I’m worried about Saga Anderson. She’s a seasoned FBI agent investigating a string of ritualistic deaths around Cauldron Lake, and she’s a little too impressed by all the supernatural gore she encounters. At one point, she’s talking to her partner about the cult activity they’ve seen – the dismembered body parts and necromancy and murderous villagers roaming the forests – and she says, “this place just keeps getting crazier… but this is exciting.”

A few scenes later, she’s shoving a heart through a portal to another realm and inviting a witch to show her “the terror.”

So, yeah, I’m nervous about Saga’s fate in Alan Wake II – and that only makes me more excited for the full game. I saw a 30-minute hands-off preview of Alan Wake II at Summer Game Fest, set in the second chapter. By this time, Saga has made her peace with the paranormal darkness of the case she’s investigating; she’s already pulled a manuscript page out of a corpse’s chest cavity and followed its instructions to Cauldron Lake, the setting of the original game.

Alan Wake came out 13 years ago, and the timeline in the sequel has also progressed 13 years. The writer Alan Wake has been missing that whole time, and Saga is hunting the ghost of FBI agent Robert Nightingale, who was killed at the end of the first game. In chapter two, Saga and her partner are deep in the Pacific Northwest woods. The preview shows off gorgeous lighting, character models and environments, plus satisfying-looking gunplay and flashlight-play.

Dialogue scenes between Saga and her partner aren’t rushed, establishing the narrative and letting it breathe, and there are a few moments where players can choose how to respond. The two agents split up and there are a series of simple puzzles for Saga to solve, like collecting a fuse or finding the right numbers to crack a lock, all while a sense of dread constantly builds in the background. The preview provides some serious early Resident Evil vibes — Alan Wake II is a survival-horror experience, while the original was an action-thriller.

As Saga attempts to solve the mysteries around her, she can jump into her Mind Place (no, not Mind Palace) to organize clues and connect the dots. Her Mind Place looks like the living room of a ’90s conspiracy theorist, with photos and notes connected by red string along one wood-paneled wall. This is where Saga can manipulate the evidence she’s found, placing clues near each other to see if they’re related, unlocking the path forward. If she gets stuck, she can go to the desk in the center of the room and commune with her subjects, asking them for answers based on the clues she’s gathered; this is called Profiling. Saga can enter her Mind Place at any time.

Remedy Entertainment

There are a few jump-scares in the preview, where the screen quickly cuts to a screaming face or an enemy suddenly bursts through a doorway, but they’re well placed and not overdone. Saga feels capable and curious – maybe a little too curious for her own good, but we’ll have to see how that plays out in the full game. At the end of the preview, Alan suddenly appears in the woods with Saga, screaming about dark forces and confused by how long he’s been missing.

The big innovation in Alan Wake II is the ability to swap between Saga and Alan himself, playing as both characters throughout the game. Chapter one begins with Saga in the driver’s seat, and after that players can choose to play as her or Alan at the beginning of each new section. A Remedy spokesperson said developers are still fine-tuning the swap mechanic; they don’t necessarily want to give players the ability to change characters every five minutes, for the sake of the narrative flow, but they still want to provide real instances of meaningful choice.

Remedy Entertainment

Alan Wake II is a contained single-player experience and it doesn’t have a bunch of side quests, according to Remedy. There are a few errands to complete and secrets to find parallel to the main story, but this is first-and-foremost a linear, narrative-driven game. 

There were plenty of sequels at the Summer Game Fest showcase, and Alan Wake II stands out in this crowded field. The preview showcased a clear vision: Alan Wake II retains the themes of the original game, but introduces a fresh perspective with the protagonist, mechanics and genre. It feels like Remedy knows the story it's trying to tell — even if Alan and Saga don't.

Alan Wake II is due to hit PC, Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 on October 17th.

Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest right here!

When I saw the announcement trailer for Immortals of Aveum in the winter of 2022, I was surprised by my own interest in the game. Immortals came from an unproven studio founded four years prior by Bret Robbins, a AAA creative director who most recently built a trio of Call of Duty titles: Modern Warfare 3, Advanced Warfare, and WWII. Ascendant Studios, his independent venture, was partnering with EA on its debut game, a first-person shooter in a militaristic fantasy world. On the surface, it didn’t sound like something I’d be drawn to.

But Immortals of Aveum caught my eye. Its cinematics were beautiful and the trailer showcased frenetic combat with bright beams of magic, all while actors Gina Torres (Firefly) and Darren Barnet (Never Have I Ever) narrated an epic story of rebellion, political sabotage and dragons. From a first-person perspective, the protagonist’s hand movements were quick and sharp, and they looked like a satisfying build-up to powerful attacks.

