Square Enix director Naoki Hamaguchi took the Gamescom 2026 stage to show the first substantial gameplay footage of Final Fantasy VII Revelation — the third and final chapter of the FF7 Remake trilogy. The Planet’s Crisis trailer had a lot to unpack: two beloved characters joining the playable roster, a confrontation with the Planet’s deadliest guardians, a new job-inspired outfit system, and a world opening up further than ever before.
FINAL FANTASY VII REVELATION | The Planet’s Crisis Trailer — via FINAL FANTASY on YouTube
Vincent Valentine and Cid Highwind Join the Party
For the first time in the remake series, Vincent Valentine and Cid Highwind are confirmed playable characters. Vincent, the brooding former Turk who slept in the Shinra Mansion basement throughout much of the original game, and Cid, the no-nonsense pilot with a foul mouth and a giant spear, have been teased since Rebirth — and Revelation is where they finally step fully into the action. Both were fan-requested additions, and their appearance in the trailer signals that the full roster of beloved FFVII characters will be present for the finale.
Image courtesy of Square Enix
Three Weapons at Once — and Sephiroth’s Meteor
The trailer’s centrepiece is as apocalyptic as it sounds: Sephiroth summons Meteor, and the Planet responds by awakening Ruby Weapon, Emerald Weapon, and Ultimate Weapon simultaneously. Players face all three in what appears to be a colossal multi-boss sequence fought across desert sands, mid-air dogfights, and at the bottom of the sea. In the original game, Ruby and Emerald Weapon were hidden post-game superbosses — seeing them woven into the main narrative raises the stakes considerably for Revelation’s story.
The FITS System — Classic FF Jobs in Remake Form
A new gameplay layer called the FITS system was shown, with Cloud donning a “Warrior” outfit and Tifa wearing a “Black Mage” FITS. These aren’t just cosmetic — each FITS grants new abilities and a specialized role inspired by classic Final Fantasy jobs. Think of it as a job system layered over the existing combat: Cloud’s Warrior FITS emphasizes brute-force offense while Tifa’s Black Mage FITS opens up magical attacks and summon-based play. The FITS system appears to be one of Revelation’s biggest mechanical additions.
Image courtesy of Square Enix
Open World Gets Even Bigger — Highwind, Parachute, Submarine
Revelation expands on Rebirth’s open-world ambitions with new traversal methods: the iconic Highwind airship enables seamless open-world travel, while parachuting and a grappling hook add vertical mobility. Chocobo mounts return, and the Submarine — a beloved feature from the original 1997 game — makes its return, suggesting meaningful underwater sections. As we reported when FF7 Revelation was confirmed for Gamescom, the team has been building on Rebirth’s open-world systems, and this trailer shows the results.
Typhon Joins the Summon Roster
Tifa was shown summoning Typhon, a powerful wind/storm entity rooted in classic Final Fantasy lore. Typhon is a new addition to the remake trilogy’s summon lineup and appeared to deal massive area damage in the trailer beat shown. The summon roster — already expanded significantly in Rebirth — continues to grow for the finale.
Spring 2027 — and This Time, All Platforms at Once
FF7 Revelation is set for Spring 2027 on PS5, Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox Series X|S, and PC (Steam, Epic Games Store, and Xbox on PC). No specific date was given at Gamescom. Notably, this is the first entry in the remake trilogy to launch simultaneously across all platforms: FF7 Remake was a timed PS4 exclusive, and Rebirth launched on PS5 before reaching other platforms. For Singapore fans on Switch 2 or Xbox who sat out the first two games, Revelation is the first entry in the trilogy you’ll be able to play on day one without waiting for a port. SGD pricing has not been confirmed.
The wait is finally over for one of the most-watched free-to-play games on Singapore fans’ radars. NetEase Games and developer Naked Rain took the stage at Gamescom Opening Night Live on 25 August to drop the launch date for their open-world urban RPG Ananta: January 15, 2027, worldwide. The studio also confirmed that the game’s full roster of playable characters can be unlocked through story progression — no gacha pulls required.
