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While HBO's Game of Thrones had an absolutely unforgettable cast of character actors that have become inseparable from their original roles, some of these characters are undisputed fan-favorites. One such character is the stunning Melisandre, portrayed by the legendary Carice van Houten. As the mysterious Red Woman, Melisandre became one of the series' most fascinating and unpredictable figures, arriving as a fanatical priestess of R'hllor who genuinely believed Stannis Baratheon was destined to save the world. View the full article

The Blood of Dawnwalker players will reach several points throughout Coen's journey that require making important decisions about how to proceed forward, with some decisions having dramatic consequences for Coen, his companions, and his enemies. One such decision comes during an adventure with Coen's dear friend (and potential romantic interest), Anca, as they reach the climax of their tumultuous mission to find The Font. View the full article

The Steam Client Beta has been updated with the following changes: Remote Play Fixed Steam streaming client failing to launch on Windows 10. View the full article

Stardew Valley and Minecraft are two very different games, but both have built huge audiences around giving players the freedom to decide what they want to do. The result has been a variety of games like Stardew Valley or Minecraft hitting the market, but oftentimes, those games do not carry both as inspirations. Now, a new Steam game looks to bring some of those ideas together, combining farming, crafting, building, exploration, and dungeon crawling into one survival sandbox. View the full article

As players progress through The Blood of Dawnwalker's main story and begin to dismantle Brencis' Court of Vrakhiri vassals, one of the first targets most players encounter will be Ambrus due to his presence in the Northern region of Vale Sangora. As you explore the area and discover more details about Ambrus' role in transporting blood slaves throughout the area, you can slowly chip away at his operation through various quests and eventually will have to take him on head to head in a late-night duel. View the full article

Halofans have been waiting patiently for the major announcement of the franchise's next mainline multiplayer entry and any news on what's next for Master Chief. After the release of Campaign Evolved earlier this year, fans are feeling a bit ambivalent about the future. It's hard to imagine the next mainline multiplayer game announcement is that far off, given the reinvigorated excitement around Halo and its iconic story. View the full article

RuneScape developer Jagex is showing Dragonwilds players its appreciation by bucking one of the conventions of releasing a game out of early access. Instead of launching into 1.0 with a hefty price increase, as is the standard with early access games going into 1.0, RuneScape Dragonwilds will stay exactly the same price, £24.99 or $29.99, when it leaves early access on September 15. According to Jagex, this is for no other reason than to express gratitude for a community of fans that has kept RuneScape in the gaming zeitgeist for 25 years. "Since we launched into Early Access, we've been extremely proud of the amazing work that has gone into RuneScape: Dragonwilds," reads an update shared to the game's official website. "So many of you have taken the plunge into Ashenfall, and with every update we are humbled by the number of you trying out Dragonwilds, recommending it to friends and leaving reviews on Steam. The feedback has been incredible, and the game continues to improve with every update, guided and informed by our vision, and your feedback, working together in harmony. "Dragonwilds' success is because of the invaluable participation of our Early Access players, but also thanks to the support and excitement shared by the countless number of fans waiting for Kuldra's Saga to be complete before you took the plunge with us. We hope this small gesture goes some way to showing our endless appreciation for your support and belief." Jagex also confirms that Dragonwilds will continue getting monthly updates "as the game grows" in its post-early access life. And speaking of which, the next major update is coming sometime in the vague window of "Winter," and it'll be called Luminance. That, like the smaller updates, will be a free grab for players, although Jagex has yet to say a whole lot else about it. "We'll share more about our 2027 plans once we've delivered our 1.0 release, and you can tune into our Summit at RuneFest to hear more about 2027 and the next Saga in Ashenfall's story," says the dev. RuneScape: Dragonwilds 1.0 is just one of many upcoming launches on our big Fall Preview 2026 guide of our most wanted games. [/url]View the full article

CD Projekt Red announces a new milestone for the Cyberpunk 2077 expansion. View the full article

Players seeking to eliminate Brencis' vassals in the Vrakhiri Court during The Blood of Dawnwalker's main storyline will find unlikely help along the way against each member. In the case of Ambrus, players will eventually be approached by the nobleman Iulian Codrin, one of Boyar Ambrus' vassals who traded his blood in order to keep his status and possessions. View the full article

Steam users can currently pick up the 2026 RPG Legends of Starkadia completely free of charge, but only until September 14. After that, the Steam game plans to transition to a paid model, but users can add it to their inventories before then and keep it forever for free. View the full article

