The Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC)’s AI Factory Accelerator Programme, now in full operation following a pilot initiative, gives startups access to sovereign compute, technical support and training to support innovation across industries.
Many of these companies are also members of the NVIDIA Inception program for cutting-edge startups — and as of today, access to some of the BSC AI Factory services are available through the NVIDIA Inception portal.
NVIDIA Inception complements the BSC AI Factory Accelerator Programme by providing members with training through NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute open courses, business mentoring, venture capital connections and other resources.
An upcoming extension of MareNostrum 5 — BSC’s public infrastructure serving scientific and technological innovation, powered by NVIDIA accelerated computing — will deliver supercomputing access through the BSC AI Factory and other AI Factories across Europe. BSC AI Factory is among Europe’s first AI factories and the first in Spain, and has delivered more than 800 services to private and public-sector clients since its April 2025 launch.
Three Inception members were recently named the BSC AI Factory Accelerator Programme’s AI Champions at the pilot initiative’s demo day:
Qatium’s water-network platform — already used by more than 250 utilities in 16 countries — is now in early production with its Neural Water Intelligence technology, powered by proprietary AI models trained on MareNostrum 5. Built on NVIDIA accelerated computing, the NVIDIA cuGraph library, the NVIDIA PhysicsNeMo framework and NVIDIA Nemotron open models, the technology helps water utilities make better operational decisions every day.
OneCareAI, a research spin-off from BSC, used NVIDIA NIM microservices to develop technology designed to identify signs of hidden atrial fibrillation — an irregular heart rhythm — in seemingly normal ECGs, helping clinicians identify patients who may be at risk of stroke before one occurs.
Avatia built a voice-first, multi-agent system that provides pharmaceutical companies with agentic coworkers that support sales representatives and give doctors transparent, curated information about medicines, ultimately helping the right treatment reach the right patient sooner. The system taps into NVIDIA NIM microservices, the NVIDIA Nemotron 3 open model family and the open source NVIDIA NeMo Curator library.
Other BSC AI Factory startups — Agrikola AI, Elna Health, Lokutor, Montevive AI, Oppy, Pack2Earth and Up2Smart — span precision agriculture, medical imaging and knowledge access, speech services, enterprise security, sales intelligence and sustainable packaging.
The cohort reflects the breadth of what advanced intelligence can now unlock: preventing strokes, detecting breast cancer subtypes before biopsy, putting medical knowledge at doctors’ fingertips faster, replacing petroleum-based plastic with biobased compostable materials, protecting crops with robots instead of chemicals and more.
Star Wars Zero Company’s 1.2 patch introduces a new granular difficulty system in addition to the usual bugfixes and tweaks. These new options exist alongside the original difficulty levels (easy, normal, hard, ironman beskarboy etc.), and home in on more creative/tactical tweaks, rather than just beefing up enemies. The highlights:
You can remove the injury system, so downed operatives are instantly killed.
Alternatively, you can lower the injury allowance before permadeath, and/or add a risk of death to getting downed.
The patch allows you to lower or eliminate health scaling, so operatives are more fragile by the end of the game.
It also allows you to restrict the respec function by degrees, removing class and even weapon swapping.
I like these options a lot: They’re sharp, targeted changes that make Zero Company harder by restricting your options, forcing you to think and play more creatively. The game’s normal, default difficulty, with all of these modifiers added, represents a more interesting challenge to me than the shipped hard mode, and I think my first replay will mix in a few of them. These options remind me of survival mode in an RPG, or skulls in Halo—creative difficulty options that eschew ballooning enemy health bars just make me excited.
Zero Company goes down a lot smoother than the XCOMs of old (which much of the Bit Reactor team worked on). That smoothness isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and I thought Zero Company already had a reasonable skill ceiling with the options it shipped with—you can read more in my 90% review. But a modular suite means you can tweak pain points without taking the leap of a full difficulty level jump.
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My friends and coworkers who thought Zero Company went down too smooth should be well-served by this update. The only classic tactics disconnect I see remaining is fog of war. PCG online editor Fraser Brown is a strategy connoisseur, and he felt let down by how Zero Company shows you the full map and locations of all enemies on every mission. XCOM, by contrast, would obscure portions of the map and enemy activity unless you were directly observing them.
