If Nightdive Studios were a home, it would be built upon the foundation of System Shock. As one of the studio's formative projects, the Kickstarter campaign for its acclaimed System Shock remake put Nightdive on the map. But it wasn't System Shock that inspired Nightdive's creation, rather its sequel, System Shock 2. With the recently announced June 26, 2025, release date for System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster fast approaching, some have wondered: why a remaster instead of a full remake? To answer this, let's look back at Nightdive's origins, remasters as a form of preservation, and the many enhancements that make System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster a worthy tribute to a beloved classic!

Where It All Began
"Like many others, my first experience with System Shock was the sequel," begins Nightdive Founder and CEO Stephen Kick, who recounts being introduced to the game while eating lunch with his friends at school. After sharing how much he loved Half-Life, his friend Marshall suggested giving System Shock 2 a try. "The next day, he came back to the table and handed me the Big Box. That night, I installed the game and was instantly captivated. Every aspect of it congealed into an unforgettably immersive experience that still gives me chills every time I think about it."

Hi everyone, I'm Julius Fondem, Community Manager here at Remedy Entertainment. Today I'm very excited, jazzed even, to talk to you about a brand-new feature in our upcoming game FBC: Firebreak—Altered Augments. If you're not familiar with FBC: Firebreak, it's a cooperative first-person shooter for three players set within a mysterious federal agency under assault by extradimensional forces, in the iconic Control universe. Battle through hordes of otherworldly monsters with up to two friends, customize your gear and level up as you fight back against this ever-growing threat.

This being our first multiplayer, we're very excited to bring it to you, the community, and to that end, we've designed FBC: Firebreak to be as easy as possible to get into. This is a game best played together with your friends, having a great time laughing while chaotic and wacky things happen! This isn't a new hobby that you need to log onto every day for rewards. None of that FOMO stuff here. Just get together with your friends over the weekend for a good time.

AMD has launched a new open-source project called, GAIA (pronounced /ˈɡaɪ.ə/), an awesome application that leverages the power of Ryzen AI Neural Processing Unit (NPU) to run private and local large language models (LLMs). In this blog, we'll dive into the features and benefits of GAIA, while introducing how you can take advantage of GAIA's open-source project to adopt into your own applications.

Introduction to GAIA
GAIA is a generative AI application designed to run local, private LLMs on Windows PCs and is optimized for AMD Ryzen AI hardware (AMD Ryzen AI 300 Series Processors). This integration allows for faster, more efficient processing - i.e. lower power- while keeping your data local and secure. On Ryzen AI PCs, GAIA interacts with the NPU and iGPU to run models seamlessly by using the open-source Lemonade (LLM-Aid) SDK from ONNX TurnkeyML for LLM inference. GAIA supports a variety of local LLMs optimized to run on Ryzen AI PCs. Popular models like Llama and Phi derivatives can be tailored for different use cases, such as Q&A, summarization, and complex reasoning tasks.

Hunters! Join us on Tuesday March 25th at 7:00AM PDT / 14:00 GMT for a Monster Hunter Wilds Showcase stream, presented by Monster Hunter Wilds producer, Ryozo Tsujimoto! The stream will be approximately 15 minutes with news on the next free title update that we're looking forward to sharing with you! Please note that actual stream time is subject to change.

The unbridled force of nature runs wild and relentless, with environments transforming drastically from one moment to the next. This is a story of monsters and humans and their struggles to live in harmony in a world of duality. Fulfill your duty as a Hunter by tracking and defeating powerful monsters and forging strong new weapons and armor from the materials you harvest from your hunt as you uncover the connection between the people of the Forbidden Lands and the locales they inhabit. The ultimate hunting experience awaits you in Monster Hunter Wilds.

My name is Patrick, and I am the Art Director for Zockrates Laboratories, the indie studio currently developing Ruffy and the Riverside. Together with our publisher, Phiphen Games, we are proud to announce that Ruffy and the Riverside will be released on PlayStation 5 on June 26, 2025. We are happy to contribute to Playstation's tradition of representing innovative and unique gameplay.