Tim Schafer, CEO of Double Fine Productions, has been busy dealing with a lot of change in the past couple of months, but he has successfully extracted his studio from Microsoft and he is once again running it as an independent game studio. During the process, he didn’t lose his sense of humor, as I learned in an interview with him. And now Schafer’s team has hit its target in its Amnesia Fortnight Kickstarter campaign (raising more than $400,000) to raise funding for its future games, including internally developed titles made with small budgets and small teams. Schafer founded the 26-year-old award-winning studio and sold it to Microsoft in 2019. The studio shipped Keeper and Kiln since that time, but the Xbox division has seen its profits sink. Under new leadership of Asha Sharma, the division is laying off 3,200 people and it’s spinning out five studios, including Double Fine. Schafer said the company has some runway to get under way, but it will use the Kickstarter funds to help extend that runway. Schafer has kicked off game jams, documentaries and crowdfunding and the Kickstarter campaign hit its $400,000 target in just 72 hours and it still has 28 days to go. In fact, if the number hits $100 million, Schafer has said the team will make Brutal Legend 2. While the outcome is good now, there has been some pain. The team laid off about 23 people and it has around 55 left, Schafer said. This is a much softer landing than what might have happened, as Double Fine faced potential closure under Xbox. The studio will continue to make its quirky and creative games. I spoke with Schafer about his plans, including backing small titles proposed by the Double Fine staff. So far, the team has crafted 26 pitches for fans to vote for to greenlight its next title. The winning game will be published under Double Fine’s new label for weird little games, Double Fine Action Labs. This process has already yielded one game that was made in just six weeks, Schafer said. The Amnesia Fortnight timeline follows below: Aug. 31: The Kickstarter campaign launched, revealing all 26 game pitches and opening the campaign to backers.Sept. 1: The first round of voting began, giving backers the opportunity to help narrow the 26 pitches down to four finalists.Sept. 3-7: Double Fine heads to PAX, where attendees can meet the team and play a mysterious little game.Sept. 6: The first round of voting closes, with the four finalists to be announced shortly afterward.Sept. 9: Amnesia Fortnight officially begins, kicking off two weeks of prototype development.Sept. 23: Development concludes. The four playable prototypes will be distributed to eligible backers shortly afterward, and the final round of voting will begin.Sept. 30: The Kickstarter campaign comes to an end.The winning game will be announced shortly afterward. Here’s an edited transcript of our interview. Tim Schafer is CEO of Double Fine Productions. Source: Double Fine/GamesBeat GamesBeat: What’s the strategy now that you’re out? What are you focused on? Schafer: As you know, we managed to escape with our IP. It feels like at one point they were going to squish us like a bug, but instead we shot out like a watermelon seed. It was very mutually beneficial. It was a much better news day for them, that none of those studios were closing. They had bad layoffs, but no studio closures announced, which was nice for the studios and nice for Xbox. That was a win-win. Those IP, a lot of them we made before we got acquired. There was 19 years of history of making things like Brutal Legend and Psychonauts. We felt like not only did we deserve to get them back, but we’re the only ones who could make money with them. Microsoft without Double Fine can’t go make another Psychonauts game. Maybe that sounds egotistical, but I feel like no one would accept it. Why would they want some random person making a Psychonauts game? GamesBeat: I do think EA still thinks it could make a better American McGee’s Alice game than American McGee can. Schafer: [laughs] A lot of these people think all they need is an IP and AI and they can make a game, and that’s not the case either. Anyway, they let me have these properties so they can live. We got out of there. We got our IP. We have a runway. We have a little time to–I say it’s a runway, not a freeway. It doesn’t take us all the way to the destination. It doesn’t last forever. It’s just a finite strip of land, and you gotta take off under your own power. That’s what a runway is. We’re trying to extend that runway right now, in the short term, by trying to boost some short-term revenue things, like doing a Kickstarter, which is doing well. People are backing it. It has many different benefits. One is that it’s a very immediate revenue source. But it’s also a sign of life. Hey, remember us, the creative company that did wacky things? It’s a way for us to do that again. It’s also a celebration of our independence. We can do whatever we want. GamesBeat: This direct connection to your biggest fans. One of the games pitched by Double Fine’s employees. Source: Double Fine Schafer: Yeah. We have to generate our own money, but we can rely on our number one resource, which has always been the creativity of the team. Our team has a million ideas. We support them and we try to engender that feeling of taking risks and having playful ideas and putting them out there. Putting their face on it. It’s scary to pitch a game, but we try to make the team feel comfortable sharing their ideas and pitching their games. It’s saved us before. When Brutal Legend 2 got cancelled, we didn’t know what we were going to do, but we had done two rounds of Amnesia Fortnight back then. We had eight game demos. We picked the best ones and signed Stacking, Costume Quest, Once Upon a Monster, and Iron Brigade. That was all thanks to the creativity of the team. GamesBeat: When was the last time you did Amnesia Fortnight? Schafer: I’d have to look that up. But we did a documentary about it. It’s the one where Lorne did The Way Down. 2019? [Hidden Content] GamesBeat: Just before the transition. Schafer: We try to do it regularly, but sometimes we’re just so busy. There were always questions about how it worked under Microsoft. Now that we’re free of those worries, we can be more flexible with it. GamesBeat: Do you have your favorite projects that you want to push forward in mind already, or do you want to digest the feedback from the fans first? Schafer: It’s kind of a market test in a way. It’s valuable information to have the fans respond to it. That’s a great sign for the future sales of a game. It’s not 100% guaranteed, but it’s a great sign if people really react to a pitch. I did a live stream today and yesterday with all the people pitching game ideas. I asked them all about their games. I’m just taking in all this information. I’ve heard about some of them before, but now I finally understand them all. There are some great ones in there. But I’m excited to hear what the fans pick. That matters a lot to us. GamesBeat: I saw one comment that was kind of like, “I don’t want to give you another idea. I want you to focus and tell me, ‘This is the best thing.’ I want to trust Tim Schafer to tell me what the best thing is.” Schafer: That’s interesting. I don’t want to influence them, in a way. I want to know what they’re thinking. GamesBeat: You still believe in this process, then? Schafer: Something I learned at LucasArts is you don’t place your bets on ideas. You place your bets on people. Amnesia Fortnight is a test of ideas, but also a test of people. It started when I said, “I’m not going to be around forever. We need other creative people to run games here.” But we didn’t want to risk a huge project, so here, Lee Petty, you have $2 million. Make a Russian nesting doll game. Of course now we know he turned out to be a great project leader, but he’d never done it at Double Fine before. It’s a great test. Amnesia Fortnight is about testing ideas, but it’s also about testing people’s capacity for leadership. Kiln from Double Fine. GamesBeat: You have this idea for smaller games as well. Schafer: Amnesia Fortnight fits a lot with what’s going on with what’s popular on Steam right now, which is kind of janky, unpolished games that are a lot of fun. They’ve become huge hits and they don’t cost a lot of money. They’re just trying different creative ideas. Games you play with your friends and laugh, a lot of people are playing them these days. That fits with Amnesia Fortnight, which is about really quickly–don’t worry, don’t censor yourself, just have a creative idea and make it happen in two weeks and put it out there. We created a label for those that we’ll probably keep doing in the future, which is Double Fine Action Labs. Like Double Fine Action News, we have Double Fine Action Labs, which is our label we’re going to release the results of Amnesia Fortnight under. They’re experiments. They’re complete games. They’re not incomplete. But they’re rough and scrappy and small. They’re meant to be cheap and played for shorter amounts of time. We’re going to be putting one out later this week that we made in just six weeks. We’re doing it under this label to set that expectation. This is not Psychonauts 3. This is an experimental thing. We had a lot of fun with it, and we thought it was fun enough to share with people. GamesBeat: Have you figured out some things that you can do now as an independent company, and things you won’t do anymore because you were part of a big company? Schafer: We have room to talk to anybody and work with anybody, talk to them directly. When we were with the big company, they want–we could put games on another platform, but there was one person at the company we had to go through. Now we can just talk to any platform directly. Which we did before. Spaff has connections at all these different platforms and we talk to all these companies directly. It lets us be a bit more nimble and take opportunities that might have been too small potatoes for a big company, but that are really interesting to us. We can take those kinds of deals. Things we don’t have to do–we don’t have to go to a lot of meetings. We don’t have to use Teams anymore. Microsoft was really good to us, though. We had a great seven years there. They invested a lot in our studio that will benefit us in the future. They treated us well. They lived up to their promise of letting us survive if they wanted to stop working with us. We have no hard feelings there. GamesBeat: I know that there was this emphasis on creativity with Double Fine. Schafer: It’s our number one pillar. GamesBeat: Is there some kind of twin pillar that goes with this about standing on your own as a business? Schafer: Creativity is the number one thing for the company. Companies are often influenced by who founded them. If a programmer founded them, they’re gonna have the best engine. I’m about writing and creativity, so I always want our games to be surprising to people. We always learn about–if you want to take risks, in some ways you have to spend less money. You can’t be really expensive and take a bunch of risks. You have to be a little cheaper. If you take more risks, you spend less money in general. That’s a bit of what Double Fine Action Labs is about. It’s about being able to take more risks and not blow the bankroll on them. Keeper came out on Xbox and the PC. Source: Microsoft/Double Fine Productions There’s a lot of stories in the games industry lately about studios spending $300 million and going out of business or not releasing their game. It’s great to learn how to take small risks. Every big franchise out there started small. I’m trying to think of new IP that started with a $300 million investment. That’s not how Minecraft got started. GamesBeat: Did you feel business pressure in some way? “That’s a creative title, but it’s not a potential hit franchise.” Someone with a more business-minded point of view might say, “Those guys are too creative.” Schafer: That’s always been our–we’ve been pitching games since Psychonauts, the very beginning. We always knew a pitch was over if we did our pitch and the first thing the publisher said was, “Well, that’s very creative.” Okay, pack up the box, we gotta go. They don’t like it. It’s creative, but it doesn’t sound like money to them. The thing is, people do want to see games they haven’t seen before. People don’t just want another shooter that looks like the last shooter they saw. What’s different about this game? The trick is to spend less money when you take those risks. GamesBeat: When you look at what is succeeding in the market now, there’s a pretty good case for that. Meccha Chameleon, Helldivers 2, Palworld, Clair Obscur. These are all cases where someone took a shot with their idea. The market has rewarded them for being bold. Schafer: But there’s a lot of games like that on the bottom of the charts that haven’t done well. You have to get away from the idea that you can buy a hit. “We’ll spend tons more money and have a guaranteed hit.” No. You have to spend enough money that you can survive if it’s not a hit. You save your money so you can make 10 games and have one of them be a hit. Double Fine has always gotten by on a business plan that’s not hit-based. It’s about having a sustainable back catalog. We make money from our back catalog. We have many games now that are just passively earning money. You want to break even on your game. You want to not lose money. But you can survive for years off the profits of a game with a long tail, or a game that takes a while to find its audience, like Psychonauts. People are still discovering Psychonauts. We’ve always tried to have a more sustainable business plan than spending $300 million on something that had better be the game of the year. GamesBeat: Did you ever figure out the accounting for things like Game Pass? Tim Schafer summons a heavy metal storm as Eddie Riggs from Brütal Legend. Schafer: That’s been a huge question for a lot of people. What’s a fair way to account for that? And I don’t know. I think they’ll always try new systems. Hopefully they’ll find one that works for everyone. I still like the mission of Game Pass. I like taking down the barriers for entry to games. You don’t have to risk $70 every time you try a Double Fine game. GamesBeat: I know you had some layoffs. Have you figured out what’s a more appropriate staffing level to get your games out the door, but not have the Microsoft luxury level of employment? Schafer: We had some perks during the Microsoft days that we don’t have anymore. We’re going back to the way we acted, and also the employee count that we had, before the acquisition. That’s something we’ve sustained for years at the company. We’re back to that size again, and that spending level. GamesBeat: For many in the industry the staffing levels just seem to go up and up. The time it takes to get a game done also gets longer and longer. When you think about that and, at the same time, the pressure to be frugal, what becomes a more ideal number for Double Fine to be at? Schafer: We’re at the size now that we were when we made Brutal Legend, basically. I feel like that’s a good size for us. We’re currently trying to sign games to support all those people. We’ll find out. It’s going to be tested by the marketplace. If we can’t fund all these people, we’ll know. But I feel good about the pitches we’re sharing. I feel like we have enough interest that I’m optimistic about being able to stay at this size and have it be a more sustainable scope for us. GamesBeat: Were you in mid-project when this happened? Or were you just finished with something? Schafer: We’d just finished Keeper. Some of the team were just–we’re still working on Kiln. A lot of the team was still noodling around. But there are other things. I often have ideas in the back of my head for 15 years before I make something. There are always these things I’m tinkering with until I bring them before. There was nothing ready to ship or anything like that. There were some ideas that were floating around, I would say. Who knows if one of those will get picked? We’re still doing updates on Kiln. Tomorrow they’re going to drop the price to $7.99. We have control of that now. What’s the right price for a game like Kiln? We’re doing new maps and modes later in the year. Psychonauts 2 You asked about what we can do now that we’re not part of Xbox. We’re doing things differently. The way we handle servers, that was a different set of economics under Microsoft. Now that we’re taking it over ourselves, we’re doing more with