I’m agnostic on the issue, myself—I think Zero Company offers interesting tactical challenges regardless. This big patch is a nice win for developer Bit Reactor, which has reportedly started bringing back furloughed employees following the critical and apparent commercial success of Zero Company.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
Austin Abrams went full method whilst filming new horror thriller Whalefall, so much so that he walked around his neighbourhood in scuba gear to get used to the weight, and even had security called on him at one point.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Abrams was asked about walking around in scuba gear, asking if he got any funny looks while doing so. “I can’t remember if there were any funny looks or not,” said Abrams, “But there’s a point where Jay gets visibly more distressed and blown-up looking. I remember walking around the lot during that time and having security called on me just because I looked so fucked up.”
Scuba suits aside, Abrams had to undergo physical changes to get into the role of diver Jay Gardiner. The star has had to fluctuate his weight dramatically. While waiting for Zach Cregger’s 2025 horror movie Weapons to start filming, Abrams had to keep to a very low weight to play drug addict James.
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In fact, Abrams maintained that weight for a long while whilst Cregger had to recast Weapons due to delays. Abrams was the only actor to stick with the project, though, and actively passed up other opportunities at that time. Then the actor had to get into sporty shape to play diver Jay in Whalefall, before putting on weight to play Bryan in Cregger’s Resident Evil movie.
“I wanted Bryan to be a dude you look at and think he won’t be able to get out of this,” said Abrams. “I didn’t want him to look like someone who runs laps in his free time or something like that. So it was a close period of time, but there wasn’t really any science to it. You just do whatever you can to get where you need to go.”
Much like Resident Evil, Whalefall puts Abrams’ protagonist in a life-threatening situation. But rather than fighting off zombies like Bryan, Jay is swallowed whole by a massive whale.
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What is the PS5X Emulator for Xbox Series X and how does it work?
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In a YouTube video that went live on September 8, developer Devran Cosmo Uenal booted the PlayStation 5 version of Quake II on an Xbox Series X and played it with an Xbox controller. But the game was running through PS5X, Uenal’s Xbox port of the open-source PS5 emulator KytyPS5, and he has gotten three more PS5 games working alongside it.
The fact that he’s managed to get PS5 games running on an Xbox at all is super cool, but there’s a catch: PS5X only works in the console’s official Developer Mode, where Microsoft’s documentation caps games at 5GB of memory. That unfortunately rules out the majority of current-gen games, and there’s no public download for anyone else to try yet.
How PS5X works
Sony and Microsoft built their current consoles around closely matched AMD hardware. Both of them have eight Zen 2 CPU cores, RDNA 2 graphics and 16GB of GDDR6 memory, and PS5 games are compiled for the same x86-64 processor architecture that PCs use. That means the KytyPS5 emulator can run their code on the host CPU instead of recreating the PS5’s hardware in software. Its developer calls it a compatibility layer and, practically, it behaves more like a translator, converting what a PS5 game asks for into something a PC can understand.
KytyPS5 translates the PS5’s graphics commands and recompiles its shaders for Vulkan. As a result, it needs a Vulkan 1.3 graphics card on PC, but Xbox Developer Mode only supports DirectX 11 and DirectX 12. “Since Vulkan isn’t supported, everything needs to be translated to DirectX,” Uenal wrote in the YouTube video’s description, where he also admitted that AI was involved in the work. As VideoCardz pointed out, that means fixes the KytyPS5 team makes to its PC renderer have to be adapted before PS5X can use them.
Uenal’s video also describes PS5X as a “research project” for “running PS5 homebrew and game backups” on a Series X in Developer Mode. He claims that it doesn’t include any PS5 firmware or decryption keys, and KytyPS5’s documentation tells users to stick to game files they’ve obtained legally. Dodging copy protection is ultimately what killed the Switch emulator Yuzu, whose makers settled a Nintendo lawsuit back in 2024 by paying $2.4 million and shutting the project down. The team behind the PS3 emulator RPCS3 lists KytyPS5 and SharpEmu as the two active open-source PS5 emulators that can boot games, and warns players about scam sites posing as real ones.