A platformer adventure with unique gameplay
Ruffy and the Riverside is a platformer adventure with truly unique gameplay. When Ruffy isn't jumping, running, skating, or gliding, he is using his unique Swap ability. With the Swap, you can copy and paste textures to change the game world, solve puzzles, beat enemies, and eventually save the world. Just grab a texture and throw it somewhere else, and the world will change! It is as easy as it sounds and has huge impacts: Transform water into ice to cross an ocean. Throw a climbing vine onto a waterfall, and you can climb up. With the Swap, you can exchange materials, symbols, the sun for the moon, and all colors. If you color birds the same color, they might end up as a couple. Apples are more yummy when they are red, and some bushes will drop coins if they have a golden look. Of course, the Swap can help in combat, too. Why not freeze an enemy or catch him in flight by turning him into stone? The elements are on your side if you swap them wisely. Use your imagination and make it happen. It really feels magic to swap things.

What if the world ended in the 1980s? The answer remains a mystery, but Bloober Team is offering a sneak peek of the first episode of the Cronos: The New Dawn dev diary. Premiering during the Future Game Show at the 2025 Game Developers Conference, this electrifying behind-the-scenes video takes you through the making of Bloober Team's all-new survival horror experience. Get ready to uncover some of the secrets lurking within this post-apocalyptic vision of 1980s Poland. In October 2024, Bloober Team, the masterminds behind Layers of Fear, The Medium, Observer, and the SILENT HILL 2 remake, unveiled their newest horror IP, Cronos: The New Dawn. This high-stakes survival horror adventure immerses players in a deadly struggle against overwhelming and relentless foes, all while unraveling the mysteries of a twisted and fractured time travel narrative.

The game's enigmatic premise has sparked intense curiosity, and now, developers and co-directors Wojciech Piejko and Jacek Zięba have addressed some of the most pressing questions from the community. This exciting video takes a deeper dive into the world of Cronos, revealing more about the game's determined protagonist, the hauntingly desolate future landscape, and the terrifying monsters players will encounter. What's exciting for players is that the Dev Diary offers an exclusive first look at new gameplay clips showcasing the mechanics that will define the player experience in the upcoming game.

Developers at Nightdive Studios will be the first to tell you no two projects are alike. Nowhere is this more true than the soon-to-be-released remaster of System Shock 2. Announced six years ago as System Shock 2: Enhanced Edition, Nightdive reannounced the project under a new name—System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster. This name change offered eagle-eyed fans a clue as to the remaster's release window, which is only accurate preceding August 11 when System Shock 2 celebrates its 26th birthday. Sure enough, during today's MIX Spring Showcase, Nightdive shared the exciting news that System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster will release on June 26. As exciting as it's been for System Shock fans to hear they'll soon be able to play Nightdive's long-awaited System Shock 2 remaster, one key question remains: why did it take six years?

Good things take time
Nightdive has been chipping away at its remaster of System Shock 2 in the years following its announcement, working on it in conjunction with other projects. While many of these harbored their fair share of challenges, System Shock 2 was unique in regards to the number and type of complexities the team encountered. One of the biggest according to Nightdive developer Alex Lima was a lack of access to the game's complete source code. To piece everything together, "extensive reverse engineering" was required. "The codebase is a complex amalgamation of various legacy libraries developed by Looking Glass, along with some more recent contributions from both Irrational Games and Looking Glass," Lima explains. "There's virtually no consistent coding standard. As a result, we had to depend extensively on debugging and breakpoints to understand its functionality."

The war for Saiadha is about to begin, and Hooded Horse and Amplitude are excited to offer an in-depth look at one of ENDLESS Legend 2's playable factions - The Kin of Sheredyn. Descended from interstellar explorers, this hardened society will defend its lands at all costs while searching for its lost leader.

The Kin of Sheredyn are strangers to the world of Saiadha. Descendants of an expedition sent by a mighty interstellar empire, they arrived decades ago to explore the ocean planet and establish a new colony. Instead, they found themselves stranded, beset on all sides by devastating storms and relentless Necrophage attacks. Their charismatic leader, Commander Garin, disappeared many years ago and has ascended into myth - the lost hero who will one day return to save the Kin from their enemies.

