This comes via TimeExtension, which asked an unnamed source who previously worked at Rockstar for clarification on references to GTA Tokyo that were found by data miners in December 2023 following the leak of GTA 5's source code. The source confirmed that Rockstar was indeed considering a GTA game based in Tokyo after Rockstar co-founder Sam Houser found himself visiting Japan frequently during GTA 3's promotional run. Ultimately, Rockstar decided it would be better to stick with what they know.

"He had just released GTA 3 back then and they were doing a lot of travel to Tokyo back then to promote the game," TimeExtension's source said. "It seemed like a cool, interesting city to do it in, but at the end of the day, it just came down to logistics. Getting the research team out there long enough to map the city and just the cultural satire in terms of what could possibly work in a fitting narrative way in that city. Making those things connect was a little tough and we thought it was just cooler to stick with the cities that were introduced in Grand Theft Auto 1."

Rockstar ended up releasing one of the best games ever made with GTA San Andreas in 2004, but I still can't help but wonder what could've been in a GTA Tokyo. We have the wonderful Yakuza series as a reference point for what an open-world game in Tokyo looks like when done right, but the two series really aren't all that comparable. Maybe one day. Maybe one day.

Meanwhile, we have GTA 6 on the way to take us back to the sun-soaked streets of Vice City.

Barone said as much in an interaction on Discord (thanks, Panedwards), revealing he's "been trying to" collaborate with Epic Games for Fortnite x Stardew Valley crossover content. Epic has yet to acknowledge Barone's request publicly, and as far as we know they haven't said anything to Barone privately either, but that hasn't stopped the Stardew creator from throwing out a few ideas.

"I want Pam in Fortnite," Barone said to Panedwards. "I'm open to doing a collab."

This might not need saying, but a crossover between these two certified giants of their respective genres would break the internet into a million pieces. It seems right now Barone is mostly interested in bringing Stardew Valley content to Fortnite instead of the other way around, but he also sounds fairly eager to just make something happen.

"It doesn't have to be Pam though," he added. "I would be open to anything. Abigail & Sebastian could be good. Stardrop or Joja Cola item? Galaxy sword or slingshot?"

Fortnite is of course the king of video game crossovers, featuring characters, items, skins, and events themed around hundreds of the most popular IP across games, movies, TV, comics, and music. A Stardew Valley collab would be a big one, for sure, but certainly nothing Epic isn't already used to.

In the meantime, here are some games like Stardew Valley we recommend for when you need a little extra chill in your life.

Each companion in The Veilguard has five abilities, but you can only select three of them to bring into combat at a time. Building your relationship with a given companion will increase your Relationship Level with them, and each level will get you a skill point that you can use to improve that companion's abilities. This info was all reported in a now sadly defunct Game Informer article, but you can still view an archived version thanks to the Wayback Machine.

Now BioWare has just updated the official Veilguard website with new companion profiles, each of which includes a brief bio, a full list of abilities, and a brief overview of that character's role in combat. Personally, it'll take a lot to keep me away from Taash, the Qunari dragon hunter, who both dual-wields axes and literally breathes fire. What better tool for a dragon hunter than that? 

• Harding
  • Harding's skills with the bow are unmatched - her arrows can stagger enemies and shred armor.
    • Seismic Shot
    • Heavy Draw
    • Shred
    • Adrenaline Rush
    • Soothing Potion
• Davrin
  • Fiercely loyal, Davrin brings his enemies down hard with a combination of mighty attacks, teaming with Assan to keep their companions out of danger.
    • Battle Cry
    • Death from Above
    • Heroic Strike
    • Assan Strike
    • In War, Victory
• Bellara
  • Bellara manipulates the Fade and uses electricity and control magic to support her Companions and diminish the powers of their foes.
    • Fade Bolts
    • Enfeebling Shot
    • Replenish
    • Time Slow
    • Galvanized Tear
• Taash
  • Blunt and straightforward, Taash is a mighty warrior, who wields dual-axes and breathes out flames, igniting enemies with draconic fury.
    • Fire Breath
    • Dragon's Roar
    • Dragonfire Strike
    • Spitfire
    • Fortune's Favor
• Lucanis
  • Lucanis stylishly deals necrotic damage in battle with his dual-daggers, whilst supporting his companions with potions and buffs.
    • Eviscerate
    • Abominate
    • Soothing Potion
    • Debilitate
    • Adrenaline Rush
• Emmrich
  • Emmrich summons forth spirits of the dead to both entangle and hinder his enemies and heal his companions.
    • Final Rites
    • Replenish
    • Entangling Spirits
    • The Bell Tolls
    • Time Slow
• Neve
  • Neve uses her talents as an ice mage to freeze and slow enemies, stopping them in their tracks.
    • Icebreaker
    • Blizzard
    • Glacial Pace
    • Time Slow
    • Replenish

BioWare noted that August 26 would be the kickoff of Companion Week for The Veilguard back when it revealed the promotional roadmap earlier in August. The week is just getting started, so it's safe to expect some more info drops on the game's companions in the days to come.