What PS5X can run
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At the time of writing, PS5X runs the PS5 versions of GEX Trilogy, Hellboy: Web of Wyrd, Marvel Cosmic Invasion and Quake II, and all four are compatible with Xbox controller inputs. Some of them have working sound, and TweakTown reckons that Quake II runs at roughly 25 to 45 frames per second in Uenal’s footage. It’s worth noting that these four games are also sold on other platforms, so there’s no sign yet of PS5X running a PS5 exclusive, and Uenal admits that it’s early days and that compatibility is limited.
Android Authority reported on September 28 that KytyPS5 now goes in-game in a variety of PS5 titles on PC, and that one user had shown Marvel’s Wolverine reaching its main menu, in slow motion, on a machine with an NVIDIA RTX 5090. That clip didn’t show any gameplay, however, and it’s not clear whether it used the standard emulator build. PS5 emulation on PC is becoming more viable by the week, but it’s still an extremely nascent field, and PS5X only inherits any progress once each fix has been rebuilt for DirectX and squeezed into a far smaller memory budget.
Developer Mode’s memory limit
Microsoft limits games in Developer Mode to a relatively small 5GB of memory, and apps to 1GB. Requests for more memory than that allocation fail. In contrast, a retail Series X game gets 13.5GB of the console’s 16GB, while the remainder is reserved for the console’s OS. That leaves PS5X to work with about 37 percent of the memory a normal Xbox game can use, making it an obvious no-go for big current-gen releases. Microsoft only lifts this cap when software runs via the Visual Studio debugger, which is a setup designed for devs testing their code.
Microsoft blocked emulators entirely in Xbox’s normal retail mode back in 2023, its rationale for doing so being a store policy that bans products that emulate a game system. It then started bringing down the ban hammer and reportedly handed out 15-day suspensions to players who found a workaround. Since then, players who want to play PS2 or GameCube games through, say, Dolphin, the most popular GameCube emulator, have had to rely on Developer Mode instead. But a console in that mode can’t load retail games until it’s switched back.
Xbox Series X comes with the same Zen 2 architecture and RDNA 2 graphics as a PS5. It’s also got the same amount of memory, and PS5X can use less than a third of that. But none of this really matters because of the memory cap. There’s no real workaround to this without a jailbreak, meaning Xbox players won’t benefit from the progress being made on the PC. Sure, PS5X is interesting, but it’ll remain a cool little curio rather than anything substantive players can use.
If you’re interested in checking out PS5X and similar emulation projects, you should exercise caution. Scammers are capitalizing on the interest these projects receive, such as releasing malware under similar names like PCS5X to try and trick players into downloading it.
Though it may not be a sales juggernaut on the scale of Mario or The Legend of Zelda, Fire Emblem is one of Nintendo’s preeminent franchises. Like so many of its vaunted stablemates, the series is almost as old as Nintendo’s gaming ambitions, debuting on the Famicom and appearing on nearly every home and handheld console since. Given this prominence, it’s almost difficult to believe that Fire Emblem’s future was ever in jeopardy, but such was indeed once the case; there was a point in time when the series was very much on the verge of cancellation, and it took a dramatic shakeup to reverse its fortunes.
To fully contextualize this rocky period in Fire Emblem’s history, we need to look back at its trajectory in the wake of its belated international debut. Unlike Nintendo’s other marquee properties, Fire Emblem took a circuitous route to Western markets. Though the series began in 1990, its first several installments were never released outside of Japan, and most Western players would end up being introduced to the franchise not through one of its mainline entries, but through Super Smash Bros. Melee for the Nintendo GameCube.
Even more so than its predecessor, Melee was a veritable celebration of Nintendo history. The game drew deeply from the company’s rich oeuvre; its roster was stuffed with beloved mascots, and its extensive array of collectible trophies covered the full sweep of the publisher’s gaming legacy, from renowned classics to obscure curios. What generated the most chatter among international players, however, were two particular hidden fighters who hailed from a series most had never heard of: Marth, hero of the first Fire Emblem, and Roy, protagonist of the series’ then-newest installment, The Binding Blade.