Ananta World Premiere Trailer | gamescom Opening Night Live 2026 — via The Game Awards on YouTube
From Project Mugen to Ananta — What Singapore Fans Watched Grow
The game first turned heads at Gamescom 2023 under the working title Project Mugen, earning comparisons to Grand Theft Auto for its dense open-world city design layered over anime-style characters and supernatural combat. It was renamed Ananta — meaning “infinity” or “without end” in Sanskrit — in November 2024. As we covered ahead of this year’s ONL, the game had been quiet for nearly a year before this week’s reveal, making the release date confirmation all the more welcome.
Image courtesy of NetEase Games
January 15, 2027 — Platforms and Availability
Ananta launches simultaneously worldwide on:
PlayStation 5
PC — via Steam and NetEase’s own client
iOS and Android
No Nintendo Switch 2 or Xbox version has been announced. Singapore players on PS5 and PC have a clear path to the game on day one; mobile availability makes it accessible to the large share of the SEA market that plays on phone. No SGD pricing has been announced for cosmetic items yet, but the base game is free-to-play.
Image courtesy of NetEase Games
No Character Gacha — How You Build Your Roster
This is the headline for anyone burned by the standard free-to-play model. According to information published ahead of the gamescom reveal, Naked Rain confirmed that playable ACD agents are obtained by progressing through the story, not through random banner pulls. Monetisation instead focuses on cosmetics — outfits, vehicles, and housing customisation — rather than the characters themselves.
For Singapore and SEA gamers who have watched years of gacha fatigue accumulate across mobile RPGs, that framing matters. Free-to-play with no character gacha positions Ananta closer to titles like Fortnite or Path of Exile than a typical mobile gacha. Whether the cosmetics pricing stays reasonable is something only the live game will confirm — but the baseline commitment is the right one.
Image courtesy of NetEase Games
Two Cities, Infinite Chaos — What the Open World Looks Like
The game spans Nova City — a neon-lit Japanese-style metropolis — and Lingyun City in Chongxiao, drawing from the architecture of Shanghai and Hangzhou. The gamescom trailer doubled down on the “anime GTA” comparisons with parkour, wall-running, rope-swinging between skyscrapers, vehicle hijacking, flying cars, yachts, helicopters, and hang gliders, all set inside a city dense enough to get genuinely lost in.
Combat is built around martial arts — Shaolin kung fu techniques learned from NPC masters — and the four-character squad system gives each member distinct abilities. Over 100 NPCs carry individual storylines; building bonds with them unlocks new skills for your team.
Image courtesy of NetEase Games
Ananta lands on January 15, 2027 on PS5, PC, iOS, and Android. Wishlist it now on Steam. We’ll keep tracking it in our game news section.
Ubisoft dropped one of Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026’s bigger surprises: Rainbow Six Tactics, a single-player, turn-based tactical spin-off starring the operators of Rainbow Six Siege. No multiplayer lobby. No Battle Pass. No live-service drip. Just you, your squad, and some very destructible walls.
Rainbow Six Tactics – Official Reveal Trailer | gamescom 2026 — via IGN on YouTube
What Exactly Is Rainbow Six Tactics?
Developed by Ubisoft Paris — whose team includes veterans from Mario + Rabbids and Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon — Rainbow Six Tactics drops the real-time firefights of Siege for a deliberate, turn-by-turn approach. Think XCOM, but with gadgets you already know from years of Siege updates.
Players step into the role of Six, also known as Paul Bishop, the protagonist from the Rainbow Six Vegas games, leading a series of missions across 45+ handcrafted worldwide locations. Each map offers distinct objectives: defuse a bomb, rescue a hostage, neutralise a VIP. Ubisoft’s signature destructible environments — breach a wall, drone through a ceiling — translate directly into the turn-based format via a Breach Planning mode that lets you choreograph a coordinated entry before executing it.
