Arkane Lyon, the developer of Deathloop, is making a game based on Marvel’s resident vampire hunter Blade. There’s a trailer, but it’s just a cinematic with no gameplay. Still, this is very exciting news as Arkane Lyon is the talented team behind Prey and the Dishonored 2. It also made the vampire shooter Redfall, which had some good ideas that were marred by, well, some very bad ideas. Here’s hoping the second time’s a holy watered charm.

This doesn’t have anything to do with Marvel’s upcoming Blade film, which has been in and out of development hell these past few years. It’s an original game set in Paris that adapts the comic book character. Arkane calls it a mature single-player adventure, so it's likely to feature more gore than other Marvel games because, well, that’s kind of Blade’s whole bag. As usual, Marvel Games is on board, as VP and creative director Bill Roseman took the stage at The Game Awards after the trailer reveal.

Marvel is fairly hands-on with its games nowadays, and recent titles like Spider-Man 2 and Guardians of the Galaxy had its stamp of approval. There’s no release date and no announced platforms for Blade, though the entire team at Arkane Lyon is currently “pouring so much love” into the game.

Sorry Evolution fans, there’s a new Jurassic Park game in town. Saber Interactive and Universal just dropped a trailer for Jurassic Park: Survival at The Game Awards. This is an adventure game set on Isla Nublar just one day after the events of the original film. You play as InGen scientist Dr. Maya Joshi, who missed the last plane out of dodge. In other words, she’s stuck on an island full of hungry dinosaurs.

The single-player action-adventure has you hiding from all kinds of menacing species, and the publisher boasts that each dinosaur boasts its own set of “distinct and adaptive behaviors.” Obviously, with a name like Jurassic Park: Survival, staying alive will be the name of the game. There’s not much, after all, one person can do to hurt a rampaging T-rex. This looks to be a stealth-heavy nailbiter, but one with all of the familiar landmarks from the film. It even features that iconic John Williams theme.

There’s no release date yet, so we likely have a bit of time before we get our hands on this one. Jurassic Park: Survival launches on Xbox X/S, PlayStation 5 and PC. There’s just one final question on my mind. Will the player find the body of recently-deceased Dennis Nedry? The dude sucked, but he didn’t deserve that.

Supermassive Games just dropped a trailer for its forthcoming single-player interactive story game set in the Dead by Daylight universe. The Casting of Frank Stone is a character-driven narrative adventure that features all of the character choice and tension of Supermassive-developed titles like Until Dawn and The Quarry.

The developer promises “powerful life or death choices” and an entirely new cast of characters. Supermassive says this is a “whole new way for horror fans” to experience the franchise, and that’s something of an understatement. Dead by Deadlight is an asymmetrical multiplayer title in which one player is the killer and the others are trying to survive. It’s like a really intense version of hide and seek. Obviously, a single player adventure would have to be completely different, which the trailer certainly leans into. 

As you can see, the game looks slow, moody and cinematic, which is a stark departure from the source material. The trailer's short of actual gameplay details, but there are some first person shots of a flashlight in the woods, so that's something. 

We already knew this crossover was in the works, but the trailer debut at The Game Awards is our first real look at the game. Supermassive is known for putting its own B-horror spin on things, so The Casting of Frank Stone should be a good time when it launches in 2024 for Xbox X/S and PC via Steam and Windows. 

God of War Ragnarok is a game so large that it practically has a whole second game tucked away inside. And yet that still doesn't seem to be quite enough Norse action for Kratos. During The Game Awards, Sony revealed a Valhalla-centric expansion for the 2022 hit. 

Not only that, it's free. And it's coming next week, on December 12, to both PS4 and PS5 versions of the base game.

Much like with the No Return mode in the upcoming The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered, Sony is leaning into the roguelite format here. In the trailer, Kratos is shown getting slammed into the ground by a wyvern. He then wakes up to hear Mimir telling him there's "no shame in what just happened. It's all part of the process. Let's go again!"

On each run, you'll have to contend with fresh combinations of enemies and some surprises, according to the PlayStation Blog. The more enemies you take down, the more resources you'll earn to put towards permanent upgrades. While you'll have access to Kratos' skill trees from the main game, you'll need to stick with one shield and one Spartan Rage path on each run. You'll also unlock temporary perks as you progress through each attempt.