With a few months of hindsight, I remain interested in Immortals of Aveum and I think I’ve figured out why. There aren’t a ton of first-person action games that rely on mechanics other than guns — Dishonored, Ghostwire: Tokyo and Hexen come to mind, but it’s a small field overall. That might be one reason Immortals of Aveum stands out as something fresh, but it’s also nice to see a new, AAA-level game that’s single-player and narrative-driven with a contained campaign, rather than an open world of live-service features. Learning more about Ascendant helped, too: Robbins was also the creative director of the original Dead Space and his team included former Telltale Games members, lending weight to the assertation that Immortals of Aveum would center a dense storyline.

I played a demo of Immortals of Aveum at Summer Game Fest 2023, and it was gorgeous. Its cinematics were particularly impressive: The motion capture was smooth and the character models were finely detailed, with delicate eye markings and layers of gear. The clarity of the cutscenes made it easier to get lost in the dialogue and the ravaged fantasy world of Aveum, even in a short period of time.

Gameplaywise, I had access to the blue type of magic, which granted me two abilities: a whip that pulled enemies toward me, and a burst of balled-up energy, spammable as fast as my finger could press R2. I also used the Animate ability on a giant rock hand, using a telekinesis-type power to manipulate its fingers and bridge a gap between two cliffside landings. Playing with a gamepad on PC, I found the mechanics to be almost too smooth, with my reticle often sliding beyond my intended targets, but this is something I think I’d get used to after 30 minutes longer with the game. Even with the hyper-lubricated controls, I appreciated the lack of a noticeable aim assist.

EA

I didn’t encounter the sheer number of enemies that Ascendant has shown off in trailers for Immortals of Aveum; my hordes maxed out at about eight. But by the end of my play time, I felt like I’d started to learn the rhythm of the game’s combat, and I can see it becoming frenzied — in a great way — with the addition of new magical powers. And, sure, some more enemies.

The most jarring part of the demo was actually traversing the terrain — there were plenty of craggy mountainsides and rock walls that looked perfectly climbable by modern action-adventure standards, but they weren’t. Maybe I needed to spend more time learning the intricacies of gap-jumping and ledge-grabbing, but I found my character to be slightly less spry than I wanted, unwilling to fully double-jump or pull himself onto platforms. However, the movement restrictions seemed purposeful, and the game wasn’t sluggish by any means: Immortals of Aveum felt more like a puzzle game than a climbing adventure, with a series of locked stone doors and multicolored gems to throw magic at in specific patterns.

EA

My demo broke once, when a bug prevented a stone door from opening, and a developer had to get me back on track. I was assured that the game will be in full working condition by launch day, in about six weeks.

Ascendant Studios is independent, but it’s marketed as a AAA team and it has about 100 employees. Immortals of Aveum certainly looks like a big-budget game; it’s built in Unreal Engine 5 and heading to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC on July 20th. I remain intrigued; I'm excited to get my hands on a few more magical powers and see where this world of high-fantasy politics leads.

Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest right here!

The Chinese Room — the studio behind Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, Dear Esther and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture — is back with a new horror experience, Still Wakes the Deep. It's a narrative horror game, taking the studio back to its roots, and it's set on an oil rig in 1975. It's a first-person game and its announcement trailer captures a series of tense, lethal-looking moments on the rig.

Here's how The Chinese Room describes the game: "Disaster strikes the Beira D oil rig off the coast of Scotland. Navigate the collapsing rig to save your crew from an otherworldly horror on the edge of all logic and reality."

Still Wakes the Deep is due to hit Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, PC and Game Pass in early 2024.

Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest right here!

City planners and traffic mathematicians, rejoice: Cities Skylines II is due to come out on October 24th, 2023. It's heading to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC. A new trailer shows off the updated visuals and mechanics of the sequel.

Developer Colossal Order shipped the original Cities Skylines 8 years ago, and it's since sold more than 12 million copies. There's a strong Twitch and YouTube community for the game, and some of the biggest personalities have been playing the sequel in beta and providing feedback to developers.

Pre-orders for Cities Skylines II are open today. Colossal Order revealed the new game in March, and it plans to showcase each of its features in detail, one per week, throughout the coming months.

Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest right here!

Compulsion Games is back with a new project called South of Midnight, a third-person action adventure set in an original world of magic, monsters and giant, blues-playing skeletons. The game's debut trailer is a cinematic snippet introducing the protagonist, a young woman named Hazel, as she attempts to reason with an immortal specter on a dark dock. Hazel is hunting a monster — or, it's hunting her, as the trailer goes on to show — and she can wield bright threads of magic. 

South of Midnight is in development for Xbox Series X/S and PC, including a Steam release, and it'll come to Game Pass on launch day — whenever that may be.

South of Midnight is set in a fictional town in the southern United States and the game is infused with magical realism. It's a Southern Gothic love letter of sorts, creative director David Sears said on Xbox Wire.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest right here!

Lies of P is a dark, steampunk take on the legend of Pinocchio, and it's due to come out on PC, PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S (plus Game Pass) on September 19th. There's a demo available across all platforms right now, and it'll be live until June 27th. The demo requires an online connection and is free to access.

