Category: Video Gaming

It’s inching closer to last thing UK time on a Friday, so my job is to bring you the single most devastating and depressing bit of news I can to get the weekend started right. Building Relationships, the funky little game in which you play a house in search of a romantic connection with another building, has had its full release delayed to early 2026.

See, I told you it’d be devastating. A few months’ extra wait until you can engage in more vaguely flirty banter with a windmill. I knew I should have insisted we develop some embeddable tissues which could be inserted into articles.

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Hey, everybody! Kristen and I are back this week to celebrate the launch of Ghost of Yōtei, discuss upcoming releases, and share the latest news. This episode also includes an interview with Erika Ishii, voice of Atsu from Ghost of Yōtei.

Stuff We Talked About

The Cast

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Kristen Zitani –  Senior Content Communications Specialist, SIE

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O’Dell Harmon Jr. – Content Communications Specialist, SIE

Thanks to Dormilón for our rad theme song and show music.

[Editor’s note: PSN game release dates are subject to change without notice. Game details are gathered from press releases from their individual publishers and/or ESRB rating descriptions.]

Ghost of Yōtei is now available on PS5, and players are taking their first steps into the lavish, dangerous world of Ezo, joining Atsu on her quest to hunt down the Yōtei Six and discover a life beyond revenge. To mark launch, and delve further into the process of bringing this new protagonist so vividly to life, we were joined in the PlayStation Podcast studio by Atsu’s voice actor Erika Ishii, who also lends their likeness to the character. 

Note: Interview condensed for clarity and brevity. You can listen to the full interview on the latest episode of the PlayStation Podcast, available now. 

PlayStation Blog: by the time this interview goes out, players will have finally got to step into the shoes of Atsu. But for you, the character has been part of your life for a long while now. So how long has that been and what did those initial conversations look like with the team at Sucker Punch Productions?

Erika Ishii: It has been almost three years of my life now. I was a huge fan of Tsushima, and so it was both a tremendous pressure that I put on myself, and very, very exciting. I think the first conversations that we had were us sharing how geeked up we are about samurai films and about video games. 

PSB: One of the wonderful things was when you discovered the cosplay guide, and I remember seeing you geeking out about, I believe it was Ellie (from The Last Of Us) you cosplayed as, and now there’s a cosplay guide with your face and your character going out to the PlayStation audience. That must be really exciting.

Erika Ishii: Yeah, it’s so wild, because I do feel like the Cinderella story. I was a fan, I was a cosplayer, and, you know, I would go to release parties, and you know, now I get to be part of that. And who knows, maybe somebody will cosplay Atsu or play the game, and years later, they’ll point to Ghost of Yōtei as something that inspired them to start telling their own stories. I mean, that’s the dream.

PSB: Speaking of cosplay, there was also a wonderful Astro bot cameo. You had a little Atsu bot in Astro How was that, seeing that for the first time?

Erika Ishii: There was, of course, the feeling of triumph you get from whenever you get the Astro bots, and then on top of that… I think I feel like a broken record, but I truly am flabbergasted and honored to get to have all of this. I played through all of Astro Bot, and I’m at 100% Bots until this DLC dropped. It’s so cute. The wolf is adorable. And yeah, it just feels like a surreal fever dream.

PSB: So obviously Atsu not only looks like you and sounds like you, but which parts of who Atsu is, in terms of values, relationships, vulnerabilities, what sort of things felt most personal to you, and how did you protect that authenticity in your performance? 

Erika Ishii: From our first conversations, discussing the character and our love and the homage we wanted to pay to classic samurai films and to classic revenge films. She’s very much of that legacy. And as she relates to me, I think Atsu is still sort of young in a lot of ways, definitely emotionally. They did not have therapy back then, and I think that Atsu is what happens if I, or really any of us, give in to those really angry and fearful urges. And I think at her rawest, like most emotional core, Atsu, is scared and vulnerable. I think, you know, of course, she’s this incredible warrior, and we get to play the sort of samurai fantasy of the Dual Katanas and the Muskets and the Yari. But I think also what really resonated for me about Atsu was just that raw, emotional core of hers.

PSB: What do you hope players can take away from meeting her?