And don't worry too much if that all seems daunting. There are five difficulty settings to choose from and there will still be an extensive array of accessibility options at your disposal. 

It seems the DLC will dig into a new part of Kratos' story as well. "Embark with Kratos to Valhalla on a deeply personal and reflective journey towards a future he never thought possible," the trailer's YouTube description reads. That suggests the expansion will lead into the next game in the series. While you can jump into Valhalla at any time, the developer recommend finishing the base game's main story first. That's because the DLC acts as an epilogue.

There have been rumors floating around for a while that Santa Monica Studio was working on DLC for God of War Ragnarok. That it will be available at no extra cost (and so soon!) is a nice little holiday treat for fans.

Atlus and its subsidiary Studio Zero have finally released a new trailer for the forthcoming RPG Metaphor: ReFantazio at The Game Awards. The title’s being helmed by many of the talented folks behind Persona 5, including director Katsura Hashino and composer Shoji Meguro. The primary difference? This game takes place in a fantasy setting, with nary a high school or talking cat in sight.

The game was originally teased earlier this year, but all we had was a title and a small announcement trailer. Now this trailer is the real deal, with full voice acting, cinematics and plenty of actual gameplay. A video game trailer with actual gameplay, what a novel concept.

As for that gameplay, the combat looks similar to Persona, though without the use of the titular beasties. The game is populated by a diverse cast of characters and if you stare at the menus you can see some tell-tale signs of a robust social element at play, another similarity to the Persona series.

There’s also something of a steampunk vibe running throughout, which is always a nifty choice for a video game. Who knows, maybe there’s a sinister blue door somewhere in the world populated by a creepy old man. Metaphor: ReFantazio — The Royal Tournament, a name Square Enix would love, launches in fall of next year on Xbox X/S and PC.

Exodus is the first game from Archetype Entertainment, a studio established by Wizards of the Coast in 2019 and staffed by former developers from BioWare, 343 Industries, Naughty Dog and other AAA establishments. Exodus is a big and bold sci-fi RPG that deals with time dilation, the idea that time passes more slowly than we're used to during high-velocity travel, causing interstellar explorers to outlive their friends and family back home.

In Exodus, humanity has been forced to abandon Earth and establish a new civilization in a hostile galaxy. Players are the Traveler, a person tasked with exploring far-off solar systems for advanced alien technology. What the Traveler counts in days, the rest of humanity experiences in decades. With this conceit, players' choices will cause butterfly effects to ripple across humanity's new planet, particularly in the lives of their own loved ones, and the Traveler will watch these play out over generations.

Player choice is a big part of Exodus, affecting individual combat moments and helping to shape the overall story arc. The game includes alien weaponry and classic gunplay, a deep progression system, and a swathe of companion characters (yes, romance is on the table). Also, Matthew McConaughey is in Exodus in some way, and he presented the game at The Game Awards, unveiling its first, cinematic trailer.

Archetype, a division of Wizards of the Coast, is packed with stellar sci-fi video game talent. It includes studio head James Ohlen (Baldur's Gate, Dragon Age: Origins), executive producer Chad Robertson (Star Wars: The Old Republic), director Chris King (Halo 4), and narrative director Drew Karpyshyn (Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2). The focus on time dilation and personal loss in Exodus underscores the team's desire to build an emotional, narrative-driven game, with action as an engaging but supplementary feature — and they have the résumés to pull that off.

Exodus is in development for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC.

The tenth edition of the Game Awards is upon us. The event unfolds Thursday evening, with host Geoff Keighley scheduled to take the stage at 7:30PM ET. In addition to the myriad trailers, announcements, gameplay clips and speeches, six titles will compete for the coveted Game of the Year award. Engadget will cover all the big news as it happens, and you can watch along below.

Baldur’s Gate 3 and Alan Wake 2 lead the pack with eight total nominations. They’ll compete for Game of the Year with Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 (seven nods), Super Mario Bros. Wonder (five), The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (five) and the Resident Evil 4 remake (four).

Nintendo had a banner year, even as the Switch likely approaches its swan song. The company raked in 15 total nominations — the most of any publisher. Sony was next, with 13 nods, while Microsoft (including Bethesda and Activision Blizzard) received 10 noms. Meanwhile, Epic Games, the only non-hardware-producing publisher in the top four, snagged nine.