Image courtesy of Ubisoft
Fifteen Operators, Full Gadget Loadouts
Ubisoft has confirmed 15 Rainbow Six Siege operators for the launch roster, each carrying their signature abilities and gadgets into the strategic layer. Confirmed names include Nøkk, Glaz, Ash, Doc, Montagne, Sledge, and Twitch, among others. Every operator comes with a dedicated skill tree, giving you room to invest in the playstyles that suit your approach — whether that’s hard-breaching, recon drones, or support.
Image courtesy of Ubisoft
Narratively, the story slots into the gap between Siege’s Year 10 and Year 11 content, written in collaboration with Siege’s own lore team. Existing Siege fans will recognise the characters and broader universe; newcomers get a self-contained tactical campaign that doesn’t require hundreds of hours of Siege context to follow.
No Microtransactions — Full Stop
This is the detail that will get Singapore PC and console gamers talking: Ubisoft has committed that Rainbow Six Tactics will feature no in-game store and no live-service structure whatsoever. For a publisher that built one of gaming’s most aggressive cosmetic ecosystems inside Siege, this is a meaningful statement. What you buy is the complete game.
Image courtesy of Ubisoft
Whether that commitment holds all the way to a 2027 release date remains to be seen — but it’s the kind of clarity the genre has been missing, and exactly what XCOM fans who bounced off the Siege ecosystem have been asking for from a Tom Clancy tactical spin-off.
Release Date, Platforms, and What Singapore Gamers Should Know
Rainbow Six Tactics launches in 2027 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC (via Ubisoft Store, Steam, and Epic Games Store). A specific release date hasn’t been confirmed beyond the 2027 window announced at Gamescom. The game also supports cloud gaming via GeForce Now and Blacknut.
All three platforms are readily available in Singapore. PS5 and Xbox Series X|S are sold through major game retailers and electronics chains here, and the PC storefronts (Steam especially) are the dominant way Singapore PC gamers buy. No SGD pricing has been confirmed yet.
For Singapore tactical strategy fans who’ve been kept busy by XCOM 2, Mario + Rabbids, and Gears Tactics, Rainbow Six Tactics looks like the next genuinely meaty single-player entry in the genre — and the fact that it comes with a cast of operators they may already know from Siege gives it an unusually strong hook. Keep it on your wishlist. More game news here.
HoYoverse — the studio behind Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, and Zenless Zone Zero — just revealed the last thing most fans expected from them: a cozy galactic life-sim. Petit Planet made its playable Gamescom debut this week and is officially confirmed for a Winter 2026 global launch on PC and mobile.
Image courtesy of HoYoverse
Welcome to the Starsea
Think Animal Crossing meets Stardew Valley, but set in a soft, hand-drawn galactic universe called the Starsea. You play as a Planet Tender — tending your own planet, befriending fuzzy alien neighbours called Neighbors, farming, crafting, fishing, cooking, and decorating to your heart’s content. A central progression tree called the Luca Arbor grows as you play, gradually unlocking new areas, creatures, and ways to personalise your world.
Unlike a closed farming sim, Petit Planet lets you hop between other planets in the Starsea — giving it a more open, exploratory feel. The art direction is painterly and warm, instantly recognisable as HoYoverse-quality work, but tonally miles away from their combat-heavy titles. It is their first IP built entirely around lifestyle and social play rather than action.
Two Betas Done — One More Before Launch
This isn’t vaporware. HoYoverse has already run two closed betas and is planning one final beta ahead of the Winter 2026 release. A playable PC demo is live on the Gamescom show floor right now in Hall 6.1, Booth B030 at Koelnmesse in Cologne through 30 August. Attendees can also meet the game’s mascot Oumuamua roaming the venue.
Petit Planet gamescom 2026 Special Video — via Petit Planet on YouTube
Why This Is a Bigger Deal for Singapore Than It Looks
Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, and Zenless Zone Zero together hold some of the biggest live-service player numbers in Singapore. But they all attract a very specific type of player — action and gacha-focused. Petit Planet is free-to-play and cross-platform between PC and mobile, targeting the audience that has been watching HoYoverse from the sidelines wondering when they’d make something without combat.
Image courtesy of HoYoverse
Cross-platform save is a key practical win for Singapore: you can tend your planet on your phone during the commute and pick it up on PC at home. Pre-registration is open now on the official site, Google Play, and the Apple App Store.
Image courtesy of HoYoverse
No Singapore-specific pricing or SEA launch detail has been confirmed yet — free-to-play means zero barrier to entry regardless. With a Winter 2026 window, we’re looking at a November–February release. Follow our game news section and we’ll update as the launch date locks in.
The Iron Throne awaits — and this time, you’re the one deciding who sits on it. Game of Thrones: War for Westeros, the long-awaited RTS from PlaySide Studios, has dropped its official gameplay reveal teaser ahead of tonight’s full showcase at Gamescom Opening Night Live. It is the franchise’s first proper real-time strategy title in years, and what’s on display already looks like the GoT war game PC gamers here in Singapore have been quietly hoping for.
Dragonfire, Cavalry, and Castle Sieges — What the Teaser Shows
Game of Thrones: War for Westeros | Official Gameplay Reveal Teaser — via Game of Thrones: War for Westeros on YouTube
The teaser is brief but punchy: soldiers charge across open ground, cavalry wheels into infantry lines, and then a dragon swoops down and incinerates everything in a single devastating pass of dragonfire. It is a snapshot of what PlaySide is promising — brutal real-time battles that cover every era and every scale of conflict from the show.
Image courtesy of PlaySide Studios / HBO
Steam screenshots that went live alongside the teaser fill in more detail: isometric RTS battles across distinct biomes (sun-drenched Dornish coastlines, frozen Northern passes, rain-soaked Riverlands castles), unit formations with visible flanking and counter-charge dynamics, and sieges where you can pack archers onto the walls of a contested keep. The visual fidelity for an RTS is genuinely impressive — each screenshot reads clearly at a glance, which is exactly what you need when you are juggling multiple fronts at once.
Image courtesy of PlaySide Studios / HBO
Command All Four Great Factions
The faction lineup mirrors the show’s central conflicts. Players can take command of House Stark (Jon Snow), House Lannister (Jaime), House Targaryen (Daenerys and her dragons), or lead the Night King’s White Walkers — each with their own units, heroes, and abilities. There is also a full single-player campaign that lets you re-fight and reimagine iconic battles and turning points from the series, alongside a multiplayer skirmish mode for head-to-head play.
Image courtesy of PlaySide Studios / HBO
That overworld map — sprawling from Castle Black down through the Riverlands and into Dorne — doubles as a strategic layer where you manage castles, resources, and diplomacy before armies ever meet on the battlefield. When they do clash, the game shifts into the isometric RTS combat maps seen in the screenshots. It is a classic two-layer strategy setup, and for GoT fans it has obvious appeal: every major region of Westeros is a contested piece of real estate.
Full Reveal Tonight at Gamescom Opening Night Live
PlaySide is holding the full gameplay presentation for tonight’s Gamescom Opening Night Live, which streams at 2:00 AM SGT on 26 August (8:00 PM CEST / 11:00 AM PT on 25 August). Singapore fans who can stay up — or who are happy to catch the VOD — should expect a much longer look at the game, and possibly a firmer release date announcement beyond the current “early 2027” window.
Image courtesy of PlaySide Studios / HBO
For now, the game is confirmed for PC via Steam with an early 2027 release window. No console versions have been announced. Singapore PC gamers can wishlist it on Steam now — the store page is live with the full screenshot gallery. Check back after tonight’s ONL show for coverage of whatever PlaySide reveals in full. In the meantime, see more gaming news here.
The world premiere footage of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Songs of the Past went live tonight at Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026, ending months of anticipation after CD Projekt Red confirmed the expansion would have its first public showing on Tuesday. As we covered ahead of tonight’s reveal, Songs of the Past has been shaping up to be one of the biggest expansions CDPR has ever released — and the Gamescom slot finally gave fans their first real look at it.
