Latest news with #NinjaGaiden
The Star
10-08-2025
- Entertainment
- The Star
Review: 'Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound' lovingly revives classic 2D experience
The side-scroller takes place as a side story that follows what happened to the Hayabusa clan and Japan after Ryu ventured to the US to investigate his father's death. — Photos: The Game Kitchen Before developer Tomonobu Itagaki brought the Ninja Gaiden franchise into the polygonal realm, the series had been an arcade mainstay and a classic Nintendo Entertainment System trilogy. The side-scrolling adventure was renowned for its difficulty and visuals that pushed the 8-bit system to its limits. For its time, Ryu Hayabusa's exploits were a revelation of storytelling and action, but unfortunately, it never spawned a true sequel on the Super Nintendo, and fans would have to wait longer for Itagaki to take the reins on Xbox 360. Those who have been waiting for a successor with gorgeous sprite-based graphics now have one thanks to The Game Kitchen, the team that developed Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound . Spiritually, 'Ragebound' feels like a game that would have been a perfect successor for the NES games. The side-scroller takes place as a side story that follows what happened to the Hayabusa clan and Japan after Ryu ventured to the US to investigate his father's death. It follows a fledgling ninja named Kenji Mozu, who must protect his people from a demon attack ignited by the rival Black Spider Ninja Clan. An unlikely ally When he defeats the evil creatures, he discovers a kunoichi named Kumori, and players experience her backstory. The two play differently, as Kenji has skills comparable to Ryu. He relies on a sword for melee attacks, while Kumori has her own unique weapons and attacks that tend to be more ranged. They both share an important skill called the Guillotine boost that lets them perform a spinning attack while jumping, which lets them hit enemies and pinball off them. Although Ragebound initially makes it seem as though players will control the two separately for the majority of the campaign, the reality is much different. A twist of fate fuses Kenji and Kumori. Players will mostly control Kenji and his melee-centric combat style while Kumori exists as a shade, who's responsible for ranged attacks and specialised tools with her array of spider weapons. Kenji's sword attacks are unlimited, and it will be how players dispatch most adversaries, while Kumori's ranged attacks are limited by a Ki meter. Once it runs out, players won't have access to them. A majority of 'Ragebound' enemies can be defeated with one slash or dagger strike, but players will often run into powerful heavies. The two have to battle through at least 23 stages as they gather three crystals to stop a demon invasion. It's a campaign that will test players' platforming skills as Kenji leaps across scaffolding, climbs cliffs and scales buildings. The traversal is reminiscent of the arcade game, with players being able to press up to scale walls and press down to hang from platforms. The Game Kitchen smartly integrates that with combat, so Kenji can slice enemies while hanging from the ceiling or Kumori can toss daggers at switches above her. The platforming is easy at first as players adjust to the pace, but it quickly grows more difficult as the developers layer in combat with the platforming, so that players will have to Guillotine boost to bounce off enemies to reach higher areas or deal foes while hanging off a helicopter. Nuanced combat The combat echoes that same escalation. A majority of Ragebound enemies can be defeated with one slash or dagger strike, but players will often run into powerful heavies. Defeating them requires multiple stabs or just one blow from a Hypercharge attack. Players can charge their weapon at the cost of their health to perform the strike, or they can defeat specially marked enemies that add a Hypercharge to the next attack. The platforming is easy at first as players adjust to the pace, but it quickly grows more difficult as the developers layer in combat with the platforming. This additional complexity creates a more strategic way to fight. Players can't indiscriminately slash enemies as they run. They'll have to find the Hyper-charged foe, take that power-up, and use it against a heavy blocking their way. Ragebound adds another bit of difficulty because Hypercharges come in two colours tied to Kenji and Kumori. To attain it, players have to defeat an enemy with a specific attack from the corresponding protagonist. These wrinkles added to the NES-style gameplay ensures that Ragebound maintains the series' legendary difficulty, but the generous checkpoints make the game less aggravating than the 8-bit games. The title even has a store, where players can spend Golden Scarabs on Talismans that bestow perks, new spider weapons and even additional Ragebound Arts, which are special abilities only available once per level. Golden scarabs are scattered in each level and are a reward for players who thoroughly explore the world. These wrinkles added to the NES-style gameplay ensures that 'Ragebound' maintains the series' legendary difficulty, but the generous checkpoints make the game less aggravating than the 8-bit games. Spiritually, Ragebound feels like a game that would have been a perfect successor for the NES games. The Game Kitchen even puts surprising twists like Kumori-specific sections of each level, chase scenes and boss fights that will test players' pattern recognition. It's a game that balances the classic mechanics with new ideas for a satisfying adventure that will leave old-school fans thirsting for more. – Bay Area News Group/Tribune News Service
