Clock Tower: Rewind

Experience the prodigious 1995 survival horror Clock Tower in English outside of Japan for the first time. The original is intact, outdated gameplay like soft locked progress and overly obtuse puzzles included, but alongside is the quality-of-life-enhanced Rewind version providing ability to backtrack save states rather than forcibly starting over. Included too are animated introductions, motion comics, creator interviews, artwork, and a dedicated music player to enjoy the game’s phenomenal soundtrack. However, a word of caution: don’t expect a modern experience. Clock Tower: Rewind, despite the extra content, is very much a relic of its time. Available on PlayStation Store for $19.99.

Choo-Choo Charles     

Those of us who grew up watching British kids TV show Thomas & Friends can look back at its cast of oddly human faced sentient locomotives and realise just how creepy that show could be. Taking inspiration from this, plus Stephen King novella Charlie the Choo-Choo, is Choo-Choo Charles, a decidedly bizarre survival game whereby your weapon-equipped train is tracked by the titular bloodthirsty spider-locomotive hybrid. Another one that can be yours for $19.99 via PlayStation Store.

What Remains of Edith Finch

The unease in playing through What Remains of Edith Finch comes in reliving the life-ending tragedies which befell the Finch family. Exploring the ramshackle Finch family home as last surviving family member Edith, you’ll be transported back to each of her ancestors’ demises, but the experience’s magical realism aesthetic makes piecing together the exact circumstances cumbersome. Ultimately, What Remains of Edith Finch is a well-realised story about familial tradition, accountability, and paranoia, and you absolutely must play it if you haven’t. It’s currently priced at $19.99 on PlayStation Store.

Tormented Souls

Drenched in vintage Alone in the Dark and Resident Evil atmosphere, Tormented Souls follows investigator Caroline Walker as she creeps by candlelight through the hallways of a petrifying mansion-turned-asylum, her sleuthing against the torment of shadowy evil and twisted monsters an attempt to discover the happenstance surrounding the disappearance of two young girls. Modernised with updated controls and dynamically shifting camera perspectives, the horror Tormented Souls uncovers is fiendish. At the time of this feature’s creation Tormented Souls is on sale at $4.99 on the PlayStation Store. It’s usually priced at $19.99.

Layers of Fear 2

Divisive is Layers of Fear 2 with numerous detractors lamenting a lack of focus in favour of grander scale for this sequel. Sure, the game’s story rambles at times but inarguable is Bloober Team’s ability to craft atmosphere. Layers of Fear 2 toyed with haunted house tropes more successfully than its predecessor, thriving on the experience of a player character exploring a world which never truly makes sense. Another one that can be yours for $19.99 via PlayStation Store.

The Forest

Nights are dark in The Forest. Daytimes are spent gathering resources, fortifying defences, and consuming sustenance to keep those all-important energy levels up because this survival-tinged horror ramps up the fear when darkness falls. Those not-always murderous cannibals become downright hostile under the night sky, and the unease at spotting lights through trees or hearing distant bloodcurdling screams elevates The Forest to one of the most memorable horror games in recent memory. Steam users can snag The Forest for $19.99.

Dead Island Definitive Edition

Including the genre-smashing original and story extension Dead Island: Riptide, Dead Island Definitive Edition brings all the fun soaked, skull cracking viscera bang up to date with a hi-resolution remaster, delivering crisp HD graphics alongside improved light and shading. Despite changes elsewhere being few and far between, the game’s ever-excellent melee combat together with the hi-res touch ups means this package earns it’s ‘Definitive Edition’ moniker. Usually priced at $19.99 on PlayStation Store, although Dead Island Definitive Collection is currently on sale for $4.99.

Dying Light

Merging freewheeling parkour with flesh ripping melee, Dying Light is in many ways Techland’s magnum opus, taking all that was great about Dead Island and embellishing into a zombie horror all-timer. A surprisingly heartfelt story underpins the rampant killing, but it’s the game’s post-apocalyptic open world that steals the show, a city with well laid out paths for free running ensure sprinting from A to B is an exercise in maximising flow state. Dying Light is ten years old now but thanks to years of post-launch support the experience still feels fresh, exciting, and works well on modern hardware – a bargain for $19.99 via PlayStation Store. Like others on this list though, Dying Light is currently on sale – $5.99 on PlayStation.