Image courtesy of CD Projekt Red
Blood-and-Wine Scale — What Songs of the Past Is Bringing
CDPR is calling Songs of the Past a full expansion, not a DLC drop — and the scope backs that up. At roughly 40 hours of new content, it is on par with Blood and Wine (2016), the largest expansion the studio has ever shipped for The Witcher 3. Fool’s Theory, a studio staffed by Witcher industry veterans, is co-developing alongside CDPR.
The most celebrated feature confirmation: Gwent is back. Community manager Marcin Łukaszewski confirmed Gwent’s return via Game Rant, putting to rest fan speculation that the card game might not carry over from the base game era. The Belleteyn festival setting hinted at by gamescom booth artwork also points to a new region distinct from anything in the base game or prior expansions.
Co-CEO Michał Nowakowski has described the expansion as “in a way” a prologue that bridges Geralt’s story toward The Witcher 4 — making it required reading (or playing) for franchise fans tracking where the series is headed.
Image courtesy of CD Projekt Red
Playable Demo at Gamescom — Where to Find It
Alongside tonight’s ONL premiere, CDPR confirmed that Songs of the Past is playable on the Gamescom show floor starting tomorrow, August 26. The demo is available at:
Entertainment area: Booths B030 and A031, Hall 8.1 — open August 26–30
Business area: Booth B065, Hall 4.2 — guided presentations August 26–28
A CDPR representative noted the demo team “made every effort to find the ideal balance between showcasing new content and avoiding major spoilers” — so expect a curated slice rather than an open-ended session. A closed-door preview was held at CDPR’s Warsaw HQ on August 20 for select press, and early impressions had already been circulating ahead of tonight.
Image courtesy of CD Projekt Red
Five Days of REDstreams Starting Tomorrow
Can’t make it to Cologne? CDPR is running daily REDstreams August 26–30 from the Gamescom venue, covering game showcases, behind-the-scenes footage, developer commentary, and special guests. You can catch them live at CDPR’s official YouTube channel and Twitch page as each broadcast drops. The day-by-day schedule will be posted to CDPR’s socials as the week kicks off.
Platforms, Release Window, and What SG Gamers Should Know
Songs of the Past launches in 2027 — the studio pushed the window back from its originally planned 2026 release to, in Nowakowski’s words, “achieve the best possible result.” Given that Blood and Wine is still widely considered the benchmark for how good a Witcher expansion can be, the extra time feels earned.
Confirmed platforms: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. Notably, the expansion is not coming to Nintendo Switch 2, even though the Witcher 3 Complete Edition launched on Switch. No pricing has been announced yet for any region — SGD pricing will depend on what CDPR and local digital storefronts set when pre-orders open. For now, PS5 and PC players (Steam, GOG) are the expected access points for Singapore fans.
The Witcher 3 has sold over 65 million copies worldwide since 2015, and the fanbase across SEA is substantial — Songs of the Past is genuinely one of the bigger expansions coming to current-gen hardware next year. Keep an eye on the REDstreams this week for more detail as CDPR peels back the layers.
For more upcoming releases and game news, stay tuned to GameTrader.
Somebody on YouTube has quietly done the thing Square Enix keeps refusing to do. A creator working under the name FusionVerse Production has rebuilt the cutscenes of Final Fantasy VIII as a modern cinematic feature, and the one-hour cut of it is sitting there right now, free, looking better than any of us had a right to expect from a fan project.
It is not a game. We will get to that. But as a look at what a Final Fantasy VIII remake could feel like in 2026, it is the most convincing pitch anyone has made — including Square Enix, who have made none.
FINAL FANTASY VIII Remake – The Movie (1 HOUR) — via FusionVerse Production on YouTube
What FusionVerse Production actually built
The project is an AI-driven cinematic retelling. FusionVerse has been recreating FF8‘s cutscenes shot by shot and rolling them out in parts across 2026 — Squall’s clash with Seifer, the Fire Cavern and Ifrit, the Dollet mission, the ballroom waltz — with new 3D-style character models, reworked audio and re-recorded music. The one-hour movie linked above is the consolidated cut of the story so far.
