RobN

I never got into either game back when they were new (or in any of the half-dozen remakes since then), but for PSVR2 I may have to give them a try.

Though looking up a guide IS a lot trickier in the headset....

Since I've only played one game on the list, I had to vote for it - NTE.

Though I always hate these lists - they're generally more about who had the best marketing and reviews than which game is actually the best, because I doubt 1% of people voting actually played every title.

One of the patches after the first day seemed to increase pop-in on my PS5 Pro, so I think there's still some refinement that needs to be done, and it will probably be an ongoing issue.

This actually played surprisingly well on my new Portal, streaming from my console or from the web.

But yes, the inconsistency on controls is infuriating. I also hate the (apparently deliberate) lack of an option to rotate the minimap to match the way you're facing - it makes some of the driving in particular a lot harder, as it's harder to tell if the next turn is a left or right. And don't touch the transparency setting for the GUI, as the arrow on the minimap showing which way you're facing nearly vanishes on anything other than the max setting.

Keep in mind, it costs them money to port the games to PC - so those sales don't represent pure profit from selling what they already have, they have to be large enough to cover the expense of the PC port and the ongoing support of the port, before Sony sees any profits. Sure, porting a fully developed game to PC costs A LOT less than making a new game - but the lower the sales are, the harder it is to justify even that expense.

That said, I saw another article today crowing about how Microsoft games ported to the PS5 all had at least 100k in sales. Well, all four of those games had over double that, so that's good...but none have the millions of sales that Forza Horizon 5 apparently has had on the PS5. If Sony had that kind of success on PC, we'd be having a different conversation right now.

I didn't hate it nearly as much as many people seem to - but I played it for "free" on Game Pass back when it first came out (way back when I still had a discounted deal from snapping up three years of Xbox Live before they started Game Pass). I recall it was serviceable, reasonably fun, but not original, not as funny as it wanted to be, and not all that memorable. I didn't touch any of the DLC or the PS5 version.

Thanks, but I think I'll pass, unless/until it shows up on PS Plus for free.

Never ever preorder. But I'll definitely be watching for reviews and paying attention when this gets closer - arcade-style racing can be a TON of fun.

@captainsandman First tweet had pods in the video about 11-12 seconds in. (EDIT: Though that's from the update, not part of the original version of the article.)

@dskatter For "dead" hardware, this isn't even the first flight game released for PSVR2 this year - that would be Aces of Thunder in February.

For "dead" hardware there are a lot of games dropping for PSVR2. Not hundreds, no, but dozens so far this year.

Flip-flopping, or at least considering it, is normal when there's a change in leadership. New leader wants to put his (or her) stamp on the organization, so old decisions are reevaluated. It's WAY to early to know if this will lead to a real change in policy, or if it's just another way to keep themselves in the news cycle.

I will say that selling well on your competitor's console makes exclusivity a harder sell, so I think Microsoft has a serious challenge ahead of them.

I suspect a split approach. Certain tentpole titles will be timed exclusives, lesser titles will be fully exclusive, but tentpole titles where multiplayer is the primary focus will drop day 1 on PS as well, since that only helps them sell more copies on ALL platforms.

The modern day portion of Assassin's Creed games are crucial to the vanity of the whole thing. You don't die, or fail a mission, or go too far out of bounds - you desynchronize. You don't climb to a high peak and suddenly see all these secrets you walked past 5 minutes ago, you climb to the high peak and you synchronize. That doesn't work without the modern portion of the gameplay.

But the more games they made, the worse they got at writing for the modern day portions.

I loved the original, but have plenty to play. I'll wait for this to show up free in one of the Plus variants, or to be on sale for 70-80% off. But if you haven't played it, pick it up, you'll have a blast.

@Northern_munkey I had SmashTV on my PS3...maybe I should fire it up.

Freakout Calamity TV Show is something of a spiritual successor, as I recall, though with a lot of changes to the formula (which might be a good thing - I remember enjoying what I played, but I don't think I got far).

I've never actually played Phasmophobia (seen it played on YouTube, though), but I may pick it up for this.