Digital Trends
07-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Digital Trends
Ninja Gaiden 4 brought me back to an era of action games I thought was dead
When I jumped into Ninja Gaiden 2 Black at the top of this year, the prevailing thought in my mind was 'Boy, they don't make 'em like this anymore.' My second thought after a rough few hours was 'maybe they shouldn't.' Action games from that era have all but vanished in the wave of soulslikes, with only Devil May Cry and anything by Platinum Games still attempting to keep that genre alive. So when I learned that it was none other than Platinum teaming up with Team Ninja on Ninja Gaiden 4, it felt like a match made in heaven. The only question was whether or not this old series could modernize itself enough to fit today's sensibilities while also keeping its core identity alive. After playing through a demo of the first hour of the game on Xbox Series X, I was reminded just how much I loved this unique taste of action game. I just hope the new protagonist isn't as much of a wet blanket in the full game. Go ninja, go ninja, go Aside from recently reviewing Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, my only real experience with this franchise was Ninja Gaiden 2 on the Xbox 360. I never actually beat that game, only managing to get a little over halfway by learning to cheese encounters and brute-forcing my way through bosses. Going back to Black 2 reminded me of just how unforgiving those games were. If I wasn't on my guard from frame one after hitting new game, I would be ripped apart by a swarm of enemies before I even knew what the buttons did. Recommended Videos My demo of Ninja Gaiden 4 began with a short tutorial section that gave me breathing room to lock down the basics of combat. I have quick and heavy attacks, a block, dodge, and the new Bloodraven Form. The latter isn't so much a transformation like the name implies, but a modifier to my normal moves — holding down a trigger alters my normal attack at the cost of a meter that refills as I spill blood. There's a lot more than that to discover, but the game keeps things simple at first and focuses on letting me feel cool right away by giving me small waves of enemies to dismember. After getting to the first real mission of the game and encountering a raven that summons an NPC combat trainer, the depth of the combat revealed itself. This is where I was able to see every move and technique the game didn't tutorialize me on and enter a quick combat simulation to master them. Some of these techniques, especially the parry, seemed like things that should be taught more explicitly than an optional menu some players may not engage with. But there is a lot of depth to this combat system that is completely optional. I was able to gleefully improvise my way through all the regular combat encounters with whatever combo I threw out, adding in some Blood Raven attacks, and mixing in dodges, blocks, and parries, but Ninja Gaiden 4 has a skill ceiling so high I can't even see it. That became especially apparent when I got my rank at the end of the level and saw the breakdown of my score. Even knowing how basic my technique was on that first run, I still felt cool every second of the way. Mashing out combos, dismembering foes, and getting the stray perfect dodge or parry looks and feels bloody amazing. I can't sleepwalk through normal encounters, but it doesn't feel like I can't make any mistakes without losing half my health bar. Bosses are a different story. The demo concluded with one boss fight, but I was able to try out another via the extra challenge missions in the main menu. Bosses don't stagger normally so wailing on him didn't do me any good, and he hits back hard. Even on the normal difficulty, Yakumo would go down in four or five hits and I burned through my consumables in seconds. I had to completely reframe my ultra-aggressive mentality and really master my blocks, counters, and watching his animations to see when he was vulnerable to a stagger via my Bloodraven attacks. This felt closer to what a classic Platinum Games boss requires, and it felt just as satisfying to master. Oh, and Platinum's fantastic use of layered music is on full display here, with vocals kicking in dynamically as the boss changed forms. This one track wasn't quite as strong as Rules of Nature, but it still got my adrenaline going. What isn't so thrilling are the stealth elements. If you've played Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance then you know exactly how these feel. They are neither fun nor tonally consistent with every other part of the game. There are no stealth mechanics beyond a stealth kill if I manage to get up behind an enemy unaware. It feels clunky and tacked-on in a system built around speed and aggression. Thankfully, it wasn't required at any point in this demo and I could opt to go in swords blazing instead. The other downer is Yakumo himself. He's our new main protagonist and member of