Tamrielnator Uh oh Jauffre, this Oblivion Remastered mod turns the main story into a terrifying race against a time-travelling level 70 terminator laser-focused on slaughtering Martin Septim "It will hunt you to the ends of the world for a chance to end the Septims' reign forever." Image credit: VG247Bethesda/NaiadGirl News by Mark Warren Senior Staff Writer Published on May 13, 2025 What's the one extra bit of spice OG Oblivion's main story needed to take it to the next level? An invincible terminator relentlessly hunting you and Sean Bean across Cyrodiil in an effort to massacre you both before you can save the world, you say? Wait, you didn't say that? Well, too bad, an Oblivion Remastered modder has already made it happen, and it sounds so intense I'm a bit scared to try it out for myself. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. When I wrote about NaiadGirl enhancing Oblivion Remastered's goblin wars the other day, I didn't think I'd end up writing about another of their mods so soon - but then I stumbled across their latest work. It's called 'Martin Septim and the Terminator Gambit', and the description certainly delivers on the hype that name stirs up. I'll let the modder set the scene. "On the cusp of defeat, Mehrunes Dagon has reached his iron claws backwards in time during the final hours of the Oblivion Crisis," they explain, "He has sent back an invincible enemy to end Martin Septim's life: a Terminator. "There is nowhere to truly hide from this machine-man. It will hunt you to the ends of the world for a chance to end the Septims' reign forever. You are the final bulwark against the Terrors of Oblivion." Phwoar. Hell of premise. This relentless level 70 pursuer, bedecked in Dwarven armour, will start hunting you down the moment you - poor Martin's saviour - exit the Imperial City's sewers, beginning its hunt from Kvatch's Oblivion Gate. It's invincible until you successfully complete the main quest, meaning that until that point, it'll be right behind you ever step of the way, and all you can do is run away. If you can manage to get all the way to the end and CLOSE SHUT THE JAWS OF OBLIVION, only then will the terminator become mortal, giving you a chance to finally deal with it if you've got the gear, skills, or sheer confidence required to take on a foe that - I repeat - is level 70. If you can pull off that miracle, NaiadGirl's teased that you'll be "rewarded greatly". Now, it probably won't surprise you to note that its creator says this mod's more aimed at challenge runs than it is general playthroughs, and there are a couple of extra things to bear in mind with it. The terminator can't follow you into Oblivion Gates themselves, so you'll be safest in what's canonically about the most dangerous place an Oblivion playthrough takes you. If you want a less risky ride, there's the optional plugin for letting Martin keep his essential status, so it's only your character's life on the line, though the modder insists: "no matter what you do, people will die". Their advice for surviving? Well, they do point out that "this is still Oblivion; You can cheese anything in this game." Words to live by, be sure to recite them if you decide to grab its requirements - Oblivion Remastered's UE4SS and UE4SS TesSyncMapInjector - to give it a try. Also, make sure to check out the rest of our ongoing Oblivion Remastered mod coverage, which includes an interview with the modder who managed to make the first ever tweak to its world just one day after release.

Warhammer Skulls is back from the Warp, and will be landing on your computer screens very soon. Starting May 22, a festival of Warhammer-themed game news, reveals, and juicy discounts will pop up in this annual event, promising some updates on recent hits like Space Marine 2, Rogue Trader, and Darktide. Read more

Persona! Atlus teases something Persona 5-related with a cryptic social media post, though what it actually is remains a mystery The most likely outcome is a Western release of Persona 5: The Phantom X, which would certainly be nice! News by Connor Makar Staff Writer Published on May 13, 2025 Atlus has teased something Persona 5-related on social media, which as you've probably assumed has sent the fans' hearts aflutter. While it's not explicitly stated what this is teasing (that being the standard tease protocol), there's a solid chance it's a hint towards a Western port of Persona 5: The Phantom X The post itself, a simple image with the words "retake your desire" plastered across it beneath a top hat and distinct pair of shades, appears to keep things vague enough. But those with their finger on the Persona pulse may recognise those glasses as being very similar to the glasses worn by the protagonist of PSX. This, for many, is all the confirmation needed. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Though this is more evidence to support that theory. In the Sega 2024 financial report, the company expressed a desire to expand its IP on mobile platforms as well as its presence in the Games as a Service (GaaS) space. PSX, a free-to-play mobile game, fits this description perfectly, and an expansion to the West would certainly do wonders in expanding the SEGA's mobile output to more users. Oh, and there's a big Persona 5: The Phantom X livestream taking place on the 15th (which you can watch here) that will likely reveal its version 1.0 release date, so when you step back and look at all the clues, it's fairly clear what this announcement will be. Unless it's somehow Persona 5 Arena, in which case I'll scream. For those who aren't aware, Persona 5: The Phantom X is a spinoff game created by Perfect World, released back in April 2024 in early access for players in China, South Korea, and Hong Kong. There's been no word of a Western release since last year, but given the popularity of Persona 5 over here, it makes sense to bring that game over. It's also worth noting that the game has been recieved positively! It managed to bring various Persona staples over to the mobile platform, including dungeon delving and social mechanics. If this is Persona 5: The Phantom X, would you give it a try once it releases in the West? Let us know below!

The march towards the next major Monster Hunter Wilds update continues, but since it still has a nebulous ‘summer’ release target, all we can really do is log in every week to play the latest set of Event and Challenge Quests in the action RPG. Read more

Newko Bellic? GTA 6? What GTA 6? Veteran Rockstar leaker suggests Grand Theft Auto 4 port for current-gen consoles is in development and could drop later this year They also claim it's "one more reason" the Liberty City Preservation Project mod was issued a takedown. Image credit: Rockstar Games News by Mark Warren Senior Staff Writer Updated on May 12, 2025 It might not be the mid to late 2000s right now, but that's not for a lack of trying on the behalf of publishers keen to get us all playing the likes of Oblivion and Gears of War again. As it turns out, Rockstar Games might be on that list too, with a leaker having claimed a GTA 4 port for modern hardware could drop this year. Yep, fresh off of GTA 6's delay to next year, followed by trailer two and all that new info, there's now chatter about a classic entry in the series making a return. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. These claims come from Tez2, a long-time leaker/dataminer of all things Rockstar, who responded to someone asking about a "potential GTA IV "remaster"/port for modern gen consoles" on the GTAForums. "Someone at Rockstar hinted at the IV port, and by now it should've gone up a year in development," the leaker wrote, "We may end up seeing it drop later this year. And it's one more reason, in addition to existing reasons, the LCPP mod was taken down. "If they still follow their plan laid out from the pandemic days, they'll do an MP3 port after IV. So that is an opportunity to do a bundle or a Definitive Edition. Max Payne 1 & 2 remakes, and a Max Payne 3 port." To see this content please enable targeting cookies. So, a GTA 4 port and possibly Max Payne 3 also getting a re-release, if their claims about a pre-pandemic plan still possibly being on the cards turn out to be true. Still, as with all leaks, best to take it with a grain of salt until we know for sure something's coming. It's also interesting that Tez has suggested such a port is a reason that the Liberty City Preservation Project mod was issued with a takedown request earlier this year. If you're out of the loop, the mod brought a re-creation of GTA 4's Liberty City to GTA 5, letting you take to the streets of LC as Michael, Trevor, or Franklin. Naturally, its treatment sparked speculation that Rockstar could be planning to do something official with GTA 4. That said, as we've seen with Oblivion Remastered and Skyblivion, a classic game getting an official remaster/port doesn't always have to mean the end of mods that're doing similar stuff. It's up to different studios and publishers how they want to approach dealing with such fan projects, making it risky to just assume that a proper port must be coming because of LCPP biting the dust. Are you desperate to play a GTA 4 port during the wait for GTA 6? Is it a game that you think could do with the full remaster treatment, or just a simpler re-release? Let us know below.