Lies of P comes from prolific South Korean publisher and developer Neowiz. The studio describes the game as an Souls-like action experience, and it's absolutely drenched in dark fantasy vibes. The latest trailer for Lies of P, shown off during the Summer Game Fest kickoff show today, reveals a sprawling industrial landscape filled with mechanical technologies, cog-wheel robots and bronze finishes. The game is styled after the Belle Epoque era, drawing on late 19th-century French aesthetics. 

Those who pre-order the digital deluxe edition of Lies of P will get early access to the full game. Pre-orders are live on the game's website right now.

Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest right here!

E3 may be dead, but Summer Game Fest kicks off today with an opening-night livestream from the YouTube Theater in Los Angeles.

The show is expected to run for two hours, featuring game announcements and updates from many of the industry's most prominent studios and indie publishers. Nearly every big hitter is a partner, including PlayStation, Xbox, EA, Activision and Square Enix. Notable absentees from the show’s promotional materials include Nintendo and Ubisoft. Nintendo participated in E3 when that show was still a thing, but it's not terribly surprising to see the company skip Summer Game Fest, considering it just dropped The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Ubisoft has its own event on Monday, but it isn't officially tied to Summer Game Fest — Ubisoft's name was on the show's website until this week, but it's been scrubbed from the schedule and partner list.

Organized by the team behind The Game Awards, Summer Game Fest’s live event is the first of 10 streams taking place between June 7th and June 12th (plus a bonus Ubisoft event). The opening show will be followed immediately by a Day of the Devs stream from Double Fine and iam8bit, highlighting a number of games from independent developers. You can see the full Summer Game Fest schedule, including what to expect from each show, here.

The video game industry is larger than it’s ever been. The biggest companies are worth trillions of dollars and dozens more operate in the billions. In terms of social impact, video games are an established, powerful segment of the art and entertainment landscape. In 2023, the state of the video game market is, “big and getting bigger.” So why, from a player perspective, does it feel like the industry is shrinking?

It’s been four years since the last big video game showcase in the US. E3 2019 marked the last time the industry met in Los Angeles for a week of game and hardware announcements, and it’s finally happening again this year, just under new management. Summer Game Fest kicks off today, June 8th, and it’s organized by the team behind The Game Awards, rather than the Entertainment Software Association. There’s going to be a main live show at 3PM ET and multiple follow-up streams focused on indie games, plus events from Xbox, Ubisoft and Capcom running through June 12th.

The format of Summer Game Fest certainly looks familiar, but the industry itself has changed drastically since the last big summer showcase. The Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 have been on the market for more than two years, subscription-based cloud services are actually viable, and the indie and AA space has found its footing again. Meanwhile, the largest companies in the room have been on an acquisition spree, with Microsoft and Sony buying talented studios in a bid to pad their new platforms with exclusive games. 

For the full story, watch the video below. 

Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest right here!

The latest update to macOS is called Sonoma and it's all about productivity and widget management. The new operating system adds widgets to the desktop and makes them movable, allowing users to place them anywhere. As one widget is in use, the others will fade into the background.

Sonoma — or, macOS 14 — will also communicate with widgets on your iPhone, with no need to install them directly on the desktop, via a feature called Continuity. With your iOS device nearby, you'll be able to access all of your phone's widgets on desktop. 

Apple

Sonoma also features improvements in Mac gaming power. The new OS introduces Game Mode, which reduces background tasks while prioritizing CPU and GPU performance, all in the name of smoother, higher-performance play. In related news, Death Stranding: Director's Cut will hit Mac this year, as will all future projects from Kojima Productions.

Last year's update, macOS Ventura, landed last fall and included Stage Manager, a feature that organizes apps and windows based on what you're actually using. Safari and Mail also saw some refreshes to better align with iOS 16.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Follow all of the news from Apple's WWDC 2023 right here.

Alan Wake II, the sequel to Remedy Entertainment's 2010 cult hit, is scheduled to come out on October 17th, 2023, for Xbox Series X and S, PlayStation 5 and PC. There are two playable protagonists in Alan Wake II: Wake himself and FBI agent Saga Anderson. The sequel is a single-player psychological horror experience, just like the original.

In the new game, Anderson is investigating a rash of ritualistic murders plaguing the small town of Bright Falls in the Pacific Northwest. She connects the incidents to the disappearance of horror writer Alan Wake (who vanished 13 years ago, appropriately), and things get spooky very quickly from there. Meanwhile, Wake is trapped in the Dark Place, attempting to write his way out of a hellish, surreal prison. Wake's world is full of shifting spaces and looping realities, while Bright Falls is a picturesque canvas ripe for hidden horrors.

"After certain events have transpired, fans can play Wake and Anderson’s respective stories in any order they choose," a Remedy Entertainment spokesperson said on the PlayStation Blog. "Their journeys echo and foreshadow each other, in this intense atmospheric story, taking players on two separate dark and disturbing paths."