Outlast

Remote Mount Massive Asylum is the target of investigative journalist Miles Upshur’s suicidal infiltration and research mission in Outlast, as despite a whistle blower tipping off that the psychiatric hospital’s patients are being subjected to inhumane experiments nothing can prepare Miles for the evil that’s lurking within. A horrific demonstration in show don’t tell, the sickly green glow of Miles’ camcorder night vision is a genius mechanic in which to view the grisly goings on. One of the scariest games on this rundown, for sure. Xbox players can grab Outlast for $19.99.

The Evil Within      

Releasing back in 2017, The Evil Within is easily one of the best horror games out there. The various boss encounters and tense combat help it usher in a new breed of survival horror: intricate stories and complex characters exist in a brutally dark world featuring exceptionally crafted, anxiety inducing environments. Such is The Evil Within’s pedigree that it arguably inspired Resident Evil’s modern renaissance originating with Resident Evil 7. Usually $19.99 via Xbox, although Game Pass subscribers can currently grab it for $4.00 less.

Alan Wake

The long-awaited sequel to 2010’s Alan Wake shifted focus closer to an out-and-out survival horror, but whilst Alan Wake II’s predecessor wasn’t inherently scary it harboured enough horror elements to lay the foundation for 2023’s follow-up. An ominous presence stalks Bright Falls as the titular writer searches for his missing wife whilst enacting the pages of a thriller novel he doesn’t remember writing. The remastered version is arguably inessential as the original holds up well, plus it’s less than $20 as per this feature’s requirement at $19.99 on Xbox.

Resident Evil

The game which defined survival horror returned in 2015 with a remastered HD version of its 2002 GameCube remake, and the sharpened face lift hasn’t dulled the shuffling terror whatsoever. In fact, whilst graphics aren’t always the be-all-and-end-all, Resident Evil functions much more effectively with denser shadow detail, the Spencer Mansion’s claustrophobic dread excruciatingly dialled up, made even more tangible by the game’s classic tank controls and wayward aiming. Regularly popping up in sales, Resident Evil is usually $19.99 on Xbox.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent

A game to be avoided if you’re faint of heart, Amnesia: The Dark Descent begins stereotypically enough with player-character experiencing, yep, amnesia, but the experience evolves beyond Daniel rediscovering his memories against the backdrop of a foreboding castle. As you progress, you’ll become trapped within the macabre recesses of Daniel’s mind, experiencing psychological torment first-hand via his sanity meter, itself a fear of the dark mechanic which was novel at the time. Another game that’s ordinarily on sale, Amnesia: The Dark Descent’s normal price is $19.99 as per its listing on Steam.

Little Nightmares  

Rarely does a horror game make the player feel as helpless as Little Nightmares. In command of yellow-coated character named Six, a little girl with no combat ability whatsoever, players must tiptoe through the darkest corners of a grim world to avoid the gaze of nightmarish monsters. Viewing terror through the character’s eyes is disturbing enough, but it’s the game’s grounded reality making all this horror seem as though it could be real – like an embodiment of someone’s imagination, perhaps – is how Little Nightmares sticks with you. Currently $19.99 via Xbox.

Limbo

A modern classic, dark ambient side-scroller Limbo plunges you into a twisted world of haunted forests, dangerous foundries, and stagnant swamps as a small boy in search of your sister who, depending on your interpretation, could be dead or alive. Mechanically shallow sure, but in conjuring mystery through a combination of grainy black and white with superb sound design Limbo is an essential play, plus its available on practically any platform for like $9.99 on Xbox.

“We stand ready,” said Kuperman when asked about remastering games that have been lost to time because they were exclusive to consoles on the PS3 and Xbox 360. Kuperman also explained that the process would involve with a few questions, such as whether the game in question got a PC release at all or if it was console exclusive.

“I would begin asking a couple of questions,” he said. “Was it Xbox 360 exclusive, or was there a PC version out too? Because that also changes things, the little preservation that’s available. Do we have source code? If so, what’s the quality of the source code? How about the assets? Those are the kinds of considerations that we have there. That being said, there were some really good games that came out in that era that shouldn’t be lost.”

Kick also spoke about the studio having conversations with the original developers of any given game. Using the PS3-exclusive shooter Haze as an example, Kick mentioned how he would ask the game’s original developers what they would have done differently in hindsight. Similar conversations were had with the developers behind System Shock 2 for System Shock 2 Remastered, for example.