peer-to-peer and stuff like that. We don’t have as many regulations on the login, how you have to log in to certain services. GamesBeat: If you had to predict what gamers want now, what does that look like? Schafer: If I knew what gamers wanted–that’s always been the big thing. I’m always surprised. Someone will say, “Hey, have you heard of this?” “No.” “It makes $8 million a day in China.” “What?” Gaming is so big. There’s not one thing gamers want. Some people want to be online and doing some grindy thing. Some people want to have an amazing narrative experience. Some people want to just goof off with their friends and hang out. Games are this thing now where they’re ******* than any one genre. What do gamers want? They want a ton of different things. I feel like we’ve always been an inspiration-led studio. If it’s something that excites us, at least we know it will excite somebody. We’ve stuck to what inspires us more than we’re guessing people will like. GamesBeat: I haven’t played with physical discs in 10 years, but I know I want it. Schafer: I do. I’m a retro game fan. I have my old Atari and Vectrex set up in my office. I play Atari games and Vectrex games. I know I have all the ROMs downloaded onto a card, but I never like to play those. I like to put the cartridge in the machine. There’s something about the original media. I don’t know if it’s nostalgia or just a feeling of, “Yes, I’m actually playing an old game.” I get the appeal of physical media, for sure. But again, I haven’t bought a disc in a long time. GamesBeat: Do you have any wish for which way we go as an overall industry? Do you want more new game consoles? Schafer: It’s a hard question. What is a game console now? That’s my biggest question. Speaking of the Atari, when my dad brought the Atari home, it was a machine that had chips in it that no other machine in the house had. It did things to the TV that no other device could do. That’s not the case anymore. Now my phone does all that stuff. How do you differentiate yourself now as a machine that people want to buy and have in their house? It has to do something else. You can see Nintendo wrestling with that, doing all their cool motion control stuff, all the things that make the Switch a different device from something else in the house. That’s the challenge. What I would want–I just want more cool games. When you ask what players want, I think in the end, people want great games. In movies and TV, people are always looking for patterns. I remember getting told once that “space is dead.” The concept of a movie set in space–you couldn’t sell a screenplay for a space movie. It’s so dumb. Then a space movie is a hit and everyone says, “We gotta go back to space!” Then the derivative stuff in space doesn’t work. “Wait, I thought space was popular!” No. It was never the genre or the setting. It was the quality of that initial brilliant thing that got made that made it popular. That’s what people like. They want quality. They want originality. They want fun. Psychonauts 2. GamesBeat: If you knew this day was going to come with Microsoft, do you think you would have done some things differently? Would you have made a different game than Keeper? Schafer: I don’t know. Keeper is definitely–you asked us what game we could make now that we couldn’t have made before. There was no way that, as an indie company, we could have made Keeper. In the end I’m glad that we made it. It served its mission, to put something cool on Game Pass. That was our whole mission. Put cool things on Game Pass was the challenge, to fill that channel with interesting, creative stuff. GamesBeat: I remember Phil Spencer made it sound like your job with Keeper was to inspire the ranks of all the game developers at Microsoft. Schafer: [laughs] I feel like everyone has their place. Even when we were at Microsoft, when I looked at the other companies and what they were doing, our job was to make the weird stuff. Our job was to make the creative stuff. That’s what we do better than anyone else. It’s not weird for the sake of being weird, but weird that feels emotionally compelling, that really grabs you and inspires you. I feel like that’s always been our mission, whether we’re part of a big company or on our own. GamesBeat: Is it true that you’ll make Brutal Legend 2 for $100 million? Schafer: I think we could get it done for that. At least a first draft. It’s both a joke and not a joke. We put it in there to be funny. Yeah, sure, if we could spend $100 million, if someone gave us $100 million, I’d be happy taking it and making Brutal Legend 2. GamesBeat: You might have some left over. Schafer: Oh, I could spend it. I’d put it all in one big Megadeth song. Those people can ask for a lot with their licensing. GamesBeat: Back to the Action Lab, at what pace do you think you’re going to be doing some of these small, experimental games? Schafer: That’s the test. We’re going to release something this week. We’ll release the AF project. We’ll see what happens. We’ll see if it’s a sustainable model. We’ve always wanted that outlet. We’ve always done these game jams and made tiny games that we didn’t know what to do with, because they’re just fun experiments. Now we have a platform for them. GamesBeat: Would you get your audience to vote on these ideas, or just do that internally? Schafer: In the case of Amnesia Fortnight, gamers are voting. We’re not voting internally. We’ve had ones where we voted internally too. This time the backers are paying for the right to vote. We’re going to let them pick. But there’s no set rules for how we have to behave in the future. It’s a very experimental and nimble thing, which we’ve always been good at as a company. Being nimble, trying things, pivoting, trying something else. We’re going to do it this way and see how it goes, see which parts get the most attention. Maybe we’ll get distracted by the big deals we’ll sign for these big games. Or maybe we’ll keep Action Lab going and always have Amnesia Fortnight going on. Who knows? GamesBeat: If they vote for something, do you have to make that thing? Schafer: Well, we’re not going to put anything up there that we don’t want to make. I would make Brutal Legend 2 if we got $100 million. That’s the problem. We need a lot of money to make those games. Brutal Legend is not a cheap game. Music licensing alone, celebrities like Jack ******. GamesBeat: How much of your appeal do you think is in the retro realm? People wanting games in the style they grew up with. Schafer: The first time I saw Psychonauts in a “retro games” retrospective, I thought, “A retro games channel? A Double Fine game? Holy cow.” There is a lot of nostalgia for that. We’d love to remaster that game someday. Now that we’re an independent company, though, all these things cost money. I gotta find someone who wants to fund that. If you’re out there and you want to fund a Psychonauts remaster, let me know. Phil Spencer (left), Tim Schafer and Gabriela Tafur. Source: Paley Center for Media GamesBeat: You’ve talked to investor types out there. What do you hear back from them? What do you think they want to invest in? Schafer: We’re not through the process yet. I haven’t seen what they’re actually willing to put their money up for. But they’re talking about–some of them are still trying to make very strategic investments in known genres. They’re doing research into genres and only investing in those genres. Other people are just–they all have different goals. Companies from Asia that want to get involved in the western market or with a western-sounding IP. I don’t want to speak for all of them. The more I meet people who invest, the more I find that they’re people who–they have this money and they can’t just leave it in the bank. So how do they make smart bets? Spreading some of it around. I like the idea of it getting spread around more so everyone gets a chance, instead of $300 million going to one company that’s doomed. When I see these companies with that kind of money not releasing a game, it makes me so mad. We could make a bunch of games for that money. GamesBeat: I like the idea from some of the Middle Eastern companies. They know they’ll run out of oil someday. They have to create jobs to replace the jobs they’re going to lose. They’re in a rush to adapt