Category: Video Gaming

It’s been a really long wait, but Hollow Knight: Silksong, Team Cherry’s sequel to the beloved side-scrolling search-action game Hollow Knight is finally here. The game introduces a whole lot of changes and additions to what made Hollow Knight great, expanding on both the formula of a classic and some key elements of the side-scrolling exploration-action genre in general.

Here’s a semi-spoilery look at what I’ve seen in Pharloom so far — we won’t talk about the story or any major developments, but if you want to discover all the new mechanics and touches yourself, dig into the game before reading on.

Spoiler warning: If you’d like to avoid light spoilers for Hollow Knight and Hollow Knight: Silksong, do not continue.

Silksong makes healing a whole new tactical decision

Hollow Knight’s healing system is one of its essential features, setting the pace of combat and creating an intense risk-reward calculus within every fight. As long as you’ve got enough Soul stored up from hitting enemies, you can hold Circle to heal a single point of health at any time — but you need to stand still for about three seconds to do it. 

Silksong gives you a faster, more versatile heal. You still charge it by hitting enemies — gathering Silk rather than Soul — but hitting Circle once activates Bind, a healing move you can use anywhere, even in mid-air. Instead of getting one point of health back, you get three, but you can only heal when your Silk is full and healing always costs all your Silk. And like in Hollow Knight, Silk powers some of your strongest abilities.

Those adjustments to healing completely change the calculus of when and where to heal, setting a faster tempo for combat in Silksong that’s just as tactical.

Enemies are smarter and more defensive

You’ll often find your opponents feinting, backstepping, and guarding against your attacks and trying to counter. Many opponents are aggressive, but also defensively minded, forcing you to think about your moves and fight carefully.

This feels like a story choice as well as a gameplay one; in Hollow Knight, most enemies were almost like zombies due to a strange infection. The enemies of Silksong are aggressive and dangerous, but often still have their wits about them, and it shows in how they fight.

Leaping to ledges is quick, agile, and easy

Hornet is more acrobatic than Hollow Knight’s protagonist, with the ability to grab the edges of platforms and pull herself up. You can also jump straight from the edge of a platform to your next ledge, which speeds up platforming significantly. Mantling also seems to provide a few invincibility frames — great if you’re on the run from a pesky flying enemy.

The world is full of other characters (and more straightforward side quests)

Unlike in Hollow Knight, which took place in a ruined kingdom, Silksong’s setting of Pharloom is very much alive. You’ll meet plenty of people on your journey, many of whom will give you side quests. Those quests are now tracked in your menu, a marked departure from the minimalist, Souls-like approach in Hollow Knight. It’s worth checking back in at settlements you find and with characters you meet, too, as their stories unfold.

You can set traps for your enemies…

You’ll eventually unlock all the abilities that Hornet used against you in boss fights in Hollow Knight. These include the thread traps she can set that are activated if enemies walk into them or hit them with an object, throwing knives, and a whole lot of other options. There’s a large variety of tools to unlock, giving you a lot of options for how to approach a fight.

…and they’ll set them for you

Pharloom is full of deadly traps, and certain locations have some particularly devious ones. Hollow Knight had the occasional breakaway floor, but in Silksong, you need to keep your wits about you, lest you break a tripwire and get skewered by spikes.

You’ve got a huge number of character build options

Alongside tools and traps are Hornet’s Crests, which you can unlock throughout your adventure. Crests change your whole combat style — the Wanderer crest gives you speedy attacks with a shorter range, for instance, while the Beast crest’s strikes are more like raking claws over your enemies and cover a larger area. 

Crests all have different layouts for charms, affecting your loadout, and some come with different takes on your Bind ability. When you Bind while wearing the Reaper crest, for instance, you get a short period where your attacks will generate more Silk — great for boss fights where you need to heal often. 

The game is full of gorgeous little touches

With such a long development, Team Cherry has had time to put in a lot of great little extras. Watch for tiny ants to carry the pieces of your defeated foes back to their homes for dinner. And once you unlock the musical Needolin, try playing it for different characters to see what happens.