“To your point, though, with a game like Haze – let’s say hypothetically we had access to that, and that was our big title for 2028, right?” said Kick. “We would go to the original designers, and we would say: ‘It didn’t do as well as you had hoped, I’m sure you’ve had a lot of time to ruminate and to think about what you would have done differently.’”

“We’ve had these discussions before with [the original] developers on some of these games, and we’ve given them an opportunity to come back and say ‘this is what I would have done’. In the case of System Shock 2 Remastered and a lot of these other games that we’ve been looking at, as soon as you bring them over import them onto newer hardware, some of the problems start to clear themselves up, like frame rate, refresh rate, texture resolution, streaming, loading times.”

Kick also spoke about the challenges posed by the PS3’s unique hardware architecture. For context, the PS3 was developed using what Sony dubbed as the Cell processor. The system was capable of being incredibly scalable, as well as outputting quite a bit of power when needed. However, it came with its own development challenges owing to the fact that no gaming hardware before, or since has used similar architecture. Kick believes that there is a potential for PS3 remasters to be harder to pull off because of this.

“Yeah, definitely,” replied Kick when asked if porting over PS3 games would be harder because of the architecture. “I think that architecture – I mean, I remember the talk when the system was first released, of how difficult it was for developers to ‘get’ it – and that’s a big problem with backwards compatibility.”

“This is a little bit of a different thing, but when the PS3 first came out, it was backwards compatible with PS2. And after a while, they were like ‘well, it’s really expensive, because we’re literally putting in the hardware for both systems in order for that to happen’. Again, there wasn’t an elegant solution where the PS3 hardware could run PS2 games. It just was not compatible.”

“So yeah, if we get to that – or I should say when – we get to the PS3 era games, it will be a challenge that we have to face. But I think that we’ve had enough experience to where we can do a serviceable job on a PS3 remaster.”

Kuperman believes that the fact that Nightdive Studios has its own engine to help it port over older games on to modern hardware offers great advantages in this area. It could also be a chance for the studio to improve on its KEX engine going forward.

“The other part is the advantages of having our own engine, and that’s a really big part of the Nightdive story,” said Kuperman. “There are things that we can do because we have our own engine. So I’m going to guess that were we to go down that road, that Sam might figure something out that he could do with KEX.”

The last major release by Nightdive Studios was The Thing: Remastered. The classic shooter has ended up being the studio’s fastest selling game so far. Check out our review for more details.

According to former Bethesda developer Nate Purkeypile, this was because the developers got more time and freedom to add things to the game. Speaking to PCGamer at GDC 2025, Purkeypile, who worked on Skyrim as a world artist, revealed that Bethesda used to not be strict about sticking to development schedules.

“We had quite a bit of freedom to do stuff,” he said about how development used to happen at Bethesda. “The one that people know about was Blackreach … That was not on schedule at all. Like we just kind of did that on the side and put it in.”

Even something like the addition of werewolves in Skyrim were, according to Purkeypile, originally a side-project. He said that, “Originally, it was just dudes with dog heads, and someone took it upon themselves to make it awesome.”

“A lot of the great stuff within Skyrim came from having that freedom to do what you want, as opposed to a game with this whole ‘checklist design’ and ‘design by committee.'”

Since the growth of Bethesda’s development teams, however, the company has gotten much more strict about its schedules, especially with more recent titles like Starfield. “You would basically get in trouble for doing that,” said Purkeypile, contrasting the company’s older style of development with how it operates these days, “because everything does have a cost.”

“If everyone is doing that within 500 people, it’s a mess,” he said. “But with, you know, 100 people? It’s much more manageable, and where a lot of the interesting things come from.”

Ultimately, Purkeypile admits that he enjoyed working at the studio a lot more when it was working on titles like Fallout 3 and Skyrim. His enjoyment of working at Bethesda started waning as the company hired more developers to work on larger-scale projects.

“While I enjoyed working at Bethesda a lot when we were about 65 to 110 people on Fallout 3 and Skyrim, I enjoyed it a lot less as it grew and grew,” he said.

Since its release, Bethesda’s most recent RPG, Starfield, has gotten a mixed critical response. Despite this, however, the title has proven to be quite possibly. Back in November 2024, Bethesda announced that it had been played by more than 15 million players since its release.

The last major addition to Starfield was through expansion Shattered Space. Released back in October 2024, you can check out more details about the DLC in our review. The company still has a lot more planned for the game, however.