Erika Ishii: I really want them to have fun playing this game. Because while the story is compelling and really, truly – Sucker Punch does narrative like few game studios – I think there’s just something really fun about truly living out that fantasy. Yes, there’s, you know, the emotional character arc, but I just, I want people to feel badass. I think that I’m also a huge fan of westerns, and that was something we talked about as well: she is sort of that spaghetti Western samurai film hybrid – of feeling like the lone wanderer, striking a cool pose, silhouetted in the door frame of the saloon. And I want people to be able to sort of live that cinematic fantasy.

PSB: You’ve inhabited many characters over the years, both in video games and otherwise, but from an improv/TTRPG background, how did that help you shape and find Atsu’s character? 

Erika Ishii: One thing about improv is it’s a lot about listening and about making a strong choice in reaction to something that you hear. And I think that was incredibly instrumental with Atsu because the script, I have the benefit of an incredible script by great writers that are written for me for Atsu, whereas in Critical Role or the like, you have to be the writer, the actor, and in some small ways, the producer of your character. So with Atsu, the script was written, but being able to hear it – and to hear other characters react to her and reacting to them in an authentic way – I think, is where a lot of improv and spontaneity comes in. Because you can memorize the lines, but the way that you say them, in some ways, has to be a surprise to you, because, unless you’re a character who is reciting a speech that they have memorized, you don’t know what you’re going to say as a character. So I think that’s always been very helpful. 

PSB: It sounds like even from the first reads, it was pretty intense at times in terms of those scenes, in terms of the levels of emotion. Were there any moments you can recall where your background in improv and in actual play helps you nail those intense scenes?

Erika Ishii: It’s very scary. But I keep saying it is this duality of excitement and fear. You are literally, you know, in a very vulnerable suit. You know, the mocap suit is a spandex unitard, and you’re in a white padded room. And it’s sometimes, it’s just you. If you’re with other actors, you get to be with other actors. But there were some scenes that were just me and my horse, or just me having an emotional moment, an emotional beat, and when it’s you know, you have to create all of those circumstances yourself. There’s something in improv and in tabletop called scene painting, where usually a DM, or sometimes a player, will describe the scene, they’ll set the scene, they’ll have all the details of this landscape and perhaps some items. It’s like black box theater for theater goers, where it’s really just you in a room with a bunch of people looking at you. And you know that every minute that those cameras are rolling, it’s all you. 

PSB: Did you have a chance to look at concept art? Was that any visual help while picturing those scenes? 

Erika Ishii: Truly huge, huge thanks to Sucker Punch. They kept me in the loop whenever there were writer meetings, if I had questions about the character or about the story, or about what was happening. I could ask them. I had a dialect coach. And the concept art, the artists are so phenomenal at [the studio]. We got concept art of locations, of the characters. It really helped to do that scene painting. 

I had the fortune of getting to see some of the cinematics as they were completed, which, again, is very unusual for voice acting, because usually you do your work and that’s it. But for this, since I was there for the entirety of production. I got to see some progress. I got to see some gameplay. And that is so, so paramount as a performer like because the more data we have to build this little database in our head of what the world is, just the more immersive it can be for us. And so, yeah, just they did a great job of getting me immersed.

PSB: So the game launches October 2. Where does October 2 find Erika, how are you marking launch?

Erika Ishii: I am going to get together with some of the cast, and we’re gonna have our own sort of small celebration. Our director, our fearless leader, who directed all of the voiceover, is sort of gathering us together. And this again, is an unusual project, in that I got to work with most people. I got to be in the booth or in the mocap volume with a lot of folks. And so there’s this camaraderie that we don’t always get in games. And this cast is something really, really special. They’re all unbelievably talented. A lot of them are just video game veterans and also video game nerds, but it’s a mostly all Asian and Asian American cast, and that’s something that just doesn’t really happen a lot in. There’s sort of a shared, sort of “in the trenches” feeling with us together. So we’re gonna celebrate it and that weekend. 

And for me, I’m going to be out “sick” a lot of that week, playing the game. It’s odd: I’ve never played a game extensively with me, as me, like this. I don’t know how it will be. I don’t know how I’ll react. I think beyond launch and beyond the world, getting to meet Atsu is a bit of a fog of war for me. I think I just kind of have to navigate it, one bit at a time.

More on Ghost of Yōtei

I have not played the entirety of the Battlefield 6 single-player campaign yet, but I played enough to have a solid guess as to what the high-level goals for it were. It wasn’t until I got a chance to speak to some of the people behind it that my suspicions were validated.

It’s also very easy to guess that some of the same people who get excited about playing the campaign mode in yearly Call of Duty releases likely won’t be moved by what Battlefield 6 is offering there, and perhaps that’s fine.

After playing three missions of the Battlefield 6 campaign, I caught up with Emily Grace Buck, narrative design director at DICE, and Fasahat Salim, design director at Criterion. Much like the rest of the game, the single-player campaign is also the result of work by various teams under the Battlefield Studios banner – and DICE and Criterion are certainly among them.

Our chat mainly focused on the narrative elements of the game, but I was also curious about how such a big team split across different parts of the world and different time zones can come together in this fashion to create a major game like Battlefield 6.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

VG247: The narrative of the campaign is pretty topical. I think it plays on some very real fears that people have in the world right now about NATO and the state of alliances that we once believed were ironclad. Did you intend for this?

Emily Grace Buck, narrative design director, DICE: Battlefield has always tried to be, as much as possible, an extremely grounded military experience. When we talk about what Battlefield is, kind of in its core DNA; it is grounded. It is realistic. It is looking at the world through the lens of a soldier on the ground stuck in a much wider conflict, right?

So as we’re trying to determine what the story should be, we were very, very influenced by earlier Battlefield games like Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4. That took in the world as it was at the time that those games were made. And we’ve tried to do that here, too. We’ve done an immense amount of research into the older Battlefield games, topical films, documentaries, talking to current and former service members to try and understand how to create a conflict that is entirely fictional, but feels realistic, feels plausible, feels grounded, and feels really interesting for the player to be experiencing in our modern setting. So, obviously it’s set in a world that feels as realistic as possible, but we’re not trying to copy anything directly that’s going on, whilst also making it feel like it could potentially be realistic.

VG247: You mentioned some inspirations. Can you name some of them?

Emily Grace Buck, narrative design director, DICE: Absolutely. Like I said, our biggest inspirations: some of our older titles, but we’ve been watching – there are so many good, really grounded military films and television shows. Now, some of the ones that we had mentioned previously that were big touchstones for us were the film Civil War, the television show Lioness. We’ve looked at the television show Slow Horses quite a lot as well. Basically, anything that hits that place of reality, of looking at the people who are actually stuck in the conflict, not the ones who are driving it. We also watched countless documentaries and footage from conflicts around the world. Again, just to understand what it really feels like to be stuck in that kind of place.

VG247: So can you tell me – this is more of a logistical question – but I am curious who’s leading the campaign development. I know Motive – and please correct me if I’m wrong, but I feel like Motive is at the top and then there’s an effort from the other two studios, Criterion and DICE (as the caretakers of the franchise). How does this split work? Is there one team leading and then people are contributing certain elements?

Fasahat Salim, design director, Criterion: It’s actually a far broader thing than each studio takes its own thing. We’re all kind of contributing to pretty much the whole project, and obviously single-player multiplayer are just two components, there’s a lot more as well in this whole package. We’ve got people in Criterion, DICE, Motive, Ripple Effect all contributing to all of it in some way shape or form.

For example, I’ve been responsible for campaign missions, but I know I’m working with people who are actually also working on multiplayer, meta and all of these other parts. So it’s such a huge project across the board. Inevitably, having all four studios come together and share resources, knowledge and tech is something that we had to do for something of this scale.

So having everyone’s expertise contributing wherever it’s needed has been super vital for us trying to get this over the line. Of course there’s been a lot of knowledge, learning and knowledge sharing between studios. Obviously, like you said, DICE obviously have the most amount of experience with it, so how can we kind of bring that ethos of what makes Battlefield Battlefield and make sure that all the other studios are ensuring that that’s part of what they’re thinking about when they’re making the content or the stuff that they’re working on.

But yeah, it’s been a shared endeavor. We’ve got people across the board, across time zones working on this thing. We’re all involved in everything pretty much.

VG247: I was surprised by some of the dialogue in some of the missions. Very early on in the New York mission, there’s a conversation between Lopez and Gecko, where he’s grousing about people being upset there’s military action in their backyard. Gecko basically responds that freedom sometimes means disagreeing with the government.

I thought that was a very relevant line. It was more nuanced than I expected in a military shooter, and I just wanted to understand: was this a conscious choice to have your characters make these relevant statements? Are we going to see some of that again in the rest of the campaign?

Emily Grace Buck, narrative design director, DICE: So kind of like I was speaking to earlier: Battlefield has always tried to be a really realistic game. When we made the choice to set this contemporary, in order for that to feel really good and feel grounded and hit that fantasy for players, we have to bring some things that feel real to our world. Our characters have to feel like they’re connected to the world that they live in, and they’ve lived through the type of world that we have all been in.

Of course they’re going to have different perspectives, and you should see that, and you should hear that from them. That’s exactly how real military personnel would talk to one another as they’re going into a mission, they comment on it, they’re interested in knowing how everyone else that they’re fighting alongside feels about it, because you need to know that you trust that person next to you with your very life in all of those instances.

So yeah, I think that for players who are coming in, who are very up-to-date on the news and have done anywhere near the amount of research that we’ve done on what’s going on with the world so that we could create a really interesting fictional setting. Of course, they’re going to see things that they might resonate with, some things that they might agree with, some things that they might disagree with, some things that might make them think, some things that they’re going to ignore completely and will just fade into the background.

I think a lot of how you process this story is probably going to be based on how you come into it, but I hope that our players will have fun. Maybe think a little bit and walk away going, ‘I feel like I had the experience of military personnel on the ground in this kind of situation’ if something like this were to happen, but I don’t think it would, but it might.

VG247: I’m based in the UAE, and recently there was – let’s say military action – on a neighboring country; two US allies [involved]. When I got into the game, I wasn’t expecting it to be this prescient. I would imagine that the research that goes into it maybe gave you a little bit of an insight into how a potential course of action might take place.

Emily Grace Buck, narrative design director, DICE: We’re going for grounded. But yeah, most of this story was written multiple years ago. So if they’re extremely close to things happening right now, of course, we’re not directly referencing that. What we’re trying to do is provide something that feels grounded and like a good story.

VG247: Are you working on a narrative element for multiplayer/BR? Can we expect a narrative element to the multiplayer modes once we’re done with the story of the campaign?

Emily Grace Buck, narrative design director, DICE: Yes, yes, absolutely you can. So the multiplayer maps and everything that we’re releasing for the core product of Battlefield 6 is set in one universe, one conflict. The multiplayer maps are in some of the same general locations as the single-player maps. You’ll see the other side of the city or another side of the town, other side of the mountain, for example. Most of them take place either concurrently with the single-player campaign moments, or days to weeks afterwards. Essentially, what we want you to feel here is that fantasy of being that boots-on-the-ground personnel.

Between the campaign and the multiplayer maps, you can see different sides of these fronts, basically. You can feel much of the time – in the campaign – what it’s like to be some of the military personnel who are there early in the conflict, or maybe even the ones kicking things off. And then in multiplayer, it’s more… weeks later, things have continued to evolve or devolve. What’s it like now?

VG247: Are we going to see any input from these characters? Are they even gonna show up, am I gonna be able to play as Gecko, for example, in multiplayer?

So Dagger 1-3 is not currently in the multiplayer experience. However, there are characters in the multiplayer experience who are featured as NPCs and squad members throughout the campaign. So there is a direct connection with some characters between the two.

VG247: So, for the narrative content for multiplayer – obviously some of this is based on what other games have done. CoD: Warzone, for example, will have a cutscene that will set up something, can we expect more from Battlefield? To bring that narrative together? Can we expect something more to go along with the new season launching beyond just – here’s a two-minute cutscene and then that’s it, and we never hear from these people again?

Emily Grace Buck, narrative design director, DICE: So again, we’re not gonna be talking about the live season stuff today, but I can tell you in context of what we have in the multiplayer launch. Again, these are kind of different sides of the same biomes. So very similar types of buildings and understanding.