We're just a few weeks away from The Last of Us Part II Remastered arriving on PC on April 3, and we here at Naughty Dog wanted to make sure players were prepared for the journey ahead. Whether it's your first time experiencing Ellie and Abby's acclaimed stories, or you've previously played and are excited to jump in via a new format, we have plenty of quality-of-life features and even new content in store.

PC features detailed
The PC version of The Last of Us Part II Remastered brings with it all the improvements and new features added in the PlayStation 5 version released in 2024, such as the roguelike survival mode No Return, Guitar Free Play, and hours of developer commentary. And in partnership with our friends at Nixxes Software and Iron Galaxy, Part II Remastered has been brought to PC with plenty of PC-centric quality-of-life features that further bring the snow-covered mountains of Jackson, Wyoming, and the rainswept streets of Seattle, Washington to beautiful life.

When Lunar debuted in North America in 1993, it was a standout in the emerging Western market for Japanese RPGs. Lunar featured detailed, animated cinematic cutscenes, plenty of voice acting, high-quality music, and-most importantly-an endearing story packed with engaging and memorable characters. While it wasn't the first CD-ROM-based JRPG to hit the market, it was one that left a powerful impact on everyone who played it. A sequel, two PlayStation remakes, a PSP outing and more further broadened the audience for Lunar. More than 30 years after the series' debut, Lunar and Lunar 2 are coming back to the realm of PlayStation with the Lunar Remastered Collection. To give some insight into what makes the Lunar games special—and to stir fond memories among longtime fans—we talked to Matthias Pergams, producer over at GungHo Online Entertainment America.

Silver Standard
"LUNAR was one of the first JRPGs on the CD-ROM format, with animated cutscenes, in-game voice acting, and even an opening theme song," Pergams explains. "The series gained a dedicated following both within and outside Japan, paving the way for the genre as a whole. It's a work that has a unique historical significance." The original Lunar has been remade and re-released a few times for various platforms (along with Lunar 2, to a lesser degree), so we were curious as to why the PlayStation 'Complete' versions of the two games were chosen as the base for the remasters. "Each version is different and possesses unique merits, so we actually struggled quite a bit with this question. Ultimately, the choice came down to which version we felt represented the series best. For us, it was the PlayStation version."

Tencent's large language model (LLM) specialist division has announced the imminent launch of their T1 AI inference model. The Chinese technology giant's Hunyuan social media accounts revealed a grand arrival, scheduled to take place on Friday (March 21). A friendly reminder was issued to interested parties, regarding the upcoming broadcast/showcase: "please set aside your valuable time. Let's step into T1 together." Earlier in the week, the Tencent AI team started to tease their "first ultra-large Mamba-powered reasoning model." Local news reports have highlighted Hunyuan's claim of Mamba architecture being applied losslessly to a super-large Mixture of Experts (MoE) model.

Late last month, the company released its Hunyuan Turbo S AI model—advertised as offering faster replies than DeepSeek's R1 system. Tencent's plucky solution has quickly climbed up the Chatbot Arena LLM Leaderboard. The Hunyuan team was in a boastful mood earlier today, and loudly proclaimed that their proprietary Turbo S model had charted in fifteenth place. At the time of writing, DeepSeek R1 is ranked seventh on the leaderboard. As explained by ITHome, this community-driven platform is driven by users interactions: "with multiple models anonymously, voting to decide which model is better, and then generating a ranking list based on the scores. This kind of evaluation is also seen as an arena for big models to compete directly, which is simple and direct."

A vertical mouse is an ergonomic choice for your desk setup, because it helps to keep your wrists in their natural, in-line position rather than flattened and twisted.
The Hansker Performance Gaming Vertical Mouse achieves this verticality without compromising on any of the high-performance functions you'll need to keep yourself competitive. The onboard PixArt PAW3395 sensor delivers top-tier precision matched by a 1000 Hz polling rate, so you know that your movements and tracking are right where they need to be.