@Yousef- Me too. That's probably the biggest reason I'm looking forward to trying this, though I'm also wary of adding another gacha game to my library (for me, it's just Genshin Impact).

Oh, and happy birthday.

@Yousef- NOTHING in common? But...you can drive cars!

They should have done what other games have done recently - announce it's going to be delisted at least a week or two ahead of time, and put it on sale for whatever has been the normal sale price, to give people one last chance.

I do like Star Trek, but I wasn't missing this before I read this article, and I'm not paying $25 for it (new regular price in the US, down from $40!) after reading the article. If it was $10, I might have grabbed it. I'll just let it go.

Let's be honest, studios don't REALLY care about critical reception. If it was your movie, would you rather win an Oscar and lose money, or get horrible reviews and bring in $629 million on an estimated budget of $110 million. Gee...I wonder.....

Their decision isn't going to be based solely on sales on the Playstation - it's going to be based on what they think is best overall for the brand, even if that means lower sales revenue for individual titles. And who knows how many non-gaming business concerns are going to influence the decision, possibly including internal politics we have very little insight to.

In short, don't be surprised if their final decision surprises you, and don't be surprised if they second-guess themselves a year or two later, especially if there are changes in leadership again.

This was on Plus a while ago, right? I remember playing it for a bit, not sure what all the excitement was about, and deleted it.

I'd redeemed both DLC you mention here, but the store had another half dozen free DLC I hadn't redeemed, so I grabbed those just in case some day I decide to give it another shot. Maybe I should start with Tomb Raider Power Wash next time....

I loved FH4 and played it to death. I tried FH5 on an XBox Series S, and just didn't care for it. It felt like a carbon copy of FH4 with nothing new, but on a less interesting map. It just didn't click for me.

I hope FH6's map and tweaks to progression are engaging. FH is a fun arcade-style series that's notably better (IMO, of course) than similar attempts like The Crew or Test Drive Unlimited. It can be a blast.

How is this an improvement? They took a few icons, three at one end and one from the other, and made them tabs. Woo hoo. Those of you excited are way too easily pleased.

How about taking the folders they kinda-sorta gave us (as "play lists" or something like that) and making them icons you can put on the front page, or tabs, without three-to-five clicks (after a long scroll to the right) to get to? THAT would be an improvement.

@bring_on_branstons - good point. They're sure to reinvent the wheel on the PS6, and I guarantee they won't allow folders or play lists or any way for you to organize your content the way YOU want to organize it until 2+ years after release. That's what they did with the PS4 and the PS5, and they just never learn.

From the email I got today, there will be ONE "winner" for Gran Turismo 7, so ONE person will get his or her likeness in the game.

If I was excited at all before, I'm not now. One player means it won't be me, so who cares?

I'd be slightly more interested if there was a method for uploading a photo and having that put in the game, but...well, not really. I don't create players that look like me in games, generally (though my wife downloaded a skin Mumbo made for Hermitcraft and I use it on PC because it actually does look a lot like me).

Oh...and as a side note, there was no need to strikethrough "overpriced" on the comment about platinum trophy winners being offered exclusive items to purchase. The prices were awful.

There's a simple solution here (and it looks like @The-punishr beat me to the punch) - include them but make them skippable, maybe even with a configuration option so you never see them to have to skip them.

Why do people insist that games have to be one way and one way only? Let the player choose.

I never cared for DriveClub, and I normally like racing games. It just didn't work for me, for whatever reason.

And no, I'm not just trying to be contrary. I played the free Plus version several times, but just never got into it and never cared to try the full game.

Now if you want to reach further back and bring back Motorstorm, I'm with you 100%

Days Gone had a quick menu system by swiping on the touchpad, and it was awesome once you learned it. Don't knock good use of the touchpad, it can be useful.

Loved Control, played it multiple times. I'll definitely get Resonant sooner or later (but I never do day 1 for anything any more, I don't trust modern developers).

@shiny-enzo "I really don’t understand why some studios still want to get acquired by PlayStation,"

Or they're cash-strapped and it's be acquired or close down. It's easier to pick up unhealthy studios - but that also may contribute to why so many of them get shut down a short time after.

