And here we are again; seven days older, seven days wiser, and if you were silly enough to watch that VHS tape, seven days to die. That means we’re back with another Weekly Digest – in which we recap some of the highlights you might have missed over this busy week on Eurogamer. This time around, Tom was surprised how much he enjoyed Ninja Gaiden 4 despite being officially rubbish at video games; Connor dipped his toes into Arc Raiders and made some new friends (nothing to do with his toes); I embarked on a journey of relentless squirting for my PowerWash Simulator 2 review, and Bertie had a chat with DayZ creator Dean Hall about his successes and studio struggles. There’s plenty more too, so for the full recap read on!
Returning to Pokémon Legends: Arceus’ rose-tinted take on the past, and the hard questions it raises about Japanese history
Pokémon Legends: Z-A is here and doing very well for itself. But while Pokémon fans have been cavorting around Lumiose City this week, Eurogamer contributor Edward Hawkes turned his attention back to 2022’s Pokémon Legends: Arceus and its rose-tinted reimagining of Japan’s past. Arceus’ setting of Hisui draws heavy inspiration from the northern Japanese island Hokkaido in the late-ish 1800s, but as Edward puts it, “The problem with time travel is that, when we go digging up the past, we sometimes unearth painful memories.” And Arceus freely borrows elements from a tumultuous period in history characterised by colonial expansionism, slow bureaucratic cruelty, and, often, casualties. It’s tricky territory that GameFreak charts in Arceus, and Edward examined the studio’s choices further in his fascinating article.
“Pokémon has always had seams of subtle darkness running deep beneath its family-friendly mantle,” Edward wrote. “[Its] macabre morsels add texture and, deliberate or not, Pokémon Legends’ bright and colourful exploration of a grisly time-period certainly keeps pace with the series’ venerated tradition of jarring juxtaposition. But even so, choosing to recruit the player character to the fictional counterpart of a genuine, real colonisation commission, that displaced thousands of people and uprooted thousands of lives? I did wonder if that was a road too far.”
Ludvig Forssell reveals how Death Stranding’s most emotionally devastating moment came to be
In anticipation of Death Stranding’s upcoming Strands of Harmony concert world tour, which features a live orchestra and singers performing music from Hideo Kojima’s idiosyncratic action-adventure series, Eurogamer’s Ed Nightingale recently chatted with Death Stranding composer Ludvig Forssell about his music and more. In a continuation of that conversation, Ed this week dug a little deeper into the song that accompanies one of the game’s most emotionally devastating moments, discussing its genesis with Forssell and vocalist Jenny Plant.
“Though Forssell had ideas for the piece early on,” Ed wrote, “he had been travelling and unable to find time to sit down and write it in full. Then, over time, Forssell laid the groundwork for the song, recorded strings, added guitar, and doubled the length of the final chorus as requested by Kojima. ‘In the background we were also looking for the perfect singer for it and got introduced to Jenny’s stuff,’ said Forssell. ‘This is the soothing voice that we need for a lullaby… This is the song that I’ve spent most time on, more than anything that I’ve written in my entire life.”
Arc Raiders is a loot gremlin’s dream, but it’s the social interaction that might make it special
After a lengthy and eventful development, which included a fairly dramatic shift in focus from a PvE shooter to PvPvE, developer Embark Studio’s Arc Raiders is almost here. But ahead of its launch next week, Embark recently held one last weekend playtest to squeeze its servers and Eurogamer’s Connor Makar was there to put its noise-focused extraction action through its paces. It’s pretty good stuff, he concluded between accidental tumbleweed jump-scares, especially if you’re a big old fan of loot acquisition. But it turns out its real special sauce might well be in its clever use of social interactions, as Connor helpfully explained.
“Another player sprints towards my location with murder in their heart and a bullet in the chamber,” he recounted. “I turn around just as the door opens and we trade fire, each heavily injured and ducking behind cover. At this point, something strange happens: We start chatting. I suggest we cease hostilities and my enemy reveals himself to be a younger British guy. He says no, and throws a grenade at me: negotiations are not going well… It’s an exceptional anecdote, sure. Most encounters with other players were quick blasts of gunfire, ending with a sharp punch to the jaw, but you’ll be shocked at how much this social aspect adds to the game.”
Don’t let anyone tell you you’re not skilled enough to enjoy Ninja Gaiden 4 – I’m near-incompetent yet having an absolute blast
It’s been over a decade since Team Ninja’s divisive Ninja Gaiden 3 made its debut, and while we’ve had plenty of do-overs and series re-releases since then, it was starting to feel like the famed hack-and-slasher might have had its day. But then came Microsoft, a big bag of money, and the news that Ninja Gaiden was returning for a fourth outing, this time under the stewardship of Bayonetta studio Platinum Games. And it’s finally here, launching for Xbox Series X/S and PC earlier this week, at which point Eurogamer editorial director Tom Orry decided to brave its not-insignificant challenge. Tom – in his own words “near-incompetent” at this kind of thing – was surprised to find himself having a blast, so took to the site to suggest those of a similar skill level shouldn’t be intimidated either.
