LEGO Skylines has been officially revealed at Gamescom as a LEGO version of the genre-defining city simulation game, Cities: Skylines. LEGO Skylines is being developed by Iceflake and published by Paradox Interactive, the same pair responsible for Cities: Skylines II. The announcement trailer released at Gamescom revealed classic LEGO graphics blended with high-fidelity city-building mechanics.

In LEGO: Skylines, players will have control over all of the typical city-builder stuff, like layout, public services, housing, food, and healthcare, but it seems like the LEGO version of the game will take a more whimsical approach to the genre, rather than sticking to hardcore city simulation mechanics. On the game's Steam page, the developer encourages "enjoy a little just-for-fun fun," and to "make it weird." LEGO: Skylines is slated to launch on PC via Steam and on the Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox Series consoles, and the PlayStation 5, although no release date has yet been announced.

Rainbow Six: Tactics leaked way back in January 2026 as an upcoming tactics game in Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six universe, and Ubisoft officially announced Tactics at Gamescom opening night, revealing details about the game and the game's trailer. Rainbow Six: Tactics will be a single-player, story-based title featuring operators from Rainbow Six Siege, and it is slated to launch in 2027.

Rainbow Six: Tactics will feature turn-based tactics gameplay akin to that of XCOM, which will demand that players use their surroundings and destructible environments to gain the upper hand and outsmart enemies in order to gather clues and take down a global conspiracy. Combat encounters will take place in a number of global locations, and players will have access to the same weapons, gear, tactical tools, recon gadgets, and breaching tools as are available to them in Rainbow Six: Siege. Ubisoft says that the game will have around 25 hours of total play time to complete the campaign.

It's no secret that 007 First Light has been a commercial success, with the game selling over 1.5 million copies in its first 24 hours out of the gates. Now, just shy of three months after launch, IO Interactive has announced that sales for First Light have officially surpassed 4 million units across PC, Xbox, and PlayStation 5.

Following the announcement, IO Interactive also reaffirmed that it plans to launch the Nintendo Switch 2 version of 007 First Light, which is expected to further bolster sales, and it has big plans for its first year of content updates.

Duskfade, a new 3D action platformer from indie studio, Weird Beluga, has officially launched on Steam. The developer describes Duskfade as "a love letter to classic 3D action platformers." It follows the main character, Zirian, and his mechanical Cuckoo companion, as they embark on a journey to save his sister after the world was plunged into darkness by a mysterious clock tower.

Duskfade has simple, stylized visuals, and the game previews show off fluid, skills-based hack-and-slash combat. Much of the gameplay pays homage to classic PlayStation 2-era platformers, like Jak and Daxter, Croc, Spyro, and even Crash Bandicoot. Aside from the usual hopping from platform to platform, the game appears to provide a decent amount of verticality in its traversal, with wall climbs, double-jumps, gliding, rail grinding, and a grappling hook adding to the fun.

In its latest earnings call, Sony discussed its PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Pro consoles, noting that the company has secured enough DRAM to manufacture its consoles without being affected by the current memory crisis in the semiconductor industry. Reportedly, the company has worked with the big three DRAM makers—Samsung, SK hynix, and Micron—to ensure an ample supply of DRAM for the PlayStation 5, as demand is expected to grow rapidly with the upcoming release of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto VI. Being one of the most anticipated major AAA titles this year, it usually triggers a whole ecosystem of purchases, with gamers flocking to retailers to buy the latest generation console.

Anticipating this surge in purchasing, Sony has secured sufficient DRAM supply just before the November 19 launch of GTA VI, meaning the company will likely benefit from profits driven by the game's release. "Regarding the impact of the storage component market on PlayStation 5 hardware, we have secured the storage quantities required to achieve our projected sales volume in fiscal year 2026 [ending in April 2027]." Interestingly, the company did not announce any immediate price hikes due to ongoing DRAM pricing volatility, but it is possible that one may occur if the supply chain situation does not improve. Since consoles are also significant drivers of consumer DRAM usage, companies like Sony need long-term supply agreements to maintain pricing and availability, especially before a major AAA release.

