After years of waiting, Hollow Knight: Silksong is finally in the hands of the people. By this point, many will even have completed it. Gone are the days of applying clown makeup during each major gaming event, replaced instead by widespread love for Team Cherry’s sequel. Yet, for me, I’m struggling to be excited about Silksong, despite the fact it’s the latest entry in one of my favorite genres.
For this issue of Access Designed, I’m not going to be analysing Hollow Knight: Silksong in the traditional sense. The game’s demands of speed and precision, combined with a lack of accessibility features and my own disability, has meant that I physically can’t play it. And so I’m unable to give an accurate analysis of gameplay, story, and...
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How do you follow up a character-driven rougelite that's nearly peerless at everything it does like Hades? You need to know where to go bigger without adding too much bloat. You need to know where you can tighten down some screws without smoothing away too much texture. You need to know what the essential, sacred elements were that made it special while also finding places where it makes sense to experiment and remix. Hades 2 somehow does all of these things with the care and flourish that has become Supergiant Games' signature at this point. There's scarcely a note out of place.
If you haven't played the original Hades recently, or at all, Hades 2 starts fairly abruptly. You're introduced to Melinoë, daughter of Hades and Persephone...
Nioh 3, the newest entry in the Warring States Period Soulslike series, is the first to use open field maps. Unlike the previous mission-based titles, Nioh 3 sets players free in an open space, allowing you to take on areas, enemies, quests and more as you please.
So, how exactly are the game's open fields constructed? We asked the developers about the density players can expect from the map, interesting techniques they used during development, and the struggles they faced along the way. General Producer Fumihiko Yasuda and Producer Kohei Shibata tell us about the development philosophy that lies at the core of the Nioh series, like the difference between a brutally difficult game being "unreasonable" and being "stressful."
Drawing on...
Silent Hill f only launched in 'advanced access' on September 23, but modders are already at work, with one stripping out the series' signature fog completely.
The horror adventure released yesterday for those who bought the more expensive digital deluxe version, but for everyone else, it goes live tomorrow, September 25 (check out the Silent Hill f global release times for more).
Hard-working modders immediately got down to business, with Nexus Mods already listing over 35 mods for all manner of things. And while some help boost the experience by tweaking engine performance, add in ray tracing, or provide localization efforts and HUD removal, others add in cheats, give Hinako a Shibito-inspired makeover, and remove the game's fog...
On my first day of work at IGN in 2018, I was asked, “What’s your favorite video game of all time?” My answer then was the same as my answer today: Final Fantasy Tactics. When I first played it on the original PlayStation back in the ‘90s, I was enraptured by the job system, the memorable cast of characters, and a story that offered little in the way of easy answers. Between the PSP re-release (The War of the Lions) with extra content but major performance issues, and mobile versions featuring only touch controls, the landscape of 2025 has long been primed for an updated version of this RPG classic that’s worthy of the original. Did Square Enix deliver with The Ivalice Chronicles? With only a few caveats, it absolutely did.
Despite all...
It looks like we have one announcement set for Sony’s State of Play in already: the release date of Nioh 3.
As reported by Gematsu, listings on Amazon Japan revealed a February 6, 2026 release date for Nioh 3 on PlayStation 5 and PC via Steam. The listings, now removed, relate to the standard and Treasure Box editions of the game, and included box art.
The Treasure Box edition includes a B5-size official art book, a selection soundtrack CD, an original desk mat, and an Sunekosuri fur ball key chain.
Nioh 3 is the action game sequel developed by Team Ninja and published by Koei Tecmo. It made an appearance at the State of Play in June, so fans expect it to form a part of tonight’s broadcast, which kicks off at 2pm Pacific / 5pm...
Hades 2 is nearly here, bringing a bigger, deeper mythic world with the full might of Olympus at your call and a story that reacts to your every setback and accomplishment.
The sequel to Supergiant's hit game Hades, Hades 2 mixes engaging storytelling and roguelite action elements for an engaging dungeon-crawling experience. It's a timed console exclusive on Nintendo Switch 1 and 2, offering "blazing-fast 120fps in TV Mode on Nintendo Switch 2," or 60fps on Nintendo Switch (which you can upgrade to Switch 2 from for free when you're ready). You can transfer PC progress from Steam or Epic with cross-saves.
Hades 2 v1.0 launches September 25, which means it leaves early access on PC then, too. There's no word on a PlayStation or Xbox...
A Pocketpair developer has issued a response after some Pokémon fans questioned the timing of the company's Palworld: Palfarm announcement, which came just a week after Nintendo revealed Pokémon Pokopia.
Japanese company Pocketpair announced cozy farming sim spinoff Palworld: Palfarm for PC just a week after Nintendo announced fellow cozy farming sim spinoff Pokémon Pokopia for Switch 2 during its Nintendo Direct showcase.