If you really look at the environmental storytelling of what’s gone on with this conflict. Like I mentioned, some of the same characters that you see in the campaign will be playable in multiplayer as well. Even when it comes to things like potential customisation items and such, it all ties back into that same narrative. That this group of people is living through this conflict together.

VG247: In terms of the structure of the campaign, we only played three missions, but the Tajikistan one is different because it was completely open. You could tackle the objectives in any order you want.

The new New York mission is the highlight for me. It pretty much showed the full spectrum of [gameplay]. There were open-ish areas, sections where you can command your squad. There were tight sections in there, there was a chase. So almost like it’s a good vertical slice of what the campaign can offer. I think that mission in particular is gonna be a lot of people’s favourite.

Can you tell me what the sort of split is for the campaign? How much of it is gonna be open-ish environments versus very tight, very scripted missions?

Fasahat Salim, design director, Criterion: It’s actually a good mix. I think Tajikistan is probably the most open mission. So that’s why, just for the sake of variety, I think you got to play that at the end. Generally, across the whole campaign, there’s a good mix of exactly what you just described; that traditional Battlefield single-player campaign that you expect to really feel the big action moments, you know, over the top spectacle.

The thing that kind of is a consistent throughline through all of the campaign – including the three missions that that you’ve played – is trying to give the player that feeling of classes, and what it means to play in different roles within a squad. In each of those [missions], you’re playing as a different class, and that’s entirely intentional.

In [Gibraltar], you’re playing as an Engineer, therefore you’re supporting the vehicle. You’ve got your blowtorch. You’re trying to keep the tank alive. There’s a lot of focus on what it means to be an engineer class. Then obviously in the New York mission, you are very much front and center Assault, right?

You’ve got close combat, you’re going through the houses, you’re shooting guys through walls, they’re shooting back at you. Everything is is very much right at the frontline. So you’ve got your shotgun, you’re doing a lot of damage. There’s grenade launchers, like you said, there’s a whole spectrum of things happening.

And then obviously in [Tajikistan] it is a much bigger mission, but it also lends itself to the Recon class, which is what we’re treating as the fantasy for that mission. So you’re playing with the sniper rifle, and again, you’ve also got a drone as your gadget, so you’ve got an eye in the sky. You can use that to recon ahead.

So all of these are trying to give the player that fantasy of the different classes, and that’s very intentional. Because as you know, Battlefield is about classes. Even when you play multiplayer, it’s about fulfilling that role within a much larger conflict.

For example, you talked about squad orders. Squad orders is a big part of fulfilling that squad-based fantasy. You are a part of this squad. Your squad has specific skillsets that could help you solve the problem at hand, so use them. Depending on who you are playing as, some squad orders won’t be available to you. For example, in [Tajikistan], you’re playing the Recon. There aren’t any Recon squad orders when you open up the wheel. That’s because you are the Recon.

VG247: Do you think some people will prefer to have that sort of solo fantasy instead of the squad fantasy? I wouldn’t mistake this campaign for being part of any other shooter franchise, but I’m also aware that Call of Duty and other games tend to focus on singular individuals instead of just having the full squad. Do you think some people would’ve wanted that from Battlefield 6 and maybe aren’t fans of [the squad] element from BF4 coming back?

Emily Grace Buck, narrative design director, DICE: I think that’s exactly what we’re going for. But yeah, we were just trying to make the best Battlefield campaign we possibly could, and Battlefield has always, always been about being one of the little guys. It’s not about being in the SAS, it’s not about being in Delta Force or Seal Team Six.

It’s about being an enlisted soldier, trying to survive a really s**t situation with your mates, right? And to get your objectives done and survive and get out. That’s Battlefield. It’s a cover shooter. There are moments in our campaign where you have a smaller squad available. There are moments where it’s all four of you.

So I think there are opportunities for players – especially some of them who are really skilled, if they wanna lean into that run-and-gun fantasy – there are moments they can do it, but that’s not absolutely core to our Battlefield DNA the way that the squad play is. So that’s not the main fantasy that we’ve tried to provide in the single-player campaign.

Battlefield 6 launches October 10 on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.

MARVEL legends, assemble! Coming to PlayStation 5 in 2026, MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls is a 4v4 team-based fighting game created in partnership with Arc System Works — renowned for Guilty Gear and Dragon Ball Fighter Z — PlayStation Studios, and MARVEL Games.