As consumer preferences and the broader entertainment industry continue to shift away from physical discs to digital, physical game disc production for all new games releasing on PlayStation consoles will be discontinued starting January 2028. Following this date, new games will be available on PlayStation Store and at retailers in digital formats only. This transition has no impact on games that already released, or will be releasing, prior to January 2028 in disc format.

This is a natural direction for Sony Interactive Entertainment to adapt to consumer trends as the general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs. This transition will enable us to align more closely with how most of our community prefers to access and play games today.

It's no secret that Valve's Steam Machine is launching at possibly the worst moment for both PC and console gaming hardware, given the ongoing DRAM crisis, but Valve engineer, Pierre-Loup Griffais, has recently shed light on the pre-RAM crisis pricing of the Steam Machine, revealing that it was never going to be a cheap device. According Griffais in an interview with IGN, the price difference between the actual Steam Machine at launch and the price if it had launched without the influence of the DRAM crisis was "probably similar" to the price increase Valve was all but forced to apply to the Steam Deck in May. That means that the Steam Machine could have cost as little as $730-750, based on the 30% difference between the current entry-level Steam Deck pricing and its original MSRP.

This pricing would have put the Steam Machine within spitting distance of the Sony PlayStation 5 and below the $899.99 price of the PS5 Pro after the recent Sony price hikes. Given that the Steam Machine is a hybrid device and can easily serve as both a console and a desktop computer, it's easy to see how the original price would have been more palatable, even if more expensive than a base PS5. Part of the high pricing can no doubt be attributed to the Steam Machine's openness. Where consoles like the Xbox and PS5 are subsidized by game sales, there's nothing stopping anyone from installing Windows on it and leaving Valve's ecosystem, removing the incentive to subsidize hardware entirely—you wouldn't even need to remove SteamOS to play games outside of Steam on the Steam Machine.

Grand Theft Auto fans, rejoice! The latest sequel in the GTA franchise—GTA VI—is opening up for pre-orders on June 25, allowing fans to gear up for one of the most anticipated AAA releases this year. Although the game officially launches on November 19, 2026, fans will be able to place pre-orders in about a week from now. This means that PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S players can add GTA VI to their pre-order list. Interestingly, the website doesn't mention any pricing for the game, so we might have to wait a few more days for that information. Additionally, no editions are listed, so it's still a mystery which GTA VI editions will be available on day one and how they will be priced compared to other AAA releases. We don't expect the game to be priced below the industry standard, and a slight premium compared to existing AAA titles is anticipated.

Sandisk today introduced the Optimus GX PRO 850P, an M.2 NVMe Gen 4 SSD tailor-made for the Sony PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Pro consoles. The drive is an officially-licensed PlayStation accessory, and comes with performance and thermal optimization for the consoles. It comes in capacity variants of up to 8 TB. The drive is a variant of the Optimus GX PRO 850X that Sandisk targets at PC gamers and enthusiasts.

Given the way Sandisk is differentiating the 850P from the 850X, this new drive might have a different performance profile from its PC-targeted sibling, and perhaps even a different combination of controller and NAND flash. The company hasn't put out a detailed specs sheet, yet. We know that the 850X comes with WDC's in-house Black G2 PCIe Gen 4, 8-channel controller that uses a DRAM cache, paired with Kioxia 112-layer 3D TLC NAND flash. The company also hasn't put out pricing. For reference, the top 8 TB 850X is going for an eye-watering $2,700.

When we previously reported on the soft mod that enables Linux to run on the Sony PlayStation 5, it was limited to very early firmware versions, limiting its appeal to those who were likely already modding their consoles. Thanks to a new update documented on the project's GitHub page, PS5-Linux-loader now has support for PlayStation 5 consoles up to firmware version 6.02. Granted, this is still a very old firmware version, dating back all the way to October 2022. Still, this is beyond what the developer, Andy Nguyen, had initially promised.