According to Pocketpair, in Palworld: Palfarm you work alongside Pals to turn fields into full-functioning farms solo or in online multiplayer. “Delegate duties to plant seeds, tend to growing plants, and round up the harvest,” Pocketpair said. “Befriend the locals and unearth unexpected story arcs. Beware, the...
Overnight, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio director and executive producer Masayoshi Yokoyama introduced RGG Direct 2025, a livestream chiefly dedicated to a remake of the previously leaked Yakuza 3, which will be released alongside the spin-off game, Dark Ties.
Yakuza 3 was released in 2009 — that's over 15(!) years ago now — and Yokoyama said this remake "is the best iteration of the original game, Yakuza Kiwami 3." Dark Ties, however, is a "new, never-before-seen story," which means this essentially bundles two games in one package.
"Like a Dragon & Yakuza series will celebrate its 20th anniversary on December 8 of this year," the team said. "We sincerely appreciate your continued support of RGG Studio."
Yakuza Kiwami 3 and Dark Ties
"We're...
Gearbox has delayed the Nintendo Switch 2 version of Borderlands 4 indefinitely and cancelled all digital pre-orders just over a week from its release date.
The looter shooter had been due out on Nintendo’s new console on October 3. Gearbox failed to share an updated release date in its announcement. Here's Gearbox chief Randy Pitchford's Borderlands 4 Nintendo Switch 2 release date announcement video, released in July.
The delay decision comes at a time when Gearbox is already working to fix performance issues with Borderlands 4 on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S. For example, last week the tech experts at Digital Foundry confirmed a gradual worsening of framerate with continuous playtime, even on the more powerful...
Popular Grand Theft Auto 5 roleplay server nopixel is collaborating with Rockstar Games for an official “evolution” of the RP service called nopixel V.
The nopixel X/Twitter account confirmed the news today with a trailer teasing Rockstar-backed roleplay support for GTA 5. With Grand Theft Auto 6 on the horizon, Rockstar’s continued interest in the RP community has fans hoping for nopixel servers on console versions of past and future GTA games.
Nopixel 1.0 launched in 2016, three years after GTA 5’s original release date, as a PC server where players can immerse themselves within the world of Los Santos by roleplaying as everything from taxi drivers and EMS to police officers. Various updates have arrived for the massively popular...
EA’s official Skate FAQ is very clear about what 2025’s new early access iteration represents for the series as a whole. “This isn’t a sequel, remake, or a remaster,” states the brief explanation. “It’s the evolution of the Skate franchise.” The first part I wholeheartedly agree with. This is not Skate 4, and it certainly isn’t a remake of the originals by any stretch of the imagination. The second part is not entirely untrue either: It is an evolution, of sorts. That is, it’s certainly changed. A lot. Unfortunately, this means this new version of Skate bears little semblance to the late-2000s originals I love – and I’m currently finding it impossible to warm to its sanitised, homogenised, and monetised reinvention. Yes, Skate has...
Another week, another digital trolley overloaded with titles that deserve better than the shame pile I'm sure to heave them onto. This crop feels more special than usual, though, because it's stacked with personal favourites that either defined a generation or refined a genre. I'll happily torch my savings again just to revisit some of these with fresh eyes.
Contents
Retro
Nintendo
Xbox
PlayStation
PC
PC Gear
LEGO
This Day in Gaming 🎂
In retro news, I’m using a Fighter's Sword to slice a 33-shaped cake baked for The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, the SNES adventure that swallowed whole weekends. I played it side by side with my neighbour at launch, and it was the full heroic package: sweaty dungeon runs, maps doodled in...
Blizzard has just released Diablo 4 Season 10 -- the Season of Infernal Chaos -- featuring the new Chaos Armor feature along with adjustments to the endgame loop. Additionally, the Infernal Hordes mechanic has been reworked, and players will face a new ladder boss: Bartuc, Lord of Chaos. To help you come to grips with all the changes and take on Bartuc, check out this massive Season 10 Compendium our friends at Maxroll have put together!
Chaos Armor
Chaos Armor is a special tier of item above Ancestral. These items can contain effects which are not normally found on the item slot.
This opens up more options for buildcraft as you gain access to effects that were otherwise mutually exclusive. Learn more with Maxroll’s Seasonal Guide...
As someone who lives for the unexpected, unique, and downright weird, it only took about five seconds for the absolute craziness of Baby Steps to steal my heart. This spiritual successor to pain-inducing cult classics QWOP and Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy (who is also one of the developers here) is a similarly exasperating physics-based walking simulator that asks you to control the most unwieldy human ever created as you push yourself through increasingly arduous obstacles. The result is one of the most hilariously infuriating journeys it has ever been my pleasure to rage through. With writing that consistently cracked me up, a story with more heart than I expected, and brilliant branching paths that let you choose your own level...
