Our favorite thing about Zau might surprise you. Or, it might be the first thing you noticed. In a recent Discord Q+A (viewable below), ZAU Creative Director Abubakar Salim throws the deceptively simple question to Lead Artist Ackeem Durrant and Lead Designer Zi Peters: what's your favorite thing about our main character? Since our reveal in December, we've been completely floored by how many of you took the leap to pre-order ZAU. We worked hard to give the game a fair price—and a 10% discount to everyone who buys before launch day - plus carefully crafted in-game content that feels special while not detracting from our central vision for the game. We're incredibly grateful for your support. Thank you.

Wield the dance of the shaman. Reclaim your father's spirit
A grieving boy begins to read a Bantu tale written by his late father. Adventure into the beautiful and treacherous lands of Kenzera as Zau, a young shaman who bargains with the God of death to bring his Baba back from darkness. With your cosmic powers and untried courage, you advance into unknown mythological lands. Once bursting with life, Kenzera is now rife with lost ancestral spirits. As Zau advances toward his goal, 3 mighty beings lie in wait, fearsome in their strength yet somehow strangely familiar. Will you embrace the dance of the shaman?

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is beckoning players back to Mount Qaf starting on March 20, when a free content update will bring new modes and other content to the critically acclaimed, Metroidvania-inspired action-adventure. More updates will follow in spring, summer, and beyond, introducing more modes, challenges, and paid story-driven DLC.

The March 20 update, titled Warrior's Path, will add speedrun and permadeath modes, as well as four new outfits for Sargon. Later this spring, it'll be followed by the Boss Attack update, which adds a boss rush challenge in addition to more outfits. The Divine Trials update will follow this summer, adding new combat, platform, and puzzle challenges, along with new Amulets, outfits, and more. The new storyline will debut later this year as paid DLC, and will introduce new environments and enemies for Sargon to confront.

Indie games are known for their daring and often groundbreaking approaches to visuals and storytelling. Ultros is a new indie title coming to PS4, PS5, PC and Mac on February 13 (tomorrow!). The game is a twisted, time-looping sci-fi adventure. It's packed with high-stakes action, clever twists on classic game design ideas, intriguing, and often unsettling environmental storytelling, and crazy-colorful pop-psychedelic visuals that makes you wonder if the game came with its own built-in blacklight. This eye- and mind-dazzling adventure comes to PlayStation courtesy of Sweden-based developer Hadoque. It tells the story of a spacefarer trapped in a nightmare time-cycle within a bizarre, seemingly demonic black-hole acting as a womb for an unspeakable cosmic horror-the titular Ultros. In the words of game director Mårten Brüggeman, "It's a psychedelic sci-fi platforming adventure, a combat- and gardening-driven experience. It also asks a lot of existential questions if you dive into it, as you explore the sarcophagus spaceship and try to understand what it is a metaphor for and what is dwelling inside."

Fight or foster
Ultros is fundamentally a search-action game where you explore an ever-expanding map that opens up further and further as you acquire more abilities for navigation and combat. It's a popular indie game genre, and Ultros expands on it with some unique gameplay twists centered around the ideas of karmic cycles: creation and destruction, nurture and killing. "It's a game about choices," explains Brüggeman, "where you can choose to play in a destructive or constructive way, and the choices you make change your interpretation of your in-game actions." The environment oozes with otherworldly threats, requiring skillful combat to neutralize the assorted hostile lifeforms. Variety is a big emphasis here. Ultros encourages you to use a diverse arsenal of moves in fun and creative ways to dispatch foes: dodge-and-strike attacks, jumping strikes, and even launching foes into the air to turn them into a living projectile weapon. "We want to combat to feel intimate and visceral to emphasize destruction, ruining the balance of disruption and construction within the current cycle. We focused on movements, forcing you to be near them to fight them are integral to what we wanted to do, the intensity and intimacy of one-on-one combat."

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is out now on Nintendo Switch, Sony PlayStation 4|5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC (via Epic Games Store & the Ubisoft Store), and Amazon Luna. An all-new adventure set in a milieu of Persian mythology and history, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is a 2.5D action-adventure that casts players as Sargon, youngest member of the elite, superhero-like Immortals. Armed with acrobatic combat skills and an ever-growing arsenal of time powers, Sargon explores the mythical Mount Qaf in search of the kidnapped Prince Ghassan, and gradually unravels the dark secret at the heart of the mountain's time curse.