Like the previous higher firmware versions, Linux supports the internal M.2 slot with firmware version 5.00, 5.02, 5.10, 5.50, 6.00, and 6.02 although. In addition to the newer firmware versions, the PS5 Linux project now also has working drivers for the built-in WLAN chip, making using Linux on the PS5 a lot less of a hassle. The developer notes in the GitHub repo that loading Linux on the more recent firmware versions requires use of a different exploit and that there is no chance that newer firmware versions will be supported in the future, "so don't ask."

We recently reported on news that Sony will all but stop releasing PC ports of its single-player games on PC, and while those previous reports were from Jason Schreier, a journalist previously shown to have reputable insider sources, another insider has corroborated these claims, adding additional context in the process. According to NateTheHate2 on X, Sony made the decision in 2025 to shift its release strategy, with the result of launching fewer first-party single-player games on PC. The leaker adds that this means there will be "fewer single-player games" on PC from Sony, implying both that Sony may still port single-player games to PC—only significantly fewer of them—and that this new policy may not apply to live-service and multiplayer games.

He also mentioned that there are still single-player PC ports in development at Sony, which may eventually launch, depending on how far they are in the development process, but that these ports are no longer a priority for the Japanese gaming giant. Addressing questions about the justification for the strategy shift, NateTheHate2 commented that, while there have been a few commercially successful PC ports, they haven't been a huge revenue driver for Sony. Looking at the Steam charts data for Insomniac Games, one of Sony's most notable first-party studios, the data lends credence to these comments. The best-performing PC port from the studio is Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered, which peaked at 66,436 players on Steam. Meanwhile, the next-best performer is Marvel's Spider-Man 2, which peaked at 28,189. Nixxes Software, the studio responsible for many Sony PC ports, has seen similar successes, with the likes of Ghost of Tsushima topping the charts at 77,154 peak concurrent players, ahead of the aforementioned Spider-Man Remastered, with Horizon Forbidden West and The Last of Us Part II Remastered bringing in peaks or 40,462 and 30,690 players, respectively.

Update May 18th: In a leaked internal memo seen by Jason Schreier of Bloomberg, PlayStation Studio Business CEO, Herman Hulst, apparently confirmed to staff that, starting with Ghost of Yōtei, all of the company's narrative-driven single-player games will be exclusive to PlayStation.

Ghost of Yōtei Legends is the online co-op mode that launched as recently as March 2026, and despite that recent launch date, Sucker Punch revealed in a recent PlayStation Blog post that the Raids update, which recently introduced the multiplayer mode's final bosses, would be the game's final content update. According to the developer, Legends will remain online and playable, but no new content is planned for the game mode: "The Raid update was our last major planned update for Legends."

Given the recent slew of live service games that have been cancelled due to poor performance, it's worth mentioning that this doesn't seem to be the case with Ghost of Yōtei Legends. Sucker Punch lead designer, Darren Bridges explains that "It finishes the story of the Yōtei Six in that mode," going on to say that "we've loved to see players playing it, continue to play it and enjoy it," suggesting that players would still be able to play Legends following the final update, but that the game has officially been published in its entirety. Bridges dives deeper into the design and development of Legends and Ghost of Yōtei in an accompanying PlayStation Podcast interview.

One of the things that makes Steam unique as a platform is the APIs that Valve makes available to players and developers that allow us to see public player count data via sites like Steam Charts and SteamDB. According to recent reports by Mystic on YouTube, Sony is testing a new Community Activity widget in the PlayStation Welcome Hub that will show the top 10 most popular games for the week in question and a "Trending Now" category to show trending games. Trending Now shows increased gameplay hours, while the Top 10 view shows weekly active players and the position in the Top 10 leaderboard. There doesn't appear to be much more customization than being able to select these two options, and you don't seem to be able to see historic player counts for specific games.

Notably, this feature is in beta, so it may well change significantly before it hits more players, and it appears to be limited to certain countries at the time of writing. Additionally, although the widget does provide player count information, it's more like a snapshot of the game's performance at a specific point in time rather than the ongoing statistics gathered by SteamDB using Valve's APIs. Information about the most-played games isn't just useful from a novelty analytics point of view, but it also helps players ascertain if it would be worth investing time and money into a multiplayer game whose entertainment value may be contingent on the presence of other players in-game. Sony's Top 10 chart is also somewhat flawed, since aside from a few weeks a year when heavyweight launches take place, the popular games on a platform like Steam remain fairly constant—for Steam, the top 10 by player count usually includes Counter-Strike 2, PUBG: Battlegrounds, Apex Legends, Rust, Dota 2, and Terraria, with Warframe and Overwatch making occasional appearances.

