But Sihoo also makes a couple of more luxurious chairs, still with an emphasis on value for money. The Doro C300 Pro has a wide seat, breathable mesh, lumbar support, lots of adjustability and fantastic armrests. And right now it's reduced by $80 from $459 to $379 at Amazon.

See our guide to the best office chairs for back pain to compare pricier options.

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Not in the US? See budget office chair deals in your region below. Once you've got your chair, make sure you also see our feature on how to sit properly in a chair.

I'll get to that later, but first, let's recap: Those old enough to have been gaming since 2002 may recall the original Stuntman, developed by Newcastle-based Reflections and published by the long-defunct French outfit Infogrames. It showed that a video game could provide the perfect consequence-free environment to indulge one’s fantasies as a Hollywood stunt driver, and it spawned a 2007 sequel titled Stuntman: Ignition.

All good, throwaway fun, but perhaps not the most obvious candidate for a franchise reboot. Nevertheless, Saber Interactive is in the process of bringing back Stuntman, in the form of Stuntman: Hollywood, which will be released at an as-yet-unspecified date in 2027.

Stuntman: Hollywood has an interesting provenance. According to Saber Interactive Chief Creative Officer Tim Willits, whom I interviewed at Gamescom, its origins date back to a period which the company probably wouldn’t recall as the best of times – when it was owned by the notoriously over-expansive Embracer Group, which bought Saber Interactive in 2020, then sold it in 2024 for $247 million, to a company owned by Saber co-founder Matthew Karch.

But there was another factor in play: Saber Interactive’s relationship with film company Universal Pictures. Willits explains: “Stuntman was an IP that Embracer owned, so when we were in the Embracer family, we were like, 'Hey, we love driving games.’ The team that we had, which was coming available, had experience in that driving genre, and we had a great relationship with Universal because we have Jurassic Park and Turok, and Universal was like, ‘Yeah, let’s do this’.”

Back to the Future and Jurassic World? Marketing genius

Obviously, any gamer who wants to pursue a vicarious virtual career as a stunt driver would want to do it on the sets of the biggest, most blockbusting films. Willits adds: “So we were able to get The Fast and the Furious, Knight Rider, Miami Vice, Back to the Future and Jurassic World for it. And the movie people were really excited – they gave us ideas, and they even helped us with some assets and stuff. It’s been a dream to work with Universal on this.”

One of Saber Interactive’s biggest assets is turning out to be its cultivation of strong relationships with the movie industry – which would seem an obvious route for a video games publisher to pursue, since movie IPs form a fantastic basis for successful games. But strangely few game publishers schmooze the movie world as assiduously as Saber Interactive.

Willits points out that his company has also been working with Lionsgate, as it is in the early stages of creating a John Wick game: “Working with Lionsgate has been great; working with Keanu and Chad Stahelski directly is amazing – those guys are so awesome. Chad, the director, is a big video game fan, and if you watch a John Wick movie, it kind of feels like a video game.”

Hands-on with Stuntman: Hollywood

Willits describes Stuntman: Hollywood as “Bite-sized awesomeness,” and based on my hands-on experience with the Gamescom demo, that description is accurate. The Gamescom demo featured five stunt-driving runs, each ending with a gloriously over-the-top stunt, such as launching a Ferrari Testarossa onto the back of a speeding super-yacht. Each of the five runs in the demo was short – between five and ten minutes – but intense. Throughout, I had a director in my ear, telling me what to do and praising my better efforts. I also had a line showing my ideal route, along with other indicators, such as proximity, when I had been told to get as close as possible to an object without hitting it.

I inevitably made mistakes, but Stuntman: Hollywood proved relatively forgiving, allowing a certain number of howlers per run. On one run, I got things so horribly wrong (basically getting confused about which route I was supposed to take) that I had to retry the run. At the end of each run, I was given a rating, which in a proper playthrough of the game (as opposed to a time-limited demo) would have added replay value as I sought stunt-driving perfection.

I had to perform various tasks in each run, including drifting at prescribed points, generating sufficient speed to make jumps, passing as close as possible to objects and cars without hitting them, actually hitting objects (causing a satisfying amount of designed on-set mayhem), weaving at specific points to avoid explosions and following a tight route on occasions. There were often plenty of those movie car-chase staples – piles of cardboard boxes – to decoratively scatter. And every run built up to a satisfying crescendo, with a long, speed-building precision section before perfectly timing a bravura jump.