That Beard Tired of Tekken 8? Virtua Fighter 5 Revo is coming to consoles, while sexy Ganondorf just got revealed for Virtua Fighter 6 It was a big weekend for Virtua Fighter fans, as Evo Japan gave us heaps of good news for the series. Image credit: Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio News by Connor Makar Staff Writer Published on May 12, 2025 It was a big weekend for Virtua Fighter fans, as two massive bits of news dropped. The first, that Virtua Fighter 5 Revo will be coming to the Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5 with crossplay support and delicious rollback netcode. The second, that Wolf Hawkfield (aka sexy Ganondorf) has been officially revealed for the upcoming Virtua Fighter 6. Virtua Fighter 5 Revo, first released on PC in January this year, was a modern re-release of Virtua Fighter 5 with technical improvements to better facilitate worldwide online play. It performed pretty darn well for a near-20-year-old fighting game, though obviously didn't quite hit the heights of a full cross-platform release. This announcement of a wider rollout should hopefully remedy that for a very good fighter. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Now, Wolf Hawkfield's reveal is something totally new. His reveal trailer, released during a Virtua Fighter Direct on Sunday, shows off a new design for the Canadian professional wrestler. He's been a featured character in every Virtua Fighter game, and looks far more rugged than previous iterations. You can watch the Virtua Fighter direct hereWatch on YouTube What's interesting is that, according to producer Riichio Yamada during the Virtua Fighter Direct, Virtua Fighter 6 will delve more into the story and motivations of each character, so we should find out why Mr Hawkfield looks the way he does. He also adds that legacy characters like Wolf Hawkfield have been "refined for the modern age", so we should expect similarly drastic makeovers for any future returning characters. Are you excited for the future of Virtua Fighter? Let us know below!

Along came a spider Warframe's next major update gives the monster sickos what they've been begging for: a Spider warframe at long last She's coming in Isleweaver, which takes players back to Duviri for some more horsing around. Image credit: Digital Extremes News by Connor Makar Staff Writer Published on May 12, 2025 The next big Warframe update has been revealed at Pax East, and is bringing the playerbase a long-speculated warframe concept. Oraxia, a spider-themed warframe, will be a major part of the Isleweaver update set to go live in June. A specific date has yet to be announced. Oraxia will be found on their own island on Duviri, a massive open world zone first released in 2023, which is getting a bit of a revamp as part of the Isleweaver update. This creepy crawler has seemingly been trapped for a while, and players will have to go out and take her down for currency, which in turn can be exchanged for the 61st warframe and their signature weapons. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. A spider warframe has been one of those running gags in Digital Extremes devstreams for a while now, with repeated questions on the topic popping up here and there over prior months. Warframe has, over time, managed to dish out a selection of monster-themed Warframes to sate the appetite of freakier fans. Voruna, for example, was a Werewolf frame that proved mighty popular (even if the Lua farm was a bit of a nightmare). Sevagoth is a space ghost, and Inaros is a big tanky mummy. It was only a matter of time before we got the spider frameI suppose, even though anyone who knows what they're talking about will tell you the scariest warframe the DE team will ever make is Limbo. If you know, you know. Isleweaver will have more than just a new warframe to farm, of course. It'll also provide a major narrative step forward as Major Neci Rusalka has somehow made her way to Duviri and taken over. Players will be tasked with taking her down, granted the ability to use their own warframes and weapons to do so, something that usually isn't allowed as part of Duviri's rogue-like format. There's also a Valkyr rework coming, which will overhaul the bloody beloved warframe with a new rage resource that'll weave throughout her entire kit. So all in all, a pretty packed update! Duviri is one of those corners of Warframe that has players torn. Some people love it, and it offers a cool way for newer players to unlock weapons and warframes without having to go back and farm old content. It's also a cool way to experience gear you've not actually been able to farm out yet. Still, Duviri fundamentally separated players from their arsenal of powerful stuff, so those who wanted to blast through the content with a Saryn Prime they've been using for 1,000 hours felt a little perturbed. We don't know all the details yet, but the ability for players to use their own stuff in Isleweaver may be an answer to these complaints. We'll have to wait to June to find out for sure! Are you excited for Isleweaver and Oraxia? Let us know below!