BioWare says it spent 200,000 hours testing Dragon Age: The Veilguard - and that's just for the RPG's PC version.

Yamaoka very sensibly explained in a recent tweet that in the 25 years since he sat down and formulated the iconic score for Silent Hill 2, his approach toward making music has changed dramatically.

"Remade all the original tracks and added new ones," Yamaoka said. "After 25 years, my approach to music has evolved. This work reflects that change, blending past passion with today’s sound, challenging me like never before."

If I was sitting in front of Yamaoka right now, I'd ask where he draws the line between respecting such a beloved video game score and making sure the music has evolved along with his artistry after so many years. It must be somewhat daunting tinkering with something so universally treasured but also finding ways to modernize it and respect his own vision, but alas, this isn't an interview.

Our Silent Hill 2 Remake hands-on preview is just one of many that recently surfaced daring to flip on its head the whole narrative around Bloober Team's ability to pull this thing off. Bloober has a few hits in the bag, namely Layers of Fear and Observer, but it's also released a few duds, *cough* Blair Witch *cough*, leaving some Silent Hill fans in doubt about whether the studio can do justice to one of the most iconic horror games of all time. However, with hands-on impressions being near universally positive, it's possible those fears have been unwarranted all along.

Is there any question which entry tops our list of the best Silent Hill games?

Kojima was assistant producer on Monster Hunter Tri and had been on the series in some capacity since the original PS2 cult classic, ending his run with Monster Hunter Generations. As Automaton spotted, with underwater discourse resurfacing yet again in the lead-up to Monster Hunter Wilds, he discussed the challenges of recreating the fighting style, likening it to "making a separate game."

"If the game already has ground-based battles, then [adding underwater combat] is like making a separate game," he said in a tweet (translated by Automaton). "It’s difficult. It’s really super hard."

Underwater fights functioned a bit like the dramatic set piece encounters in World in the sense that they totally upended normal combat, but instead of gimmicks and tools they came with a whole new suite of movement and attack animations for your character. Moving, gathering, and especially fighting underwater looked and felt totally different, and even though there are only a few water fights relative to the whole monster roster of Tri, these sections had a big impact on the feel and flow of the game. 

Naturally, as Kojima says, this created a lot of extra work for the dev team. In a 2017 interview with GameSpot, OG Monster Hunter director Kaname Fujioka said the underwater sections were an immense challenge, and "for the amount of time and effort it takes to make underwater action work, we felt that in [Monster Hunter] World we're better off focusing on other things." 

Monster Hunter Wilds, which is notably adding at least one of the leviathan-type monsters previously featured in underwater combat, is evidently following a similar route: focusing on what it's best at rather than trying out game-warping experiments. But hey, at least we can swim and gather things underwater in Wilds. 

Monster Hunter World turned a cult classic into a phenomenon, and Capcom wants Monster Hunter Wilds to go even further beyond: "There are certain things you have to have in place to be a global level hit." 

Buff, tough, and wielding a giant bullet-shooting lance, Clef is the very embodiment of Reignbreaker's 'medievalpunk' vibe. If you're wondering what that means, think of Arthurian legends and add fluorescent spray paint, glam rock makeup, and stylishly disheveled half-plate armor. This fast-paced roguelike already sounded like my exact brand of kooky when I'd read the press release, but playing 35 minutes of Reignbreaker at Gamescom 2024 revealed it to be even better than I'd hoped.

Anarchy to a T

It’s a no-brainer: Studio Fizbin clearly made this game for me. This is something I know the moment I sit down to watch the action-packed trailer, all isometric angles and lurid neon colors splashed against the dungeon’s rusted metal locks and chipped brickwork. 