THE GAMER'S VERTICAL MOUSE
The mouse connects through USB-C, Bluetooth, or high-performance wireless dongle for excellent flexibility—and thanks to Windows, Mac, or Linux customization, you can dial in your settings from virtually any system. There's also Low-Force Huano Switches for speed and comfort, as well as a 51-degree ergonomic angle to keep your hands positioned just right. And of course, the sleek, all-black design will look just as at home in a gamer's setup as it would in a more professional space.

Remastered, remade, remixed, this is the definitive version of Yooka-Laylee! With shiny, new 4K graphics and visual effects, a brand-new control scheme, entirely new moves and the ability to swiftly chain moves together, it's a quicker, slicker platforming experience. Yooka-Replaylee builds on our nearing 10 years of growth and experience since making Yooka-Laylee, as well as taking on board a whole bunch of community feedback over the years. It's jam-packed with brand new content that we think platforming fans new and old will love! Each world in Yooka-Replaylee has been expanded by default, no longer requiring players to do that themselves, giving us the opportunity to fill each world with new challenges, new collectibles, and new THINGS added to every corner!

Quills!
Quills have new purpose in Yooka-Replaylee! Now, each world has its own Quill colour, and with all of Yooka & Laylee's abilities now unlocked from the start, Trowzer has had to up his game and provide some new goodies! Quills can be traded to Trowzer for things like level exclusive cosmetic items and health/energy upgrades!

We're stepping up our multiplatform gaming offering with exciting news dropping at this year's Game Developers Conference (GDC). We're bringing users more games, more ways to play your games across devices, and improved gameplay. You can read all about the updates for users from The Keyword. At GDC, we'll be diving into all of the latest games coming to Play, plus new developer tools that'll help improve gameplay across the Android ecosystem.

We're sharing a closer look at what's new from Android. We're making Vulkan the official graphics API on Android, enabling you to build immersive visuals, and we're enhancing the Android Dynamic Performance Framework (ADPF) to help you deliver longer, more stable gameplays. Check out our video, or keep reading below.

The wait is nearly over! We're thrilled to announce that the highly anticipated remaster of Croc Legend of the Gobbos is launching April 2, 2025! Wishlists are open for PC on GOG.com—with Nintendo, PlayStation, and Xbox digital storefronts following soon. Croc's back and he's still got the moves! Croc Legend of the Gobbos is the heartwarming journey of an endearing, humble little crocodile equipped with only his iconic backpack and a wiggly butt as he platforms his way across a series of unique worlds by running, jumping, climbing, swimming and tail spinning on his quest to rescue his adopted family of Gobbos from the grasp of the evil sorcerer Baron Dante and his impish Dantini hordes.

With its broad appeal and groundbreaking creativity, the original game quickly became a multi-million selling platforming classic, and while the Croc Legend of the Gobbos remaster delivers an authentic gameplay experience that transports players back to the golden age of gaming, it also introduces a roster of modern updates including enhanced HD graphics, modern control mechanics with an updated camera, and retro video modes to recreate the gaming experience that charmed us in the 1990s.

Focus Entertainment and Saber Interactive are excited to share a Reaction Trailer for their upcoming game RoadCraft, celebrating its demo's success during Steam Next Fest and allowing everyone to witness all kinds of memorable moments filled with truckloads of fun. The next-gen heavy-machinery simulation and sandbox game where players reshape the Aftermath is coming May 20 to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.

The demo is still live for a few days!
In one week, over 350,000 players tried out the RoadCraft demo. With almost 12,000 simultaneous active users, it ranks 3rd most played demo during the Steam Next Fest. Having been greeted so warmly, the demo has won an extended lifetime following its Steam Next Fest participation, giving everyone the opportunity to get in on the fun… or go back to it until March 20, 6 pm CET!

We're back with more day one games for Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass, more games for Game Pass Standard, and more games for Game Pass Core! There is a little bit of everything, including co-op battles, classic console games, survival action and more. Let's get to the games!