Despite their unfamiliarity, these mysterious swordsmen instantly became two of Melee’s most popular characters thanks to their cool designs and nimble swordplay, which helped set them apart from the more recognizable characters on the roster. More consequentially, their newfound popularity among Western players generated immediate interest in Fire Emblem as a whole–a series that, to that point, had been all but unknown outside of Japan. That the franchise was notable enough to warrant not one, but two representatives in Melee was yet more indication of its significance, and only further stoked players’ curiosity.
Marth in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
This upswell in interest (coupled with the critical and commercial success of Fire Emblem’s sister series Advance Wars, which likewise had just made its worldwide debut after a similarly long period of Japan exclusivity) went a long way in encouraging Nintendo to finally bring the franchise to other markets, beginning with its next GBA installment (and seventh entry overall), Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade. The gambit paid off; thanks to its wider availability, Blazing Blade became the first game in the series to sell more than 800,000 copies, solidifying it as another tentpole franchise for the company and ensuring there would be no hesitation to bring future titles westward.
The next few Fire Emblem games saw similar commercial success. The series’ second worldwide release (and final GBA installment), The Sacred Stones, arrived in 2005 and moved more than 700,000 copies over its lifetime, while GameCube’s Path of Radiance followed later that same year and sold more than half a million copies–well enough to satisfy Nintendo’s expectations, considering the system’s age and comparatively small user base.
Gradually, however, the series experienced diminishing returns. Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, a direct sequel to Path of Radiance, arrived on the Wii in 2007 and ultimately sold fewer copies than its predecessor, despite the fervor surrounding the console at the time. Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, a DS remake of the original 1990 game, followed in 2008 to a similarly muted reception. While the dual-screen handheld had a significantly larger install base than the Game Boy Advance, Shadow Dragon moved an estimated 600,000 copies–a significant drop off from both GBA titles. In the face of this downward trend, Nintendo elected not to localize the series’ next DS entry, New Mystery of the Emblem–the first time in nearly a decade that a Fire Emblem game would not be released outside of Japan.
As with some of Nintendo’s other aging franchises from around the same period, franchise fatigue was beginning to set in for Fire Emblem. The relatively quick succession of releases, none of which deviated very far from the series’ well-worn formula, coupled with their steep difficulty and lack of innovation, led to a steadily dwindling audience. So persistent was the decline that the long-running franchise now found itself at risk of cancellation; according to the development team, the next Fire Emblem would be the last if it failed to sell at least 250,000 copies, which prompted some radical proposals for how to shake the series up.
Fire Emblem Awakening
The resulting game, Fire Emblem Awakening, did not completely upend fan expectations, but it did become a massive hit, saving the entire series. Rather than reinventing the franchise, Awakening was developed as a “grand culmination” of it, tweaking the established formula in inspired ways and reworking staid conventions. The game leaned heavily on the series’ character-driven nature, placing an even greater emphasis on character development and relationships than previous titles. But perhaps even more consequential was the addition of a Casual mode–a feature that originated in New Mystery of the Emblem but had never previously appeared in an international release. Casual mode effectively turned off one of Fire Emblem’s hallmark mechanics, permadeath–a move that once felt tantamount to sacrilege, but had a profound impact on the series’ approachability. With the option to disable permadeath, the game became much more welcoming; now that there were no long-term repercussions for a miscalculated move, players could enjoy the complex narrative and deep gameplay without worrying about irreversible consequences, opening the series up to a much wider audience than before.
Awakening would go on to sell more than two million copies, kickstarting a resurgence for the series. Each subsequent entry would build upon Awakening’s experimental streak, evolving the franchise in unexpected ways. Fire Emblem Fates followed in 2015 and was an even bigger hit, moving more than three million copies. In a page out of Pokemon’s playbook, Fates released in three separate versions, presenting the same tale from three alternate perspectives. Two years later, the series made its mobile debut with Fire Emblem Heroes, which would go on to become Nintendo’s most successful mobile game, while its final 3DS installment, Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, followed a few months later and surpassed a million copies over its lifetime.