The game has captured the attention of both fighting game enthusiasts and MARVEL fans alike. We spoke with Arc System Works Producer Takeshi Yamanaka, Game Director and Lead Battle Designer Kazutoshi Sekine, and SIE PlayStation Studios XDEV Senior Producer Reed Baird about the game’s standout features, unique elements, and the debut of Spider-Man and Ghost Rider as playable characters at Tokyo Game Show 2025.

From Japan to the world – a tribute to MARVEL and its fans

PS Blog: How was the title MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls chosen?

Yamanaka: A beam of light flashes between the characters when they’re swapped, and we interpreted that light as a “soul,” which inspired the inclusion of “Fighting Souls” in the title. However, “MARVEL Fighting Souls” alone didn’t capture the Japanese identity we wanted to convey, especially when one of the project’s goals was to deliver something special from Japan to a global audience. That’s why we added the Japanese word “Tōkon,” which means fighting spirit.

With heroes and villains able to join forces, is the game meant to be an epic yet chaotic crossover of MARVEL characters?

Yamanaka: I can’t reveal specifics just yet, but each character has their own detailed lore and backstory. As for why heroes and villains can team up, we’ll have more to share in future updates.

What was most important to you when bringing MARVEL characters into a fighting game?

Yamanaka: We made sure to respect each character by retaining their iconic elements that fans know and love. At the same time, our goal was to showcase our unique Japanese perspective and the Arc System Works identity within the designs. MARVEL Games responded most strongly to Iron Man and Storm. With Storm, I believe we were able to deliver the vision they were hoping to see from Japanese creators.

What did you prioritize in terms of presentation?

Sekine: We gave the character select screen a fresh, distinctive look, drawing on both American comics and Japanese shōnen manga for inspiration. Matches that conclude with a stage transition or a super move are presented in a manga panel style, creating a unique effect unlike anything before.

Spider-Man and Ghost Rider were made playable for the first time. What was the concept behind Spider-Man’s design?

Sekine: Our intention with Spider-Man was to faithfully capture his defining traits while making him truly enjoyable to play. We wanted to make him easy to pick up, reflecting his role as the “friendly neighborhood” hero. We fine-tuned the way he plays, and I wanted to make sure we include Spidey Sense*, which has never appeared in a fighting game before.

*In this game, Spidey Sense allows Spider-Man to evade attacks and throws while automatically striking back.

What about Ghost Rider?

Sekine: Ghost Rider’s standout mechanic is the “Vengeance Gauge,” designed to resemble a tachometer. When the gauge overheats, Ghost Rider becomes vulnerable, but when it hits the red zone, his abilities grow stronger. This system encourages Ghost Rider — typically a long-range fighter — to move in close. Managing the gauge is tricky, but the exhilaration of entering the red zone perfectly captures his fiery spirit.

Reed: That kind of mechanic is exactly what makes Arc System Works stand out. Storm, which you mentioned earlier, also fights in ways we’ve never seen before, which is very exciting.

How has the feedback been from past demos and the closed beta test (CBT)?

Yamanaka: We’ve received a lot of feedback, and I didn’t expect it to be so overwhelmingly positive. Of course, we also received constructive criticism, and we will use that to make meaningful improvements.

Sekine: At EVO, the demo stations were always packed, which spoke volumes about how beloved MARVEL is and showed how well this game is meeting those expectations. The players’ passion is what keeps us going.

Yamanaka: A father stood by as his kids played, their faces glowing with big smiles. As a creator, seeing people enjoy the games I worked on is profoundly rewarding.

Lastly, do you have any words for fans looking forward to the game? Are there other details you’d like them to look for?

Reed: I hope playing this game will become a cherished memory for players. I still remember being deeply moved by fighting games when I was a kid. We’ve poured a lot of love into this project, and with the theme of “from Japan to the world” in mind, we hope to reach fans all over the world.

Yamanaka: We put considerable thought into the role of music in fighting games, so I’d love for players to pay attention to the soundtrack. Listen closely to how the music shifts as the battle unfolds.

Sekine: The CBT proved that battles run smoothly online, and the stage designs are a highlight in their own right. Our aim is to present MARVEL in a new light while also evolving the team-based fighting genre. The game is full of hidden treasures, and we can’t wait for players to discover them.