The awards show includes 31 total awards in areas as diverse as Best Action Game, Best Esports Coach and Best Independent Game. The indie category opened a can of worms this year, as the beloved Dave the Diver was included in the category despite being produced by a subsidiary of Nexon, a behemoth with an $18.3 billion market cap.

You can tune into the Game Awards on YouTube, Twitch (and other platforms) at 7:30PM ET on Thursday. Or, watch below:

The Game Boy might be over 30 years old, but it remains one of the most beloved retro systems. Despite its age, there’s been a steady increase in indie releases, thanks in part to GB Studio — a drop-and-drag tool for making games and an influx of new retro-focused handhelds. But 2023 has been a particularly strong year for the console. An upcoming Game Boy Color title, Dragonyhm, looks set both to raise the bar for the current wave of titles and round off a stellar year for fans of Nintendo’s iconic handheld.

We can thank the pandemic for Dragonyhm. Chris Beach was working in real estate when the COVID lockdowns put a tight squeeze on his day job. He used the time to realize a long-held desire to create an RPG for the Game Boy. The result was Dragonborne, which Beach released himself under his newly-minted Spacebot Interactive publishing imprint. The company would go on to handle the first run of Deadeus and begin production of Dragonborne DX for the Game Boy Color. But thanks to some new features in the latest version of GB Studio, the project soon took on a life of its own.

“It started off as just a color version of the original Dragonborne. I thought it'd be a quick job, colorize it and re-release it. But with all the new features of GB studio, we went down a rabbit hole, and we've ended up overhauling pretty much everything in the game,” Beach told Engadget. The result is Dragonyhm, a larger RPG with new graphics, reimagined sound, improved mechanics and more levels to explore. “We've got plans for five [games] at the moment, and they'll be released over multiple consoles, not just not just the Game Boy.”

Spacebot Interactive

In the time-honored retro RPG tradition, Dragonyhm begins in our hero Kris’ home. His mother wakes him with worrying news that his father Kurtis, the kingdom’s best dragon-slayer, is missing. Worse, there are rumors that monsters in the dungeons have begun to stir. How long before they awaken and wreak havoc on our hero’s once peaceful lands? No prizes for guessing whose quest it is to find and save Kurtis and in turn, the entire kingdom.

The first moments of the game do overlap heavily with Dragonborne, but it’s not long before the two start diverging. In the original version, there’s a simple puzzle very early on to acquire an object. In Dragonyhm, the same task is much more dynamic and with more interesting mechanics.

Playing the game on an Analogue Pocket, with its impressive Game Boy Color screen mode, Dragonyhm could easily pass for an official title from back in the day. The graphics capture the spirit of RPGs of the era and the dialog and challenges feel authentic. The game also feels satisfyingly big. Developing for vintage systems is hard and the projects are usually one person’s labor of love, which can result in shorter games or superficial gameplay.

Photo by James Trew / Engadget

With Spacebot Interactive, Beach wants to keep the bar high and release games that would have been worthy of saving up an allowance for, and that means longer playing times with more sophisticated stories and mechanics. “I think Link's Awakening was about 15 hours on a standard playthrough. And [Dragonyhm] will probably be on par with that, maybe a bit longer” Beach said. There will also be a secondary mechanic that will extend replay potential once the main story has been completed.

If my early playthroughs are anything to go by, the game offers the right amount of guidance and nudging at the beginning, but it’s also not long before you find yourself battling it out in your first real mission. As with most RPGs worth their salt, you’ll need to start grinding as soon as you can to level up in order to be strong enough to take on bigger and badder enemies and unlock new areas of the game. Though, for these early stages at least, you’re doing so alone and not as a party.

Mega Cat games

Dragonyhm isn’t the only sizable retro game in 2023. Earlier this year, Mega Cat studios raised almost $50,000 on Kickstarter to bring the adventure game Kudzu to life. Development is now complete, with boxed versions set to ship in January. Kudzu is another RPG-flavored game, with a similar quest to find your missing mentor, Zoen. This time though it’s set in a very different world, one where a raging “world eating” plant — the eponymous Kudzu — is the main enemy.