This only scratches the surface of what there is to discover in Hollow Knight: Silksong. You can start your journey up Pharloom’s pilgrim trail right now — grab it at PlayStation Store.

For all the Android-heads out there, you can upgrade whatever you’re working with now to the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7 for a discounted price. At this time, Samsung’s seventh generation flippable smartphone has dropped by 14% for the base storage option and by 12% for the large storage option. The 256GB Galaxy smartphone is down from $1,100 to $950, saving you $150. Likewise, the 512GB model is down from $1,220 to $1,070, also saving you $150. Amazon has three color options all on sale. Choose between blue shadow, coral red, or jet black.

Samsung first launched it flippable and foldable lines of smartphones back in 2020. If you’ve been afraid to jump on as an early adopter before the kinks have all been worked at, well now we’re on the seventh generation. It’s got quite a bit of updates since then so now’s a good time to get on board.

See at Amazon

When closed, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7 can display the time, date, your notifications, and other brief details across its edge-to-edge cover screen.

Take hand-free selfies. Just open the Flip7 at a 90-degree angle so it can stand itself up. now you can use the outer camera lenses to take high-quality selfies (higher than front-facing cameras tend to be). Even use it for recording videos or taking video calls as you’re able to see your video and your callers video thanks to the cover screen. The outside features a 12MP ultra-wide lens as well as a 50MP wide lens capable of 2x optical quality zoom. If you still want to use the inside main camera, that one is 10MP.

Flip Without Fear

Now I’d understand your main concern with a flip phone being it’s durability. Plenty of flip phones snapped at their hinges back in the day, so how does the Flip7 hold up? Well, it’s built with Armor FlexHinge which is designed to close thinner while protecting the phone’s hinge. There are seven generations of iteration and innovation at play here. Additionally, it’s protected with Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 and is encased in a strong yet light Armor Aluminum frame.

Though, the most underrated feature is being to hang up dramatically. When’s the last time you yell “Good day!” through the phone and then slammed it shut. Gently pressing the End Call button just doesn’t have the same oomph.

Get yourself the Samsung Galaxy Flip7 in three stylish colors for $150 off for a limited time. The 256GB model is down to $950 while the 512GB model is down to $1,070.

See at Amazon

It’s been a few days now since the launch of Hollow Knight: Silksong and a few issues are starting to bubble up. One of the most significant complaints has been about the game’s level of difficulty.

The original Hollow Knight is/has always been a challenging game, so it’s not exactly a surprise that its DLC-turned-sequel is giving many players trouble. This time, however, it does appear that developer Team Cherry may have overtuned things in the new game.

Silksong is certainly not an easy game overall, but the early parts have been particularly frustrating for some players. It doesn’t help that the Metroidvania doesn’t offer much in the way of accessibility options, which resulted in the creation of a number of mods that tweak various aspects of the game’s level of difficulty.

While Team Cherry hasn’t quite commented on the discourse surrounding Silksong’s challenging combat, the developer has announced that it’s going to be making some balance changes.

In a post on Steam, the team revealed the patch notes for update 1.0.28470, which is currently planned for release by the middle of next week on all platforms. The patch is primarily intended to fix bugs, but it’s also going to introduce “slight” balance changes to the early game.

As revealed in the patch notes, you can expect early game bosses Moorwing and Sister Splinter to be a little easier. The damage Sandcarvers do has been reduced, too. You’ll also notice some tweaks to the economy, with a small reduction to the prices of mid-game Bellway and Bell Bench, a small boost to rosary rewards from relics and psalm cylinders, as well as another boost to rosary rewards for courier deliveries.