“Listen. I wish I was you,” he wrote, “the person reading this who has the available brain capacity to not only learn all the moves so carefully created for Ninja Gaiden 4, but understand when they are best used. I’d love to be the guy who makes a living out of uploading complete game walkthroughs to YouTube, adding nothing to the footage because the games are so impressively played there’s no need to dirty it with a voiceover. I get it. You are the ultimate human, as close to an actual ninja as a sofa-dweller can be, and I am, well… not.”
Pragmata’s unique action and puzzle blend may grab the headlines – but as its creators explain, its secret sauce is all about rhythm
It’s been a long time coming, but following years of delays, Capcom’s Pragmata – originally announced in 2020 with an anticipated 2022 launch window – is finally almost here. Since resurfacing back in April with a 2026 release, Capcom has barely been able to shut up about its mysterious game, but only in the most tantalising of enigmatic reveals. That means it’s been a little tricky to figure out precisely how the third-person action-adventure – which stars an astronaut and his little-girl-shaped android pal – will play. After more hands-on time with it, however, Eurogamer’s Alex Donaldson thinks he’s cracked it, and he recently chatted to Pragmata director Cho Yonghee about the rhythm element that seemingly pulls it all together.
“While it’s clear there hasn’t been any intention to set out to make some sort of Soulsian mega-difficult game,” Alex explained, “Pragmata’s team is clearly acutely aware that they have made something quite unlike much else on the market. I expect it is going to be a ‘Marmite game’, and a cult hit – the sort of thing that those who ‘get it’ will adore and those who don’t will abhor. That whiplash-inducing back-and-forth between shooting, hacking, and exerting battlefield control through thruster dashes and enemy-slowing gadgets will either click for you or it won’t. But there’s been clear thought in trying to increase that accessibility, which is where Pragmata’s inexorable rhythm spreads to the rest of the game.”
2XKO champion designer on the game’s ambitious promise to deliver more new characters a year than Street Fighter 6
Connor’s back in the ring again after his EVO France adventures last week, this time chatting to Riot Games about its 2v2 fighting game 2XKO. Riot’s taking the early access approach with this one, and its October launch introduced 11 champions and a handful of stages for early adopters to play around with. So far so good, but there’s more to come. Riot has pledged to bring five new characters a year to 2XKO starting in 2026, which is a lot – more than Street Fighter 6 and Tekken 8 offer in their annual season passes. Are the studio’s ambitious plans sustainable? Connor posed that very question to 2XKO’s champion designer Peter Rosas this week.
“Why can Riot do what Capcom can’t,” Connor pondered, “and is this a pace that’s sustainable for a relatively fresh-faced team? Given the amount of time it took to get to ten characters, can we expect the same level of quality from future fighters as we’ve seen with the original cast? To keep this character treadmill going, how many new characters are in the oven right now?”
PowerWash Simulator 2 review – mostly more of the same filth but that’s okay
There are two types of people in this world: those who’ve already submitted to PowerWash Simulator’s Pavlovian ding, and those who continue to resist, fully knowing the futility of that goal. When the original PowerWash Simulator launched back in 2021, I too scoffed at the preposterousness of it all – who could possibly enjoy a game about endlessly pointing a nozzle at something filthy until it was clean? Then, of course, I played it and immediately lost 100 hours of my life to its unexpectedly seductive squirting. And so onto the newly released PowerWash Simulator 2. Where could the series possibly go next? What happens when a street cleaner meets a huckleberry festival? To answer those questions, I hoisted a hose and turned a critical eye to developer FuturLab’s winningly daft sequel.
“Like its predecessor, PowerWash Simulator 2 definitely isn’t for everyone,” I opined, “and it offers little that’s going to convince naysayers that ceaselessly wiggling their nozzle back and forth is a worthy use of their time. This isn’t a sequel that paints its ambition in big strokes, but rather in smaller, canny refinements – that, together I think, justifies its existence as a brand-new game. PowerWash Simulator 2 might be mostly more of the same, but when that same is so charmingly ludicrous, so blissfully engaging – whether you’re looking for a social hangout or an excuse to chill and empty your mind – that’s hardly a criticism.”
