first to step into the Nintendo Stores in the US once the Switch 2 launches, we’ve yet to see much evidence of anyone camping outside shops. At least not to the degree of past console launches. This reinforces the idea that nowadays most people prefer to sit at home and wait for a guaranteed pre-order. That said, pre-orders have been frequently selling out since they went live, with the console so popular that Japan has already run out, prompting an apology from Nintendo. Unless you’re able to secure a pre-order within the next week, being first in line at Smyths may be your best shot at grabbing a Switch 2. Hopefully, things won’t get too rowdy. Are you willing to stay up till midnight to grab a Switch 2? (Smyths) Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

This week might be a good time to grab a PS5 (Sony Interactive Entertainment) Sony is set to announce various price cuts for the PlayStation 5 and PS5 Pro as part of a new sale, according to a reliable insider. Shortly after raising the price of the PlayStation 5 digital edition in the UK, it seems Sony is preparing to announce some temporary discounts. Every year around May, Sony usually holds a Days Of Play event with special offers across PlayStation games and consoles. Last year’s event saw the company make massive £90 reductions on the PSVR2, while the PlayStation 5 received a £40 discount. It seems Sony is preparing to announce a similar set of discounts for this year, along with a reduction to the recently launched PS5 Pro. According to reliable leaker Billbil-kun, this year’s Days Of Play event will start from Wednesday, May 28 and run for two weeks until June 11, 2025. As part of this sale, it’s claimed the standard and digital versions of the PlayStation 5 console will receive a discount of €100 in Europe. While no UK price specifics are given, if it directly lines up, this will equate to around £80 off the £479.99 and £429.99 price for each respective console in the UK. The PS5 Pro will also apparently see a discount, albeit only €50 off the €799.99 price in Europe. In the UK, the PS5 Pro costs £699.99. It’s claimed the PSVR2 headset will similarly receive a €50 discount, while a selection of DualSense controllers will be available for €54.99. More Trending According to the leak, these won’t be the only discounts revealed during the event. A series of Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 bundles are also expected to launch on the same day, which will include a digital copy of the game alongside the PlayStation 5 console. The bundle with the standard version of the PlayStation 5, with a disc drive, will apparently cost €50 more than the standard price in the sale, at ‘around 499 euros’. Meanwhile, the digital edition bundle will see the same increase to €449.99. There’s a chance not all of these promotions will apply to the UK, and it’s unclear if the US tariffs will impact its potential rollout in other territories, but we won’t have long to wait, as the official announcement is expected sometime on Tuesday, May 27. Beyond this event, Sony is rumoured to be planning a State Of Play presentation for next month, although some believe it may have been delayed to the autumn. A PS5 Call Of Duty bundle is set to be announced this week (Activision) Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy