Conversations with children have a terrifying way of making you feel horrendously old. Recently, I showed my teenager a cassette player, only to watch him tilt his head and ask me how to "skip a track."

My youngest is no better; after my last birthday, when he saw the number on the card, he asked if I was “going to die soon," and was completely serious. Of course, these conversations make me feel like I belong in a museum. Or at least, I need to book myself in for some Botox.

Heading into Gamescom to check out Age Twisters, the upcoming two-player co-op narrative adventure from Piccolo Studio, felt strangely poignant. I've tried to play Split Fiction with my youngest son, and unfortunately he lost patience because it was too punishing. We play a lot of other games together like Wobbly Life and Minecraft, but I was hunting for another co-op title to break up our normal routine and present him with something of a narrative. Thankfully, Piccolo Studio, known for emotional narrative hits like Arise: A Simple Story and After Us, is building something designed entirely around shared family fun rather than frustrating mechanics.

Bridging the gap between generations

Age Twisters is penciled in for a 2027 release across Xbox Series X|S, PC, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch 2. The game centers on a universal theme: the generation gap. As the developers explained during our hands-on session, the core concept explores how older generations often view younger generations as lazy and glued to entertainment like TikTok, while younger generations view older generations as grumpy and responsible for ruining the world.

To bring this to life, the game follows a charming pair: a cantankerous grandfather and his rebellious teenage granddaughter, who are searching for traces of her mother. Mum passed away when the granddaughter was a baby (like every good Disney movie, you gotta have a dead parent), leaving the grandfather to raise her while carrying the heavy burden of the past. It is an emotional family mystery, but while it has its moments, it won’t gut-punch too much. So don’t worry if you are playing it with younger kids. It’s definitely fun first and foremost.

Those age-twisting mechanics

The gameplay hook revolves around mysterious bracelets that let the duo shift in real time between four distinct ages: Childhood, Adolescence, Adulthood, and Old Age. Each stage comes it’s own unique capabilities that force you to switch between the generations to solve the cooperative puzzles.

• Childhood: Features fast movement and a sticky tongue/yo-yo tool that allows characters to swap positions with each other, enemies, or objects in the world.
• Adolescence: Introduces rhythm-based abilities that can slow down fast-moving objects, lasers, and enemy bullets.
• Adulthood: Adult forms bring heavy punches capable of destroying environmental obstacles and smashing through barriers.
• Old age: Grants magnetic powers to manipulate metallic objects, solve environmental puzzles, and pull items across the room.

Rather than using a traditional split-screen interface, Age Twisters keeps both players tethered and framed together in the same space. This design choice naturally keeps partners close, ensuring you always know where your teammate is and what they are doing.

Absurd and cheeky humor kids will go nuts for

Beyond the core age-shifting mechanics and puzzle-solving, the game moves at a relentless, comical pace. During our demo, we navigated a cute toy-and-chicken factory where we had to round up livestock by teleporting chickens across the map. Next we had to dodge menacing (but still cute) security bees, and later throw robotic sharks into giant pipes to break our way through to the next section.

I particularly enjoyed the dialogue between the two characters and how it changed depending on your age while navigating the level. Not only that, some ages will hamper you in insultingly realistic ways, such as being unable to jump from a height if you are elderly.

The developers noted that the adventure is constantly moving at pace so little players won’t get bored, introducing wild set pieces like riding an animatronic T-Rex into boss fights, dancing your way into enemy hideouts by matching button prompts, hiding inside suitcases or cactus disguises, and even shooting enemies with age-rays to turn them into babies. The enemies' behavior and dialogue really strongly reminded me of the Minions, so I know my son is going to find it particularly amusing when we play through at home.

Built like playing through a Pixar movie, and won't punish the less skilled player

Piccolo Studio has designed the game in such a way to make sure that no player 2 feels left behind or struggles. Skill disparities never ruin the experience. If one player struggles with a specific mechanic or puzzle, the game avoids making them feel like they are dragging the team down. Roles can be shared or adapted naturally, and the camera is deliberately positioned so that all puzzle elements remain visible in the room, eliminating stressful backtracking. There shouldn’t ever be anything genuinely frustrating in the game, but still satisfying for a pair to complete.

Best of all for budget-conscious parents, the game will feature a Friend's Pass system, a consumer-friendly way to allow a second to join the entire local or online adventure completely free with just a single copy of the game. It’s something you may already be familiar with from Split Fiction, and I’m glad it’s becoming a norm in these family-friendly co-op titles.

Age Twisters has genuine heart and a humor that will appeal to both parents who are constantly reminded of their own mortality and kids who just want to laugh at things being turned into chickens. I had a really fun session playing alongside a complete stranger, and I look forward to it bridging that generational gap between my cheeky and insubordinate kids.