Here’s the full change log:

• Fixed situation where players could remain cloakless after Slab escape sequence.
• Fixed wish Infestation Operation often not being completable during the late game.
• Fixed wish Beast in the Bells not being completable when Bell Beast is summoned at the Bilewater Bellway during the late game.
• Fixed getting stuck floating after down-bouncing on certain projectiles.
• Fixed courier deliveries sometimes being inaccessible in Act 3.
• Fixed craft bind behaving incorrectly when in memories.
• Fixed Lace tool deflect soft-lock at start of battle in Deep Docks.
• Fixed Silk Snippers in Chapel of the Reaper sometimes getting stuck out of bounds.
• Fixed Claw Mirrors leaving Hornet inverted if taking damage during a specific moment while binding.
• Fixed Snitch Pick not giving rosaries and shell shards as intended.
• Removed float override input (down + jump, after player has Faydown Cloak).
• Slight difficulty reduction in early game bosses Moorwing and Sister Splinter.
• Reduction in damage from Sandcarvers.
• Slight increase in pea pod collider scale.
• Slight reduction in mid-game Bellway and Bell Bench prices.
• Slight increase in rosary rewards from relics and psalm cylinders.
• Increase in rosary rewards for courier deliveries.
• Various additional fixes and tweaks.

If you can’t wait until next week to see what the patch has changed, you can actually access that version of the game right now by opting into the public beta branch on Steam or GOG. If you’re currently deep in the Silksong mines, we highly recommend checking out our guides for all the Mask Shard locations, all the Lost Flea locations – and, of course, how to upgrade your Needle.

The official ratings of the top 52 players in EA Sports FC 26 have been revealed, crowning Mohamed Salah and Kylian Mbappe as the highest rated players in this season’s edition.

Salah and Mbappe are 2 of 4 91-rated current pros in FC 26, with current Women’s Balon D’or holder Aitania Bonmati and Barcelona teammate (and former Balon D’or winner) Alexia Putellas climbing back to the top of the tree after what must’ve been a frustrating, but ultimately successful in a sense, season which saw Spain and Barcelona finish as runners up in both the European Championships and Champions League.

Elsewhere, after missing pretty much the entire season through injury, Rodri has seen his rating slip to 90 Overall (tied with teammate Erling Haaland), while Man City new boy Gigi Donnarumma is FC 26’s top goalkeeper with 89 Overall; a title shared with Liverpool’s Alisson and Real Madrid’s Thibaut Courtois.

Unsurprisingly, the biggest upgrade among the world’s best players is Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal, who has seen his rating go up by 8 points to a mighty 89 at just 18 years old. That’s the highest rating ever for an 18 year old, but not for a teenager. Wayne Rooney was handed a mighty 93 rating back in FIFA 06, whereas Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi were in their 20s before they surpassed Yamal’s current Overall in FIFA 06 and FIFA 09 respectively.

Other big upgrades include England and Arsenal’s continental-conquering striker Alessia Russo, who’s up 4 points to 89, whereas fellow Arsenal forward Mariona has stepped out of the shadow of her former Barcelona teammates since her move last summer to reach 89 herself.

Men’s Champions League winner Achraf Hakimi has stepped up to fill the full-back-shaped hole left by Theo Hernandez’s move to Saudi with a new +5 Overall of 89, while Raphinha has finally been rewarded for his explosive creativity with a bumper 89 rating too – level with his compatriot, Vinicius Junior.

These official FC 26 ratings come after EA Sports has revealed a slew of new Icons and Heroes for this year’s game, including long-requested names like Francesco Totti, Andres Iniesta and the recently retired Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

The full list of the top 52 highest rated players in EA Sports FC 26 is as follows:

Tear through your daily Wordle without any trouble at all with our help. Today’s clue can get your guesses off on the right foot, and our hints are there if you need something a little extra without instantly giving the game away. Still not enough? Some days are just like that. Which is why the September 9 (1543) Wordle answer is waiting at the bottom of the page.

The Underworks and The Cauldron

Square Enix has announced Octopath Traveler 0 will have town building placement limitations for some consoles when it launches for PC, Nintendo Switch, Switch 2, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X | S this December.

Details about hardware restrictions were revealed alongside full platform specifications for the Octopath Traveler prequel. It comes with information about what resolution and FPS PC and consoles can achieve, while warning players with older hardware that their HD-2D RPG experience may come with a few noticeable differences.

PS5, Xbox Series X | S, and up-to-date PCs will support a maximum Town Building Placement Limit of 500. Those who play on Switch 2 and PS4, however, will see that building placement decreased to 400.

