Steam

"We're excited to reintroduce Sharpe," Ari Gibson saysView the full article

Hollow Knight: Silksongis a dizzyingly expansive game, but by the sounds of it, developer Team Cherry isn't done yet. After spending seven years on Silksong's development, it's hard to imagine what could still be left for the game. While there are no concrete details yet, a new interview offers a tantalizing tease. View the full article

Valve has recently made a few moves delisting games for various reasons, which has, once again, sparked accusations of censorship. However, a peep at the Steam storefront reveals a different picture, one completely incompatible with Valve's recent decisions. Valve has always been a rather liberal company when it comes to what it allows to be hosted on its store. Just taking a look at what's new and trending on Steam is proof enough. There, you can find both serious titles, indie outputs, various attempts at greatness, but also borderline ************, hentai games alongside stuff featuring full, uncensored nudity and sex as core "gameplay" mechanics. As I'm writing this, I have the tab open, and the likes of Fetish Locator: S&M Studio or Girls, I just want to get paid! are there, in plain view of anyone old enough to use the platform. Opening their respective store pages does prompt you to select your age (which you're more than likely to answer untruthfully), and voila: you're given complete, unrestricted access to very mature content and "games." The stuff I've described here is so openly pornographic that I can't share it here, so use your imagination. Image via Steam And these aren't the only examples. There is a literal "franchise" of games called Sex With Hitler, with several installments all readily available on Valve's storefront, with not a single modicum of censorship to be found, even if most European countries would, I wager, take offense at these titles and their content (and especially their name). So, one could gather that Valve is by no means a restrictive company, nor that Steam is prone to censorship and "artistic" limitations. But that appears to be far from the truth. Recently, Valve has blocked an indie arthouse horror game called Horses, where players on a farm ride naked human horses. It's much deeper and more disturbing than that (which is by no means a bad thing), but that's about the gist of it. And Valve seems not to have liked that concept one bit. One scene supposedly involves a child riding a naked "horse" woman, which Valve took offense at. It blocked the game from appearing on Steam. Per PC Gamer, this decision was made all the way back in 2023, when Valve told the developers that it does not allow "content that appears, in our judgment, to depict ******* conduct involving a minor." The developers claimed the scene in question, which may have triggered Valve's response, had "since been changed," and that it wasn't even "*******" in nature to begin with, but Steam remains by its stance and will not ship the game. Valve's own judgment here seems to be the only thing that matters, which, in my opinion, does not always result in the most accurate assessment of any given game. Horses' art style is captivating, even if grim and dark. Image via Santa Ragione Sure, Horses is rather disturbing, but that is not grounds for removal. A lot of games, movies, books, and so on, great ones in fact, deal with disturbing, uncomfortable, and borderline disgusting themes and subjects. Dealing with these topics must be done, and art is probably our only means of doing so. The fact that games I've mentioned above (alongside countless others, especially the hentai ones that sometimes have rather dubious characters whose age is indeterminate) are allowed to sell thousands of copies and rake in a ton of cash, providing little more than pornographic gratification, feels wrong to me. At least it does because games, whose subject matter is grim and disturbing, are banned, even if they're trying to artistically (and critically) approach their content. Whereas earlier we had Valve banning games when pressured by payment processors (which does constitute actual censorship), this time around it's Valve itself making value judgments. And that'd be fine, if it weren't for games that are far and beyond more "harmful" flooding the platform day in and day out. One of them literally lets you own a ************ studio, i.e., to be part of an industry that has hurt and ruined too many lives to count. How does that, on any moral compass, point in the right direction? It gives the sense that Steam is a dice roll: you can publish almost anything, but if a review board gets wind of it, anything can also happen. You can get published, get rejected, get censored, because your artistic vision could be taken the wrong way. And that just doesn't sit right with me. The post Valve’s storefront policies are so random I can’t wrap my head around them appeared first on Destructoid. View the full article

Hollow Knight: Silksong launched on September 4, 2025, but Team Cherry is far from finished with it. In a new interview with Bloomberg, co-founders Ari Gibson and William Pellen offered a look into the game's future, disclosing details on how Silksong's post-launch updates will continue and hinting at larger expansions that could resemble some of the first game's biggest additions. View the full article