Kudzu takes the classic Game Boy RPG and spices it up with humor and cozy-catastrophe charm. Along your journey you’ll meet an interesting cast of characters including a cat that wants a pen pal and the in-game currency is mushrooms. Kudzu also uses a wide variety of challenges to move the story along. One minute you’ll need to use logic and memory to navigate mazes that change with levers, the next you might be collecting goats. And then there’s the mysterious Kudzu “jelly” — use it wisely and you might just fine Zoen before it’s too late.

If you prefer platformers and adventure games, then Far After — announced over summer — might be more your speed. This game blends a lot of classic retro themes — magic, quests, turn-based battles and platforming — making it an obvious crowd pleaser. Far After is published by Bitmapsoft which is no stranger to the retro world with numerous Game Boy titles on its roster.

The current wave of new interest in making Game Boy games is running in parallel with another, related trend: an abundance of retro gaming handhelds. These emulation devices start from around $50 and offer modern conveniences like a full-color, backlit display. Not to mention plenty of game storage, Wi-Fi and relatively long battery life. Then of course, there’s the Analogue Pocket, a higher-end handheld that’s basically the answer to the question “what would a Game Boy look like if it were designed and released today.”

Bitmapsoft

These retro-friendly handhelds make it incredibly easy to get started with emulating almost any console from more than 15 years ago. You might even argue that, while many developers are simply making games for their favorite system, once you have something like the Pocket or Ayn Odin, the platform the game was actually made for is less important. These could easily be mobile games or modern retro titles like Celeste, just someone chose to make them with a certain tool that delivers a certain aesthetic and desirable limitations.

Of course, there’s also Nintendo’s eShop and Virtual Console which provides a legitimate route for games like Dragonyhm to be played on official hardware for those that get a kick out of that. Beach confirmed they are aiming to release the game on Switch this way next year. With more and more ways to play these games, it’s a great time to be a Game Boy fan.

“I think it's a really good time, I would go as far as calling it a golden age, because there's so many developers developing homebrew Game Boy games now, and some of the quality is unbelievable. It’s really pushing the boundaries and producing stuff that's on par with licensed games” Beach said.

Dragonyhm is slated for release next year in partnership with Incube8 Games.

Day of the Devs is awesome. It’s a showcase that pops up a few times a year to promote promising, in-progress indie games, irrespective of publisher, genre, budget, visual style or release window. It’s curated by the folks at Double Fine and iam8bit, and they’ve been hosting Day of the Devs live events and digital showcases for the past 11 years.

The latest Day of the Devs celebration wrapped up on December 6, the day before The Game Awards, and it featured 20 marvelous and strange independent projects. The virtual show included a few world premieres and release date announcements, but mostly, it was a celebration of creativity and innovation in indie games. This is particularly relevant right now: The Game Awards reignited the debate around the definition of “indie” in November, when its jury voted Dave the Diver into the Best Independent Game category — even though the title is made by Nexon, one of the largest studios in South Korea.

Indie is more than a label; it identifies teams that are operating outside of the AAA system, without a safety net, and it helps players determine where to spend their money. We published nearly 2,000 words on the topic of defining indie games, so read that if you want more juice. But right now, efforts like Day of the Devs feel extra necessary.

Day of the Devs: The Game Awards Edition 2023 offered a non-stop flow of indie goodness, so watch the whole show if you’re into cool stuff like that. We’ve broken out the news and highlights here:

New games

Kind words 2 (lofi city pop)

Kind Words (lo fi chill beats to write to) came out at both the perfect and most upsetting time — it landed in September 2019, a few months before the pandemic shut down everyday life across the globe. Kind Words is a game about listening to smooth lo-fi beats and writing real letters to real people, and during quarantine, it served as an outlet for thousands of players seeking interpersonal connection, warmth and encouragement.

Kind Words 2 (lofi city pop) is an expanded sequel coming from the original team, Popcannibal. Writing nice letters to strangers is still a core gameplay mechanic, but players are no longer confined to their bedrooms. There’s a whole city to explore, with coffee shops for writing poetry, mountaintops for making wishes on stars, and public spaces filled with people to talk to. The sequel also introduces a social media system with no quantitative feedback — no likes, no popularity metrics, just good vibes.