Playing as Clef, it’s my sworn anarchic duty to take my trusty lance and have at thee, o villainous fiends (aka, padlocks) that would keep me from my quarry. Said quarry is the queen herself, whose twisted bastion I now find myself trapped in. Formed of interlocked dungeons that can only be opened by seeking out guardians, trading witty barbs, and defeating them to retrieve all-important keys, the Queen's Bastion covers a lot of ground. Its twists and turns are marked with helpful spray painted arrows, helping guide me through stony caverns to defeat small waves of enemies before coming face to face with one of many big bosses.

I only got a small taste of Reignbreaker's procedurally generated expanse during my hands-on session at Gamescom 2024, but it's more than enough to pique my interest. Underscored by an aggressive punk rock soundtrack, Clef races through the Queen's Bastion at breakneck speed. I'm quickly introduced to her weapon of choice: the lance, and she has a fair few in her inventory to choose from. Swapping lances out mid-run is as easy as hitting the left trigger on my Xbox controller, allowing me to chain melee and punch attacks with my Peashooter before swapping to a different lance that specializes in devastating ranged projectiles. I soon settle into a rhythm, much as I would in Hades 2 or Lysfanga: The Time Shift Warrior, experiencing the fluid synergy of Clef's combat arsenal. 

I discover environmental traps are also great ways to keep things fresh and lively as a member of Studio Fizbin points out the "stomp" interaction when I pass over a metal grate in the floor. Electricity starts shooting up from the smashed panel, and as soon as I head to the key lock to trigger the next attack wave, I'm sure to use the electrical trap to its full advantage against my metallic – and therefore highly conductive – enemies.

By the time I reach the boss battle, newly tooled up with epic power-ups and lance upgrades akin to the Hades boons system, I'm feeling more confident than ever. A new dash upgrade drops a can of explosive paint in Clef's wake, though I barely register whether it does anything because I'm having far too much fun aiming and firing lances at the hulking church bell-shaped enemy in my path. It doesn't take long to whittle its health down considerably, and before I know it, my Reignbreaker demo has come to an unfortunate end.

Clef feels like a one-woman power house already, and I adored experiencing a slice of her world. The stunning art style is the cherry on top of it all; the studio has teased "relationships" of varying kinds that Clef might have with the Queen's guardians, ranging from romantic to friendly to rivalry, meaning that there's plenty more to this dynamic action roguelike than stabbing steampunk enemies with lances. This is one upcoming PC game I'll be keeping on my radar – I mean, where else can I shoot bullets out of a medieval weapon as a punk rock muscle mommy?

GamesRadar+ was in Cologne playing the most anticipated new games of 2024, and speaking to the developers bringing them to life. For more of our hands-on previews and exclusive interviews, visit the Gamescom 2024 coverage hub.

Ospreay's entrance featured branding for Assassin's Creed Shadows, and you'd be forgiven if you initially dismissed this as a marketing stunt for an upcoming Ubisoft game. But Ospreay has been showing his Assassin's Creed fandom for years, often wearing an AC-inspired hood to the ring and taking opponents out with a finishing move called the Hidden Blade.

The centerpiece of Ospreay's All In entrance was a montage of wrestling and video game footage featuring voiceover from Assassin's Creed 2's Ezio Auditore, performed by original voice actor Roger Craig Smith himself, where Ospreay is more or less inducted into the assassin's brotherhood. You can check it out in full below.

"You have no idea how much your role in Assassins Creed played a huge impact in my career," Ospreay tweeted to Smith in the aftermath of the event. "Thank you so much for being part of the biggest night of my life. We are assassins."

"Thanks, Will! Flattered and honored to have been a part of this," Smith responded. "That a game character could impact folks to the point where THE Aerial Assassin would want me involved in such a massive moment…I’m immensely fortunate! Congrats on your victory! VITTORIA AGLI ASSASSINI!"

While Ezio's mainline appearances in the Assassin's Creed series ended with Revelations in 2011, the fan-favorite assassin has continued to cameo in the games and appear in various spin-offs ever since, with Smith occasionally returning to voice the character along the way. I'm fairly confident Wembley constitutes a whole new arena for the character, however.

Like a Dragon Gaiden's pro wrestling debut was a shockingly entertaining tribute to Yakuza's goofy violence.

"While we were developing Dying Light: The Beast it has outgrown its original scope," developer Techland explains in a tweet. "We're now delivering a full 18+ hours standalone adventure instead of just a DLC. We will be honoring our promise to our long-time supporters and deliver Dying Light: The Beast to current Ultimate owners at no extra cost - but due to the increased scope, we will stop selling it in the future."