Fire Emblem has continued to prosper in the years since, with Switch’s Three Houses setting a new benchmark for the series with over four million copies sold. Thanks to an eventual willingness to innovate and rethink long-standing conventions, the storied RPG was able to weather declining sales and the looming threat of cancellation to become one of Nintendo’s stalwart franchises, offering an incisive lesson in how to steward a long-running series. And with the positive reception that’s greeted the newly released Fortune’s Weave, it appears Fire Emblem will continue to occupy a vital place in Nintendo’s pantheon for a long time to come.
For millions of gamers, November is all about one video game: Grand Theft Auto 6. Rockstar’s much-anticipated open-world crime game is likely to spark a cultural moment that we haven’t seen in games since Animal Crossing: New Horizons in 2020. While that’s exciting, it’s also bound to leave players who don’t care about GTA a little bored considering that so many developers have moved their games out of November entirely to avoid getting lost in the storm.
The good news for anyone looking for some good GTA 6 counter-programming is that there are more games coming out next month. While it’s not as crowded a field as we typically get in November, there’s still sure to be something for you. Here’s a look at some of the highlights you can expect to play if you’re avoiding the streets of Vice City.
Gravhounds
Release date: Nov. 2
Where to play: Windows PC, Xbox Series X
In a crowded Gamescom Opening Night Live stream, Gravhounds was a real attention-grabber. The upcoming co-op shooter puts you and your friends in control of gun-toting dogs forced to shoot their way through an alien planet. With base building mechanics and some gravity-bending physics to toy with, it could wind up being a goofy multiplayer hit. It’s set to launch into early access starting on Nov. 2.
Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered
Release date: Nov. 3
Where to play: Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox Series X
Anyone who grew up in the GameCube era will no doubt remember Godzilla: Destroy All Monster Melee, if only for its iconic cover art. 24 years after its release, the cult classic kaiju brawler is returning in a freshly remastered form complete with online multiplayer. If you’ve never played it, don’t sleep on it: It’s a surprisingly fun casual fighting game that’s filled with classic monsters.
World of Warcraft: Forever
Release date: Nov. 4
Where to play: Windows PC
Arguably, World of Warcraft: Foreveris as big a deal as GTA 6 — at least for a specific era of players. Blizzard is embracing 2000s nostalgia by creating an all-new version of its legendary MMO that features retro graphics and brand-new content. It’s a dream come true for players who have just always wanted more from World of Warcraft, but as they remember it back in its heyday.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Release date: Nov. 5
Where to play: Nintendo Switch 2
Considering that GTA 6 isn’t coming to Switch 2, we always knew that Nintendo would need to pull out the big guns to counter-program it. It doesn’t get much bigger than a remake of the greatest game of all time. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is getting a modern makeover complete with dreamy visuals, modernized controls, and even a jump button.
Escape Academy 2: Back 2 School
Release date: Nov. 5
Where to play: PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox Series X
For those looking for a multiplayer game to play in lieu of GTA 6 missing an opportunity for co-op, Escape Academy 2: Back 2 School is your best bet. The multiplayer puzzle game will drop you and a pal into a series of escape rooms designed by people who used to make them in real life. It even features local split screen, making it a perfect couples game for Jason and Lucia.
Warhammer Survivors
Release date: Nov. 10
Where to play: Android, iOS, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox Series X
Sometimes a game title says it all. Warhammer Survivors is Vampire Survivors, but Warhammer. It’s made by the developers behind the excellent Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun, a studio that has already proven that it knows how to work Warhammer lore into a good retro genre game.
Barbie Rewind
Release date: Nov. 12
Where to play: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox Series X
Barbie Rewind might be the smartest bit of counter-programming you’ll find in November. While GTA 6 is catering to those who crave a hyper-violent crime simulator, this good-natured retro collection pulls together tons of beloved Barbie games released between 1991 and 2007. If you grew up playing games like Barbie: Super Model, this may very well be your GTA 6.
