The Monday letters page thinks Elden Ring: Nightreign is just repurposed DLC, as a reader worries about the release date for The Witcher 4.

To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk

PLEASE NOTE: We are currently preparing our content for over the Christmas period and will need a number of Reader’s Features, so if you’ve been meaning to write one but never quite got round to it we could do with as many as possible before Monday, December 23.

First impressions
Am I the only one that wasn’t that impressed by Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet? And I’m not just talking about that cringey subtitle. It looked fine, the graphics are good, obviously, but it has an overwhelming air of smugness to it that I can well imagine comes as standard for Naughty Dog developers but I’m not sure is warranted here.

The main character didn’t do or say anything to make me like her and despite the trailer being quite long I didn’t really get a feel for what the story was or what the gameplay is going to be. I guess a third person fighter? But considering how simplistic the combat is in other Naughty Dog games I’m not sure I have much faith in them taking on Devil May Cry or whatever.

I didn’t really like the design of the protagonist, the robot you saw for a minute, or the buster sword she seems to be using. It all felt like one of those games that are patched together with ideas from other people’s titles and I expected more from Naughty Dog. I’m not writing it off but I’m not super excited either. I hope it’s a good game, but I wouldn’t bet on it at this point.
Focus

Main event
Very excited to hear about more Elden Ring, although I get the feeling that Nightreign was probably originally DLC and they decided to expand it. FromSoftware often add in new multiplayer options after launch and turning your game into a roguelike has been very common with other developers lately, when it comes to making DLC.

That’s not a criticism but I think it’s pretty obvious this is a side project and not their main game at the moment. I’d bet good money Hidetaka Miyazaki is not the director too.

Finding out what he is working on next will be the most important information for me in the coming year and I’m not sure if the possible Sony buyout of From’s parent company makes that more or less likely. Here’s hoping the beans get spilled soon.
Grackle

Quick job
Crazy to think that The Witcher 4 is going to be out 2028 at the earliest and quite possibly two or more years later than that. It’s getting to the point where it’s going to become common for developers to not stay on a game for the whole of its development. Five years is longer than I’ve stayed at any one job, and I wouldn’t say that’s particularly unusual. In fact, I’d say six or seven is relatively unusual.

The job layoffs all around probably make people more keen than usual not to move away, and stick at a studio, but the whole thing seems so difficult to organise. What’s the longest it ever takes to make a movie? Three years, maybe? And the average has got to be a year or less.

Never mind people leaving, people are going to die of old age waiting to finish a game soon. Well, I hope it works out anyway, as I am fine with Ciri being the main character and double fine with the idea of more Witcher of any kind.
Pinky

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Wish granted
Firstly, merry Christmas GC and Happy New Year, keep up the good work.

Writing in for a small bit of Inbox magic this Christmas.

While everyone has been heaping praise on the new Call Of Duty and Indiana Jones games, as a Switch only owner I have been playing Yakuza on the Switch, which quietly dropped onto the Switch for the sensible sum of £18, for those that don’t know.

This was my first Yakuza game (exciting) and I really enjoyed it, but with a fight on almost every street it left me yarning to play the slower-paced Shenmue series, so how about a small Xmas Inbox miracle and a Shenmue collection on Switch please guys?
Chris

GC: Since the publishing rights now belong to ININ, who were behind the recent Taito Milestones 3, that’s probably quite likely.

No more Monopoly
I’ve been going back through the Dark Souls games, and I’m currently being destroyed in the Pained World of Ariandel by some creatures that look like the baddie in Through The Dragon’s Eye (I’m old) in Dark Souls 3.

You get someone in to occasionally review and recommend board games. I’m wondering if the Dark Souls board game is any good? I’ve got a nice bit of time off over Christmas this year so I’m thinking of trying to get into something a bit different but not sure if it’s any good

Any help would be appreciated.
Simon

GC: It’s rather old now, compared to other video game board game adaptions, but the consensus seems to be that it’s pretty good. Here’s Lucy Orr’s rundown of the best new tabletop games for Christmas, which includes Mass Effect and Halo.

Rainbow Islands: The Movie
For any Amiga Fans out there, there is a Blu-ray documentary available to pre-order, with videos on the making of games such as Frontier, Kick Off, Sensible World Of Soccer, RoboCop 3, and Rainbow Islands, as well as other Amiga games. It’s made by the people who made the From Bedrooms to Billions documentaries that have covered various home computers and consoles, including PlayStation, Spectrum, and Amiga 500.

The Blu-ray is region free, signed and numbered for £35 plus postage. It is a lot of money but it is a niche product and needs to be that cost to happen. It’s available for pre-order until Thursday, 19th December 2024 with delivery estimated at February 2025.

Also this week, the ZX Spectrum The Rubber Keyed-Wonder documentary Blu-ray is finished as well and is being posted out to backers (like me) of the Kickstarter campaign too, as that is finally finished after three years. it is also available to buy on digital format from here if you missed the campaign.
Andrew J.
Currently trying to platinum Astro Bot (PS5) before the new year!

Welcome back
Great news about the return of Fumito Ueda. I’ll be honest and say I’d completely forgotten about his games over the last decade or so, but the trailer of the new one brings it all back. Sony were silly to let him slip out of their fingers, but then their handling of all their Japanese teams seems poor, going back since before The Last Guardian I guess – considering when he left.

Overall, a really good The Game Awards, I’d say. I didn’t stay up for it but reading about everything in the morning it was clearly a good one and there’s at least four or five games I’m definitely interested in without even knowing more. The trailers seemed longer and better too, before they were basically just a logo and nothing else.
Cranston

The wrong side of bed
So I already know there’ll be a few letters dedicated to the thoughts over Friday night’s Game Awards and I’d like to take this time to share mine. I’m vehemently regretful of spending my time wallowing in the disappointment and underwhelming events of the show. So, I’ll say that the announcements, for a start, weren’t as groundbreaking as I’d hoped. Kudos for beginning with the announcement of The Witcher 4. I’m stoked for the title, but we all know it’s precisely three to four years away. Let’s not kid ourselves. This will release the exact same time frame as the PlayStation 6 and I quite frankly can say it was too early to announce this.

Why showcase a trailer, that’s four years away? It was a fantastic opener, but it’s head-scratching for lack of a better word. I’m excited to see Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and The Last Of Us Part 2, release on PC. Those were two great surprises. But I’ll resort back to being sceptical, by saying that I’m kind of puzzled over Laura Bailey’s new project. I don’t see the need for something that seems so forgettable, to include a voice actress of her calibre. Is anyone remotely even interested in this? Why is Aaron Paul working on this, when he truthfully hasn’t made anything close to the calibre of Breaking Bad, since it ended?

I see this flopping hard and being forgotten, in less than a week. I’m puzzled to see Black Myth: Wukong win Best Action Game. It’s essentially another Souls clone and, if I’m being honest, I would have liked to see Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 win instead. Congratulations to Metaphor: ReFantazio on the multiple awards, very well deserved. I’m still kind of astounded to see Silent Hill 2 remake completely snubbed. Luke Roberts was absolutely robbed of Best Performance and Silent Hill 2 was robbed of Best Audio Design. It deserved that accolade at the very least.

I don’t see the yearning for a mobile game set in Westeros and the world of Game Of Thrones. It’s of course another cash grab and my expectations are zero. I was, however, disappointed with the so-called massive announcement rumours. Ōkami 2 was announced and we also saw the first glimpse of what Naughty Dog have been working on. A space odyssey named Intergalactic. Am I the only one who actually expected more? I’m not stating this will be a dreadful experience, but after onslaught of anime titles and Fortnite advertisements that I couldn’t care less.

Finally, I’d like to conclude this on a note of surprise and confusion. Astro Bot won the Game Of The Year prize. Astro essentially swept the show and if I’m being fruitfully honest, I expected Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth to win. I hoped for it to win. But a platformer with quaint level design and enjoyable gameplay granted, but minimal story, wins over Metaphor and Rebirth. I’m kind of upset over that. But it is what it is.

Elden Ring is also back, with a co-op title, and I’d like to hope this can be single-player unlike It Takes Two, but I’ll cross my fingers. Overall, I found the show was less than what people hoped for. Considering I stayed up for the entire duration, until 4am it felt as if it was ultimately time wasted. I could have read about it all the next morning. You get what you pay for.
Shahzaib Sadiq

Inbox also-rans
Vampire Survivors on the Switch. Looks rubbish but if ever there was ever a case of ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ in games… and it’s only four quid.
Chevy Malibu

GC: We agree entirely, the disconnect between how it looks, and even how it plays at first, and the actual level of enjoyment it offers is vast.

I just thought that GC’s offices must be called GCHQ. That’s it. That’s the email.
Ali K

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The small print
New Inbox updates appear every weekday morning, with special Hot Topic Inboxes at the weekend. Readers’ letters are used on merit and may be edited for length and content.

You can also submit your own 500 to 600-word Reader’s Feature at any time via email or our Submit Stuff page, which if used will be shown in the next available weekend slot.

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The Christmas special for video games on Netflix is a new sequel to mobile classic Monument Valley and it’s just as beautiful and mesmerising as ever.

Netflix was originally in the business of posting rented DVDs to their customers, replacing an arduous journey to Blockbuster Video with a leisurely stroll to your local postbox. It was the later pivot to streaming video that proved to be their masterstroke, annihilating competitors and inspiring a dreadful new generation of streaming services from seemingly absolutely everybody, so that now you have to spend a small fortune on subscriptions to be allowed to watch everything.

As a way of holding onto customers who might otherwise switch to Disney+, Amazon Prime, Paramount+, or any of the plethora of smaller offerings, Netflix started adding video games to its offering. When Google briefly flirted with games, a fundamental misunderstanding of development cycles meant their grandiose plans failed to pay off as quickly as anticipated, leading Google Stadia into the same graveyard as so many other abandoned Alphabet projects.

The Netflix approach has been different. Rather than starting from scratch, with a scattering of partners, they applied the philosophy that worked so well in TV and film, by licensing games from existing developers en masse. Instead of chasing triple-A titles they instead went after mobile, and rather than settling for any old rubbish studios had knocking about, their focus has been on quality; and thanks to private equity financing, that wasn’t at the expense of quantity.

That means their current line-up includes Braid, Anniversary Edition; GTAs 3, San Andreas, and Vice City; Dead Cells; Into The Breach; Blooms TD 6; Kentucky Route Zero; and Immortality. Sure, there’s a bit of chaff mixed in with all the classics, but it’s a superbly curated list, and considering most people turn up for the TV, feels effectively free.

This week’s addition to their roster of champions is Monument Valley 3, the latest iteration of a franchise that’s enjoyed monumental and deserved success. With so many games released every year, there’s a real discoverability problem in mobile, so games that cut through to the degree Monument Valley has, usually have something special about them.

In the third instalment, the premise remains unchanged. You control Noor, a little stick figure with a pointy hairdo. Tapping a point on the screen gets her to walk towards it. The object is to pilot her towards specific floor pads or doorways to progress, but generally those points are in unreachable parts of the level when you begin.

Your job is to slide and rotate different parts of each level to clear her path and, like an M. C. Escher drawing, when 3D objects meet on the 2D plane of your phone screen Noor can traverse them, ignoring the impossibility of those broken perspectives. It’s a process that’s not at all intuitive, requiring pleasurable minutes of trial and error as you grab and swivel different pieces of scenery in search of a viable route.

Accompanied by an ambient soundscape, each tap you make or element of the level you rotate makes its own distinct and sonorous tone, adding to a sort of minimal, Philip Glass style soundtrack that’s at least partly of your own making. It’s an especially rewarding game to play wearing headphones, the deep bass notes and tinkly treble creating an almost hypnotic effect with the gradual unfolding of each puzzle.

Levels are formed from a mix of organic features and dramatic architecture, the rumbling as bits of it move and swivel, mixing with the sound of the surrounding water and subtle background bird and animal calls. Especially with noise cancelling switched on, it really transports you, its whimsy and tactile puzzling proving surprisingly captivating for something on such a small screen.

However, going back to the first game, as we did while writing this, it’s surprising just how similar the two experiences still are. The original Monument Valley arrived fully formed and apart from a few new bits of window dressing, this second sequel remains the same highly rewarding, beautifully drawn and mesmerisingly soundtracked set of puzzles.

Once again the difficult it pitched just right, requiring a bit of experimentation or a brief pause to consider, but never holding you up for more than a minute or two, and very rarely even that long. Instead, it’s a digital walk in the park, a peaceful and lovingly constructed piece of escapism that amounts to a couple of hours of light puzzling.

Anyone letdown by the comparative brevity will be relieved that its end screen promises ‘seasonal stories’ due in the coming weeks. Surely episodic gaming, something that never really took off for traditional titles, is a potentially winning match for a subscription TV service. Either way, and despite the relative lack of innovation, it’s a delight to have more Monument Valley to look forward to.

Formats: iOS (reviewed) and Android
Price: Included with Netflix subscription
Publisher: Netflix
Developer: Ustwo Games
Release Date: 11th December 2024
Age Rating: 4+

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A reader argues that Astro Bot did not deserve to win Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2024 but that its sequel may be a contender.

I might never have made it over to L.A. to see E3, as I’d always wanted to, but I feel staying up till 4am to watch The Game Awards, when I’ve got to get to work at 8am the next morning, offers a similar level of exclusivity. In that few people are as stupid as me, as to want to do it.

I almost didn’t, actually, as last year’s really wasn’t worth the effort and if it hadn’t been for the rumours of this being a good one, I wouldn’t have bothered. I’m still not quite sure what the two big ‘holy s***’ moments were meant to be, but I felt there were quite a few reasonably surprising ones (very when it came to Ōkami 2) and I was satisfied by the end of it.

Not only did we get a lot of interesting and unexpected game reveals but almost all of them showed gameplay and the only main one that didn’t, The Witcher 4, had the excuse of being years away and making an important point about who the main character is (I’m not going to spoil the surprise if GC won’t). But overall: 9/10, would watch again – not the same one, but certainly next year.

As everyone knows, the game award part of the showcase is a surprisingly small part of the overall event, with more than half the winners being announced and forgotten almost before you realise they’re being talked about. I sometimes wonder why they bother with the award aspect at all, but they do make a fuss about some of them, especially the Game of the Year award.