Available Today: 33 Immortals (Game Preview) (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S)
Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass
Available on day one! 33 Immortals is a co-op action-roguelike for 33 players. Play as a damned soul, and rebel against God's final judgment. Dive straight into epic, 33-player co-op battles with instant "pick-up and raid" matchmaking. Cooperate with your allies to survive against hordes of monsters and massive, challenging bosses. Expand your arsenal and equip powerful new relics to permanently upgrade your soul.

Bleach Rebirth of Souls is an upcoming fighting action game based on the legendary anime franchise, delivering an immersive Bleach experience. Engage in thrilling one-on-one sword combat with your favorite characters and unlock powerful forms to overturn the tide of battle - the more desperate the situation, the more powerful you become! Of course, a Bleach game would be nothing without protagonist Ichigo Kurosaki—and we have some news on the classic character. Ahead of the game's release on March 21, we're excited to reveal Ichigo Kurosaki's most powerful form, Final Getsugatensho and its unique playstyle—as well as his two other forms, Bankai and base.

Through the Story Mode, re-live iconic battles and moments from the Bleach storyline and experience the growth of Ichigo Kurosaki as he discovers his new powers and unlocks powerful transformations. In the game, this will be represented by three different forms, each as a separate playable character, which will come with different combat styles to best suit his stage of growth in the Story Mode. Let us run you through each one.

We're so excited to show you the teeniest bit of what we've been working on! Having Giles Goddard as our founder (of Chuhai Labs), we've wanted to make something that pays tribute to his amazing career making legendary games for a while now. With Wild Blue we are making that dream a reality! We can't wait to share more about this love letter to '90s on-rails aerial adventures soon!

Wild Blue reimagines the classic on-rail adventures of the 1990s. Join Bowie Stray and the Blue Bombers as they soar through the skies on a mission to save the world in this action-packed, nostalgic journey! Soar over oceans, desert ridges, and perilous caves, battling waves of enemies and pushing back the Baron's forces. With the help of allies, you'll fight to restore peace while experiencing the thrill of classic arcade flight-combat! Easy-to-learn controls make Wild Blue accessible for newcomers and genre veterans alike, while the game's stunning visuals immerse you in a hand-crafted, anime-style universe. With its compelling gameplay loop, branching paths, and thrilling missions, every flight is an adventure!

Assassin's Creed Shadows is launching March 20 on Steam, but you can pre-load the game as early as March 17 at 9:00AM PST (4:00PM UCT). Check out the exact time you can start the game on March 20, wherever you are in the world—with our "Global Release Timings" chart (below).

Don't forget to wishlist or pre-purchase Assassin's Creed Shadows today so you can pre-load on March 17 and dive in as soon as the game is live on March 20. Those who pre-purchase Assassin's Creed Shadows will receive at no additional cost the Thrown to the Dogs bonus quest at launch, as well as the Claws of Awaji expansion when it launches later this year.

In the upcoming alchemy JRPG "Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land" available March 21st, a collaboration with "Tales of Graces f Remastered", an RPG from Bandai Namco Entertainment, has been confirmed. A collaboration costume from "Tales of Graces f Remastered" will be available as a free DLC in "Atelier Yumia." Please look forward to further information on the timing of its release.

Also, to commemorate this collaboration, a special illustration by the illustrator Benitama was released today. The illustration features "Yumia," the protagonist of "Atelier Yumia" and "Asbel," the protagonist of "Tales of Graces f Remastered," standing side-by-side wearing the collaboration costume. Walk the forbidden path, no matter where it leads. "Atelier Yumia" is a story about Yumia and her companions confronting memories and, despite their uncertainties, forging ahead on the path they believe in.

The next evolution of Rainbow Six Siege was revealed today at the Siege X Showcase. Launching on June 10, Siege X will introduce Dual Front, a dynamic new 6v6 game mode, as well as deliver foundational upgrades to the core game (including visual enhancements, an audio overhaul, rappel upgrades, and more) alongside revamped player protection systems, and free access that will allow players to experience the unique tactical action of Rainbow Six Siege at no cost. Plus, from now through March 19, a free Dual Front closed beta is live on PC via Ubisoft Connect, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S, giving players a first chance to play the exciting new mode. Read on to find out how to get into the beta and try Dual Front for yourself.