Sonic Pico Park
Release date: Nov. 12
Where to play: Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, Windows PC
Even Sonic the Hedgehog isn’t scared of GTA 6. Sega will celebrate the Blue Blur’s 35th anniversary this year with Sonic Pico Park, a Sonic-themed spin-off of the multiplayer Pico Park series. Expect a 2D puzzle platformer that gives you a lot of reasons to curse your friends as you work together to solve co-op puzzles.
Pikmin 4 – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Dandori Academy
Release date: Nov. 12
Where to play: Nintendo Switch 2
Pikmin 4 is the latest Switch game to get the full Switch 2 Edition treatment, and it’s a great choice. The strategy game is one of the Switch’s best thanks to its satisfying critter-commanding and feel-good vibe. The updated version comes with Dandori Academy, a stage-structured challenge mode that’s meant to test your organization skills.
Milki Delivery
Release date: Nov. 17
Where to play: Windows PC
If you’re more of a cozy gamer, Milki Delivery should be on your radar. The 2D indie charmer puts you in charge of a dairy delivery service. You’ll bike around the scenic countryside delivering milk straight from your cows to the locals. It all has the inviting vibes of a Studio Ghibli film.
With the devs behind RimWorld gearing up for their next game with a recent engine switch, it’d be entirely fair if you were hankering for something new (if still familiar enough) yourself. Trailblazers: Into The March is one such game, having introduced itself to us earlier this year, a mishmash of the aforementioned colony sim, Nausicaa, Moebius, Andrei Tarkovski, Jeff Vandermeer, and FTL: Faster Than Light by Edwin’s measure. And now you don’t just have to look at its trailers, because there’s a demo for you to have a go at.
“In today’s demo, we have packed in so much for you to explore. From overcoming dangerous excursions to battling threatening foes,” explain developer Strangers of the demo. “Take on contracts from the fixer and build out your perfect Trailblazing crew!” If you’ve not actually clocked roguelite colony-sim Trailblazer before today, you are said titular Trailblazer, a captain of a landship which are essentially big, honking, vaguely animal-shaped, Shadow of the Colossus sized crafts you pilot across the ground, taking on similar such opposing vessels.
Your Landship is customizable, and it must be filled with all sorts of simulated crew members, each complete with their own backgrounds and abilities. In the macro, combat sees you commanding your ship in real-time action battles, with the option of tactical pause to be, well, tactical with. In the micro, you command your crew to see through said battles. There’s a big ole world to explore (the titular March), where you’ll be “encountering enigmatic wonders and unpredictable events along the way,” so says the game’s Steam page.
It’s got a funny mix of art too. When looking at all of your crew members aboard your ship, they resemble those tiny toy wooden puppets that collapse when you press a button beneath them. Their character portraits are a lot more detailed, but more obviously procedurally (not AI) generated, with some lush recurring character NPC portraits to show how beautiful this game can get. Neat stuff! No release date just yet, but you can check out that demo, or just throw it a wishlist, on Steam.
As I’m typing this, we’re in the final hellish days before the October 16 launch of TENEBRIS SOMNIA – the retro survival horror game with live-action cutscenes – coming at you from Andrés Borghi (The Black Heart) Saibot Studios (Hellbound), and published by New Blood Interactive. (FAITH: The Unholy Trinity, DUSK, Blood West).
In Tenebris Somnia you play as Julia, a young woman who is having nightmares about her ex-boyfriend being torn apart by horrible monsters. Hoping to find some peace, she goes to his apartment to check on him. What she discovers is a world of horror that descends beyond her darkest dreams. What if the nightmares are real…?
One night while filmmaker and indie game developer Andrés Borghi was streaming our previous horror game FAITH: The Unholy Trinity, he got the idea to make a pixel horror game of his own with a sinister twist: the cutscenes would be live action, with real actors in real locations and real spooky special effects.
So Andrés and Saibot Studios lead Tobías Rusjan got working on a demo. Then they pitched the full game to New Blood, the only studio crazy enough to give a horror filmmaker the budget to make a survival horror game.