Inspired by Metroidvanias, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown invites players to explore a vast citadel complex and its outlying biomes, including forests, caves, snowy peaks, and much more. Developed by Ubisoft Montpellier - the studio that also produced Rayman Origins and Rayman Legends - the game builds on the ultra-responsive, highly varied platforming action that the Rayman games established - as well as their tradition of spike- and trap-filled pathways that sometimes leave little room for error. Demanding quick reflexes, it delivers performance to match, with all platforms targeting at least 60 frames per second.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown launches tomorrow, January 18, for modern consoles and PC, and is available now with a Ubisoft+ subscription or for purchasers of the Digital Deluxe Edition. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is an adventure inspired by Persian mythology and the Metroidvania genre, in which players step into the boots of Sargon - the youngest member of Persia's most elite warriors, the Immortals - and brave the dangers of the mysterious Mount Qaf on a journey to save the kidnapped Prince Ghassan. Wielding acrobatic parkour abilities, mystical time powers, and fluid, combo-driven sword skills, Sargon discovers a world shattered by a time curse, where he'll battle sand zombies, screen-filling monsters, and even alternate versions of himself.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown was developed by Ubisoft Montpellier, the studio behind Rayman Origins and Rayman Legends - and some of those games' DNA persists in Sargon's adventure, particularly when it comes to platforming. Like Rayman and crew, Sargon has a certain rhythm and bounce to his movements that helps make exploration a blast, and a lot of his time is spent navigating deviously designed platforming sequences that dare players to thread their way through gauntlets of spikes and traps with increasingly less room for error. To find out more about this connection, and how Ubisoft Montpellier's experience on the Rayman games helped shape Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, we spoke with Game Director Mounir Radi.

Moonlit Farewell is the culmination of the Momodora series, and takes place 5 years after the events of Momodora III. Momo, a high priestess of Koho Village, is tasked to set off on a journey to save the world from demons, who were summoned by the ringing of a mysterious bell. Explore an enchanting pixel art world with flashy attacks and other skills such as melee combos, dodging, and ranged attacks. By activating "Sigils", you can strengthen your attack or your healing, or even summon magic swords to smite your enemies. After you obtain a Sigil, you can activate or deactivate it whenever you like, so you can swap them on the run and customize your abilities to match your playstyle.

Official Soundtrack Also Available Now!
The Official Soundtrack, which includes the music tracks used in the game, is also now available on Steam. Momodora: Moonlit Farewell is currently 10% OFF for the first week of release, until January 18, 2024. What's more, players who already own Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight, the previous game in the series, can purchase the game with the "Momodora Collection" bundle for a further 10% discount!

As we enter the second full week of December, it's pretty clear that we don't have any more AAA releases to look forward to this year, but at the same time, it doesn't mean that there aren't any interesting game releases. This week's biggest release is a colony sim type game which we covered in the news a few months ago. The rest of this week's releases involves robot detectives, gates to other worlds, prisoners that can't die, mechs and a touch of paranoia.

Pioneers of Pagonia / This week's major release / Wednesday 13 December
In a world of countless islands populated with scattered tribes, you travel and lead your people as a visionary to forge alliances with the inhabitants, after helping each other and gaining their trust. Send out your pioneers to discover untouched soil, find hidden resources and explore secret places.

As we're about to enter the month of November, October leaves us with a couple of final game releases. This week's AA release is a sequel to a puzzle game that was quite popular when it launched at the end of 2014. The remaining titles this coming week includes RPGs, something musical, something to do with leagues and legends, a cop that's a robot and some seasons greetings.

The Talos Principle 2 / This week's AA title / Thursday 2 November
Born into a new world where biological humanity is extinct but human culture lives on in a city of robots, you find yourself swept up in a mind-bending adventure involving a mysterious megastructure hiding enormous powers. The more you discover, the more you will be confronted with questions about the nature of the cosmos and the purpose of civilization. The broken promise of a better tomorrow, the fear of repeating humankind's mistakes, faith in reason or renouncing humanity altogether - the choices you make and the sides you take will determine the course of events.

Blasphemous set itself apart in 2019's crowded indie scene thanks to a firm belief in its roots. Developed in Spain, it was clear from the beginning that The Game Kitchen would have to adapt itself to an international audience—but even if the game released with an English demographic in mind, the art direction and overall tone were uniquely Spanish.

With the sequel, the team was adamant that they preserve that identity in the writing as well, regardless of which language you choose to play in. For Enrique Cabeza, Creative Director at The Game Kitchen, the development of Blasphemous 2 felt sentient. It continued to shift and morph of its own volition, almost as if providing guidance to the team about where to go next. "You have to make mistakes and realize when it's time to change course to avoid paths you shouldn't take," he said.

Greetings readers. I'm Mårten, the Game Design Director at Hadoque, a collective of creatives in Sweden. I co-created the core concept of the game and oversee the game design. We've been working on Ultros - our first game together - for the past few years, and today, we're thrilled to show you the core gameplay and a new boss.

To recap from our reveal at the PlayStation Showcase earlier in the year, Ultros is a mystical and poetic adventure where you fight dangerous space insects and plant seeds to create an alien garden. Our protagonist, Ouji, wakes up stranded on an overgrown sarcophagus in space. She has no memory of who she is and how she got here. But the world feels familiar, and it seems to react to her - like she has some sort of connection to it. Naturally, this is when you start to explore the depths of the sarcophagus.

The Game Kitchen and Team17 Digital have launched their punishing Metroidvania Blasphemous 2 on Steam and GOG! Following a newly reawakened Penitent One, Blasphemous 2 thrusts players back into an endless cycle of life, death, and resurrection as they face monstrous enemies and inconceivable challenges to halt the prophetic birth of a new Child of the Miracle.