Dual Front
Taking place on an entirely new map called District, Dual Front is a new mode that pits two teams of six Operators against each other in a fight to attack enemy sectors while defending their own. Players can choose from a curated roster of 35 Operators—both Attackers and Defenders - that will rotate twice per season. During each match, two objective points are live at all times, one in each team's lane; teams must plant a sabotage kit (akin to a defuser) in the opposing team's objective room and defend it in order to capture the sector and progress towards the final objective: the Base. Sabotage the Base to claim victory, but don't forget to defend your own sector, lest your foes progress faster than you and beat you to it.

What's better than first-person sprayer PowerWash Simulator? A second PowerWash Simulator! That's right, we're thrilled to finally be able to talk about the next soap-erior sequel in our beloved franchise, PowerWash Simulator 2, coming in 2025 to Steam, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 and Epic Games Store. Available to wish list now on your platform of choice. Those of you who are eagle-eyed Game Pass fans may have enjoyed the original already, but for those unfamiliar with the concept, let me give you the rinse. PowerWash Simulator is what it says on the tin: find yourself in a mess, clean it up, build your business, become deeply immersed in soothing satisfaction, and indulge in some fascinating lore, including a mayor, a cat and… aliens?

That sounds random, but this game has been so beloved (by over 17 million of you!) that we wanted to give you more. Design Director Dan Chequer tells us a little more about why a sequel was the natural next step. "PowerWash Simulator has exceeded our expectations by taking off in the incredible way it has. Although we've added a huge amount of incredible content to the original game, we built and designed the game over four years ago when we never expected it to become so large. As a result, it has some technological limitations keeping us from adding new and interesting features. So, it made sense to start discussing where we could go from here."

We dedicated a lot of our launch presentation of Framework Desktop to the Ryzen AI Max processor it uses, and for a good reason. These truly unique, ultra-high-performance parts are the culmination of decades of technology and architecture investments that AMD has made, going all the way back to their acquisition of ATI in 2006. For our first technical deep dive on Framework Desktop, we're going to go even deeper into Ryzen AI Max and what makes it a killer processor for gaming, workstation, and AI workloads.

What makes Ryzen AI Max special is a combination of three elements: full desktop-class Zen 5 CPU cores, a massive 40-CU Radeon RDNA 3.5 GPU, and a giant 256-bit LPDDR5x memory bus to feed the two, supporting up to 128 GB of memory. Chips and Cheese did an excellent technical overview of the processor with AMD that goes even deeper on this, and we'll pull out some of the highlights along with our own insights. We'll start with the CPUs. Ryzen AI Max supports up to 16 CPU cores split across two 4 nm FinFET dies that AMD calls CCDs. These dies are connected together using an extremely wide, low power, low latency bus across the package substrate. The CPUs are full Zen 5 cores with 512-bit FPUs and support for AVX-512, a vector processing instruction set otherwise only available on Intel's top end server CPUs. We're excited for you to see the multicore performance numbers these CPUs can do in our upcoming press review cycle!

The 8BitDo 64 Bluetooth Controller revives the iconic N64 layout, but wrapped in an ergonomic, updated body. A precision hall-effect joystick with the original gate and signature concave rubber joystick cap. Say goodbye to the infamous loose joysticks. We're bringing back the signature C-buttons, A/B and Start—with the button sizes, positioning and feel just like the original.

Multiplayer on the N64 defined an era, and now with Analogue 3D and the 8BitDo 64 Controllers, that era is redefined. The 8BitDo 64 Controller, designed hand-in-hand with Analogue, creates an experience like no other when paired with Analogue 3D. It's a celebration of the N64, the greatest multiplayer system ever. It's Bluetooth-ready, with vibration support and platform compatibility with the new Analogue 3D, Switch, (including N64 Online) and more. Play N64 games like never before—with the best of both worlds in your hands. Available to pre-order at Amazon—MSRP $39.99.