Larian may be done with major updates to its blockbuster role-playing game Baldur’s Gate 3, but it’s still releasing hotfixes. The latest, Hotfix #34, is a juicy one. It adds a native Steam Deck build and should reduce framerate spikes in busy areas such as the Lower City in Act 3 across all platforms.
Baldur's Gate 3 Act 3 is infamous for its performance issues. Indeed it was one of the tougher areas to navigate, especially in the months after the game launched and before Larian issued various updates, mainly due to the sheer number of NPCs who mill about on-screen and everything the game has to consider as a result.
In a post on Steam, Larian said the native Steam Deck build means Baldur’s Gate 3 has a more stable framerate, lower...
Ubisoft and developer Massive Entertainment have announced From the Ashes, a new story expansion for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, the 2023 first-person shooter set in James Cameron's Avatar universe. From the Ashes will be available on December 19 – the same day as Cameron's upcoming Avatar: Fire and Ash film – for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Ubisoft+, and PC via Steam, Epic Games Store, and Ubisoft Connect. It will be priced at $19.99 for players who already own the base game. Alternatively, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora – From the Ashes Edition will include the full game and this story expansion and be available on the same platforms for $39.99. Watch the announcement trailer above and check out the first screenshots from the expansion in...
After a period of closed beta, Riot’s League of Legends fighting game 2XKO has an early access release date of October 7, 2025.
The 2v2 fighting game, which features playable characters from the League of Legends MOBA and animated series and Arcane, opens up on that date to all players on PC, with no invite code required. There was no mention of consoles in today's announcement.
Riot said early access kicks off with Season 0 and the debut of the game’s 10th champion. Everything unlocked in early access, including champions, skins, and mastery rewards, stay with players moving forward.
In 2026, 2XKO will feature five seasons, each of which will introduce a new champion, along with fresh in-game content and progression rewards.
2XKO...
After three days of competition, Q9 has emerged victorious at the 2025 Delta Force Invitational. The inaugural event, held at the Hangzhou Esports Center in China, brought together twelve of the world’s best Delta Force teams. But it was Q9 who ultimately stood above the rest and took home the lion’s share of the $500,000 prize pool.
The Delta Force Invitational featured twelve teams that each qualified through region-specific qualifiers, each bringing their own playstyle and strategies. The teams competing included AKA, FL, FN, GS, Q9, STS, ESG, INK, ISG, LEG, MBA, and MG. Throughout the weekend, fans witnessed everything from carefully executed stealth operations to explosive final pushes.
The tournament began with the Group...
Borderlands 4 is rife with overpowered builds that use what developer Gearbox has described as “unintended interactions” to cause massive damage, even to the game’s toughest bosses on the hardest difficulties. The most infamous of these is 'the knife,' which Gearbox has said it’s aware of but won’t nerf just yet. Now, there’s another new best boss melting build to add to the list.
YouTuber NickTew, who had led the charge online with his knife build discovery, set out to "nerf proof" their Vex in light of Gearbox’s comments about potentially stamping out knife builds. In doing so, he found a way to cause so much damage from a single clip of a gun's magazine that Borderlands 4 spat out a "total existence failure" message in the boss...
Mascot racing games have always been a fan favourite – fast, competitive, and full of personality. With Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds on the horizon, it’s the perfect time to revisit the best games in the genre and see what’s worth playing today.
While classics like Diddy Kong Racing and Kirby Air Ride will always hold legendary status, this list focuses on modern mascot racing games you can play right now, with a peek at what’s coming next.
Top Mascot Racing Games Available Now
Disney Speedstorm
Free-to-play | Multiplatform
If you want accessible fun with iconic characters, Disney Speedstorm is a solid pick. Featuring a wide roster of Disney and Pixar mascots, it offers colourful tracks and family-friendly gameplay. While its...
Team Cherry’s post-launch support of massive indie hit Hollow Knight: Silksong continues, with Patch 2 now live.
As the developer had signalled, Silksong's second major patch (1.0.28650) focuses on a few critical issues still remaining, while also cleaning up some bugs around specific tools. The patch notes, per Team Cherry’s website, are below.
All fixes will apply retroactively, Team Cherry added, so players who've hit a significant bug that prevents progress should now be able to proceed.
Further fixes are currently being worked on for a third patch, the developer continued, with some additional focus around improving controller support on PC platforms. “Expect this one to come a little later, as we’re aiming to cover as many...
Since Borderlands 4 came out, developer Gearbox has released a PC-focused patch that tackles crashes, among a few other things. But players are wondering what the studio intends to do about the looter shooter’s balance, especially at a time when builds that let you one-shot bosses are doing the rounds.
Gearbox has now indicated that in the short-term, it plans to buff underperforming gear and skills rather than nerf overpowered builds. Indeed, those instakill builds you've seen online are safe, for now. But, Gearbox insisted, they will get nerfed eventually.