@somnambulance I'm with you on some of that - particularly on price. I hate how many publishers announce a release date but still keep the price secret for ages. The price shouldn't be a deeply-held secret until a few weeks before release.

But ultimately it doesn't matter what you or I think - what matters is what the publishers and developers think. Every time they get negative pushback when they postpone a previously-announced release, every time some development footage shows something they end up cutting and there's pushback, they're being encouraged to hold back those details until they're reasonably sure they won't change.

@somnambulance If you don't post a release date until you're actually ready to release, you don't have to publicly postpone and explain why it's taking longer than expected.

The only thing gamers hate more than no news is news of a delay.

@Shokwave2 "I've had two crashes, but that's to be expected for a massive game on day one."

Not to criticize you personally (I only tagged you because it seemed rude to quote someone without tagging them), but it's so very sad that this is what we expect these days.

Yes, it's a benefit to be able to update games post-release - but it's led us here, where that crutch has turned into a stretcher. Today we expect games to crash when they're new, because we're not customers, we're Quality Assurance employees who pay for the privilege rather than getting paid so real customers have a better experience. It's just sad.

That said, I am happy to hear this wasn't as bad as Cyberpunk was on release day on consoles. When they didn't let anyone see it on console before release, I assumed the worst.

I may try the demo again, I found it way too clunky and didn't actually finish it on my first try, and just never went back. It also wasn't clear to me in the mini puzzles what I was supposed to try to touch and what I was supposed to try to avoid.

Nice. I didn't get too far in this game (I have a PS4 disk I picked up for $10 back when it was banned from the store), this will encourage me to get back in it. Might have to start fresh, it's been a while since I last touched it.

@lazarus11 My understanding is that while any game that used the original PSSR will benefit from the upgrade (if you enable the feature at the console level), there's still room for further improvement for games which call the new version directly. It makes sense - replicate the existing API, but also add new API features that can be leveraged with a little work.

I went to the PSN store (US), told it to filter for only PSVR2 titles, and to sort by release date. It shows five games yet to be released but available to be wishlisted, and a dozen released so far this year (as best I can tell - PSN doesn't actually show the release date). That doesn't include at least another dozen that dropped in December, including quite a few great titles, nor does it include DLC for some long-running titles.

Is Sony supporting PSVR2 with a lot of first-party studio titles? No - but they're not supporting PS5 with a LOT of first-party studio titles, I'd argue. Are there a lot of games coming out for PSVR2? Sure, including some shovelware and some quality titles - enough to keep you busy if you're willing to look at third-party titles.

Somebody on this site seems invested in convincing us PSVR2 is dead. It's not, even without a ton of support from Sony.

I already use sites that check prices over time (psdeals.net is my personal favorite, but there are others that are also awesome) so I'm not just comparing my price to the regular price, but to historic sales prices. I think that likely mitigates the impact somewhat, so long as the pricing sites are getting good data and seeing real prices.

If my price is higher than the sale price of a checking site, Sony probably loses my purchase, at least for then.

If Sony breaks that functionality though, and makes it harder for sites to track pricing over time, that's what will really get me upset. Until then, it's just another barrier to a sale.

The thing about this case that I find impressive is the actor has a specific contract clause, a specific negotiated right, which he wants protected. I can respect that.

I don't respect anyone who is automatically pro-union without examining what's at issue in a negotiation, any more than I would respect someone who is always pro-employer. Both sides can be selfish, and both sides can be anti-consumer.

Madden will be fun to play for a little bit, to take my Seahawks through the playoffs again. I toyed with picking it up this year since they won it all and it will be fun to replay and see the names again in years to come - but then I remembered how they've turned Madden into a perpetual sales pitch for DLC (which will be useless by the time I play it). By the time I've played it three or four times in a week, I'm ready to be done with it for another year.

If it was more about playing the game and less about buying more content, I might play it more. I'm done buying it, though.