Town sizes in Octopath Traveler 0 shrink even more if you play on the original Switch, with Square Enix sharing that Nintendo’s first hybrid console will feature a maximum of just 250. That’s just half of what players on PS5 and Xbox Series X | S will see. It’s unclear how noticeable these town size differences will be for players when they play for themselves.

Octopath Traveler 0 platform specs pic.twitter.com/2jhpK7osy6

— Wario64 (@Wario64) September 5, 2025

In terms of resolution and FPS, PS5 and Xbox Series X, of course, lead the pack with support for up to 3840 x 2160 and 120 FPS, with PC players able to select their preferred performance settings depending on their setup. Xbox Series S supports 120 FPS at 1920 x 1080, with PS4 and Switch 2 both featuring up to 1920 x 1080 at 60 FPS. Finally, Octopath Traveler 0 played on the original Switch will have a maximum resolution of 1280 x 720 with support of up to 30 FPS.

While Switch 2 players will have the option to play the Octopath Traveler prequel on the go, they should know Square Enix recently revealed the physical version of the experience will only be available as a Game-Key Card. Switch 1 owners, on the other hand, can pick up an actual physical card but will not have an option to upgrade to a Switch 2 version.

Octopath Traveler 0 was announced for Switch and Switch 2 in July and will launch for all platforms December 4, 2025. For more on Square Enix’s latest, you can see what is included in its Standard, Deluxe, and Collector’s Editions.

Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).

In a post-Baldur’s Gate 3 world, it’s unclear what the future holds for Dungeons & Dragons videogames. Contributing least to that clarity is Hasbro itself, which in recent years has laid off the team that handled D&D licensing with Larian, canceled at least five D&D games that were in the works, and has generally bungled a franchise that millions would otherwise be eager to enjoy.

Wizards of the Coast, at least, evidently has ambitions. In an interview with Gamesindustry.biz, WotC president John Hight says the publisher is once again looking forward to new D&D projects—projects that might eventually overlap with his history as Warcraft general manager.

Hight joined WotC as president and head of digital gaming in 2024, a time when he said “some of the hard bits were past us.” In the time since, Hight said WotC has been strengthening its processes for videogame development, with a particular focus on the development staff itself.

It’s another week, and that means it’s time to take a look at the Magic: The Gathering Crashers and Climbers as we close in on the release of Spider-Man less than two months since Edge of Eternities.

This time around, our climbers are a nice eclectic mix of cards from sets from 2024 and 2025, as well as a rapidly climbing space dragon. Intrigued? You should be. Let’s go!

Climbing

Let’s start with the space dragon, then, with Nova Hellkite available for just a few cents the other day and now reaching almost $3 in market value in climbing.

Magic: The Gathering Nova Hellkite

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Why the climb? Well, as TCGPlayer points out, the card featured in a mono-red deck that won the Magic Spotlight Series: Planetary Rotation, and it’ll likely keep doing well until it’s rotated out of standard eventually.

Magic: The Gathering Razorkin Needlehead

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That same deck also featured our second climber, the Razorkin Needlehead from Duskmourn, House of Horror (a set that doesn’t get enough live in my humble opinion).

This creepy customer has first strike on your turn and deals 1 damage when your opponent draws a card, meaning you’re constantly pinging them for damage with a card that costs two red to cast.

It’s now up to over $8, having been less than $3 not long ago.

Magic: The Gathering Temur Battlecrier

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Next up, a bit of an ‘odd couple’. Temur Battlecrier is, as we say in the UK, ‘cheap as chips’. It’s a three-cost card that lowers the cost of your spells if you have some big creatures out, but its value is on the up thanks to an appearance in an MTGO Standard Challenge.

Magic: The Gathering Outcaster Trailblazer

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It pairs with Outcaster Trailblazer, which is likely to see a spike as a result. This other half of the dynamic duo gives you mana when it enters, triggers the four power requirement of Temur Battlecrier to make spells cheaper, and as you bring in additional cards with four or more power, you get a card to draw, too.

If you want to put this combo together, Outcast Trailblazer will cost you under a dollar right now, but expect it to climb.