the Raven clan of ninjas. Ryu will be in the game as well, but was only playable in the challenges for this demo. I don't want to judge him or the story too harshly just yet since I only got one proper cutscene and a handful of radio interactions between him and his team, but every line Yakumo delivered was a drag. Not only is he dull and as deep as a puddle in terms of personality, but the direction his VO got must have been to deliver each line with the enthusiasm of a sloth on a Monday morning. He sticks out like a sore thumb when I'm engaging in some of the most high-energy action possible, executing enemies one by one, and have a cast of colorful characters in my ear to contrast with. There's a lot more hinted at in this demo, like shops to purchase new moves, additional weapons, optional missions within levels, and a slew of challenges to test your skills at and compare ranks on the online leaderboard with, but what Ninja Gaiden 4 did best to sell me on the game was its ability to let me feel as cool as I wish I could've in the old games. Fodder enemies are deadly, but as long as I am active and using all the basic parts of my toolkit, I can have a blast coating Yakumo in their blood. That first boss was a perfect test to see if I could master those moves against a less forgiving enemy. It is all refreshingly streamlined in a way that feels like a lost art. Ninja Gaiden 4 will launch on October 21 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
Metro
07-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
Ninja Gaiden 4 hands-on preview - the return of PlatinumGames
The creators of Bayonetta and Metal Gear Rising aim for a big budget redemption story, not just for Ninja Gaiden but for themselves as developers. It's now well over a decade since Ninja Gaiden 3 and it's fair to say that it and spin-off Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z had a disastrous effect on the franchise, to the point where it wouldn't have been a surprise if the whole series had died and never come back. However, although its history goes back to the late eighties, it's been closely associated with Xbox ever since it was rebooted as an Xbox exclusive in 2004. Together with sister series Dead Or Alive, it's the only major Japanese-made franchise that's consistently been associated with Xbox, even though all the games have released on PlayStation eventually and there's also been Nintendo spin-offs. No doubt that's why Microsoft has helped to finance not just this new sequel but the recent 2D spin-off Ragebound and new remasters of the originals. That's great and everything but we admit our primary interest here is that PlatinumGames is the main developer for the game. After so many high profile exits from the company it seemed as if the studio, who were one of our favourites of the last decade, were doomed, but this is their big chance to redeem themselves and so far the signs are good, that they've not squandered the opportunity. The two most important things to make clear from the start is that this has relatively little in common, beyond the broadest of strokes, with the earlier Ninja Gaiden games and… this probably isn't going to end up as peak PlatinumGames. The fact that it gets anywhere close seems a miracle, given co-director (original creators Team Ninja are still involved in an advisory role) Yuji Nakao doesn't seem to have been in charge of any major game before – the closest he's got is producer on Bayonetta 3. As in Ragebound, you don't start off as series regular Ryu Hayabusa but instead new character Yakumo, from the rival, but not antagonistic, Bloodraven clan. Ninja Gaiden is an odd franchise, in that not only do you do very little ninja-ing but you're usually fighting demons while in a near future setting. Ninja Gaiden 4 takes place in a post-apocalyptic Tokyo, with a distinct cyberpunk atmosphere, that's also encircled by the defeated husk of the Dark Dragon from the first game and the DS spin-off. We're not sure how many Ninja Gaiden lore experts there are in the world, but we didn't have a clue what was going on in terms of the story, but it was all clearly just a blanket excuse to have whatever kind of monster or sci-fi silliness you want going on, which suits Platinum's usual style very well. It's not that the game is completely unlike other Ninja Gaiden titles but it's really only a few of the characters and the general concept of an ultra violent ninja game that connects it. Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. Right from the start, you can see the Bayonetta influences, with Yakumo being very agile and having a similar mix of simple light and heavy attacks, but also optional combos that you can learn (and are taught in a very familiar looking training mode). His big gimmick is transforming into Bloodraven form, where he gains an unfeasibly large sword that's powered by his enemies' blood, or something. It's quite possible we didn't appreciate all the nuances, in the part of the game we played (the first chapter, split into four parts – although the preview forced us to play the final two parts, and the end of the second, in challenge mode, without the story) but Bloodraven form didn't seem to do all that much except give you a bigger sword for a while. There is an awful lot of special abilities to learn though, with lots of different kinds of dodges, as