"It’s important to underline that Microsoft will not see a cent from any of this," you say, assuming there's no licensing deal with Steam or other storefronts allowed on the new XBox.

Who says it's going to be just a PC that lets you run anything? XBox has always just been a Windows PC with a locked GUI. It could still have a locked-down front-end, and might allow only specific, partnered stores - with terms that could see those stores share a portion of their revenue for access to the device.

If Steam keeps 30% of the sale price itself, they could share 5% or even 10% with Microsoft for games sold on a "Helix" version of Steam, especially if MS helps with the storage and distribution on the platform.

@Dimey Then buy your own studio and run it the way you want to run it.

A well-written game is going to be a well-written game whether it has ray tracing or not, and a poorly-written game will be poorly-written with or without it. It's not like a studio who spends resources to implement ray tracing must, by definition, shortchange some other area of development.

Obviously tradeoffs exist and nobody can do everything, but I doubt there's even a single studio saying "it's a bad game, but if we throw in ray tracing it will sell" - and if there are, they deserve the reception they'll get.

And that opening line wasn't entirely snark - if you know how to allocate resources to make better games, you could get rich showing development studios how to do it. There are a lot of very smart people trying very hard to make better games, and ray tracing is just one small cog in the process.

I have to agree that ray tracing doesn't contribute to story - but then, you could argue that 3d graphics don't contribute to story. We're past the days of text-based video games (though I'm old enough to remember them), so graphics ARE important on some level. How good is "good enough" will forever be a subjective matter, and will inevitably vary by game, art style, player, and era.

That said, ray tracing can make good-looking games look spectacular. It can reduce the things that ruin immersion (like screen space reflections clipping out).

Is it necessary? I don't know - is the Mona Lisa NECESSARY? But it can sure be beautiful when it works well.

I picked up a refurbished unit after one of the price hikes (I suspect a return from someone who didn't think it was a big enough leap), plus a disk drive for it.

There are a few PSVR2 games which look significantly better with the Pro, and if the PSSR2 upgrade improves it (and if future upgrades continue to improve it), so much the better. Considering that a graphics card alone costs more than a PS5 Pro these days, it's not as bad a deal as some people made it out to be.

I'm a little burned out on Metroidvania, to be honest. I'm old enough to have played the originals which spawned the term (though I barely touched Castlevania, I was certainly aware of it), and I've played many, many in the genre over the years. And now, I'm less interested in more of the same.

Nothing against Sons of Sparta for those who like it, and if it were on a portable device I might be more willing to give it a shot...but probably not.

Give me the big expansive games that studios are spending the better part of a decade building. If they're good enough to keep my interest, I can stand the wait.

If you want to delight me with a smaller game, give me something that feels new and different, like Journey did - but not a modern Journey clone, because that's not new and different any more.

That's not to say I won't try indie titles, or even another metroidvania - but just saying "metroidvania!" won't get me to even turn my head these days. You'd better be coming at me with something new and different and delightful, not an amalgamation of dozens of games I've played before.

On one hand, you've got studios rushing games out before they're ready (SP, MP, MMO, it doesn't matter, it's happening to all of them).

Mix that with a live service model that demands immediate adoption and retention of players in order to be sustainable, where any hiccup that loses players could be a death sentence.

Shake them together, and the end result will be UGLY, every time.

There are reasons I still buy movies on disk (just had the Criterion edition of The Princess Bride arrive today). One major reason is because a 4K movie on disk is usually going to be better quality than the same movie streamed from most any streaming service - it's almost certainly going to be at a higher bit rate and unaffected by your network connection.

The same isn't really true for games, at least not unless you're streaming the game itself like with Plus Premium. The game you buy in the PS Store is the same quality as the game you buy on disk, may take the same time (or even less) to install, and is actually a better experience since you don't have to manage the location of the disk just to play the game. The digital copy may be cheaper, too.

The main argument left is that you may "own" the game on disk in ways you don't "own" the digital copy, but as games depend on servers being online, and new hardware doesn't include drives to play old games, that's a less compelling argument than it used to be.

