Category: Video Gaming

The Honkai: Star Rail livestream just ended, and it brought us a first look at Version 3.6, and confirmed a few of the fan theories that have been going around. To begin with, 3.6 is titled Back to Earth in Evernight, and it’s going to arrive September 24.

If that title wasn’t enough of a hint, 3.6 will indeed deliver for fans of March 7th, and Dan Heng, and there’s even more great news for longtime players.

Honaki: Star Rail Version 3.6 marks the start of a new storyline that will unfold over several chapters in the future. Miss Evernight’s Era Nova project is at the centre, and there’s a lot at stake for the world of Amphoreus.

The new story sees the return of Dan Heng, who’s going back to Amphoreus to reunite with the Express Crew. Which leads us nicely into the two new characters joining the roster. Evernight is a 5-Star Ice character who follows the Path of Remembrance. Evernight, of course, is a new form of March 7th‘s, one of Star Rail’s starting characters.

Evernight is designed to fight with Memosprites summons. She increases the crit damage of all Memosprites on any team she’s on. This bonus grows the more characters on the team follow the Path of Remembrance. Evernight has her own summon, Evey, which grants her Memoria when summoned. The more of that she gathers, the higher Evey’s damage output.

Her Ultimate deals damage to all enemies, and places herself and Evey in a state called Darkest Riddle, which increases both of their damage outputs for as long as it lasts.

Dan Heng • Permansor Terrae is the second playable character in 3.6. Like Evernight, this is also a new form of one of the game’s earliest characters, that being Dan Heng, of course. This evolved version (also 5-Star) of Dan Heng is post-Imbibitor Lunae, taking him further down the Path of Permanence.

Permansor Terrae is the name of his newly-unlocked power, which allows him to be a better defensive character. The way this takes form in combat is that he can pick one teammate and designate them as Bondmate, which summons a Souldragon for them.This form also grants all allies an additional Shield. Dan Heng • Permansor Terrae’s Ultimate deals damage to all enemies, and grants more Shields to the team, while enhancing the Souldragon.

Permansor Terrae may be the easier of the two new characters to get, because anyone (at Trailblaze Level 3 or above) who logs in can claim him for free. This offer is available until the end of Version 4.0.

There’s more new content worth mentioning in Version 3.6, too. Anomaly Arbitration, the high-difficulty trial, arrives alongside the update. Anomaly Arbitration is made up of three trial stages, with one final stage.

You’ll need to form a separate team for each trial stage. Clearing all stages earns you an Interference Key, a new item, alongside other rewards. MiHoYo said you can also expect more events to roll out gradually, including the seasonal Colorful Mayhem.

The other major feature in 3.6 is Main Story Replay, which does exactly what you think. You can replay any Trailblaze Mission, Trailblaze Continuance, and Companion Mission, so long as you’ve previously completed them. The feature even lets you pick the specific segments/cutscenes you want to reexperience.

Skyrim modders have yet again managed to pull off something remarkable. You know how creating patches to ensure two mods work together smoothly’s long been something that requires firing up the likes of the creation kit or xEdit? Well, thanks to a new mod dubbed the in-game patcher, it’s possible to resolve issues like that simply by wandering up to the location as the Dragonborn and editing the very make-up of the world.

See a rock clipping through a house because you’ve downloaded a couple of works that give the same bit of Whiterun a makeover? Just mosey over, grab the misbehaving mineral, and either move it elsewhere or delete it. You’ll have make sure you’ve not messed up anything else in the process before you save your changes, but assuming all the NPCs still have their own heads, you’ve got your own patch.

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Lace up your boots, EA Sports FC 26 is almost here. The franchise formerly known as FIFA will pack a ton of changes, and as has been the case for a few years now, you can jump in early depending on which edition you pick up.

Here’s everything included in the Standard Edition and Ultimate Editions of the game, including early access, Ultimate Team items, and just about anything else – and where you can buy each.

EA Sports FC 26 – Standard Edition

EA FC 26 PS5

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If you preorder the Standard Edition of EA FC, you’ll get the game (naturally), but if you buy the PS5 or Xbox Series X|S version, you’ll also get the PS4 or Xbox One version, respectively.