The Honkai: Star Rail 3.8 is inbound soon, and the special presentation will likely reveal all the details about the patch, including the new playable character Dahlia, the rerun banners, and the story updates that will be introduced. Version 3.8 is expected to be the final content update this year, before the arrival of Version 4.0 and the Astral Express’s journey to a new destination, which may serve as a stage for the introduction of a new Himeko form in Honkai: Star Rail. View the full article

Such "hype" results in titles that "tend to live on for longer"View the full article

I didn't know Captain Wayne – Vacation Desperation existed before this week, but I'm already rethinking my top games of 2025View the full article

For those who skong afterView the full article

Steam's ever-expanding storefront is arguably the most competitive place in the gaming industry, with an endless deluge of interesting games all competing for attention. Picking up a following of any kind is an achievement, and plenty of interesting titles never make it to the big leagues. Rising to the very top, meanwhile, is nearly impossible, but something has to. View the full article

****** Friday has officially arrived, which means deals on just about everything you can imagine — including games and gaming hardware. Every virtual storefront, from game marketplaces like Steam and the PlayStation Store to retail sites like Amazon, has something in store for the gamer in your life this holiday season. View the full article

Saber Interactive has an early holiday treat for us, courtesy of a first proper look at the Warhammer 40k Space Marine 2 Techmarine. The new class is scheduled to arrive early in 2026, further bolstering the roster of one of the best Warhammer 40k games on the market. As the highly trained technicians of the Space Marines, they're an ideal option if you like to supplement your own battle proficiency with tools and support weapons. They also sit at the perfect intersection of all my years spent playing Engineer in TF2 and my affinity for the Adeptus Mechanicus. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Warhammer 40k Space Marine 2's Reclamation update finally gives Chaos the respect it deserves The biggest Warhammer 40k game ever just got a free demo, and it's 55% off if you like what you see Space Marine 2 developer already knows you'll hate the new Blood Angels skin View the full article

Hollow Knight: Silksong developer Team Cherry has confirmed it’s working on DLC — but it doesn’t know when it will come out. In an interview with Bloomberg, Team Cherry co-founders Ari Gibson and William Pellen said that while the developers do not plan to take “an excessive amount of time” building this new content for Silksong, “we still are pursuing the same development philosophy, which sometimes can expand our timeframe.” It took seven years for Silksong to come out, so who knows when this mystery DLC will be released? But Team Cherry did tease it will feature the Steel Assassin, a character shown in a prior trailer but who has yet to show up in Silksong itself. Here’s the relevant exchange with Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier: Do you want to do a mix of smaller updates like Lifeblood, or are you thinking ******* stuff like Godmaster and Grimm Troupe? Is there a cadence you have in mind? Gibson: In simple terms yes, we’d be thinking about different things arriving at different scales. That might mean larger things like Godmaster. Certainly, we’ve noticed that people would like an expansion in that way, being able to enter pantheon spaces and refight bosses. And there is already a huge number of them. Pellen: We were talking about the next project in general. We’re not thinking about the size. We just started making new stuff and working on bits and pieces. We’re still in this world, thinking about stuff to present to people. Gibson: It is interesting working out how you expand an already huge game, to make sure you don’t completely overwhelm new players, because obviously new players will be experiencing the new stuff, very naturally integrated. It’ll just seem like the base experience. Some of that might mean finding ways to hide away the access, because otherwise potentially by the end of the our expansions and developments it would just be gargantuan. Silksong remains one of the most-played games on Steam following its huge September 4 release. Here are some essential guides for your journey upwards: the Silksong Interactive Map, how to grind for Rosary Beads, our ever-expanding Walkthrough with boss videos and guides, how to get your first life bar upgrade (first four mask shards), and a great guide to the Simple Keys and the doors they open. If you're hunting for the best offers this week, we're actively rounding up the strongest ****** Friday deals on video games, tech, and more. You can find all our top picks and price drops in our full ****** Friday hub, or check out our relevant pages for PlayStation, Nintendo, and Xbox deals. Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at *****@*****.tld. View the full article

The worst part is nobody's going to crack it open to get that Founder's Pack codeView the full article

You can pre-order Santa Ragione's next game on the storefrontView the full article