A large selection of Star Wars Lego sets are on sale ahead of next week’s Prime Big Deal Days sale. Amazon’s deals include a bunch of new Star Wars building sets released over the past few months. Arguably the most notable recent model on sale is the Brick-Built Star Wars Logo. The 700-piece replica display model was already a budget-friendly option at its $60 MSRP, but now it’s on sale for only $50. The Brick-Built Logo is one of several Star Wars Day 2025 Lego sets up for grabs for below MSRP.

Amazon & Walmart Deals: New Lego Star Wars Sets

Other Star Wars Day 2025 sets with discounts include the Rebel U-Wing Starfighter and Jango Fett’s Starship for $60 (was $70) each. Jango Fett’s Helmet, another Star Wars Day release, is $65 (was $70). Two Walmart-exclusive Star Wars Day sets, Kylo Ren’s Helmet and his Command Shuttle, are available in a bundle together for $98 (was $140). Walmart also has the Darth Maul Mech bundled with the Sith Infiltrator for $62 (was $88). The Darth Maul Mech launched in June. Both of those are makeshift bundles, but Walmart also has an official Lego Star Wars 3-in-1 Gift Set Bundle for $45.

Amazon also has a few sets that launched over the summer for below MSRP. The Battle Droid with STAP 1,088-piece model is $130 (was $140). Meanwhile, The Clone Wars V-19 Torrent Starfighter, which launched in August, is down to $52 (was $65). And if you haven’t picked up your 2025 holiday calendar, the new Lego Star Wars Advent Calendar is on sale for $38 (was $45).

Lego is retiring a bunch of Star Wars Lego sets soon, including ultra-popular display models like Darth Vader’s Helmet. Check out our roundup collecting all of the deals on Lego Star Wars sets that won’t be around for much longer.

Sign up for GameSpot’s Weekly Deals Newsletter:

An old feature from The Sims 3 is back as The Sims 4 Adventure Awaits expansion adds new Imaginary Friends for the youngest members of the household. They’ll start as simple dolls, but as child Sims play and grow fonder of their new toys, they unlock the ability to turn them into a magical bestie only they can see.

It doesn’t have to end there either—Imaginary Friends can become real Sims if their friendship grows strong enough. After hanging out with the Adventure Awaits dolls myself, I’m ready to offer a little friendship coaching and guidance on how to get an Imaginary Friend in The Sims 4 and make them real when the time comes.

Delve into a psychological survival horror, play as the GOAT, and puzzle out worlds within worlds with the PlayStation Plus Monthly Games lineup for October.  Alan Wake 2, Goat Simulator 3, Cocoon will be available to PlayStation Plus members from Tuesday October 7 until Monday November 3.

Also starting October 7 Midnight Murder Club will be available as a Game Trial for PlayStation Plus Deluxe members. Enjoy up to one hour with this time-limited trial, and if you decide to purchase the full game, your progress and trophies will carry over.

Let’s take a closer look at the games.

Alan Wake 2 | PS5 

What starts as a small-town murder investigation becomes a living nightmare. From the studio that brought you Control comes a psychological survival horror starring two protagonists in two very different worlds. Play as both the returning Alan Wake and new hero Saga Anderson, witnessing the nightmare unfold from two perspectives – and two realities. Help Wake to rewrite his reality as he attempts to escape the Dark Place and enter Anderson’s brilliant mind as she races to solve the case. As Anderson, explore the magnificent forests and lakes of the Pacific Northwest and meet a cast of quirky characters in the towns of Bright Falls and Watery. As Wake, survive the hostile urban nightmare known as the Dark Place. It takes more than guns to survive: Light is both the ultimate weapon and a refuge in the battle against the supernatural darkness that threatens the heroes. Fight powerful enemies in deadly close-combat encounters, making careful use of limited resources.

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Goat Simulator 3 | PS4, PS5 

Gather your herd and venture forth into Goat Simulator 3 – an all-new, totally realistic, sandbox farmyard experience that puts you back in the hooves of no one’s favourite female protagonist.  That’s right – Pilgor is back, and this time is joined by other goats too. You can invite up to three friends in local or online co-op, create carnage as a team, or compete in mini-games and then not be friends anymore. Get ready for another round of udder mayhem. Lick, headbutt and ruin your way through a brand new open world in the biggest waste of your time since Goat Simulator! 