DSOGaming, which has covered the project twice since February, described the goal as retelling the game’s full story as a feature-length movie while staying faithful to the original adventure. That faithfulness is the whole trick, and it is what separates this from the endless churn of “AI trailer” clickbait.
It started with a concept trailer that made the rounds earlier in the year, and honestly still holds up as the best single minute of the lot.
FINAL FANTASY VIII Remake – Next-Gen Concept Trailer — via FusionVerse Production on YouTubeThe ballroom sequence, rebuilt. Image courtesy of FusionVerse Production.
It looks the way FF8 lives in your memory
Here is the compliment that matters, and it is a genuine one: this looks correct. Squall has the right jaw, the right scar, the right permanent expression of a teenager who would rather be anywhere else. Rinoa reads as Rinoa. The SeeD uniform detailing, the gunblade’s revolver mechanism, the fur collar — all present, all restrained, none of it “reimagined” into something the 1999 art team wouldn’t recognise.
That restraint is rarer than it sounds. Most fan remakes and most AI passes at classic games drift immediately into generic photoreal mush, where every character ends up looking like a stock 3D asset wearing a costume. FusionVerse resisted. The lighting is warm and cinematic without flattening Tetsuya Nomura’s character design, and several shots are framed close enough to the original FMVs that you can hold them side by side and see the intent survive the upgrade.
The 1999 original, as preserved in FINAL FANTASY VIII Remastered. Image courtesy of Square Enix.
Put that 1999 frame next to FusionVerse’s version and the point lands: the fan project isn’t replacing the memory, it’s rendering the memory. Anyone who played FF8 on a PlayStation in a Singapore living room back then knows the difference between those two things immediately. This is the second one, and it’s the far harder one to get right.
The FF7 Remake comparison Square Enix invited
You cannot look at this without thinking about Final Fantasy VII Remake, and that comparison is not the fan project’s fault. Square Enix set the terms themselves.
Seven years and three games of official remake budget. Image courtesy of Square Enix.FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE INTERGRADE – Launch Trailer | Switch 2 & Xbox — via FINAL FANTASY on YouTube
Meanwhile Final Fantasy VIII — a game that shipped 9.6 million copies and outsold most of the series — has received exactly one modern release: the 2019 Remastered, which is the PC port with cleaned-up character models and a few toggles. No new engine. No new combat. No trilogy.
To be fair to the official product, FF7 Remake does things the fan movie structurally cannot: a real-time battle system, a rebuilt Midgar you can walk through, a full voice cast, and a narrative that argues with its own source material. FusionVerse’s project is a highlight reel by comparison. But it makes the visual case in an hour, on a hobbyist’s budget, and that is not nothing.
The one thing it’s missing is the entire thing
Watch the full hour and the frustration arrives right on schedule. Every time a scene builds to the moment where you would take control, it cuts. There is no Draw command. No Junction screen. No Triple Triad. No Renzokuken, no trigger tap, no Guardian Force summon grinding through its glorious twenty-second animation while you decide whether you have time to make kopi.
Renzokuken. The bit no cinematic can substitute for. Image courtesy of Square Enix.
That is the gap, and it is an enormous one. FF8‘s identity is not only in its FMVs — it is in a genuinely strange, genuinely divisive set of systems. Drawing magic from enemies instead of buying it. Junctioning spells to stats and then never casting them because casting them makes you weaker. Enemies that level up alongside you, so the player who grinds hardest gets punished. You can render Balamb Garden in 4K and still not have Final Fantasy VIII until someone rebuilds that.
What a funded remake gets to do: rebuild the fight, not just the cutscene. Image courtesy of Square Enix.
Which is exactly why the fan movie is best understood as a pitch deck rather than a product. It proves the look. It cannot prove the game — and no fan team, AI-assisted or not, is going to build 60 hours of JRPG systems in a YouTube upload schedule.
So when does Square Enix actually make this?
The honest answer is that nobody at Square Enix has committed to anything, and the people best placed to do it keep politely declining.