Onward, Can't See-d I see your Oblivion Remastered ghost horse that's either a fresh secret or Daedric-tier trolling, and raise you this totally invisihorse I've netted while investigating it It's amazing, but I haven't been able to give it a lick and so can't confirm whether it tastes just like juniper berries. Image credit: Bethesda/VG247 News by Mark Warren Senior Staff Writer Published on May 12, 2025 Right, so, there's an Oblivion Remastered clip that's been doing the rounds on Reddit. It appears - or so its poster claims - to show a player randomly discovering a weird ghostly horse just outside of Frostcrag Spire. Cue a whole bunch of debate as to whether it could possibly be a fresh secret in the vein of Skyrim's very real Headless Horseman that's just been uncovered, a weird bug of the kind both classic and remastered Oblivion have in infamous abundance, or just someone trolling their socks off. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. The poster, a user going by TaricIsNotASupport, has certainly been pushing the first of those options in their numerous posts about this horse, which they've dubbed "Spookmane". To be fair to them, they have included videos of them approaching the horse, riding it, and even falling off a cliff on it. "I was crafting stupid spells in Frostcrag Spire, as it’s possibly my favourite way to have fun in this game, however this time when I left the Cosy Chaos Spire that has divided this community so very much I noticed something suuuuuuper strange in the distance," TaricIsNotASupport wrote in their first post. "I did as any of us of the right mind would do and B-lined it over there like a maniac. To my amazement was this spectral horse with no name. I have played thousands of hours of the original Oblivion - and have already sunken over a hundred hours into the Remaster - yet this is the first I have ever seen this horse." Uhhhh, guys, is this new? by u/TaricIsNotASupport in oblivion To see this content please enable targeting cookies. It doesn't look like they're being forgetful - OG Oblivion to my knowledge and the knowledge of the commenters in the thread doesn't have a known unique spectral horse that just spawns in the wilds. That's not gotten this player off the hook in terms of fakery suspicions, with the fact they look to have avoided pointing their crosshair directly at the horse in the clips they've posted having led a bunch of folks to question if this is legit. For what it's worth, TaricIsNotASupport claims to be on PS5 and therefore without access to the console commands that would enable them to look up the ID of the horse - which they claim has no display name. If true, that would also mean they've run into this map glitch from one of their previous posts without any PC manipulation too. Not impossible, but straining credulity a bit. While investigating this very important issue, I ran across a comment in one of threads from a user going by SaukPuhpet, who pointed out that on PC you can replicate something similar to the spectral effect on your horse that TaricIsNotASupport's mount has by applying spell effects to your horse using the console and provided some spell IDs to try. So, I tried this myself, reasoning that if the exact effect in the clip showed up, that'd be myth busted. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to replicate that same see-through-with-green-tinge look, but I was able to turn horses totally invisible in a fashion that just left then looking like a floating saddle and mane. I also managed to turn one into a blue/white ghost, as you can see below. Image credit: VG247 Image credit: VG247 Image credit: VG247 Myth not totally busted, then, despite the efforts of my Adamus Savage and his co-host Jamie Adoringfan. That said, my work wasn't done. This is VG247, so of course I've shamelessly taken advantage of this excuse to ask Bethesda and Virtuos if they've added some fresh secrets to the remaster - this article'll be updated if I get anything back. Do you think this mysterious ghost horse is real or just an elaborate prank that's pretty much worked because no one remembers everything from 2006? Let us know below! Also, make sure to check out our cool Oblivion Remastered mod coverage, including our recent interview with the modder who managed to make the first ever tweak to its world just one day after release.

Goblins Khan This Oblivion Remastered mod turns Cyrodiil's infamous goblin wars into dynamic gobbo chaos with a chance of automatically erupting into a fresh cross-map scrap every week Naturally, you're still free to nick a totem yourself and lob it into the Imperial City, just to see what kind of shenanigans ensue. Image credit: Bethesda/NaiadGirl News by Mark Warren Senior Staff Writer Published on May 12, 2025 OG Oblivion's AI goblin wars are the stuff of legend. Oh, by the way, someone wrote in an obscure forum post or article you likely read after you thought you'd turned over every interesting stone in Cyrodiil, you can cause full-on goblin wars just by nicking their totems. Naturally, it's not taken Oblivion Remastered modders long to turn their attention to making this cool system with some typical 2006 limitations into something with even more wacky potential that's less reliant on you deciding to spend hours personally playing puppetmaster. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Enter modder NaiadGirl's 'Enhanced Goblin Wars'. While it's not the first mod for the remaster to try its hand at improving the gobbo war mechanics - ImmortanJoel's 'Goblin Wars Remastered' scored that honour at a glance - it does look like the most detailed and expansive add-on for goblin fight club sickos right now. It makes the goblin wars dynamic rather than static. So, instead of there only being two goblin wars that start without your input in the base game, with any additional ones only happening if you personally get involved and trigger them by moving the seven different tribes' totems around the map, the gobbos will now start fresh conflicts on their own. "Every 5 in-game days, a new Goblin War has a 20% chance to trigger," NaiadGirl wrote, "Surrounded by shadow, sneaky goblin thieves steal a rival's totem when no one's watching, and place it in their respective lair. The War Chief of the wronged tribe will embark with a group of Greenskins to the opposition's lair, and attempt to take back what is theirs! That is, if they're able to cross Cyrodiil alive...whether they succeed or not, they'll be causing trouble in the countryside and cities alike." The mod also makes sure the goblins can pursue their totem no matter where in the world it ends up - even if that involves assaulting and breaking into the Imperial City itself, a tweak that'll be endlessly helping if you still fancy nicking totems yourself to cause chaos. Plus, the modder's included an optional Amulet of Goblin Friendship found near Vilverin, which as its name suggests will make every gobbo refrain from trying to bash your skull in. Very handy if you want to kick back with the popcorn and watch a goblin skirmish unfold from right up close, because the arena's just too boujee a means of fulfilling your need to watch some NPCs have a bloody barney. It's worth noting that the mod can add some extra complications to the quest Goblin Trouble by moving the totem it involves about, but NaiadGirl reckons it "shouldn't be game-breaking" so long as the quest marker still points to the totem in its new location. Make sure to check out the rest of our cool Oblivion Remastered mod coverage, including our recent interview with the modder who managed to make the first ever tweak to its world just one day after release.