Stuntman: Hollywood, commendably, didn’t shout in a cheesy manner about what film I happened to be on the set of, but it was pretty obvious. The car I drove in each run provided a clue: a white Ferrari Testarossa for a Miami Vice sequence, an off-road motorbike in Jurassic World, the inimitable KITT in Knight Rider, and a pumped-up Toyota designed for drifting in The Fast and the Furious. The game also includes the DeLorean from Back to the Future and a fearsome reinforced muscle car from Death Race, another movie IP that features in the game.

Handling was pretty much what I'd expect from each machine, though you could press a bumper to induce drifting. All the cars had plenty of power on offer (it was a shame I didn’t get to drive the Back to the Future DeLorean, which was famously a pig to drive in real life, though I suspect it would have got a power boost in the game).

Film stunts brought to life

Graphically, Stuntman: Hollywood was pretty impressive, with the high-resolution detail typical of modern driving games. The game avoided the trap of obsessive realism, with a slightly cartoony look to some of the objects I drove through and around, and individual art direction for each run that took cues from the films or TV shows it was based on. For example, it replicated that distinctive 1980s pastel-and-neon look nicely for the Miami Vice sections.

Overall, Stuntman: Hollywood stuck to the spirit of the franchise while dragging it into the modern era visually. It was great fun to play, and very addictive. Sure, it will be pretty throwaway and ephemeral, but if you ever fancied yourself as a stunt driver, it should more than tick all the boxes.

Stuntman: Hollywood's release date is TBD, but it will launch on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

Because after week of using the Pomera DM250 digital typewriter, I'm convinced that this is the writing device I've been waiting years for. It's small, it's light, and most importantly, it's distraction-free.

• Get the Pomera DM250 digital typewriter for $549

Until recently, the digital typewriter space was owned by the Freewrite Traveller, but that device has faced criticism for its slow e-ink display. The Pomera's LCD screen is super crisp and snappy, with no lag. It makes for a seamless writing experience.

The clamshell design of the Pomera DM250 is delightfully simple. The keyboard isn't mechanical, but it's sturdy and responsive. And as for the software, it couldn't be simpler. It's a simple word processor plus file management tool – that's about it. There are a bunch of shortcuts to learn for editing text, but it all becomes second nature quickly.

And that simplicity is what makes it such an effective device. I'm as brain addled as everyone else when it comes to the digital world. I've tried writing on my laptop and my iPad, but there's just too much distraction readily available on those devices. The Pomera does have WiFi, but only for emailing your writing to yourself (which is a pretty neat way of getting text of the device, by the way).

The Pomera DM250 has entered the chat at an auspicious time. The conversation around digital detoxing is only growing, and single-use devices are becoming more and more popular. From the reMarkable paper tablet to the many dumbphones out there, so-called 'analogue' devices are capturing people's attention like never before. And the Pomera DM250 is as as single-use as they come. It's a writing device, and that's it.

Perhaps the biggest downside to the device is the price. At $549, it really (really) isn't cheap. If you're a writer, the question is how much focus is worth to you.

Continuing our regular series of artist showcases, he briefly introduces four examples of his work below. If you're inspired, see our guides to the best drawing tablets and the best laptops for drawing and digital art.

The Sicilian Court portrait research

“Portraits are my first research step. Defining a character’s core emotion creates a strong foundation that guides later design decisions and research.”

The Lord of Balux

“This illustration began with abstract complementary blue, orange and yellow shapes. This opposition is a nice narrative framework to contrast the brooding baron with the feast behind him.”

The Tower of Atlan

“This environment piece began with loose three-value sketches and a colour pass. I designed the architecture in Blender, overlaid the 3D with the colour key, and completed the rendering on Photoshop.”

Marceline

“Fan art helps me escape my habits. Recreating Distant Lands: Obsidian let me explore saturated purples, artificial lighting, and subjects beyond my usual knights.”

You can see more of Marc's work on his ArtStation profile

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While there's no formula for creating the best poster designs, there are a few ground rules – make it eye-catching and make it legible. What you don't want is fans complaining that your design is an eyesore.

The poster design itself is pretty straightforward, featuring Fury and Joshua in a faceoff. Where the design falls short is its typography structure. Large bold text reading 'finally' gestures to the long-awaited match between the legendary fighters, with 'Fury' and 'AJ' vertically bodged on in what I can only describe as a unique... stylistic choice.

The result is a poster that appears to read 'U vs J' – notably not the initials of the fighters. "There has got to be a better design for this poster… “finally U vs J” is crazy," one fan responded on X. "That’s a terrible poster design," another added, while one chimed in, "This hurts my eyes to look at. F grade on the promo graphic. Sheesh."