You’ll also get the following:

• 3x Icons for Career
• 1x 92+ rated Ultimate Team Icon
• 1x 5-Star Coach in Manager Career
• 1x 5-Star Youth Scout in Manager Career
• Manager Live Challenge Content
• 1x Archetype Unlock Consumable
• 2x Double AXP for 10 matches

PS5

Xbox Series X|S

PC

Nintendo Switch 2

It’s worth mentioning that EA FC 26 on Switch 2 is a ‘Game Key Card’.

EA Sports FC 26 – Ultimate Edition

EA FC 26’s Ultimate Edition also gives you two copies of the game in the same console family on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, but it comes with ‘Up to 7 Days Early Access’.

To be able to start playing on September 19, you’ll want the Ultimate Edition, which will give you a chance to start building your Ultimate Team lineup.

That’s made even easier with 6,000 FC Points doled out over 2 months and the Season 1 Premium Pass. You’ll also get the following:

• 3x Icons for Career
• 1x 93+ rated Ultimate Team Icon
• 1x 5-Star Coach in Manager Career
• 1x 5-Star Youth Scout in Manager Career
• Manager Live Challenge Content
• 1x Archetype Unlock Consumable
• 2x Double Archetype XP for 10 matches
• 2x FUT Player Evolution Slots

Weirdly, Switch 2 players get 4,500 points, and you can only find it on the Switch 2 store. Similarly, the PS5 Ultimate Edition is also only available on Sony’s storefront.

PS5

Xbox Series X|S

PC

Other Preorder Guides

Lloyd Coombes is an experienced freelancer in tech, gaming and fitness seen at Polygon, Eurogamer, Macworld, TechRadar and many more. He’s a big fan of Magic: The Gathering and other collectible card games, much to his wife’s dismay.

Borderlands 4 is officially out – almost a day early for some people, and players on Steam have shown up in droves to jump into the latest loot shooter from Gearbox. The game has not only done very well for itself in terms of player activity, it also easily beat all other Borderlands games.

Steam user reviews, however, aren’t as glowing as you might expect.

It seems Gearbox’s decision to make a more grounded game with Borderlands 4, and step away from referential humour and internet slang has worked in its favour. Over on Steam, the game peaked at 207,479 concurrent players (via SteamDB) just hours after it went live.

Considering some of the launch times, and the fact it wasn’t out on consoles at that time, there’s every chance the weekend will give these numbers a boost. Indeed, even if that’s the highest the peak concurrent is going to get, it’s still better than every other Borderlands game that came before, with its closest contender being Borderlands 2, having peaked at 124,678 concurrent players.

Borderlands 4’s numbers were certainly good enough to get into Steam’s top five most played games, and it’s currently Steam’s number one best-seller worldwide, having jumped up seven spots this week.

It doesn’t seem like everyone is happy with the game, however. Judging by its current Steam user review rating of Mixed (based on 5,435 reviews), only 62% had positive things to say about the co-op loot shooter.

While some of the negative reviews touch on narrative and gameplay content, the vast majority lament the game’s technical state. Borderlands 4’s long (and frequent) shader compilation pauses come up several times, as do your typical Unreal Engine navigational stutter. In fact, stutter issues are so common that some have taken to calling it Stutterlands 4.

This is another case of an Unreal Engine 5 game getting lambasted for its technical issues, and it’s actually become something of a nonestarter for players, many of whom get into the game expecting to run into problems just because of its use of Epic’s game engine.

It’s worth keeping in mind that Borderlands 3 had its fair share of technical issues, too, which took Gearbox a while to completely iron out. It’s quite possible this will eventually be the case for Borderlands 4, especially once Denuvo gets removed. Only time will tell.

As Valve changes the way it handles adult content on Steam, it’s been revealed that games containing “mature themes” will no longer be accepted for Steam Early Access. The update comes as anti-porn lobbyists continue to put pressure on adult games, working through the payment processors that storefronts like Steam and Itch.io rely on.

Dammitbird, the developer behind adult action RPG Heavy Hearts, revealed on X that their game had been rejected from Early Access due to its adult themes. “Your app has failed our review because we’re unable to support the Early Access model of development for a game with mature themes,” the rejection message from Steam, as shared online by Dammitbird.