Duvaling Deeper GTA 6 trailer 2 is here, so when‘s GTA 6 trailer 3 gonna drop? Don't worry, we've been rubbing our hot braincells together Forget all that new info, I’ll never put away my diagram of lunar phases. Image credit: Rockstar Games Article by Mark Warren Senior Staff Writer Published on May 10, 2025 Do not laugh. These are words on the internet. They’re serious business. We might have finally gotten that second trailer, the one I spent months on end staring at the moon 24 hours a day and electrocuted Nintendo’s nipples in anticipation of. We might have gotten a whole website worth of screenshots and character bios to dissect like forensic scientists scraping one of Trevor Phillips’ victims off the freeway. But it’s never enough. It’s never enough, when GTA 6 now isn’t arriving until May 2026. From my bunker on Mount Chiliad, I’ll scour these morsels we’ve been thrown, I’ll hold the gun of truth up to their foreheads, just like Niko Bellic did to Vlad in that GTA 4 mission. I’ll find evidence of a drop date for GTA 6 trailer three. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. You might argue that there’s no evidence we’re even due a third GTA 6 trailer - that we’ve already had two, and gotten all the info we could want ahead of the release date that’s now set in stone. I disagree. There has to be one. There’s always more when it comes to the biggest game launch since the fall of Constantinople invented the RTS genre. Besides, GTA 5 had three protagonists, as did GTA 4 if you count the DLCs - the angels at Rockstar know the power that a holy trinity wields over us puny mortals. So, I fire up trailer two for the seven thousandth time this week, because what if - I ask myself, in a voice that’s still some weird, monstrous amalgamation of every GTA protagonist ever - the GTA 6 trailer two/delay info drop has anything to tell us about a third GTA 6 trailer? Trailer two begins with a joke. As I’ve told you, this is no laughing matter, but it’s Rockstar making a gag about those leaks, so I must - in my capacity as their devoted servant/fan who spends 22 and a half hours a day on Twitter - giggle for at least 20 minutes. The joke, though, serves a purpose. It’s convinced me that Rockstar knows the game’s afoot. There’s a racoon in the background emerging from a bin. Frantically, I google which time of year the critters typically mate. Late January to mid-March. Could this be when GTA 6 trailer three is conceived ahead of deployment in the run up to that May release? Could it be when the trailer slinks out of the trash can onto our feeds? Maybe, but we’ll have to keep working. He's just too much, man. | Image credit: Rockstar Games Jason Duval is shirtless. I start counting the individual hairs on his very sweaty chest, which I’m staring at in an entirely respectful manner, because he’s a GTA protagonist and we are not worthy. I hold a ruler up to the screen and try to measure the exact diameter of his nipples, in the hope that maths might yield a clue. I have to give up. He’s just too damn sexy for me, a straight man in a basement, to concentrate. We see Jason, now mercifully with a shirt on, driving, and then robbing a store. The cash register. Written on it is a number, upside down. Oh Rockstar, you shouldn’t have, you know I love dialling random phone numbers I find scrawled on walls around town. 305-555-0145. I ring it. There’s no answer, perhaps because I’ve stopped paying my phone bills in order to finance seven separate GTA+ subscriptions at once. I panic, and resort again to maths. 3 + 5 is eight. 5 x 3 is 15. 1 + 4 + 5 is 10. 15 + 10 is 25. 2025. That just leaves the eight. The eighth month. August. AUGUST 2025 FOR GTA 6 TRAILER THREE? It seems implausible, but that’s never stopped me before. Hang on. The moon phases! The old reliable we relied on to predict trailer two. NO WAY. August 8 will see the moon appear as a WAXING GIBBOUS! The very moon phase we thought would point to the second trailer’s arrival. This is incredible, I’ve cracked it. I must have. I can’t stop, though. There must be more info sneaking about like Michael De Santa during that mission for Solomon Richards if that’s cropped up. You don't want to know how many coffees it took for me to work all of this out. | Image credit: Rockstar Games Let’s see. There’s a freeway sign that hints at coming off at exit three to reach 9th Avenue in Southside Peacock Bay. Exit three = trailer three? Rockstar certainly has been peacocking with these trailers. Argh, is it trying to confuse me, to throw me off the scent and lose the five star wanted rating? Further on, there’s a sign in a shop that reads “A new billionaire every week”. A new bit of GTA 6 info every week from now until May 26 next year? No, no, it can’t be. We’d all die from GTA 6 hype overload, foaming at the mouth like many of the numerous victims of substance abuse the GTA series has portrayed over the years. There she is. Lucia Caminos. ‘Hot Together’ by The Pointer Sisters starts to play. Hang on. The Pointer Sisters. Hot Together was released in October 1986. It was their twelfth studio album, and eighth collaboration with producer Richard Perry. There’s that eight again, but this time with a twelve. The song was also used in the soundtrack for the 1987 movie Spaceballs, which came out on June 24. Could that be the time when we get something? The reveal of a GTA 6: Spaceballs edition? As I try to work it out, I forget to press pause and the trailer keeps going. When I look back, Lucia’s bottom in a nice dress is filling the screen. Once again, I’m paralysed because things are just getting too sexy. Her bum swings from side to side as she walks. Once, twice, three times before the camera cuts away. THREE. Did Lucia’s derriere just confirm trailer three is coming, beyond all doubt? As if to re-emphasise it, Jason then says “If we’re doing this, we’re doing it right.” I swear, I'm not pulling all of this out of my own rump. | Image credit: Rockstar Games I move on. The threes keep coming. Bae-Luxe of Real Dimez says ‘brrraapp’ three times while doing finger guns. People yell ‘Vice City, baby’, which is three words. Cal Hampton humps the air three times while urging someone to hook him up with something. Does he want early access to trailer three? It’s all too much. I crash out and turn to the website. I try calculating the mean value of the number of screenshots of different characters and locations that Rockstar’s shared. It somehow adds up to five, which doesn’t seem to support my theory, so I disregard it as irrelevant. I end up scrolling just past the bio of Lucia - the woman with the prophetic posterior. “Jason’s friend and a fellow associate of Brian’s, Cal feels safest hanging at home, snooping on Coast Guard comms with a few beers and some private browser tabs open,” reads the bit about Cal Hampton. His name is three letters long, and there are two references to trios in the passage that prominently features a list of three. “What if everything on the internet was true?”

Tripwire has remerged to bring co-op shooter fans everywhere - many of whom have waited years for a sequel to Killing Floor 2 - some major news about the release date of Killing Floor 3. Now, you may remember that the game actually had a March 25 release date for a while, before Tripwire suddenly took it off the calendar without providing a new date. Read more