The Steam page for Kind Words 2 is live now. It's coming in 2024.

Loose Leaf

The studio behind Boyfriend Dungeon is back with something completely different, but potentially just as sexy. Loose Leaf is a tea-drinking, tarot-reading, witchy experience with a serene 3D art style, and Kitfox Games is advertising it as the most in-depth tea-brewing simulator ever created. It looks like an incredibly detailed version of the potion-making minigame from Pottermore, with a side of social interaction in the form of tarot readings.

Loose Leaf is a game about patience, friendships and the magic therein. There’s no release date at the moment, but it has a Steam page.

The Mermaid’s Tongue

SFB Games, the team that brought us Snipperclips and Tangle Tower, has a new project called The Mermaid’s Tongue. It’s part of the Tangle Tower universe and stars Grimoire and Sally, the two detectives from that series. The Mermaid’s Tongue is a murder mystery game about the death of a submarine captain, and players have to interrogate bystanders, investigate their surroundings and solve environmental puzzles.

The Mermaid’s Tongue is heading to Steam and Xbox in 2024, and a Steam demo is out now.

Nirvana Noir

Genesis Noir is one of the most visually striking games of the past few years, and its sequel, Nirvana Noir, looks just as stunning. Nirvana Noir is Feral Cat Den’s follow-up to Genesis, and it offers a jazzy, psychedelic twist on the series. The main character, No Man, is caught in a cosmic conspiracy and players will use dialogue-based detective work to understand the surrounding characters, read between the lines and hunt for clues.

There’s no release date for Nirvana Noir at the moment, but it's coming to Steam, the Epic Games Store and Xbox. It'll be published by Fellow Traveller.

Release dates

Flock

Flock looks like a charming, cozy game about soaring around fantastical environments and collecting flying friends, with singleplayer and multiplayer settings. It comes from Hollow Ponds and Richard Hogg, one of the creators of Hohokum, and it is incredibly cute. Aside from befriending birds, the game includes a creature guide for identifying new beasts and there’s a wool-collecting mechanic tied to the sheep roaming the lands below. Flock didn’t have a release window until today: It’s due out in spring 2024 on Steam, PlayStation and Xbox, published by Annapurna Interactive.

Annapurna Interactive

Open Roads

Open Roads has been on the indie radar for a while now, and it finally has a release date: February 22, 2024. Open Roads follows a mother and her 16-year-old daughter on a road trip that reveals hard truths about their family and ultimately tests their bond. It looks like an emotional, moving story, and it stars actors Keri Russel and Kaitlyn Dever.

Open Roads comes from The Open Roads Team, a group of developers that split off from indie studio Fullbright. It’s published by Annapurna Interactive and it's heading to PC, PlayStation, Xbox and Switch. It'll be on Game Pass at launch.

Annapurna Interactive

These look especially dope

Cryptmaster

Cryptmaster looks like Inscyrption mixed with hell’s cel-shader, and I’m personally very into it. Cryptmaster blends word puzzles with action sequences; players build their arsenals by solving letter-guessing games with text or voice, unlocking the resulting attack skills. It comes from Paul Hart and Lee Williams, published by Akupara Games, and it’s due to hit Steam in 2024.

Akupara Games

Drag Her!

This one’s for the royalty in everyone. Drag Her! is a fighting game featuring real-life superstar drag queens and kings from RuPaul’s Drag Race, Boulet Brothers’ Dragula and beyond, and it looks like a camp ol’ time. Drag Her! stars Alaska, Asia O’Hara, BenDeLaCreme, Kim Chi, Landon Cider and Laganja Estranja, with voice acting by each performer and unique attacks based on their personalities.

Drag Her! comes from Fighting Chance Games and it’s slated for release in early 2025.

Holstin

Holstin brings horror to a small Polish town in the 1990s, with beautifully dark pixel-art scenes that swap between isometric and first-person perspectives. The developers at Sonka grew up in this world of post-communism religious influence, and they used their experiences to build a game dripping in psychological and supernatural horror. Holstein is an eerie game that values investigation and sharpshooting in equal measure, set in a rare locale.

There’s no release date for Holstin, but it’s coming to PC, Xbox, PlayStation and Switch eventually. A demo showing off its first-person combat system recently went live on Steam, and another demo is coming in 2024.