well as bloody finisher moves on anyone who's legs you've already chopped off – which usually rewards you with some health. If you learn some of the combos they often do things like allowing you to throw an enemy or launch them into the air, so this is by no means a button masher. If you hold down the heavy attack button you can also charge up a more powerful attack (of which there seem to be many) and Yakumo seems to have different weapons as well, including a long range lance. He's also got a berserk mode, with its own power meter, so there's a lot to keep in mind, as you figure out what works best for which situations. We were able to play as Ryu in challenge mode, but because there were no tutorials associated with him we're not sure we understood everything. He does play more similarly to the older games though, being slower and stronger than Yakumo, but his main ability is gleam mode, which is powered by attacks and blocks – just like Yakumo – but used to activate either super fast magic attacks or a variety of different powers selected via the D-pad. Ninja Gaiden 4 is entertainingly weird and unpredictable, with a fair amount of exploration involved – which is encouraged by a wide array of side quests. The levels aren't open world, but they do have a lot of optional areas to explore which is usually rewarded, including with a demonic portal that triggers a survival mode, which is, again, quite similar to Bayonetta. There's also a lot of rail-grinding and swinging about with a grappling hook, with the levels looking quite abstract at times. Complex or realistic graphics have never really been Platinum's thing and it would be generous to say this looks very last gen. It's smooth as silk in terms of movement though and without any sign of slowdown that we saw – or indeed any bugs at all. The game is difficult, as is Ninja Gaiden's nature, but we didn't find it overwhelming. Not in the way previous games can be right from the first, although the boss at the end of the four stage is a real pain. Even then, the trainer and his pet raven, who teach you new moves, also offer to help out if things get too tough. So, between that and an easy mode this isn't as offputtingly hard as you might think. More Trending We enjoyed our time with Ninja Gaiden 4 and while there are many similarities with Bayonetta we couldn't also help thinking of Metal Gear Rising and how this… isn't anything like that at all really. It's lacking an equivalent of that game's sword gimmick, where you controlled its direction with the analogue sticks, and since it also doesn't have Bayonetta's wackier witch powers it seems like it's missing something to make it feel equally unique. Perhaps that will seem less the case once we play the full game, but no matter how this compares with Platinum's very best it's light years ahead of disasters like Babylon's Fall and Bayonetta Origins. It's a good, solid continuation of the Ninja Gaiden saga that isn't beholden to the past and already seems considerably better than Ninja Gaiden 3. Exactly how much better though we'll have to wait and see. Formats: Xbox Series X/S (previewed), PlayStation 5, and PCPrice: £59.99*Publisher: Xbox Game StudiosDeveloper: PlatinumGames and Team NinjaRelease Date: 21st October 2025 Age Rating: 18 *available on Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass from day one Email gamecentral@ leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader's Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. 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Yahoo
02-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Xbox Has a New Hollow Knight: Silksong Demo Playable at Gamescom
Long-awaited indie sequel Hollow Knight: Silksong will be publicly playable at Gamescom on Microsoft's Xbox booth, before its highly-anticipated launch, due sometime before the end of 2025. Silksong sounds like it will be one of the booth's biggest draws, alongside a first public outing for the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X — the third-party portable Xbox consoles also out later this year. The Outer Worlds 2, Xbox's biggest first-party game for the rest of this year that's not Call of Duty, meanwhile gets a "theater experience", which sounds like it'll be hands-off demo. In terms of other playable stuff, well, Obsidian's garden sequel Grounded 2 will be there, if you don't want to just play the Game Preview version at home. More excitingly, Ninja Gaiden 4 gets a first public hands-on appearance, while Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is there with an "exciting city update". Keen to play the new Indiana Jones and the Great Circle DLC? Us too, though on the Gamescom show floor Microsoft is simply showing the base game. (It's very good but, uh, we played it last year.) From non-Xbox studios, meanwhile, Microsoft has a long list of playable demos — including the likes of Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater and Borderlands 4, plus the Xbox versions of Final Fantasy 16 and Final Fantasy 7 Remake Integrade. If you're visiting Gamescom, the world's biggest video games show in terms of its public attendance, Xbox will reside in its usual home within Hall 7 of the Koelnmesse in Cologne, Germany from August 21 to 24. Alternatively, keep an eye on IGN for all of our coverage direct from the show floor. Silksong developer Team Cherry recently said that its game was on track to launch later in 2025 but before the holidays. Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ or find him on Bluesky @