You call that a fief Doom The Dark Ages review: The road to hell is paved with hypertension Stressful, but in a good way, Doom The Dark Ages thunders along a well-trodden path but fails to break any new ground. Image credit: VG247 Review by Dom Peppiatt Editor-in-chief Published on May 9, 2025 I like heavy metal. I have loved it since I was a kid. The best heavy metal albums all have this structure to them, a certain style that is as predictable as it is compelling. They start with a killer opening track - Blood and Thunder by Mastodon, Battery by Metallica, Aces High by Iron Maiden - designed to set the scene, establish the mood, install presence. Then you get the second track; bigger, nastier, longer, harder. Using those same albums as an example, you have I Am Ahab, Master of Puppets and 2 Minutes to Midnight, respectively. By now, you’re hooked - and that’s just as well, because usually what comes next is a couple of duff slices of mid-album filler that keeps edging you until the gnarly stuff at the end of the tracklist. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. That is Doom The Dark Ages. I feel like the developers at Id Software have taken the series’ metal inspiration to its logical conclusion with this game, wrapping up the Doom (2016) trilogy with a tribute act that’s so akin to a classic metal album, you’d expect to see its boxart on the shelves at your local indie record store. The intro track (sorry, ‘first level’) is the Aces High of Doom maps. It throws you in without hesitation, some nice thrumming riffs chugging along in the background as you’re given a shotgun, a shield, and an insatiable thirst for demon flesh. If you’ve played 2016 or Eternal, you know the drill; cycle through all the tools available to you, stay mobile, and improvise. Giving you a gun is that catchy riff being laid down, your movement is the bass with its thudding rhythm, and the shield… the shield is the drums, underpinning the whole thing. The biggest gimmick in The Dark Ages is the shield; a heavy, satisfying buckler on your left wrist that can slam into enemies, close distances on remote threats, and boomerang into fodder demons to thin the herd and farm ammo for you. It’s a damn sight more interesting and malleable than the flamethrower in Doom Eternal. It’s fun to use, and as the game opens up, you can slot Satanic runes into it to make it more powerful. Just like in real life. It also opens up another incredibly pleasing mechanic: the parry. The hordes of hell will fill the screen with green projectiles - missiles, floating shields, screaming skulls - and if you hit the parry button at the right time, you’ll send these hazards flying back to sender. This will also confer buffs; certain perks will let parries restock ammo, add projectiles of your own into the mix, coat you in armour. Parrying, shooting, punching, running, shield-bashing, shooting again, and parrying again summons a Tetris Effect-like feeling in me. It massages my brain into a sense of flow-state that leaves me enraptured, which is quite at odds with the cartoonish super-violence that’s happening on-screen. In the shield, Doom The Dark Ages finds its heavy, stompy feet. Pinky, but no brain. | Image credit: Bethesda But the shield can only do so much to add variety into the mix. It’s like your favourite 80s hair metal band adding a new guitarist to the roster, 12 studio albums in, to spice things up a little. You can hear them, trilling along in the mix, but it’s more of the same, really, and doesn’t add a lot to the overall flavour. Doom The Dark Ages is good. Very good. But halfway into its 22 levels, it feels like you’ve seen and heard all of its best licks. Enemy variety starts to slow down (with a focus on numbers, rather than variety, seeming to take over in the padded-out middle sections) and level design devolves from the lofty to the predictable. Doom and Doom Eternal have already stormed across such a lot of ground that The Dark Ages really needed to do something incredible to stand out in the trilogy. Sadly, the medieval world so heavily leaned upon in the marketing feels more like set dressing than a character in itself. Luckily, the core tenet of the nu-Doom series remains as moreish and compelling as ever. In fact, I think The Dark Ages has nailed the flow and integration of combat better than either other game in the series. It’s because the weapons are so variable, and have upgrade paths and variations that actually feel different enough to make them viable. Take the ‘launcher’ archetype; you can bounce very pleasing balls of exploding death right into a demon’s face, or opt to blast a rocket square into its chest with an RPG instead. d Ah, it's knights like these that make life worth living. | Image credit: Bethesda If you prefer the pure, dizzying aggression of getting up close and personal with enough explosives to take out a small country, good news! There’s a perk that lets you heal damage with rocket splash damage, instead of eating it in the crossfire. But only if you parry first. So you make the combat encounters fit around you, baiting out projectiles and then whipping yourself into an incendiary frenzy, laughing as you cannibalise all the poor hellbound f**ks that thought it was a good idea to get in your way. Though the middle levels are a bit uninspired and repetitive, I was in constant awe of the scale and spectacle of the combat situations you’re thrown into. There’s the odd boss that slows things down a bit (there’s one too many baddies equipped with mandatory shields that stay erect as you play a bullet hell-like game of footsies with them), but for the most part, gunplay and traversal feels great. Figuring out how to melt armour of one big bastard whilst thinning out the fodder, avoiding an incoming hail of projectiles, and going toe-to-toe with axe-wielding brute is FPS heaven. It’s like trying to solve a Sudoku in a moshpit. But then it all candy-wrappers together by the end. The best albums will weave in all the themes, styles, energy, and creativity on the track list and focus it into the last song- an uproarious, nearly unbelievable summary of the band’s personality in that space and time. That’s what the end of Doom The Dark Ages does. It almost - almost - makes up for the shortcomings in the middle (middling) sections with a bombast and balls-to-the-wall run of set-pieces that feels like it was three games in the making. Doom The Dark Ages will get your blood pressure up. It will test your reflexes, your problem-solving skills, your aim, and your ability to solve problems on the fly. It’ll probably test your patience a little, too, when the chugging, uninspired, padded-out sections in the middle start to wear a bit thin. But when it does manage to get your adrenaline pumping, you’ll be champing at the bit and thumbing shells into your shotgun so fast that the princes of hell themselves shaking in their boots.

As pretty much everyone even vaguely interested in video games surely knows by now, there was a new Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer released earlier this week. While that trailer has already broken records, standing firm as the biggest video launch on YouTube ever, it's also had a massive impact on the music front. Namely, the accompanying song, which saw a 182,000% boost on Spotify. This all begs the question: why is the world so invested in this new trailer? Obvious point first, it's a new trailer for the most anticipated game right now. It may be the most anticipated game we've seen since Cyberpunk 2077, for a sequel to the biggest video game series of all time no less. The fact the trailer has broken all these records isn't particularly surprising, especially when you consider just how many people have bought and played Grand Theft Auto 5 over the years. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. In my head there are two major reasons why this new trailer has gone wild, though. The first is Rockstar's ability to not overplay its hand. It knows it's holding aces, the world knows it's holding aces. R* doesn't need to sprinkle out teasers, trickles of gameplay tidbits or little breadcrumbs to remind people that GTA6 exists. Everyone and their mum knows GTA6 is real and coming. Rockstar dropped that original trailer back in December 2023, and since then has left people to ruminate on it. They let folks scour the trailer down to the bone, taking in all the landmarks, all the references to pop culture. Every car a tease, every model a potential character. They let people build the mythology around GTA6 themselves, passionate flames that didn't even need fanning. What other companies would have done is bring developers out to elaborate on what was shown in that first trailer, but Rockstar doesn't need to do that. Such is the privileged position it has built itself with GTA5. Unaddressed hype can prove a dagger sharpened at both ends for games, but in GTA6's case people can already kind of guess what the bones of the gameplay experience will be like. What's left is to fill in the gaps, and no amount of marketing spend or peeling back the curtain can beat that magic. The only issue is that GTA6 ends up disappointing folks who've set expectations so high, which, c'mon. Believe it or not, people have been pulling early images like this apart for crumbs of new info. The second major reason for the trailer's absurd popularity is Grand Theft Auto 6's unique position in the video game industry itself. If you're reading this, you're almost certainly a video game enthusiast, meaning someone who cares enough about games to be willing to read about 'em. Being the well-read and intellectual gamer that you surely are, you'll know that GTA6 has been this iceberg of sorts throughout the year. Everyone knows that when it comes out, it'll swallow up the month it's in. Everyone knows that all eyes are on GTA6, and that almost everyone even vaguely enticed by open world shenanigans will be playing it. That energy is tangible, and it's spread far beyond the walls of the typical video game bubble. You could have argued that Baldur's Gate 3 had a similar electricity buzzing around it when it launched into Version 1.0, but the waiter in town probably wouldn't have heard about it. Maybe the cool lady in the bookshop did, her sister at the tabletop store certainly did. Helldivers 2 broke out of the cage and into the general populace a bit more with its incredible launch, winning over the normals. I had a TSA Agent ask about it last year. Usually they only ask about Mortal Kombat, Call of Duty, or, well, GTA5. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. If Helldivers snapped off a bar and squeezed out of that cage of seperating the video game scene and wider popular culture, GTA6 will shatter it into a thousand pieces. You could argue it already has. My mum, a nurse in her 50s, knew the game had been delayed. She heard it on the regional British radio. That is mental. No one on the ward knows that Borderlands 4 had its release date moved forward, and that game will probably be one of the biggest hits this year. When you consider this absurd level of prominence GTA6 has in not only the minds of the gaming enthusiasts, but also the casual gamers, and ultra-casual normal people who might not even own a console or PC capable of gaming, it's no secret at all why the second trailer has drawn in so much interest. If you imagine every video game trailer you watch on YouTube as an advertisement you'd watch in a cinema, usually the kinds of people sitting beside you in the theatre are likeminded gamers. For GTA6, the person sitting next to you could very well be Jonathan Smith, age 68, retired investment banker. GTA6's second trailer, and its ridiculous performance, is no shock at all. It's a once in blue moon kind of thing, we probably won't see another game trailer do so well until GTA7 or a mythical curveball like Fortnite 2 (or Half-life 3...) gets revealed. You, I, and untold millions are excited for a new video game. When you consider the full scale of it, you can understand the obsession.