to a changing world and become digital nations. Schafer: I have Norwegian friends who feel the same way. They’ve lived for years off the North Sea oil rigs. What do you do when that’s gone? GamesBeat: It’s interesting that they’ve wound up in the game industry. This is where money is coming from now. Schafer: [laughs] Anyone who wants a sure bet financially, go to the games industry. Guaranteed money in the bank. GamesBeat: You would think more money would come in. I heard the one stat not long ago about how games are only five percent of the world’s advertising budgets, and yet it’s the biggest entertainment industry. People don’t believe in it enough to advertise into it. Schafer: It’s always weird. It’s a mix and match of its finances and its cultural position. Financially it’s huge, but culturally it’s thought of as a niche thing. People’s cultural views about games are a little out of date. People think they’re played by a certain type of person. That was the case 20 years ago, but it’s not the case now. Everyone plays games. GamesBeat: What do you think about carrying the flag for California? “There’s still a game studio here!” Schafer: And in San Francisco. We used to have game studios up and down the block. They’re all gone. It’s us and Supergiant and Shiny Shoe. Just a couple left. The rest moved away or died. GamesBeat: Electronic Arts pretends to be there, but nobody goes into those buildings, I think. Schafer: They’re trying to get people back in the office, but it’s always–it’s changed forever. I like working with people. I like seeing their faces. I like being together in the room when we’re brainstorming. We’re still standing up for games made in San Francisco. GamesBeat: Next to all the AI bros. Schafer: That’s the hardest thing about being in San Francisco. Competing with tech companies. They steal your junior programmer and give them three times what you could pay them. It’s hard to live under all these AI billboards. They’re just gibberish. Are they trying to upset us by having these creepy-looking ads? GamesBeat: Do you see anything coming along that will help game development, including AI? Will it help you somehow, or do you think there are other things that will improve game development? Schafer: I’ve never looked for technological solutions. It always seems like games are a creative problem. People ask, “What new tech gets you excited?” I don’t know. We could have done Tetris in ASCII on a dumb terminal. That’s an old example. But we weren’t waiting for the technology to make that game. We were waiting for the idea. I still think it’s creativity and imagination. Those are the things we’re always waiting for. Technology might be a tool that helps us do it, but I don’t think it’s going to save us. Technology has made games a lot more complicated, which has been a trap for people. We can make games where every character takes three months to model! The budgets of games have followed that. So I don’t think it’s technology in the end. I think it’s the innovation and creativity of the human mind that will bring the next big hits. GamesBeat: You’re saying this in the middle of Silicon Valley. Schafer: San Francisco in the ‘90s was a creative hub. The bands, the arts scene. I won’t give up on that version of San Francisco, where we still have a bunch of weird people who like to do creative stuff. That shows in our games, I think. Even though most of my employees live in Oakland. GamesBeat: What do you think about something like the Godot game engine, an open source game engine? Schafer: That’s something I don’t have much experience with. I think the idea is interesting. We’re free to explore anything now. But in some ways–the distribution systems have made it more possible for people to self-publish small indie games. Steam made it possible. Anyone can publish a game on Steam. But it also hurts, because so many games are getting published. How do you get attention for your game? There are ups and downs. No single technology is going to guarantee an easier road. It’s all in how you use it. GamesBeat: Did you see anything that looked familiar in Asha Sharma’s notes, the 14 layers of management at Microsoft and so on? Schafer: Are you talking about something recently, or are you talking about her original notes? GamesBeat: When she put out the layoff announcement, she had said a couple of things like, “We’re putting most of our investment into parts of the games industry that are not growing. We sometimes have 14 layers of management. We have to get more efficient at all of these things.” She was raising an alarm about how this can’t continue, this can’t go on. Schafer: I don’t know what I can say about that. I don’t know enough about the inner workings of Microsoft. Even though I was there, we were a limited integration studio. They’re definitely a big company. They have big company ways of doing things. I wish them well. They’re going in a different direction than we are. Good luck. GamesBeat: Do you think they’re going to do well? Schafer: They have a lot of great IP still left. They have a lot of money. They have a lot of attention. I’m curious to see how they do. Like I said, it’s a weird time to be selling consoles. But they have a lot of great, smart people up there still. I hope, for all their sakes, that they’re successful. GamesBeat: And if you were in charge? Schafer: [laughs] Oh my God. That’s crazy. GamesBeat: You have decades more experience than some of those people. Schafer: I would definitely start a new version of Blast Corps. That’s one of the first things we would do. GamesBeat: If there’s still a major effort that you would do, would it be the only game the studio worked on? Or do you think that you’d try to do two games at a time, or anything like that? Schafer: We’ve always seen it as–we have roughly four teams. When we made Costume Quest, Stacking, Iron Brigade, and Once Upon a Monster, we had four teams working in different places in development. When we made a Psychonauts game, we’d pull two teams together to make that, and then by the end of it we’d pull the other teams into it. But then we’d split back up into multiple teams again. It’s basically four teams, but sometimes two or three or four of them join together for a brief ******* of time. Games are like a snake eating an elephant. They have this middle portion where tons of people are on it. You have to have flexible divisions between different teams so people can move on to the one that needs the most people at the right time, but also lets you have few people when it’s the right time to do that. GamesBeat: Are you the kind of studio that needs external development, or have you stayed away from that? Source: Double Fine Schafer: We’ve worked with great outsourcers for animation. Sometimes we’ve been short a programmer. It’s hard to hire programmers with all the tech companies around. We don’t want to grow, because we don’t want to have layoffs. We want to stay small. We’ve often, for years, used outsource companies who can do visual effects or animation. And we’ve always outsourced testing to companies that do that. It’s a good way for us to have flexibility in our team sizes. GamesBeat: Are you going to be giving time off to your employees to play Grand Theft Auto? Schafer: Sometimes I think, “Oh, this thing is so overhyped.” But am I going to play it on launch day? Yeah, probably. GTA IV is still my favorite. But I do like being in a big city and just walking around. GamesBeat: You have a criminal nature. Schafer: I do like running over people, because they make such a fun sound. But I eventually get over that. Once I get it out of my system. Or if I’m really in a hurry. We’ll see. There’s still a lot of work ahead of us, but it’s good work. It’s making ideas, sharing fun ideas with the rest of the world, talking about how excited we are about our games. It’s all very positive, fulfilling work to do. GamesBeat: Have you said where you’ve wound up in terms of headcount? Schafer: It’s roughly the size we were when we made Brutal Legend. Between 50 and 60, depending on how you count contractors. I’d say roughly 55. The post How Double Fine is charting its destiny outside of Xbox, starting with a Kickstarter campaign | Tim Schafer interview appeared first on GamesBeat. View the full article

