Actor and radio personality Jim Ward, famous for his roles in dozens of TV shows, films, and videogames, has died at the age of 66. Stephanie Miller, host of The Stephanie Miller show where Ward was once co-host, shared the news in a post on X Wednesday, Dec. 10.

Ward's career in videogames goes back to the 90s, when he voiced both Spider-Man and Venom in a Marvel game for the Sega Genesis. He went on to take numerous high-profile roles, like Hector LeMans in Grim Fandango, Captain Qwark in Ratchet & Clank, Jack Krauser in Resident Evil 4, and Aleksandr Granin in Metal Gear Solid 3. His final credit for a videogame role was as the Ranger in Quake Champions.

RPG fans might recognize Ward from his central performance as Dr. Klein in Fallout: New Vegas' fan-favorite Old World Blues expansion, or the many roles he played in the original Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, like wannabe Morpheus blood wizard, Maximillian Strauss.

Ward also had the distinction of voicing Trask Ulgo (in addition to other characters), the first voice you hear in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, which itself was one of the first RPGs with full voice acting for every conversation.

As The Hollywood Reporter notes, Ward was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in his final years. According to TMZ, Ward died due to complications from the disease.

Fans have taken to social media to share their memories of the actor. As user Veldin451 posted on X, "Ward's role as Qwark played a big part in shaping my humor into what it is today. A character that really no one else could have done justice. Truly an immeasurable loss and a sad day. Rest in peace, Jim."

RIP Jim Ward, you were my Krauser as a kid and I never stopped adoring your performance. #REBHfun #ResidentEvil #Krauser #sketch

— @skelesass.bsky.social (@skelesass.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2025-12-13T17:38:25.131Z

It feels like generative AI is everywhere in game development—a Google survey estimated 87% of game developers are using it in some capacity—but generative AI is really everywhere in Codex Mortis, a Vampire Survivors-esque game the developer has called "the world's first fully playable game created 100% through AI" in a press release. Reminds me a bit of those labels on certain sodas that assure you they contain absolutely no real fruit juice.

The game's developer, under the username Crunchfest3, posted about the development process on the AI game dev subreddit. The dev claimed that they forewent the use of a game engine, and that everything was slapped together with AI tools in just three months (though it was slightly more complicated than just typing an idea for a game into a text field).

"It's pure TypeScript. I use PIXI.js for rendering, bitECS for the entity-component-system backend, and Electron to wrap it as a desktop app," Crunchfest3 wrote. "The whole thing was vibe-coded with Claude Code (mostly Opus 4.1 and 4.5)." The art, meanwhile, was generated by ChatGPT, and the game's animations "are a shader written by Claude Code."

The game is only available in demo form at the moment on its Steam page. It takes a deliberately provocative posture, with its AI-generated cinematic trailer showing a robed sorcerer vaporizing a demon labeled "AI antis."

The game itself certainly looks like AI made it, too: it's a bullet heaven in the vein of Vampire Survivors with a muddy, indistinct art style as the only element that visually distinguishes it from its inspirations. Still, it appears to be an honest-to-God videogame with many of its genre's trappings, which is interpretable as a milestone for the technology as a coding tool.

The game's claim to be a world's first is hard to verify. Hobby coder David Friedman's Doomscroll is a browser game that was generated using ChatGPT, and I'm sure there are plenty of other games out there with similar ambitions to use generative AI for all it's worth in the game development process. Perhaps Codex Mortis is unique in that it's releasing on Steam, potentially as a paid product, but still, I'm not sure "vibe-coded" is necessarily a distinction to be proud of.

Controversial Harry Potter RPG Hogwarts Legacy is currently free to claim and keep, but it's about to fly away on its magical broomstick if you don't move fast.

Just yesterday, the Epic Games Store announced that the blockbuster open-world fantasy game would be available for free on its similarly divisive storefront. All you need to do is log into the store, go to Hogwarts Legacy's page, and download it - it's then yours to keep forever (or for as long as the Epic Games Store is a thing.)

The Epic Games Store offers free mystery games every week on rotation, so if you'd like to dabble with some in-game witchcraft, you'll need to do so before December 18, 2025, at which point Hogwarts Legacy will be replaced with another free mystery game.

Earlier this year, we learned that Hogwarts Legacy's DLC and Director's Cut, which was reportedly co-created by Batman Arkham's Rocksteady, had been cancelled because the studio wasn't sure if it would be worth players' money. There's been no word on a sequel, but Hogwarts Legacy was an absolute sales juggernaut, so it wouldn't surprise me if developer Avalanche was working on a follow-up as we speak.

Elsewhere, Netflix announced its intent to acquire Warner Bros, including its subsidiaries like DC, HBO, and WB Games, which are responsible for Rocksteady, most LEGO games, Avalanche, NetherRealm and Mortal Kombat, and more. It's unclear how or if the historic acquisition will affect WB's gaming division.

The release of Hogwarts Legacy has been the subject of criticism and debate due to J.K. Rowling's public stance on gender identity, which continues to challenge the inclusivity at the heart of the Harry Potter community. Here is our explainer on the Hogwarts Legacy controversy.

As a kid I grew up on the Isle of Man, and near where I lived was a town called Castletown. In Castletown there was, predictably, a castle, and in the castle gatehouse was a model of an archer, standing with his bow drawn as if to aim through an arrowslit. Whenever someone passed through the gatehouse, the fake archer would yell "Who goes there?" in a big, booming voice.

It's a phrase that has always stuck with me for some reason, one of those weird bits of mental detritus that rolls around at the back of the old braincase. Anyway, it got jostled right to the front when I first encountered Gate Guard Simulator, which is basically an entire game about asking the question "Who Goes There?"

A Papers, Please variant wearing Kingdom Come: Deliverance's codpiece, Gate Guard simulator puts you in the plate mail of the latest recruit to the castle guard, charged with vetting entry into your lord's domain. Each in-game day, you must stand at the threshold between civilisation and the wilderness, checking the paperwork of everyone from monks to minstrels.

At a basic level, this involves assessing documentation to ensure that a citizen's family crests are authentic and not forged. But as you can probably guess, matters will quickly become complicated. According to the game's Steam page "no two citizens are alike, and you'll need to choose the right set of tools to verify their story."

For example, you'll need to watch out for criminals as depicted on wanted posters, and check citizens for signs of disease, lest you inadvertently set a plague upon your lord's house. Citizens who are denied entry may be turned away or, as is suggested by the game's trailer and screenshots, subjected to more creative punishments like being pilloried or tossed into the moat.

You'll also need to keep a watchful eye out for smugglers, checking haycarts and carriages for potential contraband like, er, rabbits. Geese seem to feature prominently in Gate Guard Simulator too, though their legal status is currently unclear. Like Papers, Please, there's an ethical undercurrent at play, with your watchman able to choose to uphold the law or enrich themselves by accepting bribes. Coin earned from wages or otherwise can be used to buy better weapons and gear for yourself.

Gate Guard Simulator is expected to arrive on duty sometime next year. I'm always up for a bit of document-based deduction, and this game looks like a fun take on it. Developer Redox Interactive has no visible prior history on Steam, but the Austrian outfit has previously developed games such as the turn-based tactical RPG Dromenon. Publisher Forklift Interactive is more familiar, having handled publishing duties for this year's minor hit Cash Cleaner Simulator.