Key Note Gaming

Ubisoft’s mysterious Assassin’s Creed Hexe project seems to be going through a rough patch, as game director Benoit Richer has announced his departure. An update on the latest for the history-hopping stealth franchise came from a LinkedIn post published by the former Ubisoft Montreal developer. In his message, he stated that he left to join Quebec-based indie studio Servo Games as co-founder and game director. This is the second major departure for the Assassin’s Creed game, which is in development with the Hexe codename, this year. The last saw creative director Clint Hocking exit the project in February, with Assassin’s Creed head of content Jean Guesdon filling the role in his place. Richer first joined Ubisoft Montreal back in 2000 as a level designer for games like Rainbow Six Vegas 2 before leaving the company for the first time in 2008. He eventually found his way to WB Games Montreal in 2010, where he served as game director on Batman: Arkham Origins, before returning ...

Publisher Sega and developer Creative Assembly have posted what appears to be a teaser trailer for Alien: Isolation 2 . A mysterious video titled “A False Sense of Security” was posted by the franchise’s official YouTube account today, April 26, which also happens to be Alien Day. It’s little more than an atmospheric teaser that features a rainy, outdoor location and a familiar emergency phone save station. The teaser trailer doesn’t outright confirm that it is for the long-awaited Alien: Isolation 2, but given that Creative Assembly announced it was working on a follow-up back in late 2024, fans are already expecting an impending announcement. The only text included in the video’s description says, "A feeling of being safer than one really is." pic.twitter.com/1FIsqfnWON — Alien: Isolation (@AlienIsolation) April 26, 2026 Alien: Isolation originally released for PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One all the way back in October 2014. It’s since be...

Star Wars: Galactic Racer, the upcoming arcade racing game featuring podracers, speeder bikes, landspeeders, and more fast rides from the Star Wars universe will apparently be released on October 6. The release date was posted to Steam and quickly removed, but not before eagle-eyed storefront watcher Wario64 spotted it. "STAR WARS: Galactic Racer will release on Oct 6, 2026 according to Steam. Deluxe Edition contents revealed (Steelbook included with physical purchase)," Wario64 noted in their post. A check of the Galactic Racer Steam page an hour later showed a generic "2026" release date. Galactic Racer was announced at the 2025 Game Awards, and it's being developed by Fuse Games, a team comprised of a number of former Burnout and Need for Speed developers founded in 2023. It was last seen at Sony's State of Play broadcast back in February. Regardless of whether or not the October 6 release date holds, we've still got new Star Wars to look f...

Square Enix has announced plans to bring Final Fantasy XIV to Nintendo Switch 2 this August – but there is a catch. FFXIV director and producer Naoki Yoshida (a.k.a. Yoshi-P) and Square Enix president and CEO Takashi Kiryu revealed plans to bring the massively popular MMORPG to the Nintendo platform as part of Final Fantasy XIV Fan Fest 2026 today. It’s news that marked an end to a long wait, but it also came with the reveal that players on the hybrid gaming platform will need to rethink their subscription plans. The presentation continued following the announcement with a graphic confirming that subscriptions for FFXIV on Switch 2 will operate differently than other platforms. While players previously only needed to purchase the game itself and the monthly subscription fee to play on any platform, the Switch 2 version will require players to purchase an additional, separate subscription. "After discussions with Nintendo, it was decided that the Switch 2 version of Final F...

Look, if you're just going to leave valuable resources lying around in strategically placed caches, of course I'm going to clear them out. I'm trying to save the world, not earn a halo. The next player can just man up and find their own. You see, the big feature that Tides Of Tomorrow is bringing to the party is the ability to see the actions of previous players and experience interactions with the world and NPCs shaped by their behavior. You can see their physical actions in the world using a second sight-style power that lets you watch a ghost version of them for a short time, while NPCs will refer to them by name and help or hinder you depending on their behavior. If they were a picture of virtue and, say, helped a particular faction, you'll find that people are more inclined to return the favor, but if your predecessor committed a crime or started trouble, you'll have to find different ways to complete your objectives. As someone that has been conned before ...

Former PlayStation exec Shuhei Yoshida has suggested that Sony will struggle to recoup the huge budgets invested in its first-party games without porting them to PC. Yoshida — who previously led Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios — spoke at ALT. Games earlier this month, reflecting on Sony's reported recent decision to pull back from PC releases when games have never cost more to make. "In PS4 days still we are making AAA games with big budget," Yoshida said (thanks, Respawn First ). "I somehow felt the bigger the budget, the safer in some strange way. Creating bigger, better-looking games that people are asking for. In the past it kind of worked, you know, business wise. But in the last five or so years, publishers and developers must have realized that model may not be sustainable. "Releasing games on PC after a couple of years must have helped recoup the investment of these big budget games and help[ed] the team and company to reinvest tha...

Crimson Desert got a huge update this week , and among the many changes it brought, it added new difficulty settings. Now, Pearl Abyss’ single-player open world action adventure has easy, normal, and hard difficulties for players to work through. Hard difficulty makes it so food item effects won’t be applied immediately, and will only take effect after the consumption animation is complete. This makes it impossible to recover health by spamming food, as so many players had been doing, especially in boss fights. In hard difficulty you also take more damage, and the maximum health, aggressiveness, and overall speed of opponents is increased. You also get a reduced timing window for parry and dodge, reduced invincibility duration for roll, and increased frequency of bosses attempting to counterattack or escape when hit. Easy difficulty, on the other hand, reduces the damage taken by the player, reduces the maximum health, aggressiveness, and overall speed of opponents, and extends the...