Featuring three unique weapons to acquire and master, and an enhanced skillset to choose from, players will have to use these new tools to survive and explore a land hell bent on sending them back to the grave as they collect scattered pieces of lore, unpick long forgotten secrets, and avoid deaths final embrace.

Today, during the Summer Game Fest live showcase, Ubisoft announced Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, an action-adventure platformer game set in a mythological Persian world. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown will release on 18th January, 2024 on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One, Amazon Luna as well as Windows PC through the Epic Games Store and the Ubisoft Store. Players can also subscribe to Ubisoft+ on PC, Xbox and Amazon Luna.

In this brand-new adventure, players will embody Sargon, a young, gifted warrior, and member of an elite group called The Immortals. As they are sent to rescue Prince Ghassan, they will explore Mount Qaf, a once wondrous place, now cursed and hostile. Sargon and his brothers-in-arms will soon discover that time itself will be a treacherous foe and that the world balance must be restored.

The developers of the indie hit roguelite Dead Cells - Evil Empire and Motion Twin - announced today that the game has sold more than 10 million copies in the six years since its initial Early Access launch on Steam in 2017. The consecutive launch of the 1.0 version on PC & consoles in 2018, a whopping 34 free updates and later launches on mobile have all helped to drive long-tail success in all major global territories, pushing the game into rarely charted sales territory for an independent title.

Dead Cells' amazing list of free updates include chunky content additions that have provided new ways for fans to play the game, numerous weapon & item additions & enhancements, extra levels, a host of enemies and large crossover events featuring popular characters from other high profile indie games such as Hotline Miami, Shovel Knight and more. Dead Cells' well-received four paid DLCs - including the groundbreaking recent Return to Castlevania DLC, which featured an unprecedented collaboration with Konami - have also continued to drive development on the title.

Team Cherry, the indie development outfit responsible for producing smash hit 2D platformer Hollow Knight (2017), has this week announced that the sequel - Silksong - will be missing its proposed early-ish 2023 launch window. The Australian team's publishing and marketing manager Matthew Griffin confirmed via a tweet that Hollow Knight: Silksong is still a work-in-progress project: "Hey gang, just a quick update about Silksong. We had planned to release in the 1st half of 2023, but development is still continuing. We're excited by how the game is shaping up, and it's gotten quite big, so we want to take the time to make the game as good as we can."

Hollow Knight: Silksong was first revealed to the public back in 2019, with Team Cherry taking a quiet approach to the release of preview material since then. A playable demo was on show at E3 2019, but a wider internet-based public has only had access to a pair of video trailers, some screenshots and minimal written details on official sites and product pages. Silksong was initially conceived as a DLC/expansion for the base game, but the designers expanded their project's scope - thus creating a standalone and entirely new entry in the series. It seems that the development team's ambitions have grown over the years - Griffin has not confirmed a revised release date but requests that fans wait for further announcements: "Expect more details from us once we get closer to release."

Detectives, we've arrived! At long last, The Last Case of Benedict Fox is here! Go on, enter the world of limbo, and discover the reason for your father's demise. For your final preparations, watch our launch trailer (see below). Mesmerized? Hold your demon companion close, and run toward the mansion!

Before we leave, we just want to say a huge thank you to our family and friends for their support throughout our game development journey. We feel grateful for their patience and love as it allowed us the opportunity to create a game that we always dreamt of making. And we would love to thank you, our fans, for all your support and encouragement ever since our reveal last year. We had so much fun with this game, and we hope you will too.

As we're heading into the last week of April, we have a much anticipated AAA title launching, which involves light sabres and thus shouldn't be too hard to guess. Other games this week include forest rangers, lights and shadows, dead things that are evil and much more. Something for almost everyone in other words, we hope.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor / This week's AAA title / Friday 28 April
The story of Cal Kestis continues in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, a third person galaxy-spanning action-adventure game from Respawn Entertainment, developed in collaboration with Lucasfilm Games. This narratively-driven, single player title picks up five years after the events of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and follows Cal's increasingly desperate fight as the galaxy descends further into darkness.

The Penitent One awakens as Blasphemous 2 joins him once again in an endless struggle against The Miracle. Dive into a perilous new world filled with mysteries and secrets to discover, and tear your way through monstrous foes that stand between you and your quest to end the cycle one and for all. The second scripture in the Blasphemous series portends the return of The Penitent One, with a story that continues from the free Wounds of Eventide DLC for the original game, where The Heart in the sky heralded the return of The Miracle and foretold the birth of a new miracle child.

Awakened in a strange new land, and displaced from his final resting place, The Penitent One is thrust back into the endless cycle of life, death, and resurrection, with no other option than to explore this perilous new world and uncover its long-forgotten secrets. Hordes of grotesque enemies stand in your way, awaiting final judgement by the brutal hand of the Penitent One, with titanic twisted bosses also lurking in the darkness, waiting for their chance to return you to the grave from whence you came. Taking them down won't be easy, but with Blasphemous 2 offering more chances to customize and improve your skill set, along with several new unique weapons to wield with righteous zeal and unending fury, victory might just be within grasp. Ultimately, only one thing is certain… Penance Never Ends