Earlier this month, Bethesda Game Studios revealed on social media platform X that it has content planned for Starfield in 2025. While it didn’t reveal any concrete details, the company said that it will be talking about its plans for the RPG in 2025 “when the time is right.”

“When I joined WB Games, it was growing fast,” said Fryer. “In Seattle we tripled in size through acquisitions and WB games expanded to over 1,500 people in a few short years. It was exciting and complete chaos. It took us a few years to get settled, but in that time, we built a team and culture that shipped Shadow of Mordor, arguably Monolith’s most successful title.”

Fryer spoke about assembling the team that would go on to create the Nemesis system during the studio’s time spent working on multiplayer titles like Gotham City Imposters and Guardians of Middle-earth. She points out that, considering Monolith’s trajectory from working on critically-acclaimed titles to filling its follow up with lootboxes, and ultimately getting shut down, meant that the studio had a leadership problem.

“It’s easy to blame Warner Bros. for everything that’s gone wrong, and it’s true, there were issues with the film studio,” explained Fryer. “For example, if a director didn’t want you to ship a game around the time of their movie, you didn’t ship the game.”

Fryer went on to talk about a game that was internally codenamed Apollo. The game was slated to feature Batman, and would have been set in the same setting as Christopher Nolan’s trilogy of movies. The video also shows off an early demo of Apollo, including UI details that indicated how missions would have worked in the title.

“The idea was the create an open world game,” said Fryer. “A place where gamers could explore and solve missions. They could use different approaches like combat or stealth. We even had a demo of the Batman Tumbler vehicle. It was cool.”

“WB was excited about the game and asked us to work on it in stealth mode until we could talk to Nolan,” she continued. “Well, unfortunately, when we finally spoke to him, he didn’t want us to do it. The Batman Begins game had come out and it was a disaster. And he didn’t want a repeat of that experience. It was completely understandable.”

She also mentioned that the studio had pitched to postpone the release of Apollo until after Nolan’s trilogy of movies were done. Company leadership, however, did not want to wait that long. Ultimately, work on the project was shelved back in 2011. Much of the team would then go on to work on console MOBA Guardians of Middle-earth. In the meantime, the work done on Apollo wasn’t considered a complete waste since its technology could then be used on other titles.

After spending some time talking about working on other projects, including Gotham City Imposters, as well as a tie-in game to The Hobbit movie series that was codenamed Hydra, Fryer talks about needing to change the studio’s priorities into being “game first” rather than tying projects in with movie releases.

An example given for the “game first” philosophy was Rocksteady’s Batman: Arkham Asylum, which was a Batman game released in the middle of Nolan’s ongoing trilogy and was developed without replicating the imagery from the movies. Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor was another example of the same philosophy, since it was a game based on a major film property that didn’t directly recreate similar imagery.

“Shadow of Mordor is another example of this game-first principle,” said Fryer. “It has a unique story and game mechanics, but it fit within the lore, it enhanced the story, and it brought in new fans. This is why I was surprised when I learned that Monolith had been working on a new IP. We had figured out how to work with WB. You could have ultimate creative freedom with your game as long as it loosely fit within the franchise.”

After spending some more time talking about how Monolith Productions as a studio was built with the idea of multiple projects being developed simultaneously, Fryer then went on to talk about how WB’s attempts at chasing trends is what ultimately led to the development of the Nemesis system in Shadow of Mordor.

“It all started when Rocksteady shipped Arkham Asylum in 2009,” said Fryer. “It was selling great. Then suddenly, sales dropped off. They could see this because the data from their game analytics revealed that more people were playing than were paying.”

“The theory was that people would play through the game, and then return the game disc to a retailer and get paid, which was very common at the time. This was great for gamers, because they could buy the game and then sell it back to a company like GameStop and buy something else. It was great for GameStop because then they sold that used game for a discount and they pocketed the money. For game developers, though, it was a disaster, because they weren’t getting paid for every game. They were only getting paid for the first copy sold. They lost millions of dollars.”

During the development of Shadow of Mordor, the question internally at the studio became “how do we create a single-player game that is so compelling that people keep the disc in their library forever?”

“Constraints can lead to better design, and the stellar team we built solved for this constraint,” explained Fryer. “After shipping War in the North, several of the talented team members started on [Shadow of Mordor]. People like our incredible art director Phil [Straub] and our talented design director Michael.”

