Valor Mortis' system requirements appear to have been drastically cut, just before the FPSoulslike launches

Ghostrunner studio One More Level returns with a Napoleonic alternative history Soulslike that fuses fluid sword- and gunplay with exhilarating parkour, and it's a delight. Valor Mortis plays a bit of a sneaky trick. For a while it keeps it straight. 'Yes', it seems to say; 'I'm definitely a Soulslike. Look at my bonfire equivalents, my healing flasks, my corpse runs, even my early impossi-boss feints. Look at my cautious action, my fog gates, the oppressive air of melancholy that lingers over these fields of mud and blood'. But jumpcut to a few hours later, and there you are: first-person wall-running, grapple-swinging, one-two parry slashing, quick-step-fire-ball-dismembering, slow-mo bullettime high-jump shotgun-blast-to-the-face-ing. This, it's fair to say, is not your usual Soulslike.

Well, I say "freshest. " In its ickily up-close vision of Napoleonic battlefields, swapping the boring old bubonic plague for a fleshy, pustulating necro-blight, Valor Mortis is as horrid and grim as a standard Soulslike rulebook would compel. At the same time, One More Level’s first-person take on campfires and attack-pattern combat does feel like a game striking out on its own, and not just through its unusual choice of perspective. If anything, there are decisions here that might have FromSoft purists calling for the guillotine. Yet it’s almost all in service of an intentionally tighter, more intimate kind of supernatural action, which – while lacking the immaculate complexity of Souls masterworks – serves up enough tense sabre duels to see the whole thing through.

Edwin came up the ladder to my office last week to remind me that my quarterly Maw Safety Certification was up for renewal. Without an in date health and safety and wild eldritch creature control license, I'm not allowed to remain in the Treehouse and we have to shut down the site. So, today I'm down in the Maw's chamber coaxing it to hock up some globules of games. Edwin's here, of course, though he seems pretty smug to be on the other side of the plexiglass for a change. I wouldn't mind if he weren't also inciting the Maw with lurid hand gestures.

Listen now on Apple, Spotify or YouTubeIn This Edition, Japan’s games industryValor Mortis’ goes low on priceNex Playground scores $150 millionPlus, news from Blizzard, Sega and Team17Hello from Tokyo! This week, The Game Business is in Japan for Tokyo Game Show. And to kick things off, our guest this week is analyst Dr Serkan Toto, who gives us a detailed overview on the successes and challenges facing the Japanese games market in 2026. It’s not all about Japan, however. Our other guest is Blake Rochkind, the head of mid-tier publisher Lyrical Games, who joins us to discuss (amongst other things) the “agonizing” decision around pricing its promising new IP Valor Mortis, which launches next month. Plus, we have all the big news from the last seven days. You can watch or listen to the whole thing above. Or check out our highlights below. Enjoy! Ahead of Tokyo Game Show, we invited Japanese games analyst Dr Serkan Toto to come on our Show and discuss all things Japan.

In 1966, CBS debuted the now-classic television special, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. In it, all the kids in the Peanuts gang take part in typical Halloween activities, including trick-or-treating and pumpkin-carving — except for Linus. Instead, Linus is preparing for the arrival of a mythical being known as the “Great Pumpkin.” As Linus explains, “Each year, the Great Pumpkin rises out of the pumpkin patch that he thinks is the most sincere,” then he distributes toys to the children waiting for him. Linus spends the special writing letters to the Great Pumpkin and trying to convince others of its existence. Then he spends Halloween night in a pumpkin patch, awaiting the Great Pumpkin’s arrival. Of course, the Great Pumpkin never emerges, but Linus still vows to wait again next year. To the casual Peanuts fan, that may be all they ever know of Linus and the Great Pumpkin, but dedicated readers of the Peanuts comic strip know there’s much, much more to the story. The Great Pumpkin was first mentioned in a Peanuts comic on Oct. 26, 1959.

The '90s are back and they're actually somewhat traumatizing Calvin and Hobbes' scariest strip came out eight months before Halloween