FF8 director Yoshinori Kitase has been asked repeatedly. Back in 2019 he suggested a remake would be a project for the company’s younger staff rather than himself. Speaking to IGN in February 2024, as reported by VGC, he said the Junction system was “a very difficult system for some people to get into,” and that a remake would need the “difficulty and approachability” rebalanced. That is a director who has clearly thought about it. It is not a director who has been given a budget.
And Rebirth and Revelation director Naoki Hamaguchi, the most obvious candidate on paper, has effectively ruled himself out. Asked about fan demand for another numbered remake, he said — as relayed by VICE from a Game Informer interview — that such a project “might be in better hands if it went to another creator” at Square Enix, after a decade on the FF7 trilogy.
So: the tech is proven, the demand is visible in the view counts, the director has a design fix in mind, and the studio has spent seven years demonstrating it knows exactly how to do this. The only missing ingredient is a green light. Revelation wraps the FF7 project in Spring 2027, which frees up the most experienced remake team in the industry. Square Enix, the queue starts there.
What you can actually play tonight
Until that happens, the practical move for Singapore players is unromantic but effective. FINAL FANTASY VIII Remastered is S$27 on Steam and also sits on Switch, PS4, Xbox and mobile — it is the 1999 game with sharper character models, plus battle-speed and no-encounter toggles that make the Junction grind far less punishing than it was on a PlayStation memory card. It remains the only official way to actually play this story.
On the other side, FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE INTERGRADE runs S$55.40 and REBIRTH S$67.90 on Steam SG, with both now on Switch 2 and Xbox as well — so if you want to see what a fully resourced remake of a PS1 classic looks like end to end, that is the going rate.
Watch the fan movie for the hour of “what if.” Then go play the remaster and imagine the Balamb Garden battle theme kicking in with a real budget behind it. For more on Square Enix’s plans, keep an eye on our game news coverage.
4A Games and Deep Silver brought Metro 2039 to Gamescom Opening Night Live tonight with new gameplay footage and a firm confirmation of the February 2027 release window. The next instalment in the acclaimed post-apocalyptic FPS series is heading to PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC — and if tonight’s footage is anything to go by, it represents a deliberate tonal return to the dark, claustrophobic tension that made Metro 2033 and Last Light so memorable.
Where Metro Exodus opened the series up to wide outdoor environments and large semi-open maps, Metro 2039 is pulling back. The focus is once again on the tunnels, occupied metro stations, and the oppressive close-quarters feel of underground Moscow — a shift 4A Games has said is partly inspired by the world’s changed understanding of conflict and survival since Exodus shipped.
Hunter leads the Novoreich, the primary antagonist faction of Metro 2039. (Image: Deep Silver)
A New Protagonist, A New Enemy
Metro 2039 does not follow Artyom. The new player character is simply referred to as The Stranger — identity deliberately kept vague, likely by design. The antagonist faction this time is the Novoreich, a totalitarian regime that has risen to control significant parts of the Moscow metro system. At its head is Hunter, a figure who appears in the Gamescom footage as a genuinely unsettling villain with shades of the series’ best antagonists.
The game’s story was developed in close collaboration with Dmitry Glukhovsky, the author of the Metro novels that the series is based on. While Metro 2039 is not a direct adaptation of a specific book, it draws on Glukhovsky’s vision of this universe — which, given the thematic depth of the source material, is a solid foundation.
Back to What Made Metro Great
The gameplay footage shown at Gamescom underlines how different Metro 2039 feels in atmosphere from Exodus. Sightlines are short. Ammo is scarce. The lighting is oppressive and the sound design is immediately recognisable — dripping pipes, distant gunfire, the creak of ruined infrastructure. Whether navigating through a flooded station or an improvised outpost, the environmental storytelling appears as dense as ever.
Combat in Metro 2039 looks appropriately tense and resource-constrained. (Image: Deep Silver)
4A Games confirmed that the game supports stealth throughout, and that managing resources — gas mask filters, medkits, ammunition — remains central to the experience. The moral choice system from earlier Metro titles also appears to be returning in some form, though specific details weren’t outlined at this showing.