Magic: The Gathering Seize the Spotlight

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Finally, for our climbers this week, Seize the Spotlight is seeing what could be described as a meteoric rise.

The sorcery, which can allow you to take control of opponents’ cards or draw and create treasure, was $4 not long ago but is now around $9 and could climb further.

Crashing

As we approach the end of Edge of Eternities, cards from this year’s sets are starting to drop in value.

Magic: The Gathering Ugin, Eye of the Storms

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The first one that’s worth mentioning is the Mythic rarity Ugin, Eye of the Storms from Tarkir: Dragonstorm.

This powerful colorless Planeswalker has a lot to like, and it’s dropping from over $30 to just over $20 at the time of writing.

Magic: The Gathering Atarka, World Render

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Sticking with dragons, I wanted to point out Atarka, World Render. She’s a 6/4 dragon that was my first ever Commander, but she’s now just 35 cents.

Given there’s always some fun to be had with dragons, that’s a low cost to give them double strike.

Magic: The Gathering Icetill Explorer

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Icetill Explorer from Edge of Eternities is finally dropping, having been over $20 in recent weeks, and you can grab it for just $12 right now.

Magic: The Gathering Ragost, Deft Gastronaut

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Ragost, Deft Gastronaut was the talk of the town not long ago, but he’s down to just $5 now if you want the slick borderless art version.

Magic: The Gathering Vivi Ornitier

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Finally, he’s still causing carnage in standard, but at least Vivi Ornitier is now just under $35.

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.

Former Bethesda marketing chief Pete Hines has been chatting about the ups and downs of videogame subscription platforms, such as Microsoft’s Game Pass service, GeForce Now and whatever the hell Ubisoft are calling theirs at the minute. Subisoftscription? UbiPassPlus? Answers on a postcard.

Hines is broadly of the opinion that subscription platforms are failing many of the developers who sign up to publish through them, though he cautions that his experience is out-of-date – he retired from Bethesda in October 2023.

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In our effort to curate the very best in PC games, sometimes we trim older games to make room for our latest recommendations. We don’t want to forget those entirely, so this is where you’ll find all of our previously removed games. All of these come highly recommended as well.

9/8/2025: Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Before Your Eyes, Dune Awakening, Destiny 2, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

5/7/2024: Cocoon, Divinity: Original Sin 2, Loop Hero, Pizza Tower, Project Zomboid, Viewfinder

7/1/2024: Apex Legends, Civilization 6, Control, Counter-Strike: GO, Deathloop, Dota 2, League of Legends, Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Grand Theft Auto 5, Halo Infinite, Minecraft, Portal 2, Rainbow Six Siege, Red Dead Redemption 2, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew, Starfield, Tunic, XCOM 2

9/9/2024: Forza Horizon 5, God of War, Return of the Obra Dinn

5/15/2025: Children of the Sun, Monster Hunter Rise

Disclosure: GameSpot and Fanatical are both owned by Fandom.

If you peered into Edwin’s maw this morning, you might have seen that Trainatic’s out today, September 8th. Well, having now given its demo a go, I can waft away a bit more of the billowing steam of mystery for those standing on the platform who’re considering boarding.

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It’s been a hot minute since the last Digimon game graced our screens, but the wait is nearly over – Digimon Story Time Stranger will be advancing the series in fresh ways when it hits PS5 on October 3. I was lucky enough to spend some time with the monster-taming RPG to find out what evolutions await.

An intriguing story, set within stunning sights

My introduction to this new era of Digimon was bookended by two separate story beats. The first was the opening of the game, where I chose Dan Yuki (and then later Kanan Yuki, but my choice didn’t affect the story) of ADAMAS, a secret organisation charged with investigating and fixing anomalous phenomena. And it just so happens there’s one in Shinjuku.

A trek across my starting point in Tokyo led to an encounter with some Digimon within a perilous underground section, a broken and abandoned office space, and eventually a fraught battle on top of a skyscraper.