Broken Arrow has received a new DLC that expands the Russian forces in the modern-set, tactical wargame that posits a what-if about a Baltic war between Russian and American forces. Russian Guard adds two new maps, as well as a Russian specialisation that focuses on beefing out their forces with new units and tactical options. […]View the full article

The Blood of Dawnwalker features a pretty expansive open world full of mysteries to discover and explore, and as Coen ventures across Vale Sangora, there are dozens of unique and valuable items that will start to accrue in his inventory. Many items can be sold off to just about any merchant you come across, such as gold items, unwanted swords and armor pieces, and random junk you might pick up during the adventure. View the full article

Game of Thronesfans may have a little while to wait before the next major release for the franchise, with both House of the Dragon and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms' next seasons a way off yet. House of the Dragon's latest season has been its most controversial yet, introducing major changes to the original Fire & Blood novel by George R.R. Martin. View the full article

Ovee 30 minutes’ worth of unused voice lines from Resident Evil 4 Remake have surfaced online, one of which proves that Capcom wanted to make a connection to Village. This leak comes from a notable community modder named Keff0, who uncovered both audio and subtitles for a whopping 671 lines on the game’s PlayStation 5 launch disc. These lines aren’t on the PC version of the game, and they’re fully recorded, featuring dialogue from Leon, Luis, Ashley, and the Merchant. One of the Merchant’s unused lines is standing out to viewers, as he mentions a character that wasn’t even a blink in the RE Team’s mind when the game was first made back in the mid-2000s. “Ah, I see you’re no stranger to villages. The Duke? Lad shows promise,” the Merchant says. Resident Evil fans will make the connection to the series’ eighth game, Village, which features another merchant character who simply calls himself ‘The Duke.’ Funny enough, The Duke also references the Resident Evil 4 merchant as players browse through his wares, saying, “‘What’re ya buyin’?’ Haha, just something an old friend of mine used to say.” Capcom’s decision to cut The Merchant’s line from RE4 Remake is a bit saddening, as it would have further cemented the relationship between these characters and added a bit more continuity to the timeline, if retroactively. However, this insertion of a modern-day Resident Evil character in the series’ single-most beloved game could have rubbed some players the wrong way, though we’ll never know for certain why Capcom chose to leave this particular dialogue out of the final product. Over 600 cut voice lines have been found in Resident Evil 4 Remake. Modder Keff0, who previously restored the game’s cut Chapter 0 and made it playable, has now uncovered 671 finished voice lines that were cut from Resident Evil 4 Remake. All of the lines can be found on… [Hidden Content] — RENEWS (@RENews_X) September 1, 2026 This wasn’t the only interesting find from the RE4 Remake; Keff0 also uncovered unused animations for the Merchant’s death, meaning that originally, players would have been able kill him. His shop was even supposed to close after he died, and save data found by Keff0 shows that he’d be gone for the rest of the game. This would have made it more similar to the original, but it seems like the team at Capcom thought that’d be too counterintuitive to this modern rework of the title. Like many AAA games, there’s a swath of unused lines, scenes, art, enemies, characters, and other assets in recent Resident Evil titles that don’t make it to the final cut; earlier this year, Leon’s voice actor revealed that his favorite line in Resident Evil Requiem was ultimately axed by Capcom — and it’s a shame, because it was hilarious. Luckily, there’s much more to come, with Code Veronica getting a remake in 2027 and a live-action Resident Evil movie directed by Zach Cregger set to hit theaters this month. Virginia (she/her) is IGN’s News Editor. With ten years of experience reporting on games and entertainment, she’s got a storied background in the fighting game community, influencer news, and viral online trends. Find her on Twitter at @TheeMissGlaze. View the full article

The Witcher and Cyberpunk developer CD Projekt Red is staffing up for its unannounced 'Project Hadar', as that team is currently over 30 people strong with plans "to hire more, up to 50 developers by the end of this year," CD Projekt Red vice president of investor relations Karolina Gnas said on the company latest earnings call on Wednesday. The Project Hadar news was first reported by GamesRadar. "Right now, the team is mostly focused on testing different approaches, ideas, and, you know, prototyping some gameplay element, and this is it," Gnas added. "Hadar is still in the concept phase." CDPR also confirmed that the remake of The Witcher 1 is on hold in favor of putting more resources into The Witcher 4, which the studio is targeting for a 2028 release, as well as the just-announced decade-later Witcher 3 expansion, Songs of the Past. But what is Project Hadar? It's tough to guess at this point, as The Witcher is a third-person fantasy RPG, while Cyberpunk is a first-person RPG shooter. Hadar being an RPG of some caliber is the only reasonably safe bet at this point. Regardless, CDPR is nothing if not busy, with The Witcher 3 Remastered due out this month (and thankfully, existing owners get upgraded free and, yes, your old save files will work), plus The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past, The Witcher 4, a Cyberpunk sequel, the aforementioned Witcher 1 remake, and Project Hadar all in development. Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's executive editor of previews and host of IGN's weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, and a co-host of Next-Gen Console Watch. He's a North Jersey guy, so it's "Taylor ham," not "pork roll." Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan. View the full article

Dragon Ball Zmight be over, but the franchise's legacy has continued in plenty of other forms. One particularly big destination for fans is the array of Dragon Ball video games, from the Dragon Ball Xenoverse fighting games to the RPG Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot. View the full article

After beating Leonica in The Blood of Dawnwalker, you're given the choice throw the notes in the fire or give them to Anca. It's a loaded choice, to say the least - pages of ****** magic that Anca is eager to reverse engineer for the sake of saving the sisters of St. Tyna's. You can advise against it in dialogue, but ultimately Anca's so set on this course of action that the only way to stop her is throw the notes in the fire and give her nothing to work with. Of course, it doesn't especially help that Dawnwalker isn't especially clear about what the risk to Anca is, making it hard to tell what the consequences will be, but don't worry: our guide will lay out the two outcomes and which is better. Should you choose to throw the notes in the fire in The Blood of Dawnwalker? (Image credit: Bandai Namco) I would say it's better overall to let Anca have the notes instead of throwing them in the fire, though there's not a huge difference to the game either way. If you burn them, basically nothing changes: Anca is upset, but it's forgotten before long and you're both back on the main questline regardless, with no impact on the possibility of The Blood of Dawnwalker romances. If you allow her to go through with the rituals, it successfully dispels the magic and frees the undead nuns from the curse, but it's implied that Anca did dark things to successfully perform the ritual and has suffered for it in the process... Though again, this is something that's forgotten about pretty quickly except for the occasional passing mention in dialogue. Otherwise the only other time it comes up again is in the post-game recap, as The Blood of Dawnwalker ends with a description of the world when it comes to the long-term consequences of your choices. We won't spoil, but the fate of St. Tyna's is brought up here, though it has no impact on you mechanically. © GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission. [/url]View the full article

The choice to force feed your mother Esme in The Blood of Dawnwalker is one of the first and toughest choices you'll have to make. It's a brutal decision wherein Coen's mom is refusing all food, but his father Pieter wants to keep her strength up or risk the wrath of Brencis, the vampire overlord who takes a disapproving view of weakness. Having played out both choices, I'll explain whether you should force feed her or not, and what the long-term consequences are. If you're still in the early hours, make sure you know what to do before Mass in The Blood of Dawnwalker! Should you try to force feed Esme or say you won't feed her against her will in The Blood of Dawnwalker? (Image credit: Bandai Namco) When Pieter decides to force feed Esme in The Blood of Dawnwalker, you're given three responses. All right. Let's try.I won't feed her against her will.She's gone to mass before. (optional) Picking the third option simply brings you back around to the choice between the first two options, and of those, I suggest that you don't try to feed her against her will. (Image credit: Bandai Namco) Having played out both outcomes, there actually isn't a real difference between the consequences of both choices that I can see. If you try to force feed Esme, she ends up thrashing and knocking the food away regardless, and this all leads to the same outcome, wherein Coen is sent to obtain medicine for her. So considering that she doesn't get fed either way and you end up in the same place, you might as well spare yourself the distressing sequence of trying to force her, and leave it be. Make sure you understand the prologue of the game and know what you're getting from it. Find out how to find the banner in The Blood of Dawnwalker for Gremla, how to brew the medicine in The Blood of Dawnwalker that Anca teaches you the recipe for, or simply find out whether to stay with Anca or go in The Blood of Dawnwalker when she suggest that you wait out the storm with her. © GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission. [Hidden Content] [/url]View the full article

