After a delay from 2025, Slay the Spire 2 finally has a date: March 5, 2026, when it hits Steam Early Access. Developer Mega Crit dropped a big surprise with the announcement — the sequel includes a full co-op mode at launch, letting up to four players tackle the Spire together. It's not just extra bodies in a solo experience either; co-op comes with its own multiplayer-specific cards and team synergies built around the mode.

The sequel expands on the original with five playable characters (two brand new), fresh cards, relics, enemies, and environments. Mega Crit is using Early Access the same way they did with the first game — to balance content with community feedback — and estimates the game will stay in early access for one to two years. If the original is any indication, that time will be well spent. March 5 puts it on the same launch day as Pokemon Pokopia and Marathon, which is quite the weekend for anyone who enjoys too many games at once.

PC Gamer sat down with Embark Studios design director Virgil Watkins and audio director Bence Pajor ahead of Shrouded Sky, covering basically every major talking point in the Arc Raiders community right now.

On aggression-based matchmaking (ABMM), Watkins pushed back on the idea it's a hard binary. Players aren't auto-sorted into aggressive lobbies for a single fight — it's based on patterns of behavior across rounds, and Watkins says it's "far more nuanced" than the community perception. He acknowledged the system still needs tuning, but Embark wants to preserve tension and player autonomy rather than prescribing how people play. On the Expedition system, he admitted the 5 million coin threshold overshot expectations and hinted that future changes will tie more game loops into it beyond raw currency. On boss encounters, Watkins acknowledged players have become so effective at melting the Matriarch and Queen that the encounters are essentially solved — a tuning issue they're actively working on.

Audio director Pajor meanwhile gave a glimpse into how the game's distinctive sound is made: real gun recordings combined with mechanical and animal sounds for the Arc enemies, and a deliberate use of mundane ambient sounds to build tension through contrast. It's a solid read for anyone deep in the game.

During his Kinda Funny appearance, Todd Howard had some reassuring words about The Elder Scrolls 6. He described it as a return to Bethesda's "classic style" — the kind of game the studio is known for and that they've "missed." Howard acknowledged both Starfield and Fallout 76 were "creative detours," and TES6 is a course correction back to what Bethesda does best.

He also noted that the majority of the people who made Skyrim are still at Bethesda — a meaningful data point given how much talent churn the industry has seen. Howard admitted he regrets announcing the game as far back as 2018 given how long the wait has become, and didn't have much new to share beyond the "classic style" framing. But for fans who've been patient, that's probably the most comforting thing he could have said.

Avowed just turned one year old and Obsidian marked it with a substantial 2.0 update — plus a new platform launch on PlayStation 5. The headlining addition is New Game Plus, the most-requested feature since launch. Players carry forward spent attribute points, unlocked abilities, and key equipment (trinkets, rings, unique boots and gloves), while gear resets to level 1 and the world scales up to match.

Beyond NG+, the update adds three new playable races — Dwarves, Orlans, and Aumaua, each with their own stat bonuses — and mid-playthrough players can change their race via an in-game mirror rather than starting over. PS5 players are getting the full package from day one, including a year's worth of post-launch refinements. If you've been meaning to try Avowed or want an excuse to go back, the timing doesn't get better than this.

Crimson Desert is launching without a microtransaction shop, and Pearl Abyss wants you to know it. PR director Will Powers was unambiguous on the Dropped Frames podcast: "This is made to be a premium experience that you buy and enjoy the world, and not something for microtransactions. That is the transaction. Full stop." No cash shop. No secondary currency.

The game launches March 19, 2026 at $69.99. Powers didn't rule out future non-cosmetic DLC, but the base game is the complete experience. It's a notable commitment given Pearl Abyss's background with Black Desert Online's microtransaction model, and a welcome contrast to a world where even single-player RPGs like Assassin's Creed Shadows have snuck in cash shops. The game has already topped two million wishlists on Steam heading into its March launch.

Discord is rolling out global age verification in March, requiring face scanning or ID checks for users who want access to age-restricted content. The more interesting question is how Discord decides which servers get age-gated in the first place — the answer being "a combination of automated detection with AI validation and human review." The platform clarified it won't auto-gate servers based on a game's age rating alone, but the criteria remain vague enough to be a headache for server owners who aren't sure if they'll be in scope.

The rollout adds to an already uncomfortable picture — Discord has also told some UK users they'll be part of "an experiment" with an age-verification vendor whose investors include Peter Thiel, co-founder of Palantir, ICE's premier surveillance provider. If you've been meaning to look at Discord alternatives, the list of reasons keeps growing.

Ubisoft Toronto cuts 40 jobs as restructuring continues. The layoffs are part of the company's ongoing reorganization into "creative houses," and follow multiple studio closures and game cancellations since January. In a mildly ironic footnote, the same announcement confirmed that the Splinter Cell remake — announced over four years ago and largely silent since — is somehow still in development.

Replaced has been pushed from March 12 to April 14, 2026 — yet another delay for the cyberpunk 2.5D platformer first shown at E3 2021. Developer Sad Cat Studios says the game is "technically finished" but wants a few more weeks to polish based on feedback from a recently released Steam demo. The demo is still live on Steam if you want to check it out ahead of April.

Battlestate Games has dropped a new Escape from Tarkov roadmap teasing a new boss and a large-scale in-game event. Details are slim for now, but it signals continued development momentum for the extraction shooter.

EVE Online has launched Aura Guidance, a new AI-powered help tool trained on 5.8 million messages from the game's Rookie Help channel. CCP Games was eager to clarify this isn't generative AI creating content — it's a smarter Q&A system designed to help new players navigate one of gaming's most complex MMOs without replacing the game's existing human-driven support channels.

Anchor Point — the action-adventure studio founded by ex-Remedy Control designer Paul Ehreth under NetEase — has gone independent after NetEase ended the relationship. It's the latest in a long string of western studio departures as NetEase continues rolling back its 2022-2023 expansion. Ehreth is staying on to lead the studio and is actively seeking new investors.