Like many, I felt there was no obvious favourite this year, with my personal preference being Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. I wouldn’t have objected to any of them winning, although I have not played Black Myth: Wukong or Balatro, but I really didn’t feel Astro Bot was Game of the Year material.

It’s a good game, that I enjoyed, but for me it’s not really any more than an 8/10. It’s just too derivative of 3D Mario games, while at the same time having much simpler gameplay, which makes it much more repetitive even though it’s much shorter than any comparable Nintendo game.

I would put Astro Bot: Rescue Mission several notches above it, as the novelty of VR managed to compensate for the rampant copycatting. I’m also not sure I didn’t enjoy Astro’s Playroom more too. It certainly had better songs and I felt the integration of PlayStation cameos was much better. The way the cameo characters worked made more sense in context and the final battle was a lot more fun (admittedly it did use up the best possible idea for a final boss, but still).

But as the night went on, and Astro Bot won most of the awards it was up for, it became obvious it was going to win Game of the Year and that just felt wrong to me. I thought this year had been good for games, but Astro Bot can in no way stand in the same company as games like Baldur’s Gate 3 or Elden Ring.

Not because it’s not serious or epic but because it’s just an existing idea not done quite as well. I get it… coming anywhere close to the quality of a Nintendo platformer is a real achievement, but that alone is not reason enough to be throwing around the phrase Game of the Year.

I’m not bitter about this, I get that some people just didn’t like Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s open world sections, and I’m not going to say it’s a perfect game – but it’s my opinion that Astro Bot was already overrated and now I think it’s even more so. But hey, if it leads to Sony and others making more 3D platformers than maybe it’s for the best.

What I will say is I loved the acceptance speech which turned into a weird love letter to Nintendo, and I suspect was an admission on the part of the director that he knew Astro Bot was still the learner and Mario was the master.

There is a serious problem with overrating games though, that I feel is underappreciated, and that’s if you start talking about a good but not great game as being the GOAT then suddenly you haven’t got a proper frame of reference for where to go next. Being better than Astro Bot won’t make you a Game of the Year contender it’ll just make you equal to or better to 8/10.

I do feel Team Asobi understand this though and I look forward to their next game very much. Maybe that will be a genuine Game of the Year winner, but I don’t feel Astro Bot is.

By reader Gordo

The reader’s features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.

You can submit your own 500 to 600-word reader feature at any time, which if used will be published in the next appropriate weekend slot. Just contact us at gamecentral@metro.co.uk or use our Submit Stuff page and you won’t need to send an email.

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A reader explains how he uses a certain website to plan what game he’s playing next and how it’s helped him to have a more enjoyable gaming life.

I feel I should say that GC is my most treasured video game website, or there’s not much chance of the feature being used, but in truth I’m here to talk about my other favourite website, the one which has had more influence on what I play and buy than any review source: HowLongToBeat.

I’m never quite sure how well known it is but I find it invaluable. I’m assuming you’ve already guessed what it does, it’s not like the name is trick, but basically it has info on almost any game you care to type in, in terms of how long it takes to beat it for just the Main Story, Main + Extra (which I interpret as a reasonable number of easily discoverable side quests), and Completist (i.e. 100% completion).

There’s other information if you dig down further, where you can see how the totals are calculated from people who have written in to add their completion time and data. A lot of this isn’t very useful, except to see how many people the numbers are based on. If it’s only a few people then there’s a chance it can be quite inaccurate, although I rarely find it to be completely wrong.

Now that I’ve sat down to write this, I’ve realised I’m not actually sure why most people use the website. Maybe they’re trying to beat the average or something? But I would imagine they’d be better off at a dedicated speedrun site for that. Anyway, the reason I use it is pretty simple: to work out whether a game is worth playing.

If a game is any more than 10 hours for ‘Main Story’ then in nine out of 10 cases I just will not bother with it. And if it’s something silly, like over 30 hours, then forget about, there is absolutely no chance of me making an exception.

This is not some arbitrary rule I’ve invented, since I am quite happy to bend it if it’s a game that interests me and I feel I have the time, but usually I just don’t. I’m a working dad and there’s only so much time I can commit to gaming. I already spend more time than probably my wife would prefer, but I think it’s about average for someone in my position, at around 10 hours a week.

Maybe that seems a lot to some people – my boy’s 12 – so it’s not like I’m getting up every few hours to feed him anymore, but any gamer will tell you it’s really not that much. You need half that time to even get to the interactive part of Persona 4, for example. Or learn what the heck you’re doing in Dark Souls.

I don’t know what exactly you’re doing by hour 10 of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom or Elden Ring, because I’ve never played them, but I can tell from the website that I’d barely be 15% of the way into the games. And that’s assuming you were taking the ‘golden path’ and making progress, whereas I’d probably be pottering about and achieving very little.