The claustrophobic tunnels of Moscow’s metro system are once again the game’s home territory. (Image: Deep Silver)
Playable at Gamescom This Week
For those attending Gamescom in Cologne, Metro 2039 will be playable on the show floor at Hall 9.1 from 27 to 30 August. It’s the game’s first public hands-on, and the setup is supported by NVIDIA, AOC, and Turtle Beach. Press and content creators get early access from 26 August with first impressions expected that morning.
Platforms and Release
Metro 2039 launches in February 2027 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam, Epic Games Store, and Xbox PC. It sits in a competitive window — February 2027 is also home to Fable and God of War: Laufey — but if 4A Games delivers on the tension and atmosphere on display at Gamescom, Metro 2039 could be the survival FPS that defines that month.
London Is Shattered, and Only the Knights of the Round Table Can Save It
Eclipse Glow Games made a striking impression at tonight’s Gamescom Opening Night Live, dropping a brand-new story trailer for Tides of Annihilation — the Chengdu-based studio’s ambitious third-person action-adventure that asks a wild question: what if Arthurian legend was all that stood between humanity and the apocalypse?
The trailer lays out a London torn apart. An otherworldly invasion has fractured the city, leaving only one survivor: Gwendolyn, a young woman who somehow emerged from the devastation with a unique and terrible gift — the ability to summon spectral manifestations of the Knights of the Round Table. Driven by the need to save her sister, restore the shattered world, and exact vengeance against the demi-gods of Avalon, Gwendolyn sets out in search of the Holy Grail.
Gwendolyn navigates the ruins of a shattered London in Tides of Annihilation. (Image: Eclipse Glow Games / Steam)
Two Worlds, One Warrior
Tides of Annihilation takes place across two distinct settings. The first is a fractured modern London — recognisable, but warped beyond recovery, its streets and skylines broken by whatever force swept through. The second is Avalon, the mythical realm of Arthurian legend, now ruled by demi-gods who appear to be the source of the invasion. Gwendolyn must navigate both, pulling on the power of fallen knights to survive.
Among the spectral warriors players can summon are three named knights: Lamorak, Bors, and Palamedes — each bringing distinct combat styles to Gwendolyn’s arsenal. The game organises these into two knight sets of four, giving players a range of tactical options as they work through what Eclipse Glow describes as a linear story with meaningful exploration spaces woven in.
The Knights of the Round Table manifest as colossal spectral warriors. (Image: Eclipse Glow Games)
Action Built on Rhythm and Reflection
Gameplay is third-person, single-player, and action-focused. Gwendolyn has access to light and heavy attacks, dodge rolls, and deflects — the bones of a system that should feel familiar to action fans, but Eclipse Glow’s signature mechanic is the mirror-space. Details remain somewhat vague, but it appears to involve shifting between or layering the two worlds in real time during combat and traversal, adding a puzzle dimension to the moment-to-moment play.
The studio’s intent reads clearly: this is a prestige single-player experience with cinematic weight behind it, not a live-service or open-world checklist game.
Combat in Tides of Annihilation blends Gwendolyn’s own skills with the summoned power of the knights. (Image: Eclipse Glow Games / Steam)
From State of Play to Gamescom
If tonight’s trailer is your first look at Tides of Annihilation, you may have missed the game’s initial reveal at State of Play 2025, where it first appeared with the concept intact but fewer specifics. The Gamescom ONL showing tonight marks the first proper story trailer for the project — the closest look yet at Gwendolyn’s motivation, the game’s tone, and the scope of its two-world design.
Platforms and Release
Tides of Annihilation is heading to PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC (via Steam and the Epic Games Store). No release date has been confirmed — Eclipse Glow has been targeting 2026, though the studio has not made that window official. Tonight’s showing suggests the project is progressing, but we’d temper expectations on a near-term launch date until the developers say otherwise.
Eclipse Glow Games is backed by Tencent investment and based in Chengdu, making Tides of Annihilation one of the more high-profile action games coming out of China’s increasingly ambitious games industry. For Singapore players following the gamescom coverage, this is absolutely one to put on the radar — and arguably the most visually distinct action game shown tonight.