The best weapons and swords in The Blood of Dawnwalker are always legendary swords, and depending on your own build, you might even be deadlier with your claws than any blade that you could pick up. However, if you're fighting during the day, you'll need a good weapon, and the best sword we've found so far is, appropriately enough, the only one with a major questline in The Blood of Dawnwalker leading up to it and focused around it, as we'll explain below. For more details on the choice between claws or sword in The Blood of Dawnwalker, check out our guide for the important differences between them! The best weapon in The Blood of Dawnwalker (Image credit: Bandai Namco) The best weapon that I've found after playing through The Blood of Dawnwalker (and conferring with another player and his experience) is The Imbued Sword of St. Mihai, a legendary greatsword that Coen can earn through a long series of quests. You won't get it quickly, but starting this long chain is arguably a good thing to do first in The Blood of Dawnwalker. Here's a basic walkthrough on how to get The Imbued Sword of St. Mihai, which isn't found or purchased, but crafted as part of a quest Follow Anca's questline until after the Font of Life quest (and potential romances and relationship scene). She'll discover the existence of the legendary weapon.Follow the subsequent quest to the Cathedral and stick with it until you have a boss fight with an undead ghoul. This will give you The Broken Sword of St. Mihai, which you can use, but is not as powerful as it could be.Find all three Blood of Dawnwalker sword shard locations, spread around the map. Our guide will help you pick them out, but they're tied to Kobold dens.Locate the legendary Uriashi Blacksmith. She's found in the Northwest of the map, in the location shown below. [Hidden Content] (Image credit: Bandai Namco) Speak to her to combine the Sword Shards with the Broken Sword. Each one you add makes it more powerful.With all three Sword Shards added, the Blacksmith will give you a quest that directs you to a shrine to the Northwest. Inside, you'll have a boss fight against several spirits collectively called The Echoing Anger.After this is done, interact with the altar to Imbue the sword and make it into its most powerful form. (Image credit: Bandai Namco) The Imbued Sword of St. Mihai has superb stats against supernatural enemies and a higher crit rate and damage, as well as a weapon art that allows you to do huge spinning strikes that knock down nearby foes, but perhaps most importantly, it just has a very good base damage for its level. That being said, remember to upgrade it with any blacksmith to keep it at your level! Otherwise it'll get left behind as you get stronger. You'll also want to make sure to get all The Blood of Dawnwalker best perks for Swordmastery, and I suggest grabbing the The Blood of Dawnwalker armor proficiency perks too for ensuring that you can get the best buffs from your other equipment. If you want other powerful swords, check out those aforementioned Blacksmiths, as there's usually one in each settlement. Each smith sells a unique legendary sword, all supposedly their previous submission to a master smithing competition. These are expensive, but strong weapons, and may better fit more specific builds. There's more hidden in Vale Sangora! Find out how to find Gremla's banner in The Blood of Dawnwalker, or have The Blood of Dawnwalker time mechanics explained for you in our handy guide © GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission. [/url]View the full article

Claws and swords in The Blood of Dawnwalker are one of the big dilemmas, as while Coen during the day is limited to either bare fists or blades, at night his vampire side awakes and he can use long claws in combat to devastating effect. But with the choice between them, which is better, swords or claws? The answer actually has some nuance to it, as I'll explain below. Learning the ropes of the game? Find out what to do first in The Blood of Dawnwalker, or find out how time and the day/night cycle works in Vale Sangora! Should you use swords or claws in The Blood of Dawnwalker? (Image credit: Bandai Namco) When choosing between swords or your claws in The Blood of Dawnwalker, the reality is that it depends on your equipment and build, but ultimately I'd saw claws are slightly better in most cases, at least unless you're using the very best weapons in The Blood of Dawnwalker or have a very specific sword-focused build. Claws tend to be faster and quicker and often just as damaging as blades, so tend to be slightly more impactful. However, there are perks, armor and weapons that all increase the damage or effect of one or the other, so it's worth looking at what you have equipped and choosing accordingly. [Hidden Content] (Image credit: Bandai Namco) If you need help choosing, check the bottom of the inventory page beneath your items, which tells you the current damage of both your sword attacks and your claw attacks. If one is clearly better than the other, that's a good sign to pick out that one specifically. All that being said, I do recommend seeing if you can create a powerful sword build for both day and night, as you'll get more use out of it if you can make it deadlier than your claws, which by definition is only useful half of the time. Finding all The Blood of Dawnwalker sword shard locations will allow you to unlock a powerful weapon for exactly that purpose: the fabled sword of St. Mihai! Weighing up the morality of life as a vampire and more? Find out the consquences of the tough force feed choice in The Blood of Dawnwalker, or decide whether to throw Anca's notes in the fire in The Blood of Dawnwalker. © GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission. [/url]View the full article

When starting The Blood of Dawnwalker, you'll be given a day before sundown and Mass in which to do chores and explore the village of Laslea, with a few obvious priorities, but nothing that'll take the entire day. With multiple potential chores and quests laid around the village and each one using up a certain amount of time, I'll lay out the best ones to do before time runs out. Everything you should do in The Blood of Dawnwalker before Sundown Mass [Hidden Content] (Image credit: Bandai Namco) There are five major quests you'll want to hit prior to sundown in The Blood of Dawnwalker, laid out on the map below. Getting herbs from Anca. This is a mandatory one that starts you off after the brutal Force feed choice in The Blood of Dawnwalker, and will include learning how to brew the medicine, as well as sparring with your father afterwards to learn combat mechanics.Fishing with your siblings. This introduces a key element of the mythology, the Uriashi, who you won't meet until later otherwise.Chase down Vasil. This is a surprise quest that occurs when a local lout called Vasil hurls an insult at you, at which point you'll have to chase him down. Depending on the choices you make, you'll learn unarmed combat mechanics from this quest.Help Iorgu find his lost pig. This grants you a small amount of money and meat at the end of the quest you can use later.Help Gremla find the lost banner. This introduces Focus and investigation mechanics, and for more help, find out how to find the banner in The Blood of Dawnwalker. All these quests should line you up perfectly with the amount of time needed to fill the day, without starting anything that you don't have time to finish. Keep in mind that you don't necessarily have to do them in the order shown above. (Image credit: Bandai Namco) In reality, it doesn't matter too how much how this time as spent, as the tutorial doesn't have a huge amount of lasting impact and even the rewards you get from Gremla and Iorgu aren't particularly significant, but this combination of quests above gives you a solid combination of background lore and tutorials for key mechanics that might otherwise go unexplained. For more help setting out on your journey, check out the best weapons in The Blood of Dawnwalker so you know what to look for, or for a later decision with Anca, find out: should you throw the notes in the fire in The Blood of Dawnwalker! © GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission. [/url]View the full article