I have absolutely nothing against open world games, but I don’t like to be hurried with them and nowadays that just means I haven’t time for them, full stop. It’s a shame, I’m sure, but there’s a thousand other things I don’t have time for in my life anymore, from reading super long books to learning to play the piano, and I’ve just got to accept that I’ve got responsibilities and my free time is a resource I have to manage

But now that I’m used to my limit, I have to say I’ve been enjoying gaming I lot more than I was five or 10 years ago. There are a few reasons for this but to put it simply, I’m beating almost everything I play within a relatively short time (i.e. I actually remember what the story was about by the time it’s finished), I’m playing a lot more games, I’m playing a lot greater variety of games, and I have no backlog.

On average, it takes me a week or two to complete a game, but the thing is, most shorter games are indie titles and they’re cheaper, so while I am buying more games I’m also getting more games in return. For £70 I can get at least three or four good quality indie games, sometimes more depending on what it is, and that’s not even counting sales.

Maybe I’m just making do, but I’m very happy with my set-up and my self-imposed limitations. I can break them whenever I feel like it, but I rarely do. The thing about 10 hour long games is there’s never any bloat, there’s usually no massively long cut scenes, and all the budget goes on the game and not just the graphics. The shorter the game, the less you can rely on visuals and gimmicks and I find that a big plus.

So, I say give it ago. Even if you have all the time in the world, limit yourself to only playing 10 hour or less games and I’d be surprised if you didn’t end up enjoying yourself more than the latest 60+ hour epic.

By reader Lagger

The reader’s features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.

You can submit your own 500 to 600-word reader feature at any time, which if used will be published in the next appropriate weekend slot. Just contact us at gamecentral@metro.co.uk or use our Submit Stuff page and you won’t need to send an email.

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A reader argues that for the Switch 2, Nintendo should make a reverse of the Switch Lite: a non-portable model that’s more powerful.

I’m writing this on Thursday afternoon and I feel confident in saying that the Nintendo Switch 2 (or GTA 6) isn’t going to be announced at The Game Awards. I just don’t think that Nintendo or Rockstar Games want to do that kind of annoucement at someone else’s event, where they don’t have complete control over every single factor. It’s interesting to me, how the best game makers are all so very different in terms of what they create but surprisingly similar in how they act.

In many ways though, I’m not that interested in the initial reveal, but more the second one that will inevitably go into more detail about the games. Given how many rumours there have been recently, it would now be a shock if the Switch 2 looked very different from the current Switch, bar this extra ‘pedal’ on the back and some other minor differences. But that’s fine. The physical design of the Switch has been a proven success, and I am happy for it to be iterated on.

What I want from the Switch 2 is for it to be more powerful, not just for the sake of it but so that it can run all or most current gen games. I realise that’s probably not likely this generation, even if it has been a small leap from last gen, but that’s why I would like them to do an equivalent of the Switch Lite, but instead of being portable-only I’d like it to be not portable at all and more powerful.

This very idea, of there being two models of the Switch 2, was suggested by a rumour a year or so ago but I have never heard it brought up again, which means it’s either not true, and someone just made it up, or Nintendo’s lawyers got to them. Sadly, I feel the more likely explanation is the first one.

The thing is though, the Switch Lite is a special model that removes the main gimmick of the console (and loses the meaning of its name) in order to offer a cheaper version for a specific use and audience. What I am arguing for is to simply do the opposite: a more expensive version for a different audience.

I’m not suggesting a £700 PS5 Pro monstrosity, but I don’t think that would be necessary. It must be possible to approximate the PlayStation 5’s power much more easily now than it was four years ago, especially as the Switch 2 wouldn’t need a disc drive, so you’re already looking at something more equivalent to the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition’s price, which is around £350 at the moment.

That’s less than £100 more than the Switch OLED, so we’re not talking about some massive leap in price. That’s why I think my suggestion is reasonable, because a more powerful Switch 2 will immediately allow it access to a much wider range of third party games. Remove the portable features, like the detachable Joy-Cons (which the Switch Lite also doesn’t have) and I think you’d be able to keep the price quite low.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: Nintendo would not want certain Switch 2 games to only work on one model but they’ve done that multiple times before with their portables, going as far back as the Game Boy Color – when it was quite commonplace – and as recently as the New Nintendo 3DS, which had over half a dozen games which only worked on it and not standard versions of the console (Xenoblade Chronicles 3D was the most famous).

So, all I’m asking for is this: a non-portable version of the Switch 2 that is less than £400 and which is powerful enough to run Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 games. I believe this would sell in significant numbers, certainly a higher percentage of normal Switch 2 sales than the PS5 Pro compared to the PlayStation 5.