While this created a good foundation for the game, the second story section was a comparative explosion of colourful fantasy, letting me explore the Digital World’s Abyss Area. Sure, Tokyo has its charms, but the Abyss Area’s beautiful and unapologetic depiction of the Digimon culture ranks as one of the most impressive sights in the series to date. Between the clear pools, shimmering rock formations, and a group of Digimon revering MarineAngemon singing and dancing, it was an unforgettable set-up that truly showed off the glossy, anime-style visuals.  

It has a mature side

The Digimon series is no stranger to deep themes and topics, so fans will be happy to hear that even this curated playtest showed signs that Time Stranger isn’t going to shy away from big questions. Between the two story sections, there were already clear indications that there’s an exploration of interspecies war between the Digimon and Titans, the pressure of societal expectations, and even the navigation of mental health when I was visiting Shellmon and trying to discover why they haven’t left their home.

There are still plenty of light-hearted laughs

Even when the stakes are high, Digimon Story Time Stranger doesn’t forget its Saturday morning cartoon influences, either. Any brooding is balanced by its desire to have fun and deliver a lightness of touch, whether it’s through the idle animations of your party members, its joyful voice acting, humorous dialogue choices when talking to NPCs, or the ability to collect a variety of incidental cards and costumes.

Not to mention that, yes, you can ride some of the Digimon in your team via the DigiRide option. Does it make traversing the environment any quicker? Only in some cases. But is it fun to see your agent hop on Leomon’s shoulder as you romp through a kaleidoscopic land of wonder? Oh yes.

Starting out with familiar RPG elements

Digimon Story Time Stranger’s tried and tested battle system has plenty of familiarities to get you started. My first encounter with the cute digital monsters offered me a choice between the Data mammal Patamon, Vaccine sea beast Gomamon, or Virus little devil DemiDevimon.

As usual, this is a gentle intro to the ‘rock-paper-scissors’ attribute system that sets up the turn-based battle mechanic – Vaccine is strong against Virus, Virus is powerful against Data, and Data is best against Vaccine. But on top of that, they can possess four other attributes and 11 elements such as Water, Plant, and Dark, meaning there are a vast combination of how your 450+ Digimon can shape up. Which translates into varied and strategic combat to figure out how to exploit your enemy’s vulnerabilities.

DigiAttacks, new Personality system, and more

What’s more of a surprise is the intricacies added to the battle system. For one, enemies are now visible on-screen, so you can sometimes avoid them or trigger pre-emptive strikes by pressing R2 for a DigiAttack, which can instantly defeat weaker foes.

I also got to play with the Personality system, which is designed to make each Digimon more individual. Depending on where your beastie lines up within the 16 different personality types, bracketed into Philanthropy, Valor, Wisdom, and Amicability, you’ll benefit from stat and skill perks. For example, ‘Friendly’ gives Defence and Attack buffs when coupled with the Slow Starter personality skill, which provides attack boosts from round four onward.

These personalities can be changed based on mini conversations you have with your Digimon, too. During quiet moments, you can engage with your pals, who will ask curious questions. My Leomon enquired if I was being reckless and that maybe I should take a break. When I replied with gratitude, they responded that they simply didn’t want me to collapse, which then turned their personality to Philanthropy.

Another time, my Dinohyumon asked the surprisingly philosophical question if we can overcome anything by being brave, to which I responded that “other things mattered, too”. He sighed with “ugh, that’s tough,” and I was given the option to replace an old personality skill with the new one of First in Line, so in subsequent battles, he always got to act before everyone else. Handy.

So many mysteries to uncover

In the near couple of hours I played, it was clear that Digimon Story Time Stranger was rife with secrets. I briefly got to explore the In-Between Theatre, a multi-dimensional space populated with odd faceless beings and managed by recurring character Mirei Mikagura. While the Theatre could be used to travel to other areas, there were clearly other uses and elements it was hiding beneath its luxurious décor.

There were also lots of nice little gameplay elements to keep things fresh, including a thrilling chase sequence where I had to escape from a brutal MetalGreymon, and the ability to use R2 when exploring to blast through obstructions and also receive hints when noteworthy items were nearby.

There’ll be plenty more to discover across time and space when Digimon Story Time Stranger releases on October 3 on PS5 – and based on my experiences you’re going to have the time of your digital life.