The final Dune Awakening beta is now live, which will allow thousands of fresh-faced players to hop into Funcom's open world survival MMO for the first time. This beta, which is running over the weekend, will cover the first two major zones of the game, giving folks a peek at the early game experience. Read more

Facing The Truth Created an Oblivion Remastered character so freaky-looking that even Sheogorath's weirded out? Well, a new mod'll let you easily give them a makeover on the fly Maybe a fresh trim is all they need to fit in with Cyrodiilic society. Or not, as the case may be. Image credit: VG247/Bethesda News by Mark Warren Senior Staff Writer Published on May 9, 2025 We've all done it. Loaded up Oblivion Remastered, wondered if we can make a character as wacky-looking as the original, cranked all the sliders up to max, and produced a face not even a Night Mother could love. If you're now experiencing a bit of weird face buyers' remorse, a new mod might help you avoid having to start a fresh playthrough. To be fair, it also very much looks useful to those who haven't sculpted a visage that violates the weird face concordat, offering you the chance to pick a new hairstyle or give your beard a trim to match whatever kind of hero/murderer/mage/errand person your character morphs into at the various stages of your journey. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. The mod's called 'Character Editor - BETA' and is the work of nathdev, who's decided to develop a means for folks to change their characters on the fly that's a bit less complex to deal with than 'RaceMenu Utilities'. The latter's a lot more advanced feature-wise, but also tougher to get to grips with if you're new to modding due to relying on console commands. Nathdev and RaceMenu Utilities creator Animandan also reckon both their mods should work fine together, if you fancy having both at your disposal. As you'd expect from something with beta in the name, Character Editor's still very much a work-in-progress, but right now it'll let you edit the head and facial hair and eye colour of your character at any point in your game via a handy UI menu, as you can see in the showcase video below. Any changes are saved instantly in real time, so as soon as you close the menu you'll be good to go right on with your adventure. Watch on YouTube So, not a way to make hugely in-depth changes to your face like you can when you first design your Hero of Kvatch in the proper character creator at this point, but already a handy way to switch up your quiff and see if that helps you make more of an impact on the Cyrodiilic dating scene. It works with all races, and is even compatible with appearance-changing mods like custom hairdos. "I will add more as I understand how other presets work," nathdev wrote, "[I'll] also try to do something to add new presets instead of [it being a] replacer." If you want to try the mod out, you'll need to grab the 'Blueprint Mod Loader' the same modder's developed to get mods like this working without the need for a DLL hook, UE4SS or console commands. Make sure to check out the rest of our cool Oblivion Remastered mod coverage, including our recent interview with the modder who managed to make the first ever tweak to its world just one day after release.

UPDATE (09/05/25, 11:20 AM BST): This tease looks to be all about cracking codes ARG-style, with the stream updating as players on the Discord server solve them and enter different commands into the "s81-input" channel that's been added to the server, alongside an output one that's providing responses. As of right now, the livestream has moved past a stage of initial boot-up code entering to comuting byte ingresses, with a "primary directive" to come, which we assume might be an actual -in-game order Read more

At a time when video game budgets continue to bloat, with new games getting increasingly expensive to create, Control 2 will reportedly by made with less budget than Remedy Entertainment's previous game: Alan Wake 2. Read more

Helldivers 2's lastest Warbond has just arrived. It's dubbed Masters of Ceremony, is going for what in my eyes is a very World War One-ish look, and has earned fairly mixed reviews from players at first glance. Read more

Sicily Storytime Mafia: The Old Country won't ask you to surrender your entire real life to the Cosa Nostra this August, and it'll only charge you $50 of tribute unless you want a limo Yes, we're still making all of the mob jokes possible, to do otherwise would not be the Don thing. Image credit: 2K News by Mark Warren Senior Staff Writer Published on May 8, 2025 Mafia: The Old Country's release date has now been confirmed, along with the prices of its standard and deluxe editions. If you plump for the standard edition ahead of release on August 8, 2025, 2K says you'll be getting a lean, mean tale than won't swallow up all of your free time. That release date isn't technically brand new news, even if we hadn't had it confirmed until now. The Old Country's suffered a few leaks since its reveal last summer. The most recent of those was that release date accidentally slipping out in April via a Steam announcement. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. So, yep. The Old Country will launch on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on August 8, with GTA 6's delay having done nothing to change the best laid plans of mice and mafiosos. There'll be a stardard edition for $49.99/£44.99, or you can pay an extra tenner ($10 for any non-brits who use that currency) for the deluxe edition. Naturally, the more swanky edition comes with some extra in-game stuff in the form of the Padrino Pack, Gatto Nero Pack, a digital copy of the game's score, and a digital artbook. Those packs are mostly made of extra outfits and weapons, but there are a couple of cars and a horse thrown in. One of the rides is an Eckhart Speciale Limousine, which definitely sounds like a way to pull up to your omerta oath taking in style. It may get you killed for upstaging the boss, but that's a risk worth taking. Pre-orders of both editions also get some extra stuff of their own with the Soldato Pack. Watch on YouTube As for what to expect from the game itself, you can check out the fresh gameplay trailer above, which features plenty of mafia hijinks. You know, hanging out with overgrown bambini, shooting overgrown bambini, stabbing overgrown bambini, and racing against overgrown bambini. If I ever actually get around to travelling to Italy, they're going to throw me in jail for crimes against the culture, and they'll be right to do it. Anyway, 2K President David Ismailer said of the game that "there’s a large audience for compelling stories that don’t require massive time commitments", which is why his company is backing this "linear highly-polished narrative experience that can easily complement the other more persistent games our players also love and engage with on a more consistent basis". Are you planning on picking up Mafia: The Old Country this summer? Let us know below.