Ordinary Switch 2 customers would not be inconvenienced in any way, but those that wanted to pay a little more and/or sacrifice the portability, would be given access to a wider range of games, of the sort that more hardcore gamers would probably only be interested in anyway.

I haven no expectation that Nintendo will do this, but it’s what I hope for anyway.

By reader Cinnamon

The reader’s features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.

You can submit your own 500 to 600-word reader feature at any time, which if used will be published in the next appropriate weekend slot. Just contact us at gamecentral@metro.co.uk or use our Submit Stuff page and you won’t need to send an email.

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A reader worries what effect GTA Online 2 is going to have on rival game companies, as it distracts players from other games for potentially months and years.

As I write this the second trailer for GTA 6 still hasn’t been released and I will be very surprised if it is at The Game Awards. I don’t say this as a random guess but because I believe I understand why Rockstar Games is so slow to release Trailer 2 and why they so rarely release any new information of any kind. It seems to me a simple reason: because none of it matters. GTA 6 is already destined to be the biggest video game of all time, so what’s the rush?

I’m sure GTA 6 will be great, like all Rockstar games usually are, as despite all the money they make I don’t think there’s anyone that doubts they put a lot of effort into their games. They make so few of them they kind of have to or they won’t have another chance to prove themselves for another decade!

But even if it did somehow turn out terrible, I’m not sure even that would matter at this point. GTA 6 is already too big to fail and if that’s big I don’t even know how to describe GTA Online 2. People talk about the success of GTA 5 but it’s really GTA Online that’s kept the game afloat all this time and this week we got confirmation that GTA 6 would have the same sort of mode as well.

What we also heard this week is evidence of what we can all already see; that publishers are terrified of announcing a release date for anything anywhere near autumn next year, in case they end up coming out at the same time as GTA 6. Watch them all try and launch at the same time as Borderlands 4 or Mafia: The Old Country, because they know that Take-Two know when GTA 6 is out, so they’ll assume the release dates of those two games will be safe.

Everyone else though, who knows what they’ll do? I’m sure they don’t. And that goes for Nintendo, with the Switch 2, on downwards. But that’s only the start of it. Assume everything comes out in a fairly orderly manner and games sell relatively normally, without GTA 6 eating their lunch. Now try to imagine what things are going to be like two or three months afterwards, when GTA Online 2 has got its teeth into people.

People aren’t going to play anything else ever again. Thinks that’s hyperbole? GTA 5 is over a decade old and it’s still regularly within the top 10, often the top five, games being sold and played on any given format. GTA 6 probably would’ve been out a lot sooner if that wasn’t the case, but Rockstar didn’t want to disrupt it. There was absolutely no need to make a sequel because it was almost impossible for GTA Online to make any more money than it already was.

People will slowly drift away from GTA Online 2, of course, but very slowly in some cases. How many kids do you know that don’t play anything other than Minecraft or Roblox? Or adults that only play Call Of Duty or EA Sports FC? GTA Online 2 is going to be like that but magnified by 10. No other game is going to get a look in unless it’s the second coming of Zelda or maybe some little indie game you can play in between other things.

I really do think this is going to be a genuine problem. GTA Online 2 is literally going to be too successful, at least from everyone’s point of view except Rockstar’s. Even then, they’ll probably be at a loss as to what to do about Red Redemption 3, because they’d be competing with themselves I they released it.

It’s a credit to the game’s appeal – and I agree it’s strange that no other company is even trying to copy it nowadays – but GTA 6 is going to be the games industry for most of new year and probably several years after that.

By reader Lenge

The reader’s features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.

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Steel Hunters, Mecha Break, and an untitled project from the creator of Shadow Of The Colossus all have one big robotic connection.

The Game Awards certainly had a big showing for its tenth anniversary, between The Witcher 4 and even more Elden Ring, but a batch of games shown at the event shared a similar theme.

Giant mechs have never been as popular as zombies or superheroes in the overall zeitgeist and over the past decade, those who yearn for a robot power fantasy have been very underserved, beyond the odd exception like Armored Core 6 and 2016’s Titanfall 2.

Thankfully, mech fans will see their cravings satiated over the coming year or so, thanks to several games on the near horizon.

Steel Hunters

As shown during The Game Awards, Steel Hunters is a free-to-play hero shooter hinged around giant mech battles. It’s described as blending battle royale and extraction mechanics, where you take on other players and enemy AI.

Each hunter mech boasts its own playstyle and unique abilities, as you pursue objectives in matches to level up and acquire gear, culminating in a showdown at the extraction point. It promises destructible environments in Unreal Engine 5 too, if you simply like to watch things break.

Steel Hunters is developed by Wargaming, the studio best known for World Of Tanks. You can request access to a limited playtest on PC now, which runs between December 12-22. There is, however, no release date yet for the final version.

