The backyard in Grounded was just the beginning. Announced during the Xbox Games Showcase, and shown off as a surprise in The Outer Worlds 2 and Grounded 2 Direct, welcome to Grounded 2, which enters Game Preview on Xbox and Early Access on Steam on July 29, 2025. Two years after the events of the first game, the teens return in an all-new setting for a game that promises to be bigger, bolder, and built with your help from the very beginning.

Welcome to Brookhollow Park
Brookhollow Park is a vibrant, nostalgia-soaked suburban wilderness set in 1992, with the starting zone alone nearly matching the scale of the first game's entire backyard map. As a first- or third-person co-op survival adventure, Grounded has always been about teamwork, creativity, and the thrill of surviving while tiny—and with over 25 million players having joined us so far, we're thrilled to keep growing this universe in Grounded 2. Whether you're returning from the first game or starting fresh with Grounded 2, there's never been a better time to jump in. Two award-winning teams, Obsidian and Eidos Montréal, have joined forces to bring you the next chapter with even more depth, danger, and discovery to experience.

Rainbow Six Siege X is launching on June 10, kicking off a new evolution of the tactical first-person shooter with new content and major updates. To help players prepare, we've published details on the Siege X PC & console specs, and in this article, we're diving deep into accessibility. The Siege team has long had accessibility in their sights as a priority, as you'll see in our interview with User Experience Director Sébastien François. He describes the team's embrace of accessibility throughout the years, shares details on how they've been preparing for Siege X, and offers insights into their future. Read on to learn more.

What is the Siege team's goal or guiding philosophy when it comes to accessibility?
Sébastien François: Siege is a tactical competitive shooter with a strong esports scene, which presents its own set of challenges compared to a single-player game, but we do not want to compromise on accessibility. We want as many players as possible to be able to engage with our unique gameplay elements with comfort, so they can enjoy the full extent of what the Siege experience has to offer. This is an integral part of our design process, and an important focus for our ongoing efforts to improve the game season after season.

All Editions. All Platforms. All the Savage Planet goodness is live. It's time for everyone to clock in. Or at least, it would be if you hadn't been made redundant. After 107 years spent in cryosleep and crash-landing on an alien planet in a faraway space system, we're absolutely pumped to announce that REVENGE OF THE SAVAGE PLANET IS LIVE FOR ALL! This isn't a drill. This isn't a teaser. This isn't an elaborate HR onboarding simulation. We actually finished the game.

Well, here we are...After years of coffee-fueled brainstorming, questionable career choices, and at least one incident involving an employee dressed as a Furry in Raccoon Suit (true story), Revenge of the Savage Planet is finally ready for launch. As a small thirty-person team, when we spun up Raccoon Logic, it wasn't to become galaxy-conquering overlords (though we did pitch that at one meeting). It was to tell weird, wonderful, and art imitating life stories. To let players poke aliens with butts for faces, fire off absurd gadgets, and laugh at the strange, beautiful mess of the universe, and maybe even feel something along the way.

Hey everyone! We're almost exactly one year past the release of Sea of Stars (!!!), and while we've been a bit quiet lately, we're excited to share some fantastic news today. Throes of the Watchmaker is coming Spring 2025, for free! Visit the DLC's website for everything there is to know so far. We hope you're as excited as we are about this new adventure!

Malevolent Spectacle Awaits
Throes of the Watchmaker finds the Solstice Warriors Valere and Zale venturing into the miniature clockwork world of Horloge. In this magical land where denizens are threatened by a cursed carnival, our heroes will need to adapt to unfamiliar rules if their Sun and Moon powers are to manifest.

Far Cry 4 (2014) will now run at 60 frames per second on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PS5 Pro, thanks to a free update deployed this week. Whether you're wingsuiting out of a gyrocopter for an aerial incursion, or wielding a rocket launcher atop an elephant as you charge into battle—the beautiful scenery and unbridled chaos have never been so inviting on console. Far Cry 4 will be coming to Game Pass for Xbox, PC, and cloud very soon. Alternatively, you can grab it for a big discount at one of these current sales: PlayStation Store (April 23-May 7), Xbox (April 20-May 5), and Ubisoft Store Legendary Sale (April 29-May 20).