Confirmation comes from Borderlands 4 creative director Graeme Timmins, who took to social media to acknowledge the debate about what he called “builds that use unintended...
During today's Beyond the Strand presentation, Hideo Kojima and Kojima Productions gave us an official first look at a new animated film set in the world of Death Stranding. It's called Death Stranding: Mosquito and, per Kojima and animation director Hiroshi Miyamoto's own words, it follows the story of a guy who sucks.
We got a look at a snippet of animation from Mosquito, showing a man with something stuck to his face that has a weird tentacle thing coming out of it. He's in the water at the beginning of the clip, swimming and approaching something human-shaped that's difficult to make out. But in the second part of the clip, he's on land, in the Timefall, fighting a guy in a porter suit, still with the gooey thing on his face...
Palworld is getting its first-ever official spin-off game from developer Pocketpair, and it's looking just a little bit cozier than the original game. It's called Palworld: Palfarm, and as the name implies, you and your gaggle of Pals will be farming, crafting, and living a life on the land together on an adventure that looks far more Harvest Moon or Stardew Valley than Palworld.
Pocketpair announced the game today with a brand new trailer, and a Steam page. These reveal that Palfarm will be a slice-of-life farming and crafting sim set on the Palpagos Islands where familiar Pals will join you to build a dream farm. Alongside growing plants, you can cook with Pals, shop at their stores, give them gifts, and- no, no you can't eat them...
My Steam library already weeps under the weight of unfinished epics, but that never stopped me from hunting down another gem or three. Today, the bargain spread across Switch, Xbox, and PlayStation is particularly spicy as well. We're talking genre-defining icons, long-lost favourites and a few modern marvels at prices that practically demand a double-take. Oh, and if you do fancy a Steam Deck, there's never been a cheaper time to buy!
Contents
Retro
Nintendo
Xbox
PlayStation
PC
LEGO
This Day in Gaming 🎂
In retro news, I’m letting my Rapidash unleash Flare Blitz on 21 birthday candles for Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen. Hard to believe two decades have passed since I first slotted this Gen III remake of Red and Blue into my GBA and...
Activision and Treyarch have published a Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 multiplayer reveal trailer and deep dive blog post that shows players everything they need to know ahead of its upcoming beta test.
The developers behind Call of Duty 2025 offered a multiplayer breakdown in a new post published on the series’ website today. It comes with information about every last map, weapon, and mode fans can expect in Black Ops 7, both during the beta and at launch, while showing off a sneak peek at what it all looks like in motion with today’s trailer. You can see the Black Ops 7 multiplayer reveal trailer, with Travis Scott and Playboi Carti’s FE!N providing the musical backdrop, below.
Today’s Black Ops 7 multiplayer reveal trailer hits the...
Steven Ogg, better known to millions of fans around the world as Grand Theft Auto 5's Trevor, has said he feels "absolutely nothing" inside for GTA 6 — even though Rockstar has suggested it will be the biggest video game of all time.
Why the indifference? Ogg has, he says, never been a fan of video games. Still, while speaking to YouTuber HarrisonShippp, it is surprising to see the actor speak quite so bluntly about the franchise that has earned him worldwide adoration.
"I feel nothing inside. I'm not a gamer," Ogg said, standing in front of GTA 5 artwork at a recent convention where he appeared alongside fellow GTA 5 co-stars Ned Luke (Michael) and Shawn "Solo" Fonteno (Franklin) to meet fans. "I've never played a video game, so I...
Defunct dance duo Daft Punk will get a fresh lease of life in Fortnite this month, thanks to a new interactive tribute experience.
The Daft Punk Experience will open its digital doors this Saturday, September 27 at 11am Pacific, 2pm Eastern or 7pm UK time — though don't expect the usual Fortnite concert experience.
Instead, perhaps tailored around the fact that Daft Punk are no longer performing in real life, you should expect a "playground" where you can remix existing songs, make a Lego Music music video or simply tune in to dance.
No new music will be debuted during the Experience, Fortnite developer Epic Games has made clear. And, just so we're all singing from the same hymn sheet, there's this particular line from the event's...
Borderlands 4 players have discovered a way to skip huge chunks of the map in a technique dubbed “cricket jumping” — but a developer at Gearbox has warned action may have to be taken to patch it out of the game if it starts causing issues.
As demonstrated by streamer Bahroo, Borderlands 4 players can propel themselves across the map by using a glitch at The Prospects’ Ripper Drill site. To do this, you stand on the top of the drill, line yourself up in the direction you want to travel, with your back towards the direction you want to travel, tab out of the game, then fire. Your character hurtles through the air, which, in combination with Borderlands 4’s glide ability, lets you pass over significant areas of the map.
As noted in a...