The stolen banner in The Blood of Dawnwalker was taken from Gremla's shed as part of the Blasphemy quest in the beginning, and she asks you to find it (and by extension the thief). This is one of the optional quests of the tutorial that's largely about introducing Focus Mode as a mechanic, the system by which you highlight and analyze objects of interest. Below I'll show you who took the Banner and how to find them, so you can complete the Blasphemy quest in Dawnwalker. Exploring Laslea for the first time? Find out what to do before sundown in The Blood of Dawnwalker, or make sure you understand the Blood of Dawnwalker time mechanics so you know when it's going to pass. How to find the stolen banner in The Blood of Dawnwalker (Image credit: Bandai Namco) When investigating Gremla's shed as part of the Blasphemy quest, the specific things of note that you need to scrutinize are the footprints around the back of the shed, and the bloody scrap of the banner that they lead to. The odd footprints and the blood on the banner give you two clues about the thief: that they have an injured hand, and that they walk with a cane, which definitely narrows down the villagers. Of course, Laslea isn't a small community, and even finding the person who matches that description isn't easy. Where is the villager thief with the walking cane? (Image credit: Bandai Namco) The banner thief in the Blasphemy quest is Premysl, the old man found sitting by the farm at the Northeast side of town at the location shown above. He has both the right injury and a cane, and will break under the pressure of questioning if you talk to him. However, this leads to a reveal about what's on the banner, and the subsequent choice about how to handle it. Should you tell Gremla about the banner or not? (Image credit: Bandai Namco) Premysl reveals that the banner is a monstrous presentation of vampiric butchery, which Brencis (if he gets it) is going to hang in the church instead of the cross. Premysl, a devout Christian, sees this is an unforgivable act of cowardice if they let it happen, whereas Gremla is just happy to make the banner if it means that Brencis leaves Laslea alone. (Image credit: Bandai Namco) Of the two choices - telling Gremla that Premysl stole the banner or keeping the secret - I recommend that you tell Gremla the truth, but it doesn't really make a huge difference either way. She'll give you a small amount of money (25 Denarius), but without meaning to spoil, the consequences aren't really going to come up again in a significant way. Find out more about the prologue of Laslea! Find out what to pick in the brutal force feed choice in The Blood of Dawnwalker, how to brew the medicine that Anca teaches you to make, or simply whether to stay with Anca or go in The Blood of Dawnwalker when offered a Latin lesson. © GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission. [/url]View the full article

The mechanics by which time passes in The Blood of Dawnwalker can be a little confusing early on, especially as an integral mechanic that's going to come up a lot, especially with regards to the day/night cycle. If you're struggling to understand it, I'll explain how time works in Dawnwalker, what the various symbols mean, and when the clock moves forward. For a wider perspective, check out our answer to the question: how long is The Blood of Dawnwalker, and how many hours will it take you to get to the end? Time passing mechanics in The Blood of Dawnwalker explained (Image credit: Bandai Namco) Here's a simple summary of the time passing mechanics in The Blood of Dawnwalker and how they work: Time does not pass automatically, and is only linked to quests, choices and progression. This is very important: running around the map or standing around in the overworld doing nothing does not cause time to pass. You can run to the bottom of the map, back up to the top, and repeat this a hundred times, and not a single time section will pass.Time does pass when you trigger certain events. You're nearly always told when this is about to happen, but interacting with certain objects, making certain dialogue choices, or going into certain areas for the first time will cause time to pass (the amount will vary depending on the choice). For example, when you go to save Mert the Miller in The Blood of Dawnwalker, opening the cell will take several time segments. There might also be optional time-syncs, such as choosing to stay with Anca in The Blood of Dawnwalker early on, which takes up time, but allows you to know this character betterQuests have markers in your journal telling you how long they'll take to complete. It's worth keeping in mind that these time lapses do not happen instantly, but might occur in the middle of the quest, or in multiple stages. For example, if a quest takes five hours, three of those might be spent at the beginning when Coen researches something, and two more spent at the end when he travels with somebody. If the amount of time will cause it to change from day to night, there'll be an icon of an hourglass with an arrow leading to a sun or moon, warning you about the time change. For example, certain quests to The Blood of Dawnwalker romances and relationships are time-sensitive - nobody likes a late date, after all.If you're nearing a location where time is about to pass automatically, you'll get a warning. If you're approaching an important place or NPC who will trigger a time jump just by proximity, you'll hear a ticking noise, and a section on the clock in the top-right of the screen will be greyed in. This is to alert you to the idea that "if you continue, this is what you'll have to spend immediately".Some quests have to be completed within a certain time. If a quest is marked with an icon of a blue clock (as shown in the image below), it will disappear at some point and you'll miss your chance to do it. Make these a priority.Some quests are specific to day or night. If a quest is marked with an icon of a sun or moon, you'll have to start it at day or night respectively, otherwise it'll be locked off. See more on that below, [Hidden Content] (Image credit: Bandai Namco) Once they've completed the tutorial, players are given thirty days and nights to complete the main quest, though it can be completed before that. You can also keep playing the game once the main quest is done. Day and night cycle in The Blood of Dawnwalker explained (Image credit: Bandai Namco) The day and night cycle in The Blood of Dawnwalker will impact your gameplay in the following ways: Day and night are broken into eight "sections" each. You can see how far you are through each phase of the day via the bar in the top right of the screen.You have access to different powers. During the day, you can use your Witchcraft abilities, whereas at night, you use Vampiric powers. Vampire powers, including teleportation, wall climbing, and your claws, tend to mean that you're overall much stronger at night. When unlocking The Blood of Dawnwalker perks, they'll be labelled either "Daytime", "Nighttime," or "Anytime", accordingly.At night you risk giving into the hunger. If your health is one segment or lower during the night, your dialogue options erratically change to "Give in to the hunger", which will cause you to attack and kill the person you're talking to.How you heal changes. Potions and healing foods that work for humans during the day won't work at night. At that point you'll depend on blood, either pulled from items or drunk from enemies.Can you turn off or change the time mechanics in The Blood of Dawnwalker (Image credit: Bandai Namco) No, there is currently no way to modify or turn off the time passing mechanics in The Blood of Dawnwalker. While some players might find this system a bit alienating, the idea of time pressure is very clearly meant to be part of the intended experience by the developers. Fortunately, I can say that thirty days is far more time than it sounds, and players will be able to see the vast majority of the game in that time, especially if they aren't using up much time to train their abilities. © GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission. [/url]View the full article

The Blood of Dawnwalker features several unique characters throughout the incredible and immersive dark fantasy world of Vale Sangora. And while Coen meets plenty of distinct NPCs throughout the journey, none are more noteworthy than Anca, who is one of Coen's main romantic interests if you choose the right dialogue options during her main quest. View the full article