And that’s just what we did! Shortly after inking the publishing deal, we traveled to Buenos Aires to see Andrés and the film crew in action. What we saw amazed us – a legit professional camera and production crew, practical monster effects supervised by the award-winning Marcos Berta (“When Evil Lurks”), the performance by Argentine scream queen Clara Kovacic as the game’s protagonista – all meticulously storyboarded and directed by Andrés.
We witnessed the floor of a 17th-century Argentine cathedral splattered with fake blood. We watched a boom operator sprint 20 meters – and slide on his knees the final 2 meters – to get the perfect lighting effect under an actor at the perfect moment. They even guerilla-filmed several shots on the subway in the middle of the night (but don’t tell anyone). This wasn’t the low-budget FMV approach you remember from classic horror-adventure games. It was high-quality movie magic happening right in front of us. And absolutely no generative AI was used anywhere at any point in production.
That’s right, we did it the old-fashioned way. Good old human slop. Practical special effects and limited CGI. Human produced and directed, human-translated localization into English, Japanese, and Brazilian Portuguese. In-game art and animation drawn by hand, pixel by pixel, frame by frame. Audio and music by an actual human composer. Real-life living breathing human programmers. Even if we had used generative AI to take shortcuts (not that we even know how) we wouldn’t be able to call it a New Blood Interactive game with a clear conscience. Would it have saved us some money? Probably, but we would incur a much steeper cost – the trust of our fans who look to us for sincerity and authenticity. It’s just not our brand. Our players and, quite frankly, games in general, deserve better than gen AI. But enough about that.
Back to the game’s incredible cutscenes. These aren’t just cutscenes for cutscenes’ sake. In a lot of retro games, cutscenes were often a reward for making it to the end. In Tenebris Somnia, the cutscenes are directly linked to the gameplay – you never know when a cutscene will begin or end. This not only shocks the player – because now they’re encountering the horrors of the game in gruesome detail – but it keeps them in suspense at all times. You never know if the cutscene will drop you right into an enemy encounter or start right after one!
Merging pixel horror gameplay and live-action cinematics didn’t come without its challenges, however. Film sets needed to match the in-game locations, requiring careful planning and a blend of practical set-dressing and seamless CGI. Thankfully Andrés is also a talented film editor and VFX artist! To make the monster effects believable, silicon masks and prosthetics were molded out of performer’s faces and then fitted back on with makeup – a process that took several hours each time just like in a major Hollywood-style production. You can see behind-the-scenes videos on how this was done on our YouTube and Instagram. We hope to release a full making-of documentary after the game is launched!
After nearly 4 years of production we’re extremely proud of this monster we’ve created together. Tenebris Somnia offers a classic survival horror experience – scary monsters, limited resources, brutal boss fights, great sound design, puzzles to solve, and a terrifying plot to uncover. In the words of Andrés, “I hope players will come to see the cutscenes, and stay to experience the story”! It also stands alone as a genuinely scary horror game with a truly unique identity – take it from me – the guy that made FAITH!
Tenebris Somnia is available now on XBOX Series X|S and XBOX on PC. PC. Play it on console and PC at no additional cost with XBOX Play Anywhere.
Tenebris Somnia
New Blood Interactive
☆☆☆☆☆ 3
★★★★★
$24.99
$19.99
Tenebris Somnia is a 2D retro survival horror adventure game with live action cutscenes created by an award winning film crew from Argentina. Unveil the depths of a disturbing story by solving puzzles and fighting horrible creatures. …What if they aren’t just nightmares?
A new beginning for Windows PCs starts tomorrow with the launch of NVIDIA RTX Spark — one PC built for creators, gamers and AI agents. All are invited to celebrate with NVIDIA and partners at launch events around the world.
Share Your Spark
Every PC has a story. What was your first Windows PC, and what did it spark a love for? Join the celebration online by sharing responses with #ShareYourSpark for a chance to win an ASUS ProArt P14 RTX Spark laptop signed by NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang. See the campaign and official rules.
See What Reviewers Are Saying
From local AI workflows to creative apps and gaming, see what reviewers are saying about RTX Spark — then experience it at a launch celebration.
