Saw: Genesis was set to be the next asymmetrical multiplayer horror game to debut, but its 2026 early-access launch has been pushed to 2027, developer Bloober Team announced.  The horror-focused studio said it needs more time to get Saw: Genesis to a place the team is satisfied with. It's an interesting admission, since some teams use Steam Early Access for exactly that purpose: to get the game in good shape. But in the increasingly competitive and crowded space of licensed multiplayer horror games, a bad first impression may be more damaging than a reverse bear trap strapped to your face. We've seen a lot of games like this since Dead by Daylight kicked off a wave of them in 2016, but my appetite remains insatiable because no two are really quite alike. It's exciting to see how studios transpose different horror movies' signature elements into interactive experiences, but when I checked out Saw: Genesis at Summer Game Fest, I came away underwhelmed.  The 3v1 gameplay loop wasn't easy to follow in my hands-off demo. It's set about a century before the movies, with one person playing as a Jigsaw-like "Judge" who runs three others through his maze of torture devices and traps, trying to kill them all before any of them can escape the end of his trials.  The team of three may have brief windows of opportunity to attack the Judge, though a really skilled Judge may never even give them a chance, lurking in corridors the victims can't access, slinking out to activate his next hellish device. Things like complex puzzles for the victims and best practices for the Judge were really hard to follow. Some understanding would come with more experience, no doubt, but the first impression was rough enough to make me think it'll scare off players for being so unintuitive right away. Animations and visuals were lacking, too. I figured those issues could and likely would be polished over time, but if the core experience is unclear or convoluted, Saw: Genesis may struggle to compete for players' time, especially since its closest comparison is Red Barrels' already successful Outlast Trials. The delay feels warranted. I've been rewatching the Saw series lately, and it's reminded me that these movies aren't very good. Many of the 10 of them are plainly bad. Even the first one, which I'd long remembered as a milestone in low-budget horror, now feels like it has too many plot contrivances and nu-metal music-video editing choices for my liking.  And yet, I'm totally on board with Saw: Genesis if it works as a game. I don't have any reverence for the '80s B-movie Killer Klowns From Outer Space, but I had a blast with Illfonic's adaptation. I'm looking forward to seeing how Saw: Genesis changes shape between now and the next time we hear about it. Even though it's horror season and a Saw: Genesis launch would've made sense on the calendar--"If it's Halloween, it must be Saw," I was always told--I like the idea of Bloober Team pushing it out a few months to try to clean it up. This is a studio that told me it's done making "shitty games," and while that's not a guarantee, Bloober Team surely hopes to follow through. 

Grand Theft Auto 6 is under two months away, but the early sales numbers for the game are already starting to get out. According to a sales tracker posted by Sensor Tower, GTA 6's PlayStation 5 presales are outnumbering Xbox Series X|S a ratio of more than 3:1. However, Xbox's Chief Strategy Officer Matthew Ball has refuted a report that Microsoft is unhappy about those sales numbers. In a message posted on X, Ball wrote, "We are very happy with GTA 6 pre-orders. The title is breaking records for Xbox, we expect even more records will be broken throughout the fall, and our internal analysis shows our share of pre-orders to be matching our share of the console market." https://twitter.com/ballmatthew/status/2103210975256330501?s=46 Ball’s point about the preorders “matching [Xbox's] share of the console market” may be correct. There are considerably more PlayStation 5 consoles on the market than Xbox Series X|S. According to Sensor Tower, Xbox's 23% share of GTA 6 presales represents 1.3 million copies sold and $128 million in revenue. Conversely, PS5's 77% means Sony has already sold 4.35 million copies to the tune of $426 million in revenue. Some of the replies to Ball expressed skepticism about his response to the numbers. This comes only a few days after another devastating round of Xbox layoffs that left Halo Studios relinquishing control of the Halo franchise to Activision. As for GTA 6, the game's promotional push now includes a campaign in Miami, Florida welcoming visitors to Vice City. A number of gamers are apparently plotting to take time off from work when GTA 6 arrives, and we fully endorse that idea. Grand Theft Auto 6 will be released on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S on November 19.