Starfield is consistently on sale for $42 on XBox (US prices), so I don't expect to pay more than that for it on PS5. That may mean I need to wait until closer to the end of the year, but that's fine with me.

Then again, I played a few hours back when I had it on XBox (my Series S is gathering a THICK layer of dust), and it was...fine. I don't have real complaints, but honestly I'm more excited about a third replay of Prey (or its Moonfall DLC, which I haven't played yet) or another time through Stellar Blade than I am of Starfield. So maybe I'll wait until it's on sale for $20 or less in a year or two.

Honestly, it feels a little annoying to wait a week and then open the wishlists, just so they can get two cracks at media attention instead of just one. If they'd done both the same day, this article wouldn't exist.

That said, it's on my wishlist. Definitely not a day one purchase (nothing is for me any more), but worth keeping an eye on.

Haven't watched the video yet, but there were a LOT of PSVR2 titles in 2025, and more than you have listed for 2026 (neither Microsoft Flight Simulator nor Secret of the Mimic are on your list - both are still pending release dates but are expected this year).

First party support is lacking, but a lot of games coming to VR are coming to PSVR2 as well as Steam or wherever else.

@Wakkawipeout That's why Burnout Paradise is still my favorite open world racing game. Several of the race events were variations of "You start here. Get to this other point on the map first. Go." - and you could choose any route, even going the wrong way (you'd lose if you did that, but you COULD).

Often there was a clear choice, where one route was THE way to go - but sometimes there were multiple reasonable routes. Some were shorter but had more traffic, others might be faster but required you to hit certain jumps to get in or out of them, others were true toss-ups between two parallel streets.

Throw in the game modes that weren't pure racing - marked man, specifically, a version of tag where knowing the map and ways to get in and out of harder-to-reach places helped - and open world games CAN be a ton of fun.

But most open world games don't really nail that as well as BP did. Cart racers are more likely to have the multiple path thing over more traditional racing games, too.

I'd rather have a Motostorm collection remake for the PS5 (heck, if I'm wishing, throw in PSVR2). Until then, I'll probably give this one a shot.

@Wakkawipeout My only argument with that is when the open world racing allows multiple choices of routes, each with their own tradeoffs, it can be superior to a single track with no alternate paths. It's what I loved about Motorstorm (not open world titles, but different than many racing games), and some Burnout Paradise races.

Otherwise, your points are well taken. The same track/route with different vehicles that feel different can really change how you approach them. That does require significant differences in vehicles beyond just a new skin on the same handling, which not all games did a great job of.

I enjoyed Monster Hunter World, but didn't pay for Iceborne so I've missed half the content. I expect the same with Rise, which makes me wonder if I should bother starting it.

Given that I could buy the pair (Rise + Sunbreak) from PSN today for $9.59 US, having just the base game for free doesn't seem like a compelling deal to me. Especially since Sunbreak itself is also on sale for $5.99, making RIse by itself worth a whopping $3.60...that's sad.

Without a PSVR2 port, I'll never see this game.

It's rather hilarious to see people say that everything after Saints Row 2 was a failure. According to the stats I can see (from vgchartz), 3 sold more than any other in the series, including more than the first two combined. It was my favorite.

Personally, I didn't play the first one, 2 was good, 3 was the best, 4 was okay but wore out its welcome way too fast, Gat wasn't interesting enough to finish, and the reboot was...sad. I'd love to see them return to the style of Saints Row The Third, or even Saints Row 2, which was a lot less ludicrous than the series became but still didn't take itself entirely seriously all the time.

Notwithstanding the infamous purple baseball-bat-sized dildo, good comedy and satire requires better writing than I expect from the game industry these days. It will likely be a small publisher, willing to risk humor that might get them in trouble from some people - the type of risk big corporations won't take - and it won't necessarily be the same game genre it shows up in. Wherever it comes from, I'll keep an eye out for it.

Motorstorm was awesome, and I miss it. I wish there was a remaster of the whole series for this generation.

My only Burnout was Paradise, so I'd be okay with open world, but I'll be happy if this has some Burnout vibes.

Hearing some of these details excites me more than the trailer did.