Mecha Break

Developer Amazing Seasun Games revealed a new trailer for Mecha Break during the event. Along with showcasing the frantic combat, it shows off the three modes available at launch: 3v3 battles, an objective-based 6v6 mode, and, similarly to Steel Hunters, a PvPvE mode where you fight bosses, collect loot, and conduct extractions.

The trailer also shows off weaponised gliders and customisable loadouts, although you might be distracted by the incredible amount of lasers and rockets blasting all over the place.

If you want more on Mecha Break, we interviewed the developers earlier this year about the game. We now have a release window too, with Mecha Break set to launch in spring 2025 on Xbox Series X/S and PC.

Untitled project from GenDesign

The studio behind Shadow Of The Colossus have swapped giant monsters for towering robot titans for its next project. While the game doesn’t have a name yet, the trailer shows a masked character climbing a robot, before its head detaches and flies upwards to avoid an incoming shockwave.

The involvement of Fumito Ueda and his GenDesign team will be the main selling-point for some considering his pedigree on Ico, Shadow Of The Colossus, and The Last Guardian. But beyond that, it’s another win for the mech lovers.

If you want more robot optimism, there’s been rumbles to suggest Microsoft is planning to re-release some of Activision’s Transformers games in the near future. These include Transformers: War For Cybertron, Fall Of Cybertron, Devastation, and Rise Of The Dark Spark, which were all released during the Xbox 360 generation.

Nothing has been officially announced but two Transformers’ ratings popped up on the Australian classification board in September of this year, suggesting something is in the pipeline. It feels odd they haven’t been announced already though if they do exist, considering this year saw the 40th anniversary of Transformers and a new animated film.

Elsewhere at The Game Awards, Naughty Dog debuted a trailer for its new sci-fi game (with a robot), while Split Fiction possesses a 50/50 sci-fi and fantasy split. They’re everywhere!

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Fans of Telltale Games should keep an eye out for new superhero game Dispatch, which may end up being the best adventure game of 2025.

Anyone hoping for an update from Telltale Games on The Wolf Among Us 2 at The Game Awards 2024 will have come away thoroughly disappointed.

The sequel was originally meant to be out last year, but Telltale has since said nothing about its progress. The only thing we’ve heard is that it’s not been cancelled, despite Telltale suffering a round of layoffs towards the end of 2023.

However, something Telltale-esque did debut during The Game Awards last night: a narrative driven superhero game called Dispatch, that’s being worked on by a number of ex-Telltale staff.

The game centres on Robert Robertson, who was once an Iron Man-like superhero called Mecha Man. That was until his fancy mech suit was destroyed, leaving him incapable of performing superheroics.

Instead, he takes up the role of a dispatcher, meaning that instead of fighting bad guys it’s his job to deploy the right heroes to handle crimes and emergencies. All the while navigating his new working relationships, rehabilitating a team of former supervillains, and rebuilding his suit.

Based on the trailer, Dispatch certainly shares all the Telltale hallmarks, with narrative choices dictating how the story progresses. Dispatching heroes though, looks like a fun gameplay mechanic and the game’s graphics and animation is considerably better than the Telltale norm.

Dispatch is in development at AdHoc Studio, which was formed by former Telltale employees in the wake of the developer’s closure, but before its surprise comeback. In fact, this appears to be the studio’s first project, although it is apparently assisting Telltale with its development on The Wolf Among Us 2 as well.

The game’s Steam listing, and the trailer, specifically highlights how Dispatch shares the same writers and directors as the first The Wolf Among Us and the original Tales From The Borderlands.

It also boasts a star-studded cast, from TV stars like Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul and high-profile voice actors like Laura Bailey to big-name YouTubers like Jacksepticeye and MoistCr1TiKaL.

When is Dispatch being released?

Dispatch is slated for a 2025 release but there’s nothing more specific than that at the moment. Assuming nothing goes wrong, it may well come out before The Wolf Among Us 2.

Dispatch is scheduled to launch on PC via Steam as well as consoles. AdHoc Studio hasn’t specified precisely which consoles, though PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S releases feel like a safe bet at least.

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The team behind chaotic co-op title Overcooked announced their next project during The Game Awards, and it seems to take a few cues from Hazelight’s work.

Were you aware that two split-screen co-op adventure games, designed specifically for two players, were announced at The Game Awards 2024 last night?

The one with the most buzz was obviously Split Fiction, the latest project from It Takes Two creator Josef Fares and his team at Hazelight. Its name and release date had already leaked beforehand, but its reveal trailer promises a fun premise and unique mechanics for every level.

But Ghost Town Games, the team behind chaotic co-op title Overcooked and its sequel, have been working on something relatively similar, albeit with more cartoonish, Luigi’s Mansion inspired presentation and British voice acting.

Titled Stage Fright, it’s hard not to draw comparisons with Hazelight’s work, as Ghost Town Games describes their next project as ‘an all new co-operative experience for two players’ that can be enjoyed locally or online.