Ultimately, going by Fryer’s stories, it looks like a game that was never released based on Nolan’s Batman trilogy ended up forming the bones for what would ultimately become Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor.

1. Toilets – Half-Life 2

Half-Life 2 helped revolutionize the way physics work in video games with its versatile use of the Havok engine. Filling up trash bins with cans is cool and all, but the gravity gun really took physics to the next level. Just about any physical object in the environment could be used as a projectile with the gravity gun’s pick up and punt functionality. While saws and explosive barrels prove the most deadly objects to use, we couldn’t help shooting toilets at foes. Our excuse for using a toilet was the “flushed” achievement, but the hilarity of it was often the real reason. To Judith Mossman’s disappointment, we couldn’t help but treat the gravity gun as a toy throughout Half-Life 2.

Land Shark – Armed and Dangerous

This 2003 Lucasarts third-person shooter may have been a repetitive slog at times, but it had humor by the bucketloads. The Monty Python and Star Wars parodies were great fun, but the Land Shark gun takes the cake as the game’s craziest thing. Just shoot at an enemy and a live shark tunnels through the ground, popping up below your opponent to eat them alive. Armed and Dangerous may not be remembered for its level design or anything, but the Land Shark lives on as one of the wildest things shot at an enemy in games.

Pixels – Ratchet & Clank 2016

How could a Ratchet & Clank game not make it on a list like this? While it was a given, what was difficult was deciding which weapons made earned a spot. I couldn’t resist the Pixelizer from the 2016 reboot. As the name suggests, this handy shotgun variant morphs enemies into a pile of 2D pixels. The icing on top is that they crumble apart like lego bricks when defeated by the shot.

Drill Bore – Turok 2

It’s hard to beat the Cerebral Bore when it comes to game weapon brutality. A combination of a homing device, saw, and clamp, the Cerebral Bore tracks enemy brains and latches onto them, and well, you know the rest. Turok 2 shows a surprising amount of blood and gore as the bore tunnels through enemies’ skulls. While it’s certainly a satisfying weapon to use, the Cerebral Bore is one of the game’s slower weapons due to the lock-on and scanning time.

Dubstep ‘wubs’ – Saints Row 4

“It’s a party in a gun! Make the world dance to your beat and fear the power of your wubs!” That’s the in-game description of the Dubstep Gun and it fits the bill. Not only does it look like a turntable, but it literally shoots streams of dubstep energy at opponents. What’s even more hilarious and neat is the specific music track changes depending on the outfit worn.

Argent Energy Plasma – Doom (2016)

Every Doom player knows the destructive power of the BFG. It’s the most notorious weapon in the series for good reason. And it’s handy to boot, given that it’s one of two weapons in Doom 2016 with its own dedicated button (instead of the weapon wheel). Doom 2016’s iteration of the BFG uses green plasma made from Argent Energy, dealing up to 6000 damage to an enemy. This thing can vaporize and kill any enemy in a single shot as long as it’s not one of the bosses. The splash damage is also pretty large, catching groups and stragglers in the explosion radius very easily. You know you’ve just acquired the best weapon when that BFG Division music starts playing.

Swords – Borderlands 2

Among the thousands upon thousands of gun variants available throughout the Borderlands games, the Swordsplosion!!! gun takes the cake as most ridiculous. This E-tech shotgun is only available in the Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep DLC from Borderlands 2. Not only does it shoot an exploding sword, but it spawns other smaller swords that explode, spawning even tinier swords. It’s perhaps the most bizarre take on the weapons I’ve seen and I love it.

Rainbows Farts – Red Faction: Armageddon

Instead of your conventional super weapon being rewarded upon completing the game, Red Faction: Armageddon gives players a unicorn gun that farts rainbows. It’s not just a silly novelty though, as the Mr Toots gun provides some of the most damage in the game with its long-range high-powered laser shot. Enemies having the priviledge to be destroyed by Mr Toots explode in a confetti rainbow shower to top it all off.

Skunks – Oddworld Stranger’s Wrath

I’ve always appreciated Stranger’s Wrath for its unique take on the wild west bounty hunter schtick. It really feels like playing a sort of warped Jim Henson version of a classic Western. The third-person gunplay is pretty fun, but the live ammo is particularly charming. Each area has its own ecosystem of rodents and mammals that Stranger can pick up and use as Crossbow ammo, and those adorable but smelly Stunkz are my pick due to their cuteness and application. Shooting these skunks at enemies briefly immobilizes them, causing them to vomit uncontrollably.