For more design news, check out why this design might be the worst typography cockup of 2026 or take a look at why Taylor Swift's Patient 0 cover was accused of a Photoshop mishap.

In one sense, it feels like a standard design conference, with friends, colleagues and people who've only just met in the queue all hanging out on comfy sofas, swapping work stories and side project ideas. So far, so fun.

It's when you enter the official sessions, especially the big keynotes, when it starts to feel less like you're at an OFFF or a SXSW and more like a press conference. New tools, new features will be revealed. There'll be whoops and cheers from the audience.

The atmosphere is somewhere between a Steve Jobs keynote and a high school pep rally. In fact, at my first attendance in LA in 2018, despite my journalistic neutrality, I found it difficult to resist the compulsion to join in. The energy in the room was that infectious.

Which made one particular moment at the 2023 conference all the stranger.

The keynote was being given by David Wadhwani, president of Adobe's Digital Media Business, and he was enthusing about generative AI features in Adobe Firefly. Then he stepped up to give the equivalent of a comedian landing a punchline: creators had already generated over three billion images using Firefly since its launch. He then paused, clearly expecting a cheer that would bring the house down.

Only to be met with dead silence.

It was a moment that encapsulated exactly what most creative professionals think about gen AI. My guess is that most of the people who'd created those three billion images had not been professionals, just people who wanted an easy fix, that might even save them from hiring a creative professional. There was a disconnect there, that Adobe didn't seem to have registered. Not a good look.

So what's the story three years on?

What's changed and what hasn't

This year, Adobe Max takes place in Miami Beach from 10-12 November. While we don't know what will be said, revealed or announced just yet, they have shared the session list. And while there are a massive 208 sessions to wade through, I think it tells us a lot about where their head is right now.

I've read the whole thing, so you don't need to. And here's what I think it tells us. Adobe is still going all in on generative AI, but unlike in 2023, it's realised you might hate it for doing so. Reading the session guides feels like Adobe telling you "We're not like other AI companies, honest", just a little too often.

Adobe's own guide to the event highlights a 25-session AI track, and almost every AI session comes with this kind of language. The After Effects session "isn't about replacing your craft". The agentic AI session promises "creative partners, not crutches". Phrases like "without sacrificing craft" and "creative control" crop up so often, you feel like you're playing a drinking game.

One session is even titled "Why AI Is Not Our Creative Titanic". It's being given by Laura Jordan Bambach, former D&AD President and an old friend of Creative Bloq, so I'm sure it'll be a great talk. But I'm sorry, I have to question the title. It seems like an odd way to soothe people's worries, given that nobody who sailed the Titanic expected it to sink either.

Who's the main audience?

Look further down the AI session list, and seems to clear to me who Adobe's main audience is for this stuff. It's not the individual designer or freelancer. It's marketing directors, agency bosses and procurement teams who buy enterprise software at scale.

Firefly Graph is pitched on "governance, scalability, indemnification". Omnicom is showing off an "agentic operating model". One agency boasts of "producing over one million assets for brands like eBay, Spotify, and Just Eat". Another asks: "What if your team could deliver bigger, bolder, more premium content — within the same budget, crew size, and timelines?"

The session that puts all this into sharp relief is Tony Harmer's all-day Illustrator lab, which promises "a unique upper hand in mastering traditional skills in Illustrator without the AI". The absence of AI is no longer the norm, but an outlier, a curiosity. Is it just me, or does that not feel a little shocking?

What creatives want

Tony won't be alone in drawing crowds: there are some great people speaking at this event, and I don't want to diminish that in the slightest. In particular, Aaron Draplin's logo day, David Blatner's InDesign tricks, Laurie Ruhlin's styles lab and Lightroom masking deep dives are the kinds of sessions working professionals will gladly queue up for.

My guess is that when AI does turn up in these particular sessions, it'll be the useful, unglamorous kind: cleaning up dodgy audio in Premiere, masking skies in Lightroom, getting InDesign to handle resizes. Because if you ask most working designers, they'll tell you they don't want Adobe software to generate their work. They just want it to take away the grunt work, and be straight about pricing and training data.

My reading of Adobe Max 2026, though, is that while Adobe still cares about those people, the overall direction of travel is towards scale, volume and the enterprise buyer: towards "content" rather than work. Not because Adobe's leaders necessarily want that, but because the brutal logic of delivering shareholder returns will leave them with no other choice.

Ironically, one talk asks: "If everyone can create, who will create what matters?" It's a great question. I might be just a cynical old man shouting at clouds. But from where I'm sitting, Adobe's current answer seems to be: whoever's paying for the enterprise licence.