“Due to current events, I panicked and contacted my publisher to help me get on Steam Early Access,” Dammitbird said to GamesMarkt about their application. “The general rule is that your game should be about 65% done before doing EA. Well, we are about 70% done so the time was right anyway. But now, all of a sudden and without a policy announcement, the rules have changed and now I can’t join Steam EA.”

Heavy Hearts, which contains explicit sexual content alongside its traditional RPG gameplay, also fell victim to Itch.io’s delisting of adult games earlier this year. “Heavy Hearts is still available on Itch, but you’ll never be able to search it, because it is de-indexed,” they explained. “I made a free demo page that you can find though. Itch.io was 50% of my games revenue. It’s how I paid my artists and other partners. I still have Patreon and Subscribestar, they are keeping the game afloat, but it won’t be enough in the long run.”

Dammitbird added that Patreon is now their most reliable source of support for Heavy Hearts, but the platform also has an uneasy history with adult content creators, leaving them open to the risk of being deplatformed there as well.

Gamers and developers, including industry body International Game Developers Association, have spoken out against the arbitrary censorship of adult games, calling out the lack of transparency and clear guidelines in the process. Itch.io is also seeking its own solutions, which included re-listing free NSFW content, and searching for alternative payment processors to handle adult content purchases.

Treat yourself to a little help with today’s Wordle. Keep it short and sweet with our hints and clues for the September 12 (1546) puzzle, designed to give you a push in the right direction without ruining your fun. We’ve even separated them out too, making it easy for you to find exactly what you need. And if that’s not working out for you (some days Wordle’s just like that, right?), today’s answer is only a click away.

Just like in Evolution, players steward a number of distinct species they must feed and protect. You gain a new budding lifeform in each of the four rounds, with species consisting of a size and population. The former represents its overall mass and scale, while the latter is the number of animals in the genus. So a small herd of elephant-like creatures would have a size of four but only a couple of population.

The most interesting aspect is that each species also consists of up to three trait cards. This is the nerve center of the design, as it consists of a nuanced card system that elicits difficult strategic decisions. The biggest concern is hand management, as well as guiding the evolutionary force in response to a shifting environment. Each animal is fighting for survival, and that includes gathering precious limited food from the central watering hole, or possibly going the carnivore route and hunting for sustenance. Your ability to work toward these goals and curb threats rests in the card play.

Trait cards function primarily as evolving mechanisms for defense or food gathering. You can play a Fast card on one of your species to help them outrun predators. Or maybe armored plating to provide a hardy shell. Similarly, claws may help you gather plants more efficiently, or provide an offensive bonus when hunting other creatures.

What’s marvelous is that the system is ostensibly a tableau builder. This is a style of game, popularized by games like Race for the Galaxy and 7 Wonders, where players place cards in their own personal area, creating an engine to generate points or resources. Nature twists this formula to create dynamic isolated tableaus that represent player-crafted species. So instead of managing a single tableau, players construct and manipulate several small sets of various properties. It’s a clever concept, using an existing mechanism to craft an ecosystem of evolving entities that must continually change in order to adapt to their environment.

The environmental pressures that incentivize adaptation are mainly a result of the hunter system. When you are playing cards during your turn, you may always slap a hunter trait onto one of your species. This makes them carnivores, shirking the watering hole and instead seeking to outmaneuver prey and feed on their population. A reason to do this is that the watering hole plant food is limited, particularly late game when the number and population of species has escalated.

Predators also devour population, effectively harming opponent’s tableaus and weakening their species. Population and feeding lead to points in this game, as each token of food devoured gets banked for end game scoring. Feeding off another player’s pack not only scores you points, but it also lowers the ceiling on their food consumption. It’s a brutal aspect of the game, but one rooted in player interaction and evolutionary force.

Many of these processes are identical to Nature’s predecessor, Evolution. The reason for this new edition of the game was to unify the design and its many branching expansions under a single family of products that all function together. This also allows for the Nature base game to be streamlined and simplified for a new generation of players. Crapuchettes’ goal here is to craft a game that offers a welcoming enough foundation for a wide audience, while allowing for endless expansion to layer complexity and nuance atop that sturdy base. Nature is intended to appeal to virtually any level of gamer, hobbyist or newcomer.