Needles – Halo

While the famous M16 pistol from Halo 1 is undoubtedly the most effective weapon in the game, the Needler was the most innovative and intriguing. A Covenant creation, the Needler pins enemies with a barrage of energy needles that explode after a few seconds of insertion. They’re like an arrow with a timed explosive. Just shooting a few needles at enemies does peanut damage, but spam that sucker onto your opponent and you have a chained explosion that kills them within seconds.

Water – Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

The Water Pistol is one of many guns that can be developed on the Mother Base. And it’s far from the novelty item that it initially seems. Besides its utility distracting and potentially blinding enemies with splashes of water, it can short-circuit electronic equipment. But did you know the Water Pistol can even defeat a certain boss? That’s right, the Man on Fire can be defeated by spraying a ton of water from the Water Pistol directly on him. It takes about 80 or so hits, but once you take him down, it’ll be the ultimate humiliation.

Plungers – Luigi’s Mansion 3

The original Poltergust 3000 from the first Luigi’s Mansion defined the game’s premise and concept with its Ghostbusters-like vacuum gameplay. Well, the Poltergust has gone through some impressive upgrades since Luigi’s first haunted house visit. Luigi’s Mansion 3 introduces a bunch of new abilities and features for the Poltergust G-00. The funniest happens to be the Suction Shot, which involves plunging a ghost in the face and pulling it with a rope. The traditional use of Suction Shot is to break objects apart for easier suction, but we can’t stop shooting plungers directly at the enemies.

Thunderjaw – Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

Rift Apart is the second and final Ratchet & Clank game to make it on the list, and of course it’s the RYNO. The RYNO is a returning legacy weapon, but the 8th iteration goes a step further, summoning objects from various PlayStation games. To get this ultimate weapon, players must find every Spybot in the game. Your reward pays off though. I mean, who doesn’t want to smash enemies with Sully’s plane from Uncharted, Jak & Daxter, or a freaking Thunderjaw from Horizon: Zero Dawn? Okay, technically, you’re dropping these objects from a portal and not shooting them, but you’re still shooting to open the portal, so it counts.

Junk – Fallout 3

Like Half-Life 2’s Gravity Gun, the Rock-It Launcher shoots a variety of environmental objects at enemies. What makes this weapon unique is Fallout 3’s emphasis on junk items. There’s a ton of junk within the Capital Wasteland and most of it can be loaded into the Rock-It Launcher. It’s a tad disappointing that every junk item has the same damage output, but the variety of stuff you can shoot at opponents is impressive nonetheless.

Bullet Bill – Mario Kart

Bullet Bill is the oldest object on this list, with its first appearance in world 5-1 of the first Super Mario Bros. Game from 1987. It wasn’t until Mario Kart Wii (and technically Mario Kart DS) when players could finally harness the dread power of Bullet Bill on unsuspecting friends. The kart turns into a giant Bullet Bill, auto-piloting through the course at top-speed catapulting others to the back of the line – that is, until they smash you with one later in the race.

According to Yoshida, Sony had expressed an interest in working with FromSoftware on a sequel to Demon’s Souls. The developer chose to instead go with Bandai Namco for the game, which would eventually become Dark Souls.

“FromSoftware was already working on the sequel, but they were so disappointed with how PlayStation treated them. We wanted to work with them again but they passed on it,” said Yoshida, who went on to speak fondly about series director Hidetaka Miyazaki.

“We have huge respect for Miyazaki, and we were able to work with them again,” Yoshida said. “Bloodborne is one of his best games.”

In previous interviews, he admitted that he thought that the game would be bad based on the time he spent with a pre-release build of Demon’s Souls.

“For my personal experience with Demon’s Souls, when it was close to final, I spent close to two hours playing it and after two hours I was still standing at the beginning at the game,” said Yoshida in a 2012 interview with Game Informer. “I said: ‘This is crap. This is an unbelievably bad game.’ So I put it aside.”

He spoke about the fact that Atlus and Bandai Namco were able to help make Demon’s Souls a successful release even outside of Japan, where the title was published by Sony.

“Luckily, third-party publishers, Atlus in North America and Namco in Europe [stepped in], and it really became a great hit outside of Japan,” he said at the time. “We definitely dropped the ball from a publishing standpoint, including the studio management side. We were not able to see the value of the product we were making.”