Croteam and Devolver Digital have revealed The Talos Principle 3, the final chapter of the millions-selling, critically beloved, thought-provoking puzzle series, will take you on a cosmic journey across more than a dozen worlds and test your mind with all-new challenges when it launches on PlayStation 5 and PC soon.

As if awakening from a troubled sleep, you find yourself in a strange, contradictory world of crumbling temples and abandoned science outposts: the Anomaly, the only place in the universe where the laws of physics don't work as they should. Your memories are fragmented, but you know you came here for a reason.

When Saros launched in late April, it was very positively received, with both reviewers and players raving about the game's combat, movement, replayability, and engaging meta progression mechanics. Despite the strong showing in reviews, however, it seems as though the roguelike hasn't sold quite the numbers that Sony and Housemarque might have expected. Estimates by Alinea Analytics put sales figures for Saros at around 300,000 units and $22 million in revenue, underperforming its predecessor, Returnal—although that game launched at a different time, when PS5 games were more sparse.

In a way, it's almost to be expected that a third-person bullet hell roguelike might not sell with the same fervor as something like the recent Crimson Desert, which racked up over 5 million sales in its first month, or Resident Evil Requiem, which sold over 6 million copies in just over two weeks; Saros is in a much more niche genre than even the single-player horror of Resident Evil, it's a less well-established franchise, and it carries a premium $70 price tag. That said, the data also suggests that, even two weeks after launch, Saros still has a daily active player count over 100,000, echoing the strong replayability characteristics pointed out in early reviews. It's also worth noting that Saros may launch on PC at a later date, which would likely see a fresh wave of sales for the game. Alinea estimates that as much as $13 million of Returnal's revenue was earned on Steam, even though it launched on PC two years after the PS5 launch.

SCUF Gaming, Innovators in the high-performance gaming controller category and part of the Corsair family of brands, today unveiled SCUF Omega, a performance controller designed from the ground up and officially licensed for PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Pro consoles. Built on 15 years of innovation and esports championships, SCUF Omega represents the company's most advanced controller to date, delivering its fastest and most customizable gaming experience yet. The SCUF Omega is now available worldwide, compatible with PlayStation 5 consoles, PC, Mac, iOS, and Android.

With more than 160 patented innovations, SCUF has always focused on giving its players an edge so they can perform at the highest level. Omega is designed to reflect everything the company has learned from competitive play, delivering speed, accuracy, and personalization. "For 15 years, SCUF has pushed the boundaries of performance, driven by pro player insights, relentless innovation, and an unwavering passion for the game." said Tobias Brinkmann, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Gaming Peripherals at Corsair. "Omega is the realization of that journey, and the beginning of what comes next."

Not too long ago, 2K Games announced that it was suspending the development of Borderlands 4 on the Nintendo Switch 2, stating that the focus would be "delivering quality post-launch content for players on the ongoing improvements to optimize the game." Now, Take-Two CEO, Strauss Zelnick, has commented on the launch delay in an interview with Game File's Stephen Tolito, explaining that the Switch 2 just isn't the target platform for Borderlands 4. The executive explained that Sony's PlayStation 5 and the Xbox are the primary consoles for Borderlands 4, and that, although Take-Two wants to meet players on the consoles they're playing on, the studio wants to "make sure that we've addressed Borderlands 4 from a consumer's point of view before we bring it to more platforms."

Zelnick maintains that running Borderlands 4 is still "doable" on the Nintendo Switch 2, although Nintendo gamers may be in for a significant wait if the game's performance on the Steam Deck and other, more powerful, gaming handhelds is anything to go by. It should be noted that a recent update to Borderlands 4 claimed to deliver a 20% performance improvement at high resolutions and up to 40% improvements at 1080p on the minimum PC spec.

