You can play the latest entry in the Final Fantasy series, Final Fantasy XVI, on Xbox right now. Shadow dropped during today’s Xbox Games Showcase, players will be able to experience FFXVI’s slick-ass kaiju monster battles, incredible voice acting, and ho-hum story (because, hey, you can’t expect Square Enix to be perfect at everything). In addition to the base game, players will also get access to FFXVI’s two story DLCs The Rising Tide and Echoes of the Fallen which adds more story and a new Eikon (the game’s version of summons) Leviathan.

But that’s not all as the partnership between Xbox and Square Enix continues apace. Last year, Xbox brought the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV to the system. Later it was rumored, due to Square Enix’s stated desire to expand their games beyond the PlayStation ecosystem, that it would bring the Final Fantasy VII remake project to Xbox as well. That rumor has been proven true. The absurdly titled Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, which is the first entry in the FF7 reimagination project combined with the Yuffie-centric DLC, is coming to Xbox this winter.

Imagine playing Fortnite, but instead of fighting other players, all you want to do is break into houses to look for caches of slurp juice. Yes, the storm is closing in on you, and there's a bunch of enemies waiting to kill you, but all you want to do is take a walking tour of Tilted Towers. Then when the match is over, instead of queueing again, you start reading the in-game lore for Peely and Sabrina Carpenter. You can count your number of player kills on one hand meanwhile your number of deaths is in the hundreds. You've never achieved a victory royale, but you've never had more fun.

That's how I play Elden Ring Nightreign.

Nightreign is FromSoftware's first Elden Ring spinoff, and it's unlike any Souls game that the developer has done before. Nightreign has the conceit of so many battle royale games - multiplayer combat focused on acquiring resources across a large map that slowly shrinks over time - wrapped in the narrative, visual aesthetics, and combat of Elden Ring. Instead of the Tarnished, you are a Nightfarer. Instead of the expansive Lands Between, you are sent to Limveld, an island with an ever-shifting landscape. And instead of becoming the Elden Lord, your goal is …

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Infinity Nikki’s next update will add some major new features. Bubble Season starts April 29th and will include a new area, new activities, and, of course, new (and returning) outfits. But the biggest addition is one that fans have been asking for since launch: co-op. Check out the trailer above.

In the new season you’ll be able to have dress-up adventures with a friend in two player co-op mode. You can travel the world of Infinity Nikki together, solving special co-op mode puzzle games and participating in escort missions. Players will also prove they’re the most stylish one in the group chat with a fashion runway and new interactions that players can use in all the photos they’re going to take. 

Like every new Infinity Nikki season, there will be special outfits to collect – though none of them inspire in me the kind of fanaticism that the cowgirl outfit from two seasons ago did. (Which I did get without spending any money. Hooray!) For the first time though, IN is also bringing back outfits from previous seasons for players who missed out on them and for newbies to build up their wardrobe quickly. 

Speaking of wardrobe, Infinity Nikki is catching up to the MMO girlies by implementing a new dye system. In Bubble Season, players will be able to use dyes to change the color of their outfits the same way one can in World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV. No word on exactly how dyes will work or if they will be yet more things to spend your precious currency on. But I am interested in the potential of getting new colors for my clothes without the hassle of the current system, which involves the expensive and time consuming process of collecting duplicate outfits.

Bubble Season starts April 29th and if you’re one of the folks waiting for the game to come to PC, the Steam version of Infinity Nikki launches that day too.

I know, I know. It’s become a bit of a faux pas to describe one game using another and yet I am compelled. After a few hours with Blue Prince, I realized this game elicits the same feelings in me as Balatro. Not because it has anything to do with cards or passive-aggressive clowns named Jimbo, but because those hours I played passed as breezily by completely unnoticed as they did when I was knee deep in the poker roguelike. Blue Prince is a time-stealer and as with Balatro, you will be happy to be robbed.

Blue Prince is an architectural puzzle mystery game from developer Dogubomb. In it you play as a young man who inherits his uncle’s magical mansion. On your first day at the house you receive a note laying out the rules by which you will earn your inheritance. This house has 45 rooms. Find the secret 46th room that’s not displayed on any of the mansion’s blueprints (get it, Blue Prince / blueprints) and the house is yours. 

To find the 46th room you must create or “draft” rooms one after the other connecting them via their doors. You start each day with 50 steps and passing into a room takes one step (or more depending on the type of room). When you run out of steps y …

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Black folks are loud. We laugh loud, we love loud, we protest loud. But when we really want to show our approval, we get quiet first. When we laugh at something funny, like really laugh, it sounds like a thin wheeze before sound bursts forth like a storm. And within seconds of starting South of Midnight, as I walked around the protagonist Hazel’s home and seeing a piece of art that was an obvious and deliberate homage to the painter Annie Lee’s Blue Monday, I wordlessly put my Steam Deck down and took a quiet lap around my living room before I started shouting.

South of Midnight is the latest title from Compulsion Games, a Canadian studio best known for making We Happy Few. It follows Hazel, a young woman who must rescue her mother after a hurricane sweeps their home away. Along her journey, she comes into her powers as a Weaver, or guardians who can see the strands that connect all life in what’s known as the Grand Tapestry and can repair it when those strands get knotted by pain and trauma.

The game is an action platformer. Hazel progresses by using her Weaver abilities to heal the blighted landscape and defeat enemies called haints – a Southern term used to describe gho …

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