• Fable will have a 60fps performance mode on Xbox Series X
• Playground Games associate game director Craig Littler says it didn't want to compare the PC and Xbox versions
• However, he adds that "It will look great wherever you go"

Playground Games is being a bit cagey about Fable's graphics settings across PC and console, but has confirmed the Xbox Series X version will have a 60fps performance mode.

Fable has been in development for a very long time, but fans can finally expect the fantasy role-playing game (RPG) to launch on February 23, 2027, for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Series S, and PC.

While there have been plenty of trailers and, most recently, new gameplay footage showcasing the game, Playground has yet to share the PC specs and how Fable will run on console.

However, during a Q&A session at Gamescom attended by TechRadar Gaming, associate game directors Will Kennedy and Craig Littler did reveal that the game will look "great" on all platforms.

"What we will say is that our approach to all platforms is really the same, in that we want the game to look great wherever you're playing it, and for it to be appropriate for the platform later on," Littler replied when asked to elaborate about the console edition graphics settings.

Without giving away too much, the developer then confirmed that the Xbox Series X version will offer a 60fps performance mode, but said, "I don't really want to get into the like in terms of what PC versus Xbox will be like."

"It will look great wherever you go," he added.

In the same interview, Playground also confirmed that Fable will take up to 20 hours to beat, but promises the game's life systems offer "limitless" replayability.

• Diablo 5 will tell stories of the past, present, and future, the latter of which Blizzard calls "terror forming"
• Players can visit biomes that are taken over by Diablo's Dread Commanders
• Narrative director Jennifer Hepler says these biomes can change depending on who's in charge, and "it's a whole new experience" every time you revisit them

Blizzard has confirmed that Diablo 5 will tell stories involving the past, present, and future of Diablo's takeover of Sanctuary, which will visually affect explorable biomes.

The next installment in the isometric dungeon crawler series has been announced and will find players back in the mortal realm of Sanctuary. However, humanity has fallen into an apocalypse and the land has been conquered and reshaped by Diablo and his army.

Speaking to TechRadar Gaming at BlizzCon after the game's reveal, senior game director Joe Shely shared how different Sanctuary will look to players and said they will travel across the Western continent, seeing all different biomes that have been overrun.

Shely said Diablo 5 has "three stories that we're telling" within this changed world: the stories of the past, the time when Diablo took over and when he and his Dread Commanders emerged into Sanctuary, and the "desolation" of the present.

"There are no people around," he said. "There are very few survivors. Occasionally, you may find a human to add to your caravan, and they can bring something to support you."

There's also the future, which is being actively turned into an outpost of hell by Dread Commanders, something that the team has dubbed "terror forming."

"We call it terror forming because these Dread Commanders will actually transform the environment, transform the biome into a version of hell that relates to personal powers and powers at station," Shely explained.

Players will be able to revisit these occupied areas, and if a different Dread Commander is stationed there, "it's going to look totally different."

"The procedural world gives us a lot of levers to pull for that," added narrative director Jennifer Hepler. "You can go to a place, and it is under the control of the Dread Commander of Undeath, and it's going to be full of zombies and things like that. And then later in the game, you could return there, and it's either been reclaimed by humanity or taken over by a different Dread Commander, and the environment will be totally different as a result of that.

"So each time you go somewhere, it's a whole new experience and just constant new discoveries."

Diablo 5 is in development and is slated to launch in Spring 2029.

• StarCraft general manager and creative director Dan Hay says the series' stories and characters are "remarkably topical" today
• Hay says StarCraft and the real world are both like a "frontier"
• He adds that while StarCraft is science fiction, its "themes and characters" are very similar to "the headlines in our world"

StarCraft general manager and creative director Dan Hay has compared real-world events to the series' stories and characters, calling them "remarkably topical."

In a sit-down interview with TechRadar Gaming following the reveal of StarCraft, a first-person, open-world shooter slated to arrive in 2030, Hay discussed the CGI trailer that debuted at BlizzCon and explained that the team wanted to portray the "tension" that will come with this new story-driven adventure.

The developer also said that building the "stakes" was just as important; he couldn't dive too much into the narrative details, but Hay touched on the series as a whole and its storylines that explore "imperfect" characters, suggesting the new StarCraft will examine similar topics.