It seems as though a recent patch to Pragmata on the PS5 Pro has increased the game's render resolution, although Capcom has yet to actually announce the change. According to recent tests by Digital Foundry and Brazil Pixel on YouTube, Pragmata's Patch 1.21 has increased the internal render resolution from 864p to 1080p. Notably, this is now the same resolution as the game uses on the base model PS5, which produced a cleaner image in some cases before the update, because it used a native render resolution of 1080p from the outset. Pragmata will still use Enhanced PSSR to upscale the image, whereas the base console uses FSR, and in Digital Foundry's testing, the image produced in Patch 1.21 is much cleaner, with little to no impact on the final frame rate.

News recently broke about a new DRM system Sony had seemingly silently implemented in the PS5 that would make buyers of digital games go online every 30 days to validate a license or potentially be locked out of their games until they could access an internet connection. Now, according to some research done by andshrew on the ResetEra forums, it seems as though it's not quite as simple as that. As it turns out, going online to validate the DRM license may only be a requirement for the first 14 days as an attempt to avoid users buying a game and then refunding the game and playing it anyway in offline mode using some exploit—at least that is the current speculative explanation, since Sony is yet to address this debacle publicly.

The explanation in the ResetEra forum post details the full methodology, but essentially, what the user found by comparing two copies of the same game purchased on two separate PSN accounts, once before the new requirement and once after, is that Sony is now issuing a 30-day license for the first 14 days and swapping that license out for a perpetual license after the refund period has lapsed. This would mean that, after Sony's DRM server has been able to validate the license once after the 14-day refund period is over, there will be no restrictions on offline play, as is usually the case with console games. This somewhat resolves some of the issues that have been brought up surrounding this DRM feature, but it still may present issues for those who are not able to connect to the internet more than 14 days after purchasing a game—this is especially true, since there is no clearly visible notice about this DRM feature on Sony's site at the time of writing.

Hot on the heels of the news of Sony's new DRM that earned significant community backlash, Andy Nguyen, the developer who previously showed off running a full Linux installation on a PlayStation 5, has officially published their methodology and necessary steps to get the open-source operating system running on Sony's console. The hack requires a PS5 disc version running firmware version 3.00, 3.10, 3.20, 3.21, and 4.00, 4.02, 4.03, 4.50, 4.51, and there is only support for the M.2 drive in the 4.XX versions at the time of writing. There are supposedly ways to downgrade the PS5 firmware to one of the versions that still supports the hack, but those may not always work reliably. If you've followed the jailbreak steps, injected the payload and rebooted back into Linux, you should be greeted by a full Ubuntu 26.04 Resolute Raccoon installation, replete with the Linux kernel 7.

Interestingly, the PS5 Linux installation is quite full-featured, replete with custom VRAM allocation, fan control, and a boost mode toggling—all from within the terminal or a text file, of course. There are some caveats, and driver development is still ongoing—wireless networking, for example, may require you to manually restart the WLAN adaptor to work. The Sony DualSense controllers also don't currently work via the built-in dongle, although they do with an external dongle. The output refresh rate is also limited to 60 Hz across 1080p, 1440p, and 4K resolutions, although 120 Hz may be added later. The biggest limitation, however, is that it is a soft mod, meaning that if you restart the PS5 while in the Linux desktop, it will not boot back into the environment unless you apply the same jailbreak again. The upside of that is that the PlayStation 5's base OS isn't affected by the Linux installation, so if you want to go back to using it as a regular PS5, you can just reboot.

French developer and publisher DON'T NOD has today released Aphelion on PC (Steam), Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5. It is an Xbox Play Anywhere title and is available on Game Pass. Aphelion is a cinematic sci-fi adventure game at the edge of our solar system.

Standard, Deluxe, & Day One Editions
The Standard Edition, containing the game alone, is 29.99€/$ on Steam and 34.99€/$ on consoles. There is a 10% launch discount for Steam and Xbox users. Xbox and PlayStation players can get the Day One Edition at 10% off on both platforms (only for PS+ users on PlayStation), exclusively within the first day of sale. The Day One Edition contains the game and a cosmetics pack with 2 spacesuit variants and 6 backpack accessories: 3 stickers and 3 keychains. The stickers and keychains reference the ESA collaboration and fan-favorite DON'T NOD games, Jusant and Lost Records: Bloom & Rage.