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Cocoon | PS4, PS5 

From Jeppe Carlsen, the lead gameplay designer of Limbo and Inside — Cocoon is a unique take on the puzzle adventure genre, where each world exists within an orb that you can carry on your back. Wrap your head around the core mechanic of leaping between worlds—and combine, manipulate, and rearrange them to solve intricate puzzles.

Interact with alien environments and biomechanical devices left behind by an ancient civilization. Journey through unique and diverse biomes, from industrial structures to massive organic caverns, and discover how they are connected to one another. Each orb has an ability that can be unlocked, thereby turning the orb into a unique tool for you to utilize within other worlds. Use these abilities to uncover hidden pathways and objects, fire projectiles to trigger switches, and more.

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Last chance to add PlayStation Plus Games for September to your library

PlayStation Plus members have until Monday October 6 to add Psychonauts 2, Dragon Marked For Death and Viewfinder to their game library.

Videogame developers at Disco Elysium studio ZA/UM have founded what they’re calling “the first recognised workplace union in the UK games industry”, operating as part of the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain. It’s yet another twist in the tale of a once-feted development studio who are now heavily associated with toxic layoffs, alleged fraud and diasporic feuding.

“The recognition process provides workers and management with a strong framework to engage and negotiate on workplace-related matters,” the unionised workers announce in a press release, passed along by Game Developer. “A committee of elected workplace representatives will regularly meet to discuss matters brought forward by the game developers at ZA/UM and management, with the support of union officials.”

The press release notes the past couple of year’s staggering quantity of mass layoffs, commenting that “job security [is] one of the union’s central focuses”. It includes thoughts from Eugenia Peruzzo, organising officer of the IWGB Game Workers Union, who comments that “recognition agreements lay the groundwork for a healthy relationship between the company and workers and rebalance the scale of powers after a few terrible years for the game industry and the redundancies we have seen happening at ZA/UM lately.” Peruzzo is confident that more UK videogame workers will unionise. “Rest assured that this is not a one off, but this is an avalanche in the making,” she says.

There’s a much fuller write-up of the situation on GamesIndustry.biz, which includes an interview with current ZA/UM president and Private Division co-founder Ed Tomaszewski. He observes of studio management’s negotiations with the emerging union “that when we did talk about it, it was clear that recognising a union was core to our values as a studio, to be providing fair working practices.”

In the GI piece, Tomaszewski also pushes back a little against some of the accusations or “characterisations” levelled at ZA/UM by certain former staff. I imagine that said former staff will be pushing back against Tomaszewski in turn.

ZA/UM have lost many of the people who made Disco Elysium a hit, but according to Game Developer, they now have “almost 100” people on the books after laying off a quarter of the studio and cancelling a Disco Elysium expansion early last year. Their current project is Zero Parades, a colourful espionage CRPG James summarised as “Disco Elysium in glasses and a moustache”, adding that “it isn’t always clear whether Zero Parades is inspired by Disco Elysium or beholden to it.”

Many of the departed Disco Elysium staff are now working on spiritual successors of one kind or another. Over at Summer Eternal, several former ZA/UM staff including writers Argo Tuulik and Dora Klindžić are making Red Rooster, which was recently teased in curious book anthology form. Longdue Games are making Hopetown, a psychogeogratuitous RPG which Nic summarised as “Nathan Barley on the bus”; their trueblood Disco complement includes ZA/UM’s co-founder Martin Luiga, plus Piotr Sobolewski from outsourcing team Knights of Unity. Dark Math Games boast of former Disco motion graphic designer Timo Albert and former ZA/UM producer and investor Kaur Kender; they’re making the recently renamed Tangerine Antarctic, which has a “dopamine buffet”.

I offer this summary to the next RPS staffer to write about ZA/UM-related matters, in frail hope that the situation won’t be anymore complicated by then. Oh god, I’ve just remembered we haven’t yet found out what former Disco writer Robert Kurvitz and artist Aleksander Rostov are making at their new outfit Red Info.