Hidden in the towering Himalayas lies Kyrat, a country steeped in tradition and violence. You are Ajay Ghale. Traveling to Kyrat to fulfill your mother's dying wish, you find yourself caught up in a civil war to overthrow the oppressive regime of dictator Pagan Min. Explore and navigate this vast open world, where danger and unpredictability lurk around every corner. Here, every decision counts, and every second is a story. Welcome to Kyrat.

The first episode of Don't Nod's narrative adventure, Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, ended with a hell of a cliffhanger: a massive discovery of something unknown, possibly malevolent, and a devastating revelation about one of the story's central figures. As the second episode, or tape, of this player-choice-driven, nostalgia-powered story aims to draw things to their conclusion when Lost Records: Bloom & Rage Tape 2 launches today (April 15), players have been left wondering what to expect. To dig deeper into the game's ambitions and get some further insight on what to expect from Swann, Nora, Autumn, and Kat's next escapade, we (at PlayStation Blog) sat down for a chat with Michel Koch, Creative Director at Don't Nod's Montreal studio.

You Oughta Know
Koch was eager to tell us how this experience would differ from the first. "The first Tape, 'Bloom,' is the nice and sunny part of the beginning of the summer, of you meeting and bonding with those girls. The second half is called 'Rage,' which is mostly the aftermath of the cliffhanger at the end of Tape 1. We wanted Tape 1 to let the player find their own space within the group of friends, getting a feeling of a summer where you meet friends, but also giving hints of weird things. They're finding the clearing. They're finding the abyss. It's a very natural story of four girls having a fun summer together before Swann moves away. But Tape 2 will focus more on this weirder part of the story. We know what happened at the end of the summer. We still don't know why, but we know that they promise not to see each other again. We know about the weird box, we know about Kat, but we don't know the consequences of this revelation. How do you continue to have a normal summer with your friends? And, of course, the continuation of what's happening with those weird things they found in the forest."

Assassin's Creed Shadows is out now on Steam, inviting you on a journey with the stealthy shinobi Naoe and powerful samurai Yasuke as they explore Feudal Japan and discover a shared destiny. As you recruit allies, expand your Hideout, and use your network to gather knowledge about the world, Steam offers a number of additional ways to enjoy the game—let's take a look at what you need to know about playing Assassin's Creed Shadows on Steam.

Achievements
There are many Steam achievements available for Assassin's Creed Shadows and all of them can be earned in a single playthrough, regardless of story choices or difficulty level. They are earned not only by playing through the main story, but also by exploring the world, completing different activities, upgrading the Hideout, meeting allies, and more. Check the full list here.

Assassin's Creed Shadows, launching on March 20, will continue the series' tradition of bringing players closer to history with a section of its database titled "Cultural Discovery." As part of the in-game Codex, this feature offers players carefully selected encyclopedic entries on the history, art, and culture of the Azuchi-Momoyama period. This cultural encyclopedia was written by historians and includes images from museums and institutions. Similar to the History of Baghdad feature in Assassin's Creed Mirage, Cultural Discovery will be integrated into the main game of Assassin's Creed Shadows, and is tied to player progression. Cultural Discovery contains almost two times as many entries as the History of Baghdad, with more than 125 entries at launch, and more to come.

As players visit sites that provide a historical and cultural exploration of 16th-century Japan, they will unlock articles on the economy, castles, military affairs, daily life, historical figures, and events. One notable cultural codex entry, shown above, features an exclusive replica of a Kabuto, or Japanese war helmet, that symbolizes the first contact between Japan and Spain. The original Kabuto is part of one of the oldest collections of Japanese armor in Europe, and is kept at the Royal Armory in Madrid. This Kabuto had been almost entirely damaged during the fire suffered by the Royal Armory on July 10, 1884. Ubisoft, Patrimonio Nacional, and Spanish company Factum Arte joined forces to recover what was left of this Feudal Japan relic, create a faithful physical reconstruction of it, and make it accessible to people around the world through its inclusion in Assassin's Creed Shadows. The physical replica from Factum Arte will become part of the Royal Armory of Madrid's collection.

