Vishal Kamal has been covering video games for 7 years, writing about everything from hardware deals and new releases to esports and the business
side of the industry. He runs TheBadGamer, focused on gaming news worth your time.
Amazon and Warner Bros. have revealed Batman: Caped Crusader - Chronicles, a cooperative crime-solving party game launching July 31 exclusively for Prime members at no extra cost. The game releases alongside Season 2 of the animated series and supports up to four players using phones as controllers. Players join Detective Montoya across 11 episodic missions featuring villains like Scarecrow and The Joker.
RibCage Games announced Alpha Nomos, a rhythm-action roguelite where live-recorded instruments serve as weapons and every strike lands on the beat. The game launches on Xbox Series X|S and marks the studio's first commercial release.
IGN's preview of Agefield High: Rock the School delivers a scathing assessment after six missions, calling the game unpolished, uninspired, and flat. Developer Refugium Games aims for Bully's crown but lands closer to a hollow nostalgia act with buggy physics, repetitive NPC dialogue, and minigames ripped from other titles. The game releases August 12.
Sega revealed Virtua Fighter Crossroads at Summer Game Fest, targeting a 2026 release with a bold new story mode set in the fictional Southeast Asian nation of Vilasapara. Producer Riichiro Yamada says the team wants to "go above the genre" by blending traditional three-button combat with branching narratives, minigames, and legacy characters who may become allies or enemies.
Halo: Campaign Evolved launches as a $50 Unreal Engine 5 remake of the original campaign, arriving on PlayStation for the first time. The package delivers authentic Halo combat and crossplay co-op, but omits multiplayer entirely and charges $10 more than the Master Chief Collection, which includes every mainline game.
Sony Interactive Entertainment reportedly anticipated massive backlash when it announced the end of PlayStation 5 physical discs, issuing employees the strictest social media guidelines they had ever seen. Former God of War writer Alanah Pearce revealed that staff were gagged from commenting on the controversy, which has drawn over 335,000 petition signatures and constant negative feedback across Sony's social channels.
Nintendo legend Shigeru Miyamoto has pushed back against criticism that the company relies too heavily on remakes, arguing they introduce classic games to new generations and lay groundwork for future projects. The comments arrive as both Star Fox and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time prepare for Switch 2 releases in 2026.
Paramount Games Studio has delayed Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game on Xbox Series X and S to September 3, just hours before its scheduled July 23 launch across all platforms. The Nintendo Switch version will also launch without crossplay, non-English language support, or the Deluxe Edition, prompting widespread backlash from the Xbox community over the last-minute announcement and vague explanation.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will finally introduce Galadriel's husband Celeborn in its third season, with Stranger Things star Jamie Campbell Bower taking on the role. The new season jumps several years forward to depict the height of the War of the Elves and Sauron, arriving on Prime Video before the end of 2026.
Dell has slashed $1,500 off its flagship Alienware Area-51 desktop, bringing the Ryzen 7 9850X3D and RTX 5090 configuration down to $5,399.99 shipped. The system packs 64GB of DDR5-6400MHz RAM and a 360mm liquid cooler inside a chassis that dwarfs the Aurora R16.
