As the next World of Warcraft expansion rolls onward through testing, game director Ion Hazzikostas took the time to opine once more about why Blizzard is overhauling the ways that addons work and reducing the number of raid addons players are expected to use. Hazzikostas brings up several elements like how addons could often muddy the […]

"And then one day you find ten years have got behind you - no one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun," sing David Gilmour and Richard Wright in Pink Floyd's "Time". I once thought that song was about mortality and the necessity of carpeing that diem, but it turns out Pink Floyd were stealthily pitching the core concept for Erosion, an open world roguelike shooter from Plot Twist in which the world advances one decade when you die.

The core mechanics are all there in the song: running, gunning, time-shifting, the lack of explicit hand-holding expected of an open worldo. The pitch has evolved over the (argh) half-century since "Time", admittedly. Pink Floyd make no mention of the post-apocalyptic wild west in their lyrics, for example, nor do they pack in any high stakes poker games or the prospect of being eaten by sandworms.

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While there have been quite a few vampire-themed games in recent times, The Blood of Dawnwalker director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz has said that the upcoming RPG will not be going all-in on the fantasy of being a vampire. In an interview with GamesRadar, Tomaszkiewicz said that, while protagonist Coen is half man and half vampire, the player is allowed plenty of gameplay freedom that don’t necessarily involve using his vampire abilities.

The Blood of Dawnwalker, according to Tomaszkiewicz, will be a story that has and uses vampires, instead of being a story purely about the vampires. “We have different creatures of the night,” he said. “We want to tell [a] story with the vampires, not the story about [only] the vampires.”

As for just what level of gameplay freedom players should expect from The Blood of Dawnwalker, Tomaszkiewicz noted that one of the many inspirations behind the game was Arkane’s Dishonored. The title gives players an incredible amount of options in how they want to tackle their objectives, thanks to the versatility of the many abilities players have access to, as well as incredibly-dense level design that encourages exploration to find new and interesting routes, and even side-quests that open up even more unique ways of accomplishing objectives.

“Dishonored was one of the inspirations,” Tomaszkiewicz said. “We wanted to create [a] way of exploring for the vampire, [that’s] as open as [Dishonored].” He did go on to note, however, that The Blood of Dawnwalker won’t have the kind of freedom that Dishonored allows. “It’s not that you can enter everywhere,” he said. “But it’s so open that you should feel almost total freedom.”

A good example of the kind of freedom players can expect was revealed earlier this month when a gameplay overview video for The Blood of Dawnwalker revealed a spell similar to “Speak With Dead” from Baldur’s Gate 3. By making use of this spell, Coen will be able to discover new story elements, and even figure out different and unexpected ways of clearing quest objectives. The spell, dubbed Compel Soul, also adds another wrinkle to the game by not being available at night.

The gameplay overview video generally provided a great look at The Blood of Dawnwalker, showing off how Coen can take on different quests and explore a variety of areas. The video focused on a quest to get a legendary sword located in a crypt underneath the church. Players have plenty of options for how they might want to tackle this, like going into the crypt during the night by using the Shadow Step ability.

A video released all the way back in August also gave us a look at some of the abilities that Coen will have access to in The Blood of Dawnwalker. Among the abilities showcased was Planeshift, which allows the player to wrap around the game’s world and even climb up the sides of buildings or cliffs. The video also provided a look at the fast-paced, hard-hitting combat.

The Blood of Dawnwalker is coming to PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S in 2026.

Dan Trachtenberg’s Predator: Badlands is a Predator movie like no other, and not just because it broke box-office records for the franchise: This time, a Predator (or Yautja, as they call themselves) is the protagonist. Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi), described as the “runt” of his Yautja clan, has to prove himself to his fearsome father (Reuben De Jong) in order to claim his name and his place on his homeworld, Yautja Prime. That quest involves a journey to a different planet, a battle against a fearsome monster, and an alliance with a synthetic human, Thia (Elle Fanning). It also involves facing off against his father in the film’s finale.

If Ubisoft's rumoured Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag remake were an actual ghost ship, we'd be long past the point of snatching glimpses of the vessel through unnaturally dense fog at two bells during the morning watch. We'd be long past the point of spotting a spectral Jolly Roger between stormy crests, its deathshead wreathed in St. Elmo's Fire. The damn ghost ship is square abreast of us now, the hollow-cheeked revenant of Edward Kenway dangling from the rigging.

People keep pointing at the ghost ship and screaming, but Captain Ubisoft has his eyes firmly on the horizon. "Steady as she goes, lads!" he trills, as hordes of translucent pirates pour over the rail. "Steady as she goes till some hypothetical future time when we might announce a thing, maybe!"

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Extraction shooters are all the rage right now, with Arc Raidersputting up ridiculous numbers on Steam — and for good reason, just check out our review — while Escape From Tarkov, the grandaddy of the genre, has just been released on Steam.