Assassin's Creed Shadows is launching March 20 on Steam, but you can pre-load the game as early as March 17 at 9:00AM PST (4:00PM UCT). Check out the exact time you can start the game on March 20, wherever you are in the world—with our "Global Release Timings" chart (below).

Don't forget to wishlist or pre-purchase Assassin's Creed Shadows today so you can pre-load on March 17 and dive in as soon as the game is live on March 20. Those who pre-purchase Assassin's Creed Shadows will receive at no additional cost the Thrown to the Dogs bonus quest at launch, as well as the Claws of Awaji expansion when it launches later this year.

Assassin's Creed Shadows is just around the corner, launching on March 20 for Steam. To celebrate, the team released a new CGI trailer teasing Naoe and Yasuke's motivations on their journey through feudal Japan. Check it out below. Wishlist Assassin's Creed Shadows or pre-purchase it today! Everyone who pre-purchases the game will receive free bonus content, including the Thrown to the Dogs quest at launch, and the Claws of Awaji expansion when it releases later this year. You can also check all our recent Steam news, including more details about the Steam achievements and badges + trading cards available day one!

ENTER FEUDAL JAPAN
Explore the captivating open world of feudal Japan, from spectacular castle towns and bustling ports to peaceful shrines and war-ravaged landscapes. Adventure through unpredictable weather, changing seasons, and reactive environments. Become Naoe, a shinobi Assassin, and Yasuke, a legendary samurai, as you experience their riveting stories and master their complementary playstyles. As Naoe, use stealth to avoid detection and agility to confound your enemies. As Yasuke, strike your foes with lethal precision and power.

Hello everyone, following the release of our PC specs for Assassin's Creed Shadows, we wanted to share additional insight directly from our tech team on the use of ray tracing in the game. Assassin's Creed Shadows features three distinct ray tracing modes on PC.

Selective Ray tracing
This mode uses ray tracing only within the Hideout portion of the game. The reason behind this, is that the Hideout allows extensive player customization at a level never seen before on Assassin's Creed. Because of that, we cannot use traditional, pre-calculated, global illumination techniques, and therefore need to adopt a real-time approach with ray tracing. In all other gameplay situations, such as in the open world, ray tracing will not be used.

The Platform for Digital and Quantum Innovation of Quebec (PINQ²), a non-profit organization (NPO) founded by the Ministry of Economy, Innovation and Energy of Quebec (MEIE - ministère de l'Économie, de l'Innovation et de l'Énergie du Québec) and the Université de Sherbrooke, along with IBM, are proud to announce the historic inauguration of an IBM Quantum System One at IBM Bromont. This event marks a major turning point in the field of information technology and all sectors of innovation in Quebec, making PINQ² the sole administrator to inaugurate and operate an IBM Quantum System One in Canada. To date, this is one of the most advanced quantum computers in IBM's global fleet of quantum computers.

This new quantum computer in Quebec reinforces Quebec's and Canada's position as a force in the rapidly advancing field of quantum computing, opening new prospects for the technological future of the province and the country. Access to this technology is a considerable asset not only for the ecosystem of DistriQ, the quantum innovation zone for Quebec, but also for the Technum Québec innovation zone, the new "Energy Transition Valley" innovation zone and other strategic sectors for Quebec.

When Assassin's Creed Mirage launches on October 12, it will continue the series' tradition of bringing players closer to history with History of Baghdad, a feature that adds historical context to the game's simulation of the past. Part of an in-game Codex that also includes tutorials and a Database with lore, History of Baghdad will deliver expertly curated information on the history, art, and culture of Baghdad and the Abbasid Caliphate circa the ninth century, accompanied by images provided by museum partners.