"The way in which you are a hero is that you are going to learn how to become one," Hay said. "The way in which you are a hero is that you are going to learn how to become one. So it's not perfect, right? And that's the thing about StarCraft: a lot of the characters are not perfect; they're imperfect, and even the villains are.

"They have an idea of what you think they are at the beginning of the game, and then by the end of the game, you realize, oh, they were something completely different. And I think what's powerful about StarCraft."

Hay continued, saying that when you look at StarCraft's stories and the characters you meet, they're "remarkably topical" to the events unfolding in the real world.

"When you think about our world today, and you think about what is StarCraft? It's a bit of a frontier," he said. "It's obviously a frontier. There's asymmetry in terms of factions that don't agree with each other. There's brinkmanship going on where one faction is being used against another. [In] a lot of cases, it's just over resources.

"A lot of the cases there's politics, and there's intrigue, and there are people being left behind and betrayed, and when you look at that, and then you look at the headlines in our world, it's not super far [apart] in terms of how it feels sometimes. So you feel that tension, and you felt that tension in the teaser [trailer]."

Hay concluded: "I think what's remarkable about StarCraft is that it feels real, and it feels like it translates quite easily into today. And even though it's science fiction, and even though it has this sense of being in this other universe, it feels very close in terms of themes and characters and moments that you could experience today."

• StarCraft's first-person perspective will offer a new sort of "tension"
• General manager and creative director Dan Hay says the tension is "subtly different" from the original RTS game
• Since the game is in first-person, "You have to protect yourself"

StarCraft general manager and creative director Dan Hay has explained the process of designing a new game in first-person, revealing that "tension" was crucial.

Blizzard's next StarCraft game won't be a real-time strategy (RTS) title, but a story-driven, open-world first-person shooter, which will be a fresh direction for the beloved series.

Hay, who discussed the game's inspirations with TechRadar Gaming at BlizzCon, explained that because of the new perspective, this meant the team had to think carefully about how to manage a combat system, the world, and enemies of StarCraft in a new way, while still being faithful and familiar to the original RTS game.

"The combat has to feel very, very clean and dangerous and mean and dark," Hay said. "I think StarCraft does that well. The mood is dark, but also, in a strange way, hopeful."

Without giving away too many details, the developer said that the team has to make the enemies the player is fighting "feel real" while also balancing the challenge of what it's like being inside 10-foot armour that weighs 1000 pounds.

"It's because the thing that's out there is going to try and shuck me like an oyster," he continued. "The thing that's out there is going to try and just flay me open, and eat my insides. And so we have to build it in such a way that it all makes sense, which means when you move, when you attack, when you shoot, it has to feel real, and then whatever it is that's attacking you — which we all know what's probably going to be attacking you — it has to feel like it's an onslaught where you have to stem the tide, you have to figure out a way to stop that biomass from attacking you, and it has to feel real."

Hay said the "key" to designing this experience was "tension," which players got a glimpse of in the CGI trailer, adding that it's the same tension from the RTS "but it's subtly different."

In the RTS game, players would be confronted with a wall of Zerg enemies, and that would be the tension, but in StarCraft, a first-person experience, the top-down perspective is gone.

"Now your boots on the ground," Hay said. "We have to give you the tension of deployment, and you saw us actually do that in the teaser, and then we have to give you the tension of there not being a whole bunch of marines around that you can just go through. It's you. You have to protect yourself. You have to figure out how to fix your armor. You have to figure out how to push back against it.

"Every shot matters. Everything you do matters. So the tension feels even greater."

StarCraft is currently in development and is set to arrive in 2030.

• Diablo 5 will have features inspired by Diablo 2 and Diablo 2: Resurrected
• Senior game director Joe Shely says the team was able to look at Resurrected for modern inspiration because it's so recent
• He says the team can "look at it through today's lens"

Diablo 5 senior game director Joe Shely has said that the success of Diablo 2: Resurrected has enabled Blizzard to use the game as modern inspiration for the upcoming sequel.

In an interview with TechRadar Gaming at BlizzCon following Diablo 5's announcement, Shely shared how previous games helped the team find modern inspiration for Diablo 5.

Instead of going back 20 years and just looking at Diablo 2, the team used its 2021 remaster, Diablo 2: Resurrected, for ideas. The developer said the game was brought to life thanks to the passionate fanbase, and the continued work on it has benefited Diablo 5's development.