By at measure, Nature is predominantly a success. There are several expansion modules that add things such as dinosaurs, flying creatures, random events, and environments such as the Amazon or Arctic Tundra. Most add a new deck of trait cards which are kept separate from the primary set of cards. The unified implementation makes for easier integration, with setup and teardown being quite simple. The framework also allows for multiple expansions to be used together in order to tweak the experiences. This is the strongest quality of Nature, as it plays quite differently depending on the chosen content.

Say for instance you want a more violent and exciting game. The Jurassic expansion adds more nifty tools for predators, so that’s an easy inclusion. But tossing in the Amazon setting will also introduce a bluffing element with hidden traits, which will ratchet up the tension and result in more daring attacks. Next time you play you can swap Jurassic for Flight, which will result in a far less confrontational session and instead focus on flocks of birds migrating as a new avenue for scoring.

The extensibility is a core asset of the design. Nature as a streamlined and simplified experience on its own would be disappointing for those of who have played this game system previously. But I don’t think comparing the core set of Nature to Evolution: Climate is fair. The breadth and scope of each product needs to be evaluated, and Nature’s ability to evolve and plug in new content in a manner similar to its own player-driven trait selection is frankly, a magnificent adaptation.

The main drawback to Nature is the somewhat obtuse feeding process. The process involves grabbing food from the watering hole equal to the size of your species, and is completely independent of the population. Additionally, bigger creatures don’t need to eat any more food, which is odd. This works mechanically and is an important aspect of the system, but it’s unintuitive and something players can struggle to internalize. The rest of the design is elegant, with the card play being clean and consistent and everything flowing extraordinarily well. I’m not sure the design itself could be carved away any further, but it’s a lingering question due to this mechanism not sitting perfectly flush.

Still, Nature meets its overall objective. It has a modest ruleset, and massive potential. Inserting a new expansion is seamless and the additional rules heft is only a couple of paragraphs. The core system is still sharp. It conveys its themes of evolutionary biology effortlessly. North Star Games continues to progress its flagship hobbyist title, unfurling new tricks and peculiarities.

The future of the Far Cry series will see multiplayer bits pushed “more predominantly”, according to Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot. The exec said this thing on stage at a conference in Saudi Arabia last month (thanks, Game File), around the same time he announced the Assassin’s Creed Mirage DLC the company have partnered with the Saudi government on.

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Days are getting shorter, the weather is getting more unpredictable, and I can never tell if it’s quite cold enough to wear a jacket out or if the sun is still producing enough heat to make me instantly regret it. That can mean only one thing: it’s autumn. The best time of year to use whatever excuse I can to stay home and finally face my ever-growing backlog of cosy games.

Over the last few years we’ve seen an influx of games specifically designed to echo the feeling of autumn, but this year is a little light on the orange leaves, pumpkin spice, cinnamon roll-inspired game front. Luckily, autumnal games launch all year round now, so there are several new releases from the summer with distinctly fall vibes Here are five cosy autumnal games I’ll be putting more time into this season.

Release date: August 7, 2025 | Steam

One of my favourite pieces of internet television last year was Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, a Netflix anime series that pretends to be just another adaption of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s graphic novels before, rather brilliantly, pirouetting into a warm and sincere (but not overly self-flagellating) study of the original story’s tropeyness. One of the beneficiaries is Pilgrim himself, who’s forced to confront his own immaturity and entitlement: a reckoning that, one suspects, mirrors that of O’Malley himself, not to mention lapsed fans (hello) whose ability to parse these faults needed time to develop.

It’s a growing-up that continues in Scott Pilgrim EX, the 2026-bound sidescrolling action brawler from Tribute Games (a studio packed with devs who worked on Ubisoft’s Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World: The Game). While not a direct continuation of Takes Off, it’s apparently set not that long afterwards, and sees the new, more likable Scott teaming up with friends and foes to biff around demons and fitness bros on the streets of Toronto. I played about thirty minutes at Gamescom, and compared to Ubi’s 2010 beat ‘em up, EX appears to have done some maturing of its own.

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