Not Tariffic Nintendo isn't ruling out a Switch 2 price rise depending on those pesky tariffs, as it predicts the new hardware will outdo the uber-popular OG Switch's launch sales "If the assumptions regarding tariffs change significantly, we would like to consider what price adjustments we should make." Image credit: Nintendo News by Mark Warren Senior Staff Writer Published on May 8, 2025 Nintendo has made its projection for the Switch 2 launch sales numbers public, and while analysts are suggesting the console maker's erred on the "conservative" side, it's still expecting its latest hardware to bag some impressive numbers. Though, its president has said that the price of the console could potentially still rise, depending on how the whole US tariff situation. The sales estimate comes as part of Ninty's forecast for the coming fiscal year, which is set to conclude in March 2026. How well does it think the Switch 2 will do? Well, 15 million units sold during the launch window is the number it's touting. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. That - along with 45 million games sold - is the bar Ninty set itself for this first year. The 15 million units sold figure would mean the Switch 2 outdoing the original Switch, which sold 14.87m units during its debut year. Though, while these numbers might look big to the untrained eye, plenty of analysts think Nintendo's being a bit cautious with its estimates due to the US tariff uncertainty that's in the mix. "Conservative forecast from Nintendo here," tweeted Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad, "Likely factoring in unpredictability around tariffs, pricing and production despite the positive pre-order momentum. "For reference, our forecast was 14.5 million units by the end of December 2025, and that was already considered conservative by most of the industry. For what it's worth, I do think Nintendo will raise its forecast if (big if) the tariff situation is reversed. However, main issue right now is knock on effects that are already in motion and creating a difficult environment for a console launch." To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Speaking of those pesky tariffs, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa hasn't ruled out the possibility of them potentially leading to a Switch 2 price rise, depending on how things play out, according to report from Yahoo News translated by Genki. "At this time, the top priority is to quickly popularize the Switch 2 hardware," the exec said, "If the assumptions regarding tariffs change significantly, we would like to consider what price adjustments we should make and implement them after considering various factors." Damn, given fans have already called on Ninty to "DROP THE PRICE", one can only imagine how ballistic things will go if the tariffs are deemed to necessitate a price change. How are you feeling about getting hold of a Switch 2 right now? Let us know below.

House-ro of Kvatch Forget the Lucky 38, an Oblivion Remastered modder has added a swanky penthouse suite to the Imperial City's tallest tower, delivering the best view in Cyrodiil Just don't look down, whatever you do, otherwise you might need a change of armour. Image credit: VG247/Bethesda/RBDinteractive News by Mark Warren Senior Staff Writer Published on May 8, 2025 Yep, an Oblivion Remastered modder has done the thing all of us have secretly wanted for years. They've stuck a penthouse at the summit of the Imperial City's White-Gold Tower, so you can live far above the potato-faced NPC masses and take in the views like a Cyrodiilic and pre-computer version of New Vegas' Mr House. As player home mods go, it's possibly the least subtle bit of design placement I've ever seen, but let's face it, you didn't splash out for an remaster with gorgeous UE5 visuals not to be able to take in a stunning panorama of central Cyrodiil from your character's digs. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. The modder behind this goes by RBDinteractive, and their 'Champion Penthouse' is designed to finally deliver a reward for ending the Oblivion Crisis and saving the entire world that isn't just some admittedly cool armour you might not even end up using. The concept's very similar to a classic Oblivion mod - Vince Bly's 'Top of the World'. Based on the fact RBDinteractive's credited the fix and port script for OG Oblivion mods that modder Haphestia (whom we've recently interviewed about Oblivion Remastered modding) has developed for the remaster, it looks like there's even a chance one could be loosely based on the other. Though, there are plenty of differences, with Top of the World's square wooden room atop the tower could seemingly only be fast-travelled to, while the Champion Penthouse is a rounded stone suite that slightly more closely matches the design of the tower itself, and can be gotten to via a ladder found to the right when you enter at ground level. Not a bad place to crash, eh? | Image credit: RBDinteractive/Bethesda The furnishings and architecture are different, but the view's the same breathtaking one that's prompted both modders to decide to perch a house that's open to Cyrodiil's wider worldspace here, so you can take in the views from any angle in all their glory. It's worth noting that as for right now the Champion's Penthouse is accessible at any time for free, since it's free and there's no quest attached, but RBDinteractive's suggested that might change soon. "I’m gonna try to learn how to edit quests and [have] homes be purchased," they wrote in the mod's comments section, "I’ll let you know if I get it working. My idea would be to get the penthouse when you beat the main quest, because everyone refers to you as Champion." So, there you go. A house ideal for those who love nice views, and the literal worst nightmare of those who're afraid of heights. Hey, you've fought your way through legions of Daedra pouring out of a not-quite-hell, surely you can handle the terror of knowing you might plummet to your death if you sleepwalk ten feet.