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If someone told you PUBG Studios was making a new entry where you could slice off your own hands and replace them with blades or slither across water like an otter on cocaine, you would probably assume they had lost their minds. Yet, that is exactly what is happening in PUBG: Ded.net.

Led by Creative Director Dave Curd, this upcoming multiplayer FPS is taking the DNA of the game that popularized the battle royale genre (before Fortnite came to steal its lunch) and is reworking it into something completely unique. Set in 1996 Cascadia, a fictional Pacific Northwest region dripping with darknet culture, reality TV horror and uncensored violence, this is not just your average drop in loot and shoot.

A multi-match career journey

When I sat down with the developers at Gamescom fresh after the announcement, I simply asked what makes this different from the original PUBG I played years ago?

The answer is a brand-new concept the team calls the "multi-match journey." Instead of a single standalone match where everything resets when you die, your character embarks on a career-spanning run across multiple matches. You must wage a battle to see whether you can make it through several rounds before running out of career health.

Between matches, players are tempted with game-altering powers and abilities. You might choose to use a car door as a riot shield or pick up the "Peekaboo" skill to track enemy outlines through walls. However, you won’t be some all-powerful being; these benefits always come with a catch, and it’s up to you to decide if it’s worth it. Every power is tied to a debuff or injury, meaning you might gain incredible offensive strength while simultaneously developing a bad cough that gives away your position, or a nervous twitch that causes you to accidentally throw your weapon on a swap.

By the time you reach your sixth or seventh match, you will have molded a completely unique yet heavily flawed fighter, before you inevitably burn out and start fresh.

Splitting a devoted player base

Naturally, taking a massive cultural phenomenon like PUBG: Battlegrounds, which still has its passionate fans, and sending it through a grungy 1990s meat grinder raises a big question: Is this going to cannibalize the audience of the original PUBG?

The developers are entirely upfront that this game is not for everyone, and that this division of their audience is completely intentional.

DED.NET is a deliberate push by Krafton and PUBG Studios to diversify the franchise and reach players looking for a more tailored experience. Expanding a massive battle royale universe is never a sure thing, especially given that past spin-offs like PUBG Blindspot struggled to find a lasting audience. But rather than playing it safe with a middle-of-the-road live-service project, the team built DED.NET to be kinda weird and kooky, with its own stark visual identity.

Some traditional PUBG purists will undoubtedly look at the multi-match game loop, jarring colors, and utterly ridiculous weaponry and opt to stick with the classic experience. But that’s totally fine. The studio is banking on the fact that enough players want something unapologetically niche. Rather than chasing a safe consensus that pleases nobody, they are intentionally hunting for fans who want a completely different flavor of survival.

Nurturing the trolls but not in the way you think

For those of us who have fond and frustrating memories of squadmates blowing up vehicles with grenades just for a laugh, this game will be quite the dedication to our troll buddies.

Ded.net will supports 60-player lobbies structured around three-player trios. Alongside standard survival tactics, there is a dedicated troll-friendly toolset. You can hack payphones used for buybacks to steal competitor money, play dead on the floor, or hide inside lockers to ambush unsuspecting rivals. There is even a snake mode that lets players slither across the terrain at high speeds, quite literally worming your way to victory.

A mighty glow up from PUBG: Battlegrounds

Visually, PUBG: DED.NET is quite the leap forward from the original game. Powered by Unreal Engine's Nanite and Lumen technology, the environment art team has had more room to play and express their vision.

The forests of Cascadia are visibly thicker, the buildings are packed with immersive props, and the overall world detail looks remarkably sharp for an online multiplayer title.

Of course, this is based on the trailers we have seen so far, and it will be interesting how it actually performs in the mass playtests. The game was available to play on the show floor during my time at Gamescom and had a steady queue throughout, so I imagine that when it officially goes online, it will be quite popular (let's just hope it can handle the onslaught)

So when can we play DED.NET?

While pricing and release dates are still TBD (I asked if the game would be free to play, and the team was not ready to discuss this yet), the devs have confirmed that a beta test is on the horizon and encouraged players to sign up at DED.NET.

Whether it converts traditional battle royale purists or alienates them entirely, it's clear PUBG Studios are taking a massive risk by doing something a bit weird, and I am here for it.

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Jumping into the deep end of a multiplayer survival game can be a recipe for disaster, as I found it in my first-ever taste of the State of Decay series. My last encounter was with State of Decay 2, where I was unceremoniously dropped into a friend's game. It was complete with fully built settlements and swarms of zombies banging down the doors while I was still fumbling with the mechanics. I felt very much out of my depth and never really revisited the game.