Engadget
02-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Engadget
A terrific 2D Ninja Gaiden, housefly bucket lists and other new indie games worth checking out
Welcome to our latest recap of what's going on in the indie game space. A bunch of new games dropped this week that are more than worthy of your attention, including a modern take on an old-school Ninja Gaiden side-scroller and a joyful (perhaps even profound) puzzler about the life of a housefly. By far the biggest story in indie games over the last few weeks concerns payment processors pressuring the likes of Steam owner Valve and Itch to remove or de-index games that feature adult, NSFW and LGBTQIA+ themes. Under the guise of helping to protect women and children, an conservative activist group in Australia has taken credit for the delistings, as well as stricter rules regarding adult-themed games that Steam and Itch have implemented. But some affected developers suggest this is a smokescreen to push forward an agenda of anti-LGBTQIA+ censorship. This week, Engadget senior editor Jess Conditt spoke with solo developer Cara Cadaver of Final Girl Games about the impact of the censorship campaign. Valve permanently banned Cadaver's new game, VILE: Exhumed , from Steam for allegedly depicting "sexual content with depictions of real people," though the developer says that assessment is inaccurate. While Cadaver and publisher DreadXP are working on alternative distribution for VILE: Exhumed , Steam is the go-to marketplace for many PC gamers and the ban cuts off what surely would have been a critical source of revenue for the game. For its part, Itch has started reindexing free adult-themed games on its platform. The company has relied on Stripe and Paypal for processing payments. It has suspended payments via Stripe for 18+ content and it's talking to other potential payment partners "that are more willing to work with this kind of content." In any case, payment processors should not be the arbiters of morality, and they certainly should not be helping activists restrict access to perfectly above-board works of art. One other piece of news that caught my eye this week is about a game jam that's taking place this month. Participants will have just over three weeks to make games based on real-life investigative reporting. According to Global Game Jam, the teams will gain access to exclusive reporting on organized crime and corruption from around the world and be able to ask journalists behind those stories questions about their work. It's a fascinating idea, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what the developers that get involved come up with. New releases Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound is what I like to call a 'hell yeah" game. There are few purer joys than getting about 15-20 minutes into a new game and thinking 'hell yeah, this rules.' Even better, that feeling lasted through the other four hours or so I spent with Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound . This is a throwback 2D hack-and-slash platformer from The Game Kitchen — the studio behind the Blasphemous series — and publisher Dotemu, which is building quite the reputation for itself as a purveyor of retro-style games ( Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge , the upcoming Marvel Cosmic Invasion ). Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound looks and sounds sumptuous, with gorgeous pixel art and stellar level, character and audio design. It's got combat that's somehow both sticky and slick, and it's challenging without being too frustrating. I've had a tremendous time with this one, which, if memory serves me correct, is the first Ninja Gaiden game I've played. I can't really find any notable faults with Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound . It's well worth checking out. It's out now on Steam, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch. Here's another 'hell yeah" game. I've been looking forward to Time Flies ever since I clapped eyes on it during a Day of the Devs showcase a couple of years ago. You play as a fly and the goal is to check off a bucket list of items before the insect perishes (their lifespan equates to the average life expectancy of a country of your choosing but in seconds). It's a clever, funny and slightly rude — in a playful, Thank Goodness You're Here sort of way — blend of exploration and puzzle game that makes a strong case as to why we should make the most of our limited time. It's a short game, as it took me about 90 minutes to roll credits. That's pretty much the ideal length for this one. The controls are simple (only a D-pad, pause button and a way to call up the bucket list are required) and the aesthetic, which features hand-drawn art, is delightfully low-key too. In fact, this would be a perfect fit for the Playdate, which just happens to come from Panic, the publisher of Time Flies . For now, though, you can check out this lovely little game from the team at Playables on Steam, PS5 and Nintendo Switch. Whatnot Games released the 1.0 version Star Racer on Steam this week after over a year of early access. This is a retro racer very much in the vein