"Certainly we've been very happy with the response to Diablo 2: Resurrected," Shely said. "The reason that Diablo 2: Resurrected exists is because of the continued passion of players in the first place, because of the continued passion of players for Diablo 2, and so both the honor of having a game that players love and the ability to add new content to it has given us the opportunity to look at it in terms of inspiration."

Resurrected's itemization system, from weapons, loot, and armor, is one of the core features that Blizzard used as inspiration; Shely also said the game's modern features were just as important because it was created and released so recently.

"Because Diablo 2: Resurrected exists today alongside Diablo 4, we can look at it through today's lens, and not just have to go back to, you know, 20 years ago, and think about how to bring lessons forward from 20 years ago. We can bring lessons from D2, but lessons from today."

Diablo 5 is in development and launches in Spring 2029.

• Alien Deathstorm producer Martin Willingham says the game is "not another corridor shooter"
• Head of design Ben Fisher says it's a "dynamically generated" survival horror game
• The Rebellion developers say it's a 360-degree sandbox experience

Rebellion Developments has said players can't expect its upcoming first-person survival horror game, Alien Deathstorm, to be another linear corridor shooter, calling it a "rare beast."

Alien Deathstorm was revealed earlier this year by the developers behind the Sniper Elite series and Atomfall and is described as a "visceral first-person action horror experience, where second-to-second survival hinges on responding to a monstrous, constantly shifting threat on a storm-blasted off-world colony."

TechRadar Gaming recently went hands-on with the game at Gamescom and then later caught up with some Rebellion developers, who talked more about it at length, including the concept and design influences, replayability, and player freedom.

While Alien Deathstorm may look like your run-of-the-mill survival shooter with typical survival horror features, the team considers it a "dynamic" experience with sandbox elements where the player's actions can affect unscripted enemy encounters.

Producer Martin Willingham said this means, "the horror, the tension, can happen at any time in different ways between playthroughs and between difficulty camps as well.

"For me, that's one of the most exciting parts of the game because in horror games the experience is typically kind of very, very choreographed because it has to be to build up that anticipation set of those jump scares. But it means you can only play it once."

He continued, saying the team values replayability and sandbox freedom, which means "we had to do something dynamic," and "building the encounters around the player and the player's activities means it's a different experience."

Ben Fisher, head of design, called the game "dynamically generated," where levels are played sequentially, and each has its own sandbox, adding that "It's a rare beast."

"It's not another corridor shooter," Willingham added later. "You're in that sandbox. It's 360 degrees. The action could be coming from anywhere, rather than just at the end of that corridor."

Alien Deathstorm doesn't have a release date yet, but you'll be able to play it in Spring 2027 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Series S, and PC.

• Fable's main story takes between 15 and 20 hours to complete
• Associate game director Will Kennedy confirms additional side content can also take between 15 and 20 hours
• However, the game's life systems are "limitless"

Playground Games has confirmed that Fable's main story will take up to 20 hours to beat, but promises the game's life systems offer "limitless" replayability.

Speaking during a Q&A session at Gamescom 2026, associate game director Will Kennedy discussed the scale of the upcoming role-playing game (RPG), saying, "So the main story obviously depends on how you play, but the main storyline is around 15 to 20 hours."

He added, "But then we've got around probably about 15 to 20 hours again of open world and side content to engage with."

While not a massive amount of hours compared to other open-world RPGs, that at least gives fans an idea of what to expect when the game releases next year.

However, it's what Kennedy said later that confirmed that, while Fable will have a good-sized story with plenty of side content, the game's life systems, like interacting with the over 1,000 unique non-player characters (NPCs), buying real estate, committing crimes, and more, will offer up even more playtime.

"Honestly, with the life systems which we [shared an] in-depth look at and showcased earlier on in the year, that's limitless, and you can engage with it as much as you want," he said.

Fable has been in development for a very long time, but will officially launch on February 23, 2027, for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Series S, and PC.

• CD Projekt Red says The Witcher 3 Remastered and its many upgrades helped realize Songs of the Past
• Game director on Songs of the Past, Jakub Rokosz, says the team had a "certain vision" for the expansion, but there were technological challenges
• He says the remaster "helped with applying optimization" to the expansion

According to CD Projekt Red, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt's upcoming expansion, Songs of the Past, may not exist without The Witcher 3 Remastered and its many upgrades.

If you missed the bombshell news the Polish studio dropped during Opening Night Live, The Witcher 3 Remastered is a massive free update arriving on September 29. It offers many improvements to the base game and the Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine expansions, such as upgraded visuals, a refined combat system, new Witcher Signs, transmogrification, and more.