“The fact that NVIDIA, Microsoft and their partners have delivered such a capable, compatible and polished platform even in its first at-bat should put the rest of the PC industry on notice.” — Tom’s Hardware
“I tested NVIDIA’s RTX Spark for gaming and local AI – the performance absolutely stunned me.” — TrustedReviews, UK
“I’m very happy to report that performance is actually looking really good when it comes to AI, gaming and creative workflows.” — Microcenter
“[RTX Spark] is a different species of computer that has arrived early. It is a statement of intent from NVIDIA about where computing is going — trading raw benchmarking crowns for the ability to carry a self-rewriting, fully autonomous, CUDA-accelerated digital brain in your backpack.” — Tom’s Guide
“One of the most impressive parts of the launch is how many apps NVIDIA has worked with to ensure optimisation with the Spark technology.” —Creative Bloq
Independent testing from Artificial Analysis offers an early look at the powerful local AI performance RTX Spark brings to a laptop.
Join the Launch Celebrations
On Friday, Oct. 16, get hands on with RTX Spark at launch events around the world. Explore demos for creating, developing and gaming, connect with fellow enthusiasts and discover what local AI can do.
Times below are local. Follow each event’s entry instructions. Space is limited.
San Francisco — Best Buy, 1717 Harrison Street, 10 a.m.-12 p.m. Try hands-on demos, meet iJustine and hear fireside conversations with local tech founders. Free, first-come, first-served entry; no ticket required. Event details.
Berlin — Xperion at Saturn, Alexanderplatz 3, 7-10:30 p.m. Explore hands-on demos and stage programming with creators and developers. Registration required. RSVP.
Taipei — Muse Garden, No. 88 Yanchang Road. Join an evening of demos, music and AI community discussions, with shopping and networking continuing until 10:15 p.m. Registration required.
Beijing — JD MALL Beijing Shuangjing Store, No. 31 Guangqu Road. Check in begins at 7 p.m. Launch celebration starts at 8 p.m., followed by hands-on demos. Event concludes at 9:30 p.m. Register through WeChat.
Istanbul — Vatan Bilgisayar Topkapı, Mevlana Caddesi No. 138. Explore hands-on demos and local creator programming. Walk-in entry; no advance registration required.
Seoul — COEX East Lobby, 513 Yeongdong-daero. Hands-on demos begin at 7 p.m., with gaming and AI creator programming from 8 p.m. Event concludes at 9:30 p.m. No advance registration required.
US Representative Ritchie Torres, a Democrat from New York City, announced today that he will introduce the “Power To The Players Act.”
If it becomes law, the bill will see the US Federal Trade Commission create regulations that protect our “ability to own and play” purchased games, according to Torres’ office.
“When you pay for a game, you should own it,” says Torres. “Consumers must have the right to own, the right to play, and the right to transfer the games they buy. A game that can be taken away the moment a company pulls the plug is not a purchase. It is a rental disguised as a sale.”
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The game ownership issue is longstanding on PC, which moved to digital distribution a couple decades ago, but has recently come to the foreground of public consciousness as the consoles also transition away from discs. Earlier this year, Sony announced that it will end physical disc production in 2028.
The related problem of online games being decommissioned before players are done with them has also received more attention in recent years. The Stop Killing Games campaign in particular has raised the issue’s profile, arguing that basic offline functionality should be expected when online games are retired. Founder Ross Scott and organizer Moritz Katzner gained an audience with the European Parliament earlier this year.
As one of its prime examples of the problem, Stop Killing Games has pointed to The Crew, a Ubisoft racing game which went offline in 2024, preventing those who purchased it from continuing to play even the singleplayer campaign.
The aim of the Power To The Players Act is to establish and enforce a more genuine ownership of purchased games, as opposed to the revocable licenses we currently buy, and to require that offline modes be made available before online games are shut down.
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For DRM-free games, such as those purchased from GOG, ownership is a non-issue: Once you have the game files, you can back them up and use them for as long as you can find a PC that’ll run them. Realistically, the FTC is not going to mandate the eradication of software copy protection, so if passed the bill would presumably arrive at a softer definition of ownership.
I’ve reached out to Rep Torres’ office for more information on what enforcement of the bill is expected to look like, should it pass.