Home Safety Hotline

As a true ’90s kid, this one is weirdly comforting. Home Safety Hotline is a text-based horror game that plays out on a Windows 96 desktop, complete with pixelated icons and sad gray pop-up windows. Players log on to work at a call center, where they help their clients get rid of spooky, paranormal creatures and occurrences invading their homes.

Home Safety Hotline is heading to PC in early 2024 (a slight delay from its original release date).

Night Signal Entertainment

Militsioner

Militsioner is essentially 1984, the video game: It features a cop as an all-seeing colossus, sitting watch over a quiet town, alert and eager to throw you in jail. Players have to escape without attracting the attention of the giant policeman, learning when to sneak and how to talk their way out of capture, and exploring empty buildings and solving spatial puzzles along the way.

Militsioner comes from Tallboys and doesn’t have a release date, but its Steam page is live.

Tallboys

If you're still craving more, check out the full Day of the Devs: The Game Awards 2023 show here.

After a slow month in the world of video game marketing, things are starting to pick up. The past week has given us a first look at the new Fallout TV show, a few release dates and a trailer for a little game called Grand Theft Auto VI — and the Game Awards are still to come. What good timing for us to launch a weekly video game show to dig into the news.

This week’s stories

The Game Awards

The Game Awards

The Game Awards will go live on Thursday, December 7, at 7:30PM ET. Expect a few hours of game announcements, new trailers, awkward interviews and musical performances, including one by the fictional band from Alan Wake 2.

Amazon MGM Studios

Fallout, but on TV!

Amazon dropped the first trailer for its live-action Fallout series — and, man, it sure does look like Fallout. The show is set in Los Angeles 200 years after the nuclear apocalypse, and it stars Yellowjackets actor Ella Purnell, plus Walton Goggins, Aaron Moten and Kyle MacLachlan. It’s heading to Prime Video on April 12, 2024.

GTA VI is coming in 2025

The biggest news item this week, pre-The Game Awards, was the first official trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI. As of writing it's already reached 105 million views on YouTube — a pace usually reserved for only the finest K-Pop videos. GTA VI is set in Vice City, it’s coming out in 2025 and I'm sure we’ll hear a lot more about it before then.

Nexon

What is an indie game?

The meat of this week’s episode focuses on the longstanding debate about what “indie” actually means. One of the titles nominated for Best Independent Game at the Game Awards, Dave the Diver, was commissioned and bankrolled by Nexon, one of the largest video game studios in South Korea. It’s not indie, and its inclusion in this category highlights how little consensus there still is around the definition.

This is kinda my area of expertise — it’s my 13th year as a video game journalist and indie games have always been a core feature of my reporting. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what I mean when I say “indie,” so I sat down and formalized this thought process. There are three questions that can help define a game in an indie gray area: Is the team on the mainstream system’s payroll? Is the game or team owned by a platform holder? Do the artists have creative control? I dug into these questions this week, and discuss how having a publisher isn’t related to the indie label at all.

But when all else fails in the indie debate, there’s one ultimate question to ask: Can this team exist without my support? This is why the distinction matters: The indie label helps to identify the artists that would not exist without game sales, crowdfunding or word-of-mouth support from players. It exists to determine the teams that are truly living and dying on game sales, and it helps players decide where to spend their money. If Dave the Diver didn’t sell well, its team would likely have the chance to try again. If, say, Pizza Tower didn’t sell well, its studio could have folded.

I think this is an important conversation, so give that story a read and let us know in the comments if you think my questions help or just make things more confusing. It’s probably a little bit of both.

Now playing

I’ve been thoroughly enjoying The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood on Steam Deck — it’s the latest game from Deconstructeam, the indie studio that made The Red Strings Club and Gods Will Be Watching. The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood is a game about building tarot decks, manipulating elections, betraying a coven of witches and seducing everyone; it’s sexy and well-written, and I highly recommend it. Another game I’m looking forward to is A Highland Song from indie studio Inkle; it just came out this week and I’m excited to dive in.

Let us know in the comments what you’re playing! Also, we still don’t know what to call this weekly video game news show, so leave us some name suggestions, too. Thanks!