of the F-Zero series that features local multiplayer (here's hoping for online multiplayer at some point) and music from Grant Kirkhope of Banjo-Kazooie and GoldenEye 007 fame. You can also create your own tracks and share them with others online. I love the launch trailer for Star Racer , which blends gameplay with '80s-style animation. I also adore that — per Rock Paper Shotgun — one of the characters is a "detective-looking fella called Thrash Whiplash." If that's not in the running for the best video game character name of the 2020s, we're all going to need to take a long, hard look in the mirror. We have yet another flavor of pretty, retro-tinged pixel art this week thanks to developers Ancient Corporation and Bitwave Games, as well as publisher Limited Run Games. Their 16 bit-style shoot-'em-up Earthion landed on Steam this week. It features music from legendary composer Yuzo Koshiro ( Streets of Rage, ActRaiser, Shenmue and many more games). That probably should not come as a huge shock given that he co-founded Ancient. Earthion is also slated to hit consoles starting in September. Being a Limited Run title, physical editions are of course on the way for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X and Nintendo Switch. Expect those later this year. A physical version is also expected for Sega Genesis/Mega Drive in 2026. Surgent Studios went in a completely different direction for its follow-up to its well-received Metroidvania from last year, Tales of Kenzera: Zau . Its latest project (released with the help of the publishing arm of Palworld creator Pocketpair), Dead Take , is a first-person psychological horror about an actor who is looking for a friend who has vanished after a Hollywood party. There's top-tier videogame acting talent here, with Neil Newbon (Astarion in Baldur's Gate 3 ) and Ben Starr (Clive Rosfield in Final Fantasy XVI ) taking on the lead roles, and a litany of other well-known performers — from Laura Bailey to Sam Lake — also making appearances. That cast alone makes this worthy of attention. Dead Take is out now on Steam and the Epic Games Store. It feels like we've been waiting forever for Hobbit life sim Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of the Rings Game to drop and, following some delays, it's now available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch and Steam. (This is now technically an indie game because Take-Two sold off publisher Private Division last year.) I love games that tell you exactly what they're about in their title and A Game About Digging A Hole sure is one of those. You dig a hole, find buried goodies, and sell them to help you buy better gear. Developer DoubleBee and publishers Rokaplay and Headup brought this exploration game to iOS and Android this week after a hugely successful debut on Steam earlier this year. A Game About Digging A Hole has now sold more than 1 million copies. Perhaps you're looking for a different digging game to check out this weekend. In that case, Mashina may be worth considering. The titular character is a robot that searches for valuable minerals to help repair and expand her community. Mashina can also use the minerals to build machines that can help with her digs, while she can use items she stumbles upon for base decoration. Developers Jack King-Spooner and Talha Kaya (who previously released Judero ) used traditional stop-motion techniques to animate Mashina . This charming-looking puzzle/exploration game is now available on Steam. Let's wrap up this section with a short, experimental game about anxiety. A Dream About Parking Lots has been out on Steam for a few months and the aptly named Interactive Dreams (with the help of Take It Studio!) brought it to PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch this week. It's said to be based on real dreams and will see you looking for your car among parking lots and mazes while chatting with a therapist. Upcoming Wander Stars — from Paper Castle Games and publisher Fellow Traveller — was supposed to be arriving this week, but the developers have pushed the release date back until September 19. The team wants to carry out some changes to improve the game following feedback from an open beta. I really like the look of this one, and though turn-based combat isn't usually my cup of tea, I'm very intrigued by the system that's in use here. You'll find and combine words into phrases that convert into devastating attacks. There are more than 200 words and they have cooldowns, so combining them in smart ways will be a key to success. Using words "with honor" can seemingly help you unlock more useful phrases too. Very curious to see how all of that works in practice. We'll get a better idea next month, when Wander Stars lands on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch and PC. Speaking of games with a killer look, a gameplay trailer for I Hate This Place hooked me in this week. This is an isometric survival horror game that pulls from the visual stylings of its comic book origins. Crafting is vital here, both in terms of your arsenal and strengthening your shelter before nightfall. This stylish title from Rock Square Thunder and publisher Broken Mirror Games is bound for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch later this year. If you buy something through a link in this article, we may earn commission.