No Small Task GTA 6's huge trailer two info dump leaves its community-made map having to be updated "in smaller intervals" so we aren't left "waiting for hundreds of new things to be added" "We're all hard at work connecting the dots!" Image credit: Rocksar Games News by Mark Warren Senior Staff Writer Published on May 8, 2025 If you were feeling a bit overwhelmed in a good way by the barrage of fresh GTA 6 info we've gotten this week, thanks to trailer two and the game's website's smorgasbord of screenshots, spare a thought for the fans who've been busy trying to mock up what its map might look like. These keen cartographers have been building up an approximation of Leonida through the info we'd got already and some carefully-considered speculation - then boom, all of a sudden they've got a whole treasure trove of new info to sift through and work into their creation. It's ok though, they've got a plan. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. In the first announcement of an update to the GTA VI Mapping project's over-2000 user strong Discord server since trailer two dropped, one of the mappers has made it clear that the team isn't going to try and deal with all of this fresh info in one go. "Rockstar has delivered us a bounty of information for GTA VI, and we're all hard at work connecting the dots," mapper DuPz0r wrote, "I thought since there's so much content to get through, I would update the map in smaller intervals so we're not waiting for hundreds of new things to be added to the map!" Image credit: VG247 That's not to say these folks haven't already started making changes, with this announcement having revealed version 0.050 of the map, complete with a decently beefy list of changes. As you'd expect, a lot of the most noticeable tweaks have come from the info dump's location info, which have necessitated little stuff like the addition of a speculative location for an entire mountain - Mount Kalaga. Meanwhile, there's been a lot of re-naming and re-labelling as the likes of Leonida Keys, Mariana County, Leonida State, and Gloriana State have been confirmed as the monikers for certain areas, some of which the mappers previously had plotted under different titles. Ambrosia's another location that's seen a sizeable change, having been shifted to the east and made much more prominent above a slightly smaller Lake Leonida. Naturally, some individual buildings have also been re-christened now we know what their signs say. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Arguably the coolest change in my eyes is the addition of a location for protagonist Jason Duval's safehouse in the Leonida Keys, with trailer two's intro having allowed the team to zero in on that. We may have to wait until next May to find out for sure if this is really where Jason lives, but damn if just knowing where one of the character's we'll be playing as could live doesn't make the whole thing feel more tactile and real. As outlined earlier, the mappers are far from done, with DuPz0r writing that they've even "overhauled the naming of buildings, trailers, coordinates, etc, so that it is now listed beside the map key instead of all over the map" in order "to make things look cleaner and easier to make changes going forward". If you want to check out all of these community maps for yourself, you'll need to head over to the Discord server here. Stick a certain resurgent hit by the The Pointer Sisters on in the background if you want to enjoy max GTA 6 vibes as you take a look.

EAsy Money As the GTA 6 price debate keeps bubbling away, EA suggests it has "no changes" planned in terms of jacking up how much its games cost right now Execs talking, so very much pay attention to the phrase "at this point". Image credit: EA News by Mark Warren Senior Staff Writer Published on May 7, 2025 Game prices and their potential to get a bit steeper have been big talking points so far this year, but EA says it doesn't have any plans to change how much it charges for its games "at this point". This soundbite comes as the debates as to whether GTA 6 might become a harbinger of industry-wide price rises, should Rockstar and Take-Two opt to market it at on the higher end of the 'gimme your money' scale, as well as in the aftermath of Nintendo provoking entire chats worth of calls to 'DROP THE PRICE' with its Switch 2 stuff. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. So, EA's execs were naturally asked about price points during the company's latest earnings call, which saw it reveal that Split Fiction's shifted four million copies and provide an update on the next Battlefield. After noting how "pricing power" (there's one for your corporate jargon bingo has changed over the years, EA CEO Andrew Wilson said the following: "At the end of the day whether we're doing something that costs a dollar or we're doing something that costs $10 or we're doing something that costs $100, our objective is always to deliver incredible quality and exponential value for our playerbase. And what we've discovered over the course of time is whether we can marry quality and value together, our business is strong, resilient and continues to grow." Then came the bit you'll actually want to pay attention to, with CFO Stuart Canfield having added that EA has "reflected no changes in our current strategy at this point". So, no big price jack up as of right now. You'd hope so, given this is a company that continues to make plenty of cash as is, boasting in these latest earnings that its EA Sports section recorded "another record net bookings year" during the 2025 financial year. "The incredible success of College Football and the enduring strength of FC drove another record year for EA SPORTS, while The Sims capped FY25 with a historic Q4," Wilson said in the release about these latest results, "As we look to the future, we’re confident in our ability to execute across a deep pipeline — beginning this summer with the highly anticipated reveal of Battlefield, a pivotal step in delivering on our next generation of blockbuster entertainment." Cool, man. Couldn't you have let Codemasters keep making rally games in that case? And maybe not laid off those BioWare folks? I get it, I get it, that money's somehow different to this money.

Boomer Stabber Rip and Tamriel: Doom's Praetor armour has been modded into Oblivion Remastered, so you can practice for The Dark Ages by duffing up Daedra By Azura, by Azura, by Azura, it's the Doom Slayer, standing here, next to me! Image credit: iD Software/Bethesda/VG247 News by Mark Warren Senior Staff Writer Published on May 7, 2025 You hear that? It's the sound of heavy metal punctuated by the sound of demons being shot, stabbed, and splattered beginning to pick up, because Doom: The Dark Ages is nearly here. If you fancy getting some practice in before it does, but are still busy with Oblivion Remastered, you're in luck, as a modder has brought a set of Praetor armour to Tamriel. Yep, what better way to get yourself in the mood for Doom than to massacre a bunch of angry critters emerging from spooky doorways to a place that's hotter than Ibiza and has just as much terrifying orangeness rushing about. Plus, the weapons you'll have at your disposal are still pretty medieval, even if they've not got mini-chainsaws built in. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Enter modder RuneOracle97, who's managed to mod a Praetor armour set into Oblivion's remaster, in their words "bridging the gap between Cyrodil and Hell itself". Right now, their creation - the aptly-named 'Slayer of Kvatch' - adds the suit to the games a standalone heavy armor set you can find when you rush to aid of Kvatch and close its Oblivion Gate. "The armor is slightly lighter than Daedric, but offers slightly more protection, with x2 the armor health value," the modder explained, "While the model is split into multiple parts so you have each piece of equipment, unfortunately with the way the model is shaped, it won't look right if you equip partial pieces. Everything but the Cuirass and Greaves can be worn independently without making your body invisible." While the mod's pretty much just the armour at the moment, with adding new content still being in its infancy as folks continue to push the boundaries of what Oblivion Remastered modding can do, RuneOracle97 has big plans for it going forwards. "There are no other hidden items (yet)," they wrote, "I'm still working on it and will eventually change the acquisition method of the armour entirely with a fully featured quest revolving around the Doom Slayer and how he might end up in Cyrodiil." If in doubt, I'd say you can excuse just about anything Elder Scrolls-lore wise by just blaming Sheogorath, so maybe this armour is a set he forged during a fever dream and decided to let you use to batter Mehrunes Dagon's forces because of an ongoing neighbourly dispute over the acceptable height of corpse hedges made from piles of dead bandit hedge wizards? So, there you go. If you fancy a tougher fight than post-level 10 Kvatch usually is, NaiadGirl's 'Quarantined Oblivion Gates' looks like another mod worth grabbing, since it beefs up the amounts of Daedra and Imperial soldiers you'll find fighting around open gates.