Action flight sim G-Rebels will get day one PC VR support in early access, and it's launching early next year. Developed by Reakktor Studios and published by Senatis, G-Rebels is a spiritual successor to 1997's PS1 combat flight sim G-Police by Psygnosis. Originally announced last year as a flatscreen game, the studio exclusively revealed to UploadVR that it's receiving official PC VR support straight away with its upcoming early access launch. Set in the year 2684, this dystopian open-world combat game takes place across floating megacities covering 12,000 square kilometers, as these cities compete for natural resources. You play as an elite unit in the most powerful city-state, helping to ensure law and order before a secret mission leaves you questioning your loyalties. In early access, G-Rebels promises 10 main missions that range between collecting bounties, police chases, handling new contractors, and races, also featuring combat missions, outpost battles, mining, and more. Multiple regions will be available to explore and you can customize your ship, while Reakktor Studios also promises dynamic weather and a day-night cycle. VR mode has a full cockpit view and first-person flight controls, and PC VR support will get further optimizations across early access. A content disclosure also confirms “some of the intercom dialogs are using AI generated/modified voice overs.” The studio also mentions “experimental support” for HOTAS (hands-on throttle-and-stick) and HOSAS (hands-on stick and stick) controllers. G-Rebels is coming to Steam Early Access in early 2026. View the full article

It's obvious why Palworld's publishing arm has so many small gamesView the full article

After being cancelled by Riot Games and revived as an indie game again, Hytale is now set for an Early Access launch in January 2026. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

Call of Duty: ****** Ops 7 developer Treyarch Studios has responded to a recent report that claimed the latest entry in the series could still be prioritizing player skill over connection in its matchmaking system, despite the studio switching to an open matchmaking model during its beta test earlier this year. With Call of Duty: ****** Ops 7players convinced the shooter has a stronger skill-based matchmaking system than Treyarch states, a trusted YouTuber ran tests to verify these claims. After posting the results online, the studio has responded by explaining why things may feel different now that the game is fully released. View the full article

The process of getting Bloodborneup and running on PC has been long and arduous, not to mention incredibly challenging due to the game engine's unique design for PlayStation 4. The ShadPS4 emulator, despite its complicated setup, has become essential in getting Bloodborne to perform well on PC, and a recent update lets players experience the game like they never have before. View the full article

A close call, it seemsView the full article

For gamers who have been patiently hold out on any stellar deals on handheld gaming PCs, I have good news and bad news. The bad news, there aren't very many deals. The good news, the few deals to choose from happen to be excellent. They're also exclusively available at Best Buy. That's right, Best Buy is the one and only retailer who has discounted the Lenovo Legion Go SteamOS handheld gaming PCs as part of its ****** Friday *****. In fact, both Z2 Go and Z1 Extreme models are on ***** today at the lowest prices of the year. These deals are good enough that I don't expect them to drop on Cyber Monday. Lenovo Legion Go S Z1 Extreme SteamOS Edition This particular Lenovo Legion Go S is equipped with the more powerful AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor, 32GB of RAM, 512GB storage capacity, and it runs off SteamOS instead of Windows. The Z1 Extreme is much more powerful than the APU found in the Steam Deck and as such, it will outperform the Steam Deck in pretty much any situation. Graphics also look sharper with more fluid movement, thanks to a ******* 8" 1200p display with a higher 120Hz refresh rate. The Legion Go S also supports a much higher maximum charging rate (up to 100W vs 40W for the Steam Deck). This deal prices the Legion Go S on par with the highest end Steam Deck, but it's superior in almost every way. Check out Jacqueline's 9/10 review of the Legion Go S (Z1 Extreme, SteamOS model), in which she concludes that it is one of the "best handheld gaming PCs on the market, and a legitimate Steam Deck alternative." Lenovo Legion Go S Z2 Go SteamOS Edition Also on ***** is the Legion Go S Z2 Go Edition, which is currently $449.99 after a $200 discount. Despite the fact that the AMD Ryzen Z2 Go is a 2nd gen chip, it's actually less powerful than the Z1 Extreme. Fortunately, it's still more powerful than the Steam Deck's APU and you should expect slightly better performance out of it, especially if you knock the resolution down to 1280x800. Since a Steam Deck with equivalent specs will still cost you $549, this is a much better value: you get more features and pay less money. If you're a Steam Deck loyalist, there is one deal available exclusively at Steam. How to Follow IGN Deals Recommendations The IGN Deals team has over 30 years of combined experience finding the best discounts and preorders available online. If you want the latest updates from our trusted team, here’s how to follow our coverage: Sign up for our IGN Deals NewsletterSet IGN as a preferred source in GoogleFollow us on social mediaIGN Deals on XIGN Deals on InstagramIGN Deals on FacebookIGN Deals on Tiktok[/url] Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn't hunting for deals for other people at work, he's hunting for deals for himself during his free time. View the full article