Heading into our closed-doors look at State of Decay 3 at Gamescom, I was a little worried I wouldn’t enjoy it and would be going through the motions. I knew I wanted to love it, and I had already planned to play it on release just to support the studio following its ceremonious dumping (aka divesting) by Xbox. In fact, I have implored the Xbox community to buy it, whether it hits Game Pass or not.

As it turns out, not only is the relationship with Xbox not completely severed (it’s now officially confirmed to be launching straight onto Xbox Game Pass alongside its 2027 release window), but the demo proved to be an absolute blast in the time I had with it. The world of State of Decay 3 is pretty fascinating to navigate even amidst incoming waves of the dead.

Alpha playtests are smoothing out the road ahead for closed beta by end of 2026

Before jumping into the demo, the developers shared some roadmap news: the current build is being pulled apart by alpha playtesters, who are providing early technical feedback before us normies jump in. Undead Labs told us that a closed beta will launch by the end of this year, with player access and platform support continuing to ramp up toward the 2027 launch.

When you strip it back, State of Decay 3 remains a community management survival game set deep within the zombie apocalypse. You control a single character at a time in an open-world third-person environment, acting as the caretaker for a fragile community. You are forced to make survival decisions such as where to live, whom to trust, and whether to let newcomers in or grow your own food.

Procedural survivors and evolving traits

One of the unique hallmarks of the franchise is its character generation, and State of Decay 3 takes it further. Survivors are procedurally assembled from a vast pool of names, cultural backgrounds, voice actors, visuals, and traits, meaning you can play for hundreds of hours and never see the same person twice.

Take Pat, for instance, a daredevil with high health and stamina who unfortunately makes a ton of noise. Pat is a rocket scientist with expertise in mechanics and demolition, but he is also easily overwhelmed (same Pat, same). New to State of Decay 3 are evolving traits. If Pat were to kill 100 zombies, that negative trait would evolve into something better, though the developers deliberately retain minor flaws to keep characters nuanced.

Then there is Queenie, a lone wolf with fatigue resistance and sniper training boosting headshot damage, but burdened with a “sketchy vibe” that makes her a bad choice for diplomacy missions. Overall, the trait names were pretty funny and add a much-needed injection of humor into what is a bleak backdrop.

Surviving the plague war

The demo picked up at Green Heart, a newly established northern settlement. The team had recently been chased out of their previous base at the fire training center due to the Plague War, a new territory-control system.

Plague nests act as large-scale dungeons and epicenters for an expanding network of infestations that organically grow and actively surround player settlements. Because the current team had fled in a panic, they had prioritized offensive firepower over food and water and needed to establish a new settlement.

To tackle their food shortage and lack of beds, the developers headed into the nearby town of Carolina to clear an infested hunting store and claim it as a second settlement. This location offered a professional-grade animal press capable of crafting far more effective ammunition than standard scavenged garage setups.

Luckily, State of Decay 3 introduces the ability to manage up to three settlements simultaneously, allowing players to expand their territory as they push back this plague network.

Now, when on the offensive, whether you go straight for the heart of the Plague is up to you, but you can approach more strategically by taking out surrounding weaker infestation sites first.

Make the game as difficult (or as easy) as you like with friends or solo

Combat in State of Decay 3 feels incredibly satisfying, and Undead Labs have worked hard to make guns feel more impactful.

Limb damage is a necessity when trying to slow down the onslaught. You can target specific appendages, blow a zombie's legs off with a shotgun blast, and gleefully watch them topple over. Players can also lean into creative environmental puzzles. The team showed us how to use stealth, or splash fuel across the streets. In one example, they placed a tape deck to attract zombies, luring hordes into a trap before clearing out the weak points of the plague heart.

I was also really happy to hear that even if you play cooperatively with three other players, you can tune sliders for combat, plague aggression, and resource management so the game matches your preferred challenge level. Want to make the higher-level zombies a rarer occurrence or make scavenging supplies a little more rewarding? You can do that and more. I’ll be tuning mine down to scaredy-cat mode, thanks. The true sickos can play on ultra hard lethal mode.

When we asked what constitutes a fail state for your game, it turns out that morale is everything. If your community morale tanks due to poor management, characters will lose faith in you as their caretaker and disband, running off into the hills. Lose enough of your community, and you fail your playthrough.

Looking ahead to 2027

Customization in general has been vastly expanded from the previous franchise entries. Players can transform standard vehicles into heavy, tank-like variants outfitted with specialized gear like gas filters, cargo expansions, extra fuel tanks, or spike wheels.

Whether you are customizing vehicle paint jobs or strapping gas tanks to your ride, State of Decay 3 is shaping up to be quite the evolutionary leap for the series.

Whether you are completely new to State of Decay or jumping in enthusiastically from its predecessor, the developers seem to be doing a great job with balancing system depth with better onboarding for new players. I’m pretty confident this is going to be exactly the multiplayer smash that Xbox needs on Game Pass.

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