The remaster will essentially rework the game in its entirety, giving fans of the 11-year-old role-playing game (RPG) an excuse for another playthrough, ahead of the upcoming expansion Songs of the Past.

Now, in an interview with TechRadar Gaming at Gamescom, Jakub Rokosz, CEO of Fool's Theory and game director on Songs of the Past, and senior quest designer Despoina Anetaki shared that without these technological improvements, their vision for the expansion may not have been fully realized.

"The stars had to align, so to say, because a few things had to happen," said Rokosz, who was also one of the original senior quest designers for The Witcher 3. "The Songs of the Past expansion and Letten itself, the area that it takes place, it had a certain vision. We had a certain vision for it, and it posed us certain specific technological challenges that was impossible to realize without the remaster changes.

"So the conditions had to grow for the remaster to appear on the horizon for us to be able to realize this, so this is actually two things meshing together to make it a reality."

The developer explained that Letten's lush vegetation, small bushes, and dense forests caused issues during development, but were resolved with the remaster's advancements.

"One of the challenges when we started prototyping the area was [that] it was impossible to ride with a horse through it, basically," he continued. "So we had to do some improvements on the horse handling side, right? So it feels more organic or more natural."

Letten also features a big lake in the middle of its map that allows players a view of the horizon, and as Rokosz explained, having this huge amount of open space where you can see fishermen fishing "posed a challenge in terms of how the engine was handling this. So the remaster helped with applying optimization."

Songs of the Past is due to launch in 2027.

• Invoke Studios head Dominic Guay says Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons' imp companion Skev provides narrative and gameplay assistance
• Skev will provide lore to the player as they explore Darkon, but can't be controlled in combat
• Guay says the imp is "his own character" with his own personal motivations

Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons' imp companion Skev serves multiple purposes for the player, but was designed to be "his own character."

In an interview with TechRadar Gaming at Gamescom, Invoke Studios head Dominic Guay offered more insight into Skev and his relationship with the warlock protagonist Kaatri, revealing that the imp will assist the player as they navigate the open world of Darkon both narratively and with his utilities.

However, while Skev will act as a companion to Kaatri, Guay stressed that he still has his own motivations, including seeking out his lost master, just like how Kaatri is searching for someone too.

"We iterated a lot on him. So he actually is his own character," Guay said. "That was important to us. He wasn't born to be a sidekick. That was the mentality. He used to be the advisor to the ruler of Darkon, so in a way, he had a really important role in that land before his master vanished, and his quest is to find his lost master, and Kaatri's quest is to find someone too.

"So, he tags along, and Kaatri's kind of like, 'Oh well, he knows this place, and that's useful.' So he gives you a lot of insights as you travel around. You find new places."

The studio head said Skev will offer lore about new locations as players explore, adding that he thinks of the imp as "your unreliable guide to Darkon."

Skev won't be controlled by the player either, Guay confirmed, so he won't die in combat or get in the way, but will sometimes help in certain instances, like by picking locks.

"You can actually decide how you want to upgrade his abilities throughout the adventure," he added, "So [there's] some practical application."

Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons arrives in 2027 for PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PC.

• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Songs of the Past spotlights Dandelion and will tell a "complete" story
• Jakub Rokosz, Fool's Theory CEO and Songs of the Past game director, says CD Projekt Red wants to "give justice to Dandelion"
• Senior quest designer Despoina Anetaki adds that "it felt like a chapter was missing"

CD Projekt Red has said The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt's third and final expansion, Songs of the Past, will "complete" the game's story by giving Dandelion the bard the spotlight he deserves.

In an interview with TechRadar Gaming at Gamescom, Jakub Rokosz, Fool's Theory CEO and Songs of the Past game director and former Witcher 3 senior quest designer, explained that rather than the expansion serving as a bridge to The Witcher 4, as some fans might have expected, it actually completes Wild Hunt's story by delivering a new chapter that the team felt was missing.

However, the developer declined to comment on whether the expansion will have any direct connection to The Witcher 4, so we'll have to wait and see.

"We always wanted to give Dandelion the proper spotlight he deserved," Rokosz said, acknowledging that it's odd for an 11-year-old game to receive a new expansion. "So we knew that there was no space in the base game to give him justice. That's what I wanted to say: Give justice to Dandelion."