30 years ago, LEGO made its tentative first step beyond physical toys with the launch of Fun to Build, a Japanese-only game for the largely forgotten ***** Pico console. Three decades later, the mighty LEGO brand's video game ambitions are now a diverse empire all of its own, a set of digital experiences designed to cater to diverse and tastes. And for good reason — because as anyone who follows video games knows, the industry's growth has also come alongside massive change, including an ongoing shift in how players access and own games — and a generational difference in why they're so important. For many, the idea of a LEGO video game is something still synonymous with the prolific output of TT Games, the British development studio behind dozens of licensed titles featuring blockbuster franchises like Star Wars, Batman, and Harry Potter. But the LEGO brand now adorns numerous other experiences from other established creators, such as the recent Annapurna-published LEGO Voyagers, or the Nintendo-like LEGO Party. And then there's LEGO Fortnite — but more on that in a moment. Speaking to the bosses of LEGO's sprawling gaming portfolio, the company's new SVP of LEGO Game, Fredrik Löving, and its veteran Head of Product, Kari Vinther Nielsen, its clear the company knows the world of video games has already changed — and will continue to do so, as a younger generation raised on the likes of Minecraft, Roblox and Fortnite — LEGO's key audience demographic — seeks connected social experiences on a wider range of platforms. At the same time, however, the brand knows it must still cater to more traditional gamers as well. "Really understanding today's kids is just always the most important thing," Löving says. "There's been a big shift in gaming and we all know it, we have all seen it. Games mean something different for the generation growing up today than it did for me. When I grew up on my Amiga 500, I was escaping into a world, I was escaping into a screen and I was playing these games with a very set objective. "The primary objective today for kids growing up is to find an activity to do in a social space together with their friends. Secondarily, it's whatever the activity actually is around it." It's an observation that rings especially true following the huge spike in players this summer for games such as Grow a Garden and Steal the Brainrot, experiences that helped smash engagement records on Roblox — a social gaming platform that LEGO has so far steered clear of. "The gamers are very fundamentally different," Löving continues. So, where does that leave LEGO? "I was very lucky to work on LEGO Worlds," Nielsen recalls, a LEGO-y sandbox game that let players build intricate models using digital blocks. While successful enough, it was a product of its time — and despite the LEGO branding, it never seemed to trouble the already-dominant Minecraft, the game it was frequently most compared to. Still, its ambitions were clear. "That for me was a testament of what the physical brick was in a digital space," Nielsen continues. "We had fans creating models, creating worlds, creating stories, and I think that's really the power of digital play where you can create and share in different ways versus what you can in the physical world. After working at LEGO for over a decade, Nielsen said the conversations she had working on the idea for Worlds remain "the same stories and the same things we talk about" today. "We need to mix IPs, we need to figure out what's the digital version of the physical expression. What's the real true game version of that? I don't think the conversations have changed a lot," she continued. "It's more about actually adapting to how kids play today and being open-minded about how you diversify play, how you become inclusive so that you make the right type of play for kids in the world they live in. I think that's where we've moved a lot through the last couple of years actually. "Kids really use video games as a way to stay social and a place where can they meet up with their friends," Nielsen continues, echoing Löving's earlier words. "Of course we want to show up in safe and positive ways, but I think that just speaks to the type of games and the type of play we really need to serve as the LEGO brand. It's not about only having one version that fits for gamers, it's about having a diverse portfolio, for different play needs and different moments." It's an approach that LEGO has demonstrated over the past few months, launching the Mario Party-esque LEGO Party to foster cross-generational multiplayer, the same month as indie puzzle platformer LEGO Voyagers. "LEGO Party, that's really where I want to play with my friends or with my family," Nielsen notes. "LEGO Voyagers meanwhile, was a test of my relationship, I'm not going to lie. There was a little bit of 'go away, this is me playing now.'" And then there's LEGO Fortnite, which continues to evolve week by week. Its hard to gauge the current level of its overall success versus expectations, especially when comparing it to something