One of the often-touted benefits of console gaming is how physical media enables access to games, even when there is no internet connection for the DRM to verify the game's license. Now, it seems as though the Sony's PS5 will start locking players out of digital-only games if the console has been unable to connect to PSN servers within the last 30 days. This is according to testing done by Hikikomori Media, who found the issue with Wild Arms 4 and Vampire Crawlers, both of which were purchased as digital-only titles in April 2026.

The content creator simulated an offline PS5 by disconnecting it from the internet, resetting the internal clock by removing the CMOS battery, and then booting up the PS5 without an internet connection. Effectively, he tricked the PS5 into thinking that it had been offline for an extended period of time. The end result is that both Wild Arms 4 and Vampire Crawlers were unable to launch after the reboot. It's notable that games purchased before March 2026 would still launch without a hitch. Based on this testing and further testing with a PS4, which revealed a timer showing how long it had been since the console could call home, it seems as though games purchased after March 2026 will need to connect to PSN servers at least once every 30 days in order to be playable.

There's been a lot of talk lately about the state of platform exclusives in the video game console industry, from controversial rumors about Sony potentially leaving behind much of its PC port business to Microsoft's recent announcement that it would be "reevaluating" platform exclusives as part of its new strategy for Xbox Gaming. All of this aside, however, it seems as though there is a degree of success to be had from casting a wider net when it comes to hardware support.

According to an update on the Virtuos Games website—a game studio that helped Playground Games bring Forza Horizon 5 to the PS5—Forza Horizon 5 has sold more than 5 million copies on Sony's console alone. This nearly matches some of the estimated sales figures for the game's Steam release, which sits anywhere between 7.24 million and 8.36 million, depending on which analytics figures you're referencing. This is despite Forza Horizon 5 only releasing on PlayStation 5 in 2025, nearly four years after the original PC and Xbox launch. This sort of timed exclusivity is very similar to the model that Sony has been following with many of its games and largely one that Microsoft has been moving away from, and will possibly return to in the future. As it stands, Forza Horizon 6 is launching on May 19, with a PS5 release date promised for later in 2026.

It was recently rumored that PlayStation would be moving away from publishing PC ports of its mainline first-party single-player games, which came with the implication that Sony would not port the upcoming Marvel's Wolverine game to PC. Speaking at a recent ALT Games Festival event in Australia, Shuhei Yoshida, Sony's former president of Sony Interactive Entertainment, commented on the PlayStation exclusive situation and how PC ports impact Sony's gaming portfolio and financials in his view. Yoshida is of the opinion that PC ports are largely a positive move for Sony, and that they don't meaningfully detract from console hardware sales or game sales on consoles.

Instead, Yoshida says that Sony's PC ports could help recoup some of the initial game design and development costs—presumably because games usually get a bump in sales when they launch on other platforms, and because developing a new game is far more costly than porting an existing game to a new platform. The latter is especially true with modern hardware, which all share similar x86 platform specifications, with the exception of systems like the Nintendo Switch 2 and Valve's upcoming Steam Frame. He also goes on to say that he is "not seeing any proof of them (Sony) changing their strategy this generation, but if they are changing, it's going to be interesting how they are able to maintain the investment on big budget games." On the topic of AAA game budgets, Yoshida comments that the ever-increasing budgets in the AAA industry don't seem sustainable. The full interview with Shuhei Yoshida on YouTube follows.

Studio Far Far Games and publisher Digital Vortex Entertainment are thrilled to announce that Bylina, their isometric action-adventure rooted in Slavic folklore, is now available on Steam. PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions will launch later in 2026.

In Bylina, take on the role of Kestrel, a young bogatyr, a Slavic knight of legend, born without hero's powers in a world where gods, monsters, and humans exist side by side. Unmarked by destiny, unblessed by the gods, and underestimated by everyone, Kestrel's just a stubborn kid whose dreams outweigh his abilities