Both the full Dying Light 2: Ultimate Edition bundle and the Ultimate Upgrade will remain available until September 30, and Techland will honor all owners of either version by giving them a copy of The Beast. If you've never picked up Dying Light 2 before, you might be interested in the current 30% off sale on the Ultimate Edition bundle, which brings the price down to $62.99 on both Steam and PlayStation – quite possibly the last sale this edition will see. Not bad for a full game, some DLC, and a big ol' DLC-pack-turned-spinoff.

As we learned at Gamescom, The Beast's transition from DLC to full game was in part inspired by a leak from the "very eager community." The dev meeting that followed ended up settling on the idea to bring back Kyle Crane, the protagonist of the original game. While the devs have confirmed in an FAQ that Dying Light 2 won't be getting a second story expansion now, they've committed to fulfilling their promise of five years of support for the zombie parkour game.

Keep your brains well secured as you peruse our list of the best zombie games. 

As Automaton reports, Tears of the Kingdom lead QA engineer Takuma Oiso discussed the game's development pipeline at Japan's recent Computer Entertainment Development Conference. Oiso dug into the implementation of the game-altering Ascend ability which lets Link leap through virtually any roof or ceiling, and the way this impacted Tears of the Kingdom's many cave systems. 

With hundreds of caves to make for Tears of the Kingdom's layered world, Oiso says Nintendo sought ways to optimize development by automating some elements. "However, if we were to pursue this blindly, the game could potentially end up losing something valuable," he adds. 

To that end, the team set clear boundaries on anything gameplay-facing, instead relegating purely "decorative" aspects to a procedural system that could spit out caves for artists to retouch. Level design, enemy and resource placement, and other similar variables which affect the way players explore and interact with caves were all done by hand. 

This method ended up working so well that it was later applied to Tears of the Kingdom's sky islands, Automaton reports. Oiso says artists were eager to find ways to pragmatically automate other processes since it freed up time that could then be invested in creation and polish elsewhere. My mind always goes to the kitchen with subjects like this; no sense whipping cream by hand when you could dump it in a stand mixer and do something else. Machines, baby. 

This Tears of the Kingdom anecdote functions as a practical example of Nintendo's view of procedural content in the context of AI, an increasingly divisive subject in the games industry. The methodology differs from full-fat generative AI, but the application is similar: let a computer pull the cart while an actual artist holds the reins. 

Earlier this year, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa argued Nintendo doesn't need or want to rely on generative AI, and the company would rather avoid the copyright conflicts that unrestricted AI so frequently steps in. 

"We have decades of know-how in creating optimal gaming experiences for our customers, and while we remain flexible in responding to technological developments, we hope to continue to deliver value that is unique to us and cannot be achieved through technology alone," he said, positioning AI as just another tool in the toolbox for real humans to use as needed. 

In a similar presentation, we learned how Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom avoids load times by predicting when you're about to dive into The Depths. 

"Join us on August 27 at 7am PT for an Indie World Showcase followed by a Nintendo Direct: Partner Showcase! The livestream, featuring both presentations back-to-back, will be roughly 40 minutes in total," the company says in a press release. That time translates to 10am ET / 3pm BST. You'll be able to see the broadcast on YouTube, or you can just bookmark this page and check out the embed below when the time comes.

"Please note," Nintendo warns, "there will be no mention of the Nintendo Switch successor during either of these presentations." If you were holding out hope that we'd see the Nintendo Switch 2 at this presentation, you'll need to set your expectations elsewhere. The latest from analysts suggests the Switch 2 is likely to launch in the first half of 2025, but until Nintendo makes it official, we're all just guessing here.

Partner Directs typically focus on third-party Switch titles, though Nintendo has been known to sneak a lower-key first-party game or two into these presentations, as was the case earlier this year with the announcement of Endless Ocean Luminous. The ranks of upcoming Switch games include a few notable names from frequent Nintendo Direct guests, like Square Enix's Dragon Quest 3 Remake, which could reasonably make an appearance here.

The contents of an Indie World are pretty self-explanatory and, well, look. I won't tell you not to get your hopes up for Hollow Knight Silksong here. Just remember what happened last time. And the time before that. And the time before that.

Even as the console starts getting long in the tooth, the ranks of the best Switch games already make up one of the greatest console libraries of all time.