Songs of the Past will center Dandelion in Geralt's final journey in The Witcher 3, where players will explore Letten, the bard's homeland, and be wrapped up in another supernatural mystery.

"We knew that at some point we wanted to address this thing, because Dandelion is a very important character in Geralt's life," Rokosz continued. "There's a misconception of him being this comedic relief, and this is his only role in the Witcher series, whereas that's not true. He's a very deep and intelligent character. He used to be a professor at Oxenfurt [Academy], and he writes beautiful poetry, so we want to show the players what's behind that mask of a joker, where he came from, what his family is about, what's the world [like] where he grew up."

Senior quest designer Despoina Anetaki added that it doesn't matter that the expansion arrives 11 years later, only that the whole story has been told.

"What's really important to us is not so much like should we release an expansion 11 years later; it could be, I don't know, 20, 100 years later," Anetaki said. "What matters is that the story we tell is complete. This is part of The Wild Hunt, and it felt like a chapter was missing, like something was not there. One more thing we wanted to tell, right? And Dandelion's story was one of those, right?"

The developer revealed that the team went back to the original Witcher novels and used the source material to make something that could "excite fans" and "something that could excite us most of all, because it was a difficult question when this idea was first pitched to the team."

Anetaki explained that the team had to figure out what would pull Geralt out of his retirement, and it had to be important enough to warrant a full-length expansion. That reason was Geralt's best friend, Dandelion.

"Once we identified that important thing," the developer added, "it all clicked together, and it became very clear that yes, we need to make this expansion because it makes us as fans of The Witcher really excited about it, and I hope that the players will also feel that."

Songs of the Past doesn't have a release date yet, but it's slated to launch in 2027. In the meantime, fans can look forward to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered, which arrives this month on September 29.

• Creative Assembly has explained how it designed a faithful Warhammer player experience for Total War: Warhammer 40,000
• Battle product owner Dave Petry says the team didn't directly recreate the tabletop systems, but tried to "authentically simulate" them
• Creative Assembly continued its "trusting" relationship with Games Workshop, which shared its "infinite knowledge"

Creative Assembly worked closely with Games Workshop to ensure the Total War: Warhammer 40,000 player experience was as "authentic" to the tabletop game as possible.

In an interview with TechRadar Gaming at Gamescom, lead designer Joy Dey and battle product owner Dave Petry discussed the upcoming strategy game's combat system and shared how it was able to faithfully translate the feeling of Warhammer's tabletop systems.

Rather than a complete one-to-one recreation, Petry explained that the goal was to "authentically simulate" the feel of the tabletop's combat.

"We really, really care about trying to authentically simulate the feeling of the type of combat, whatever period or kind of warfare that it is, right?" Petry said. "So in a historical, obviously, war on Earth, and generally we have the sorts of weapons that you have on Earth. When it's fantasy, it's magic and mages and all that sort of stuff, and obviously, with the science fantasy and 40k, the biggest reference point you have to that is the tabletop.

"But it's not necessarily like the be-all and end-all of it," he continued. "We're not transposing the tabletop, right? We're trying to create an authentic sense of the lore and the kind of combat that's there, but the love for the tabletop absolutely is present."

Petry said that, like so many fans, he's been playing and collecting Warhammer 40k since he was young and confirmed that references and nods to the universe, like names, abilities, and lore, are in the upcoming strategy game. However, he said some elements of the tabletop game "just don't fit" with the game's real-time simulation

Creative Assembly also focused on making the game feel "familiar" to the Total War franchise; combat has also been scaled up, and he explained that macro positioning, where the player's forces are, flanking, and enemy morale are all things that come into play.

Petry said positioning in particular is being treated as "an interpretation of the lore and the universe, with the tabletop being one of the most important references."

The developer also added that Creative Assembly continued its long-standing collaboration with Games Workshop to ensure authenticity, saying their "special relationship" has helped the studio combat issues it was dealing with.

"[If] we can't find the thing that quite works for [the game], or this piece of lore sounds similar, but doesn't quite work," Prety added, "And for them to be able to come back with their infinite knowledge of all of this stuff and go, 'Well, you're right. This doesn't quite fit, but over here we have something that actually might be able to do the job.'

"And that close or trusting collaboration has, I think, enabled us to create something that captures that authentic feeling."

Total War: Warhammer 40,000 launches in 2027 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Series S, and PC.