In keeping with Assassin's Creed Mirage being a tribute to early Assassin's Creed games, History of Baghdad will be integrated into the main game, similarly to the Database of earlier games, and is tied to player progression, with an in-game reward for Basim once completed. As Basim visits 66 historical sites throughout Baghdad, players will unlock research-driven articles that dig into information across five topics: Economy; Belief & Daily Life; Government; Art & Science; and Court Life.

Amazon Games today announced it has opened a new game development studio in Montreal, Canada. The Montreal studio, which joins Amazon Games development studios in Seattle, Orange County, and San Diego, will focus on creating original AAA games. Amazon Games is actively hiring to build out the talented team, with a variety of roles opening.

The studio's founding members include industry veterans Luc Bouchard (head of production), Xavier Marquis (creative director), Alexandre Remy (head of product), and Romain Rimokh (content director), who most recently worked as the core team behind the tactical shooter Rainbow Six Siege, which now has more than 70 million players since its launch. The studio's first project will be an online multiplayer title based on new IP.

Square Enix today announced that the final installment in the Tomb Raider origins trilogy is being released on September 14th this year. Moving on from their previous "timed exclusive" contract with Microsoft, which saw Rise of the Tomb Raider be first published on the Xbox family of devices, the latest game will be available for all platforms - PC, PS4 and Xbox - on release date.

The new game in the Tomb Raider series has moved hands, though, leaving Crystal Dynamics' studios (who is now working on an Avengers video game with Marvel), and was taken upon by Eidos Montreal - the studio best known for the latest (way better than they're given credit, by the way) Deus Ex games (Human Revolution and Mankind Divided). A full reveal of the game is expected next month, on April 27th - just two months before E3, which will certainly pave the way for even more content on the game. Square Enix is promising users they'll "Experience Lara Croft's defining moment as she becomes the Tomb Raider". Interesting, no? Look after the break for a preview teaser.

Mass Effect: Andromeda was met with a lukewarm reception from reviewers and users alike (even if there was just a smidge of overblown issues,) and it would seem this has made EA cautious regarding this IP. Make no mistake: Mass Effect still lines up alongside EA's biggest franchises, and it's almost guaranteed the publisher will want to return to it at some point in time. It just so happens that its less than stellar reception has seemingly put further plans on the IP on hold. Bioware Montreal, the studio behind Andromeda's push, as apparently been relegated to a "support studio" role, with staff being channeled towards the new Star Wars Battlefront 2 game and other projects. Part of the staff will still be working on Mass Effect: Andromeda, looking to work through patches and multiplayer support, though it would seem that there are now no plans for eventual Andromeda DLC. This is a sad development, all in all, as Mass Effect counts one of the most interesting settings - and the most potential - among game franchises

On to Bioware's new original intellectual property, codenamed "Dylan", Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson revealed during a recent call with investors that its launch has been postponed. Originally scheduled to launch by the end of March 2018, the not-yet-named title has been pushed back to EA's 2019 fiscal year (April 2018 through March 2019.) This game looks to be EA's take on the kind of "live" game that is Bungie's Destiny and upcoming Destiny 2 (under Activision's supervision), and Ubisoft's Tom Clancy's The Division, being built around a live service and a "disruptive" new social design which was, according to Andrew Wilson, the reason for the delay.

After we reported that AMD is starting to produce 45nm chips in 2008, the company is also looking to refresh its line-up with a new generation eight-core CPUs, to be released in distant future. Following the 2008 release of its first 45nm CPUs - Shanghai - AMD will be preparing to introduce octo-core parts. The 8-headed server processors are codenamed "Montreal" and will feature HyperTransport 3 and include 1MB of L2 cache per core and a shared L3 cache between 6 and 12MB. The Montreal line-up will consist of both eight- and quad-core CPUs and will be paired up with boards powered by new chipsets like the AMD RD890S and RD870S. The ETA for the eight-core AMD processors is the first half of 2009.