like Grow a Garden's viral popularity. But its most substantial offering, LEGO Fortnite Odyssey, remains an evergreen hit and will soon receive its next big update (which fans expect will add characters from the hugely popular Ninjago franchise). Role-playing sim option LEGO Brick Life, meanwhile, enjoys a smaller audience, though is currently hosting a big The Simpsons takeover. And a core attraction for LEGO here remains the ability for players to build and make their own mini-games — something which should only become easier to do and more advanced in potential over time. "My daughter loves the universe, the characters, the stories, the narrative," Nielsen says of LEGO Fortnite's modes. "We're starting to really grow and expand the opportunity for creators to make their favorite LEGO game, to tell their stories through gaming. It's still early days actually in that space," she continues. "It's not that we haven't had digital building or digital creation in our portfolio for the past 30 years, but the world around it has changed, as has the platforms and the pace of creation. When Fred joined, we had this sort of [joke] like, 'You've been used to making a game and it takes five years, I can do what you do and do that in four hours instead.'" While that may not be true — yet — of something that looks as polished as TT Games' upcoming LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, some of LEGO's earlier output could certainly be recreated in Fortnite today, such as LEGO Island, the brand's second video game (and its first real digital hit). "It's just a different reality of making experiences and testing new things and trying them out in a way faster engine with the right partner, with the right creators," Nielsen says. "And going back to what I mentioned around really understanding gamers of today," Löving adds. "Co-creation, agency, all the things that you just mentioned. They are becoming very quickly, if not already, table stakes for a lot of experiences out there, especially the big platforms." All of that said, LEGO's more traditional gaming experiences are also not fully going away — as next year's arival of LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight proves. It was one of this year's biggest and best-received gaming reveals, and was recently shown to a hugely positive reception during Gamescom 2025. For LEGO, experiences like it is set to provide also remain a cruical part of its brand offering. "I passed down Star Wars to my son through a Lego game, Skywalker saga," Löving said. "That is a lot for a dad, to actually have that experience together with your son — not just playing together but passing down a fandom, enabled through the fact that it's a LEGO game. Even before I joined the company, I was just inspired to see, 'how do we even dial that up? How can we do that and really make it intergenerational play?'" "Our brand stands for a lot of things and I think in some moments you're really diving in and you're immersing yourself in like a six-hour session," Nielsen affirms. "I play legacy board games, I know it's going to take a long time. I'm invested, and it's even better if I can actually play along or couch co-op with some of my friends or family members. That's fantastic and I think that's what TT Games does so well." As LEGO enters its fourth decade in the digital space, the company clearly has ambitions that range beyond simple, static plastic. Ever since it dipped its toe into the world of simple robotics with MindStorms, through to its much more recently interactivitiy melded into LEGO Super Mario bricks, its clear the company is keen to experiment with what's possible with play. LEGO Dimensions, the brand's experiment in the toys-to-life category, was another example of that — and with its focus on IP mashups and adventure, could be seen as a precursor to LEGO Fortnite today. At the end of the day, though, Nielsen says it's all about finding the right kind of play for the right audience. "Sometimes there's a time for a game and then you can almost take that game and bring it into the now — or to the future with different flavors and twists," she says. "It's no different than what is our LEGO version of Darth Vader or Batman. I think there's something generational to it." Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social View the full article

Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault from Digital Sun and 11 bit studios should run a whole lot smoother for everyone now, and feel better on Valve's Steam Deck. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

It's not often that Halo 3fans get a win these days. The Halo franchise is spinning wheels in general, and most of its recent successes have very little to do with its Xbox 360 era. When Microsoft fails to provide, however, fans tend to step in, which is exactly what's happened with Counter-Strike 2's Project Misriah. View the full article

The Scholar will soon join the fray in Elden Ring Nightreign, a character made for support players and book nerdsView the full article