Anyone looking for a creepy adventure to play in November will want to check out Saraab: Beyond the Veil. Solo developer Lubna Ahmed has announced a November 3 release date for the game on PC via Steam and Itch.io, and a demo will be available for it during the October edition of Steam Next Fest. An Arabian folklore-inspired horror visual-novel game, Saraab follows Elham, a schoolgirl whose brother has suddenly been kidnapped. Rescuing your sibling means confronting your own inner demons, who have been externalized as monsters born of Elham's own psyche. To overcome them, she'll have to unlock the powers of her bloodline and uncover the truth of who she truly is. "I'm incredibly excited to bring this story to players and share a world shaped by authentic cultural themes, folklore, and emotional experiences that are rarely explored in games," Ahmed said in a press statement. "I hope players everywhere can connect with the game's story and characters, because ultimately, it's a story about the human heart." Horror is the crux of Saraab, but healing also plays a vital role in moving the story forward. As Elham comes to terms with her destiny and beliefs, she'll gain the ability to change reality based on the choices she makes along the way. Saraab's narrative is complemented by hand-drawn, anime-inspired art and an emotional soundtrack, and you can expect branching storylines, gameplay focused around Elham and her shadow, and a story about confronting the past to reclaim the future. If you're keen to try it out, the demo will be available starting October 19.

Saraab: Beyond The Veil, a psychological horror visual novel about healing and facing your demons, is coming to PC on Steam on November 3rd, 2026.

Arc Raiders will soon feature a trial run of Player-versus-Environment (PvE) servers, which would seem to be great news for a player like me, who exclusively plays the game as a PvE experience.  In actuality, PvE servers ignore one of the game's best traits.  Embark Studios said that PvE-only servers are coming in a limited testing phase for one week beginning on October 13. Whether they come back after that isn't known yet, not even to the studio itself. Embark cited a player survey that found just over half of respondents (51%) would be interested in PvE servers.  It took me 120 gameplay hours before I finally even attempted to kill another player in a round of Arc Raiders, and 100 hours later, I've still only killed three more. I just don't want to do it. I refuse even at the expense of my own character's progress, in many instances. But servers that eliminate the possibility of player-versus-player (PvP) interactions don't appeal to me, because that chance of all hell breaking loose is what makes cooperating so incredibly rewarding. In PvE-only servers, I'll be matched with players who can't kill me even if they want to. In the game's standard PvPvE servers, I play with players who can kill me but choose not to. To me, that behavioral calculus is the main source of my appreciation for Arc Raiders, and something I hit on throughout my Arc Raiders review last fall.  The threat of PvP makes the reward of co-op so much sweeter. Back then, no one knew the game featured aggression-based matchmaking, so when I'd tell people about my unforgettable adventures in emergent cooperation with strangers, banding together and having each other's backs when the shit hit the fan, some told me my experience was anomalous and not reflective of the game's broader vibe.  As it turns out, those people were telling on themselves. I'd kept my gun holstered in favor of diplomacy so consistently that the game eventually stuck to matching me with like-minded players. This was apparently something many others didn't experience because, as we now can infer, they were resorting to violence at least some of the time. But every once in a while, I do still get attacked by other players in what I've taken to calling my "utopian lobbies" of peaceful players. That aggression--and often, unexpected betrayal--reminds me why Arc Raiders works so well as a PvE experience, and yet why a forced PvE experience doesn't have nearly the same appeal.  Working out issues in proximity chat rather than with weapons, running to rescue--and not rob--an injured raider when their flare shoots toward the sky, and asking a stranger to trust you in a resource-scarce world, then rewarding that trust; those are the repeatable, magical moments that make this game so incredible. That all evaporates if Embark makes the decision for players before they depart from Speranza.  In PvE-only servers, I'll be matched with players who can't kill me even if they want to. In the game's standard PvPvE servers, I play with players who can kill me but choose not to. PvE-only servers might even push out players like me, who want to maintain the threat of lethal action, even if they don't plan to use it themselves. It could become harder to hop into a traditional Arc Raiders server and be rewarded with these memorable moments of opt-in, emergent co-op. The community may start to feel like those who prefer PvE should load into PvE-only servers exclusively, crowding PvP-leaning players into the game's traditional servers and ending the possibility of the unexpected. Thankfully, the addition of these servers is just a test run for now, and maybe that's all it will ever be.  Nearly a year after the release of Arc Raiders, I still try my hardest not to trade wounds with other raiders, but I hope the possibility of such outcomes is never taken from players like me. It's so much more satisfying to lend a helping hand when you could've chosen to strike someone down with your fists instead.