The Outer Worlds 2 review – a strong sequel with a canny sense of when to iterate and when to reinvent
Slightly unbelievably, it’s been six years since developer Obsidian Entertainment unleashed The Outer Worlds onto a public that would immediately start confusing it with Outer Wilds. Since then, I’ve continued, helplessly, to muddle those names up in everything I write – and now, as The Outer Worlds returns for a sequel, I’m probably going to start doing it all over again (I actually just did, so this is already going well). The Outer Worlds 2 is Obsidian’s attempt to go bigger, better, and harder following an original outing that received only modest acclaim. And the good news is it seems to have succeeded, delivering an action-RPG in a silly sci-fi skin that improves on its predecessor in many ways, even if it’s not quite as memorable as it could – and probably should – be. You can find out more in Alex Donaldson’s review.
“At its worst, this is a sequel that slips into the same comfort food zone as the original,” Alex wrote. “inoffensive, breezy, but also not necessarily all that memorable. When the worst on offer is ‘pretty good and unobjectionable’, that seems like a win of sorts all the same. [But] where this sequel excels is in getting out of this zone more often and more effortlessly. That’s thanks to a more refined experience at every turn – companions, shooting, movement, role-playing, the branch of the narrative. It’s all better. These strengths combine with the gameplay variance offered by robust RPG systems to have me seriously considering a second and third playthrough, which just wasn’t something I was ever compelled to consider with the original.”
Here’s everything announced in the jam-packed autumn Galaxies Showcase
You can barely move for video game showcases these days, which comes with obvious pros and cons. On the one hand, they’re a fantastic way to keep abreast of the industry’s immense multitude of upcoming releases – particularly the ones that don’t have the resources to launch multi-million dollar marketing campaigns – but you’re also risking information overload. This week, for instance, marked 2025’s second Galaxies Showcase, which managed to pack in close to 50 games in just 60 minutes. That’s a lot to keep track of as they whizzed on by! One blink and you might miss a corker, so hopefully Eurogamer’s lengthy round-up of what turned out to be some pretty cool games will help you stay on top of things.
“Just when you thought the games news might be slowing as the year trundles toward its end, along comes the Galaxy Showcase with another sizeable helping of announcements, trailers, premieres, shadow drops, and more,” I wrote. “This autumn celebration, which follows on from its spring showcase in April, featured everything from angry cats to post-apocalyptic postman, with the likes of Nacon, Saber Interactive, and Team17 all putting in an appearance.” And if that piques your interest, click the link below to learn more.
DayZ creator Dean Hall is a changed man – after years of living the high life, he’s focused on saving a studio that flew too close to the sun
Back when zombie survival game DayZ blew up, its creator Dean Hall was a big name. Big enough that he was able to depart the project to set up his own studio, RocketWerkz, in 2014. Unfortunately, that departure – coming not long after DayZ’s early access launch – rankled fans, earning Hall a reputation that has lingered throughout RocketWerkz’s first few projects: station builder Stationeers and virtual reality strategy game Out of Ammo. And that would probably have been fine if Hall’s big gambit – survival game Icarus – hadn’t got off to such a disastrous start in 2021, casting him as the bad guy once again in many players’ minds. Four years later, a corner has been turned and Icarus is heading to consoles; but as Bertie discovered while chatting with Hall this week, it took a lot of hard work to bring RocketWerkz back from the brink.
“Performance issues, design issues, bugs – the game suffered a cocktail of problems.”, Bertie explained of Icarus’ launch. “There was one particular bug that prevented you from playing in a language other than English, which understandably provoked a fierce reaction from people who didn’t want to play in English. ‘We were getting destroyed,’ Hall says. And there was no other option than for RocketWerkz to fix it; with Icarus, everything was on the line. Hall’s funds, which had once felt inexhaustible, were rapidly depleting; Hall had originally sought a publisher for Icarus to no avail – some companies came close but were the wrong fit. And he’d sold as many shares in the company – with a chunk going to Tencent – as he was comfortable parting with. RocketWerkz was on the precipice.”
We need more trashy arcade racers like this Cruis’n Blast spiritual successor, Fast and Furious – pure video game junk food
And finally this week, Tom “rubbish at video games” Orry raised a glass to trash – or to put it more kindly, the gaming equivalent of junk food. Specifically, we’re talking Cruis’n Blast spiritual successor Fast and Furious: Arcade Edition; a wholly unremarkable racer that manages to be endearingly fun nonsense all the same. Sure, you might not want to gorge on it, Tom argues, but – particularly as life gets busier and the brain cells get slower – there’s absolutely a time and place for some pleasantly mindless play, even if it does give you the squits. To trash!
“I’m currently planning a heap of Game of the Year coverage,” Tom wrote, “and make no mistake, Fast and Furious: Arcade Edition isn’t going to appear anywhere near it. Likewise, I wouldn’t put the Burger King plant-based Whopper or a Greggs vegan sausage roll on my list of best meals, but that doesn’t stop me wanting to eat them at every opportunity.”