It's finally time for the one thing every Path of Exile 2 player has been waiting for: swords. A new class and weapon type is coming to the action RPG later this year—oh, and the full 1.0 release of the game.

On December 11, PoE 2 will leave early access behind and go full free-to-play, just like its predecessor. While developer Grinding Gear Games has several previously announced classes to get to eventually, the 1.0 release will at least include the one many players have been waiting for.

The Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026 trailer doesn't actually give the man with the sword a title, but it's likely some form of the "duelist" class that was teased a while ago. It's possible he's gone through a few iterations over the last few years, but he's definitely using a sword for all the new skills.

Swords are a big deal in PoE 2 because weapons are class agnostic, meaning a new weapon type is like getting a big drop of new skills for everyone to play with. I'm more of a caster player, but I can't deny how good some of them look. At one point, the mysterious swordsman pulls up a cone of icicles and slams the sword down in the middle, turning the poor monsters in the middle into bloody ice cubes. That specific attack is borrowed from a campaign boss and part of me wants to use it against him to get revenge for how many times he's killed me with it.

Even though we're still a few months away from the full release, GGG has said it will kickoff a mini-league focused on tightening up the balance across its classes. That update, 0.5.5, is expected to be released within the next month.

Many players were that's when swords would finally be leaving the scabbard, but the new trailer suggests we might have to wait. GGG will have a stream to announce more details on the full release and the upcoming mini-league on Thursday. Every now and then someone posts on the PoE 2 subreddit that they found an unusable sword as a drop that clearly wasn't intended. Maybe, just maybe, swords will be useable before the full release. Fingers crossed.

The Witcher 3 got a "Next-Gen Update" back in 2022, and CD Projekt Red is doing it again: The Witcher 3 Remastered is coming September 29 as a free update for all Witcher 3 owners.

It's not just a visual revamp, either. The Witcher 3 Remastered also makes changes to combat, movement, Roach riding, monster behaviors, the skill tree, transmogrification, the photo mode, and more. The two existing expansions will be bundled with it, but again, current Witcher 3 owners get the update for free—and those two expansions, also free.

The remaster is out in advance of the new DLC, Songs of the Past, which releases sometime next year.

"My favorite [new feature] is the visuals. That's new textures, updated rendering, advanced path tracing, foliage, you name it," said CD Projekt Red level design lead Miles Tost said at Opening Night Live. "Geralt has never looked this good, even after all those years of retirement.

"And then the other thing, definitely, is combat. It's more modern, smooth and precise. We updated the camera, the targeting system, added new animations, and what I like a lot, new finishers. And then, last one, The Witcher 3 is a full-fledged RPG, right? So we completely revamped the ability system to give players more options."

One thing I'm left curious about is how much can be toggled on and off—ie, can players accept the graphical changes but turn off the combat tweaks if they prefer the original combat.

Konami gave a particularly chilling Silent Hill: Townfall update at Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026 with a murky new trailer that reveals a few celebrities in developer Screen Burn's new psychological horror game. Townfall's voice cast will include Lost star Terry O'Quinn, as well as The Odyssey actor and It: Welcome to Derry hero Jovan Adepo.

Until now, main Silent Hill games have only ever gotten close to Hollywood by stealing Christina Aguilera's 1999 Teen Choice Awards outfit for hot pink fantasy girl Maria, so this aspect of Silent Hill: Townfall feels like yet another signal that Screen Burn is ready to overturn convention.

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