Yoshida has revealed many details about his time with Sony since leaving the company last month. In the same interview, he also spoke about the death of Japan Studio being caused by the market for smaller-scale AA titles disappearing.

“Most of the IPs that Japan Studio had were in that smaller double-A sized group, and the market became really difficult for these kinds of games,” said Yoshida. “For example, after Gravity Rush 2, [director Keiichiro Toyama] tried to come up with a new concept, but we were not able to greenlight any of his new concepts, even though they were really interesting.”

He also spoke about how he was moved from heading first-party studios to working with indie developers to help them bring their games to Sony’s console. “Well, I had no choice,” said Yoshida of the time, with his only other option being to leave the company.

Yoshida left PlayStation back in January after having spent 31 years with the company. He has been credited as an executive producer on titles like Ape Escape, The Legend of Dragoon, and Gran Turismo.

Mass Effect 2

The opening of Mass Effect 2 is as climactic as most other games’ endings. This sequel begins with the player controlling a limping Commander Shepard crawling through the carnage and destruction of an all-too familiar locale from the first game; the Normandy ship. What follows is a complete breakdown of everything we built up in the first game. What’s more, Shepard has to work with a mysterious group, Cerberus, to get back what was lost and fight the Reaper threat. Mass Effect 2 feels like The Empire Strikes Back of video games with how high the stakes have been raised and how dire things have gotten.

Rockstar Games’ parent company Take-Two Interactive has revealed in its latest quarterly earnings report that as of December 31, 2024, Grand Theft Auto 5 has sold over 210 million units worldwide, up from 205 million sales in the previous quarter. Meanwhile, the GTA cumulative sales for the series stand at over 440 million units.

Meanwhile, fellow widely acclaimed Rockstar open-world epic Red Dead Redemption 2 is also continuing to sell at an incredible pace. It’s now at over 70 million units sold worldwide, up from 67 million, which means it sold an additional three million units over the October-December quarter. Total sales for the series have crossed 95 million units.

Fortunately, it seems that Liu’s efforts have borne fruit. According to IGN, a “source close to the project” revealed it’s in the works. And yes, Liu will play undercover cop/Triad member Wei Shen while also producing. Square Enix, the game’s publisher, hasn’t responded for comment.

When the film will be released remains to be seen, but there’s also the question of a sequel. “That’s always been the dream,” said Liu, though whether it comes true remains to be seen.

Sleeping Dogs first launched in 2012, and it’s playable on Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS4, PS3, and PC. Check out our feature on what made it so great. A sequel was in the works but ultimately scrapped in 2013. A multiplayer spin-off, Triad Wars, was also cancelled before its 2015 launch.

On social media platform X, Liu spoke about his experience pitching a movie adaptation of the open-world title to film executives who didn’t understand it. He also would like a sequel down the line.

“So few film projects make it from pitch phase to greenlight,” said Liu in the post. “Pitching execs who don’t understand the game has been tiring. Everyone’s overwhelming love of Sleeping Dogs here has really given us life!”

“First a movie, then a sequel game for everyone… That’s always been the dream.”

The last time we heard anything about a Sleeping Dogs movie was back in 2018, with action star Donnie Yen saying that the movie was still under production. More recently, however, Yen has said that the movie is dead.

“I spent a lot of time and did a lot of work with these producers, and I even invested some of my own money into obtaining the drafts and some of the rights,” said Yen in a recent interview with Polygon. “I waited for years. Years. And I really want to do it. I have all these visions in my head, and unfortunately… I don’t know, you know how Hollywood goes, right? I spent many, many years on it. It was an unfortunate thing.”

Sleeping Dogs is a cult-classic open-world action game that puts players into the shoes of undercover cop Wei Shen. It’s an epic story about feuding mobs in Hong Kong and how these criminal elements can often bleed into civilian life. The title was originally released back in 2012 on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

For more details on Sleeping Dogs, check out our thoughts on why the game is still addictive even today.

So few film projects make it from pitch phase to greenlight. Pitching execs who don’t understand the game has been tiring. Everyone’s overwhelming love of Sleeping Dogs here has really given us life!

First a movie, then a sequel game for everyone… that’s always been the dream. pic.twitter.com/g84r9Lf0SI

— Simu Liu (@SimuLiu) January 31, 2025