Publisher Hello Games (the same company behind No Man’s Sky) even namedrops It Takes Two when describing how there’s a clear market for such co-op centric games: ‘Overcooked started a little resurgence, but there aren’t enough games you can play with friends. The huge success of Overcooked and It Takes Two shows that folks really crave them.’

We assume they’re referring to games you can play with friends locally. There are countless multiplayer games out there, but couch co-op has certainly become something of a lost art.

If the trailer is anything to go by, Stage Fright will also make use of split-screen, as its child protagonists find themselves separated across two parallel worlds, where actions in one can impact the other.

Although you are limited to just two players, Stage Fright promises ‘Overcooked-style chaotic moments’ as players make their way through escape room-esque challenges.

When is Stage Fright being released?

Currently, Stage Fright lacks any sort of release window, and it’s also only scheduled to launch on PC via Steam.

If it’s anything like Overcooked, though, it’s bound to make the jump to consoles as well. It may even be in the works for the Nintendo Switch 2, since that’s meant to be arriving in 2025, but time will tell if that’s indeed the case.

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The Game Awards 2024 has revealed two new projects from the Yakuza devs, including a proper revival of Sega’s premier fighting game series.

During last year’s The Game Awards, Sega announced not one, not two, but five revivals of long dormant IPs, including Jet Set Radio and Crazy Taxi. Since then, though, the publisher’s been awfully quiet about them.

You might’ve thought an update at The Game Awards 2024 would’ve been in order but, unfortunately, that was not the case. But Sega still had more than one announcement up its sleeve.

The announcements included the return of yet another classic franchise, with Sega set to challenge Street Fighter 6 and Tekken 8 with a brand new Virtua Fighter game.

What is Virtua Fighter?

Much like Tekken, Virtua Fighter is a series of 3D fighting games that used to populate arcades before making the jump to home consoles. In fact, it was the first of its kind and, at the time, the most realistic portrayal of a human ever in 3D (Virtua Fighter designer Seiichi Ishii later went on to direct the first Tekken).

Although it persisted into the 2000s, Virtua Fighter eventually fell out of fashion, although it has popped up in the Yakuza/Like A Dragon series more than once. With fighting games growing in popularity in recent years, though, there was some hope Virtua Fighter would make a comeback.

Virtua Fighter 5 did see an updated re-release in 2021, with a PC port dropping in Janaury 2025, and Sega suggested last year it was considering a full revival. Now, hopeful fans have been rewarded with an entirely new entry that, perhaps appropriately, is being helmed by Yakuza/Like A Dragon developer Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, which already handled the updated Virtua Fighter 5.

When is the new Virtua Fighter being released?

Details are unsurprisingly slim, with no mention of a release date whatsoever. The brief teaser does show off a radically redesigned Akira (the Virtua Fighter equivalent of Street Fighter’s Ryu) fighting someone who looks exactly like Sarah Bryant, another series regular.

A separate Virtua Fighter showcase, however, refers to her as Stella, suggesting she’s either an entirely new character or the game is serving as a full reboot of the series.

While there’s little else to go on, everything so far points to it being precisely what fans want, with the gameplay promising a return to Virtua Fighter’s more grounded martial arts, compared to Street Fighter and Tekken’s more fantastical combat.

This isn’t the only game Ryu Ga Gotoku is working on either. Aside from a new Yakuza pirate spin-off due in February 2025, the studio’s other Game Awards announcement was something currently titled Project Century.

What is Project Century?

At first glance, we assumed this was another Yakuza spin-off, albeit one set in 1915, but there’s no hint of any of the goofier elements the series is famous for.

Project Century is presented as a gritty drama, with the 3D brawler combat depicted in a more grounded and bloody manner and the protagonist most definitely killing some of the enemies.

For now, it seems to be something entirely separate from the Yakuza series, though that may change once Sega settles on a proper name for it. Like Virtua Fighter, it too lacks any sort of release window.

Naturally, Sega also had something Sonic related to tease. Not the eventual Sonic Frontiers sequel, but another kart racer titled Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds. Something leaker Pyoro (who has accurately predicted Nintendo related announcements in the past) appeared to tease beforehand.

Ironically, Sonic doesn’t even appear in the teaser, with edgy rival, and upcoming movie star, Shadow hogging the spotlight as he drives his race car into a glowing portal.

Sega says the new racer will have ‘a distinct racing mechanic that promises to transport Sonic racing fans into a new dimension’ whatever that means. Given the title though, we hope and suspect this will be a crossover game like Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed and feature characters from other Sega properties.

While it wasn’t mentioned during The Game Awards itself, Sega is also keen to let fans know that DLC for Sonic X Shadow Generations is now available, adding a new Shibuya (and area in Tokyo) based level for Shadow, inspired by the upcoming movie. It even gives Shadow the voice of Keanu Reeves.

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