Now one solo dev is taking things further with a delightfully full-on DIY approach to making a game. As well as making all the art for his game with his own hands, he's also making all the music and sound effects with his own voice. The stick-figure visuals might not be GTA VI-level fidelity, but Punch to Defend looks like a whole lot of fun.

If your inspired to finally get to work on your own masterpiece, see our guides to the best game development software and the best laptops for game development.

Milan-based dev Kuro Naeda describes Punch to Defend as an "incremental tower defense game made with love and bad decisions".

"Haters will say I didn't make it all alone but, believe it or not... those are drawings of a man in his 20s," the developer says of the somewhat rough-and-ready game art. "And so are the sound effects and music."

Said sound design consists of Kuro singing, beat boxing and otherwise mouthing sound effects with as much gusto as Michael Leslie Winslow in the Police Academy movies.... Perhaps without quite the same range, but it's amazing all the same.

As for the gameplay, "you upgrade little guys, fight increasingly stronger enemies and make numbers go up. You earn tears, buy upgrades and keep pushing until the game becomes unreasonable".

Challenges unlock fusions, letting you combine units into new ones, and every fusion gets its own artwork, abilities and stats.

"You can even fuse a unit with itself. Yes, that's a lot of work for something this stupid, but here I am," the developer writes on his Kickstarter page, where he's already achieved triple his ambitious funding target of $113.

"Not being able to draw or make music shouldn't stop anyone from making games. Except me probably," he writes on Reddit.

Asked about why he set his funding target so low, the developer explains: "It's a one man project, I just need the money to upload it to steam and some extra for pizza and coffee".

"The kickstarter funds will be used for beatbox equipment maintenance," he clarifies in another comment. "Food (maintenance) that arrives in my mouth (beat box equipment)".

Did Bentley get something right that others got wrong? Or has it just been less ambitious in the design stakes?

Several factors help the Bentley Torcal avoid the controversy that dogged Jaguar and Ferrari's EVs. It has some impressive headline figures – 876 hp and 996 lb-ft of torque – but luxury car branding is more about emotion than numbers, and Bentley got that right too.

Unlike Jaguar, this British carmaker isn't breaking away from its heritage to start afresh. There's no rebrand; it's the same Bentley we know, it just happens to have made its first fully electric car.

Design director Robin Page has said that the goal was not to create a new design language, but to build "another great Bentley". His team "decided that our best route would be to embrace our heritage and DNA, but in a modern, progressive way," he told Dezeen.

That's the story, and it's impressively consistent.

There is a new Bentley logo, but it's a relatively subtle tweak on a familiar design. The Torcal follows the same philosophy. The influence of the Bentayga is clear in signature Bentley cues like the long bonnet, prominent grille and large rear haunches.

That grille is probably the most controversial feature. In an all-electric car, its original purpose becomes obsolete, but as a design choice, the illuminated diamond pattern provides a striking night-time identity and an EV-era signature feature. It's a touch of bling that might appeal to younger drivers, but having it there also preserves instant recognition.

Inside, physical metal controls, wool upholstery, handcrafted materials and the absence of excessive screens avoid the coldness of ultra-digital cabins. The approach to sound is equally handcrafted. Yes, there are fake engine noises, but they're presented as a feature rather than a compromise. Bentley commissioned musicians to create the "Bentley Dynamic Symphony", recreating its iconic V8 engine sound using drums, viola, and bass guitar.

Even the car's name is a nod to its heritage reputation for precision mechanics. The name of the Torcal mountain range in Andalusia comes from the Latin verb torquere, the same root as torque.

Essentially, Bentley changed the powertrain but avoided the identity-level controversy seen around Jaguar or the existential questions that inevitably surround Ferrari's Luce.

Maybe it had an easier task. Ferrari's brand equity is difficult to separate from engines and motorsport. People buy Bentleys for luxury, comfort and craftsmanship, which are traits that translate more easily to an EV and aren't threatened by a silent electric powertrain. Jaguar was a dead brand that needed to go through a painful reset.

None of these approaches is right or wrong in itself. Jaguar has largely succeeded in what it wanted to achieve, and so has Bentley. But will either of them convince wealthy customers that they want an electric car?

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If you check Nintendo Switch 2 prices regularly, you'll already know that this limited-time deal is unlikely to last long, so if you've been waiting for the moment to get Nintendo's newest console, you'll want to be quick.

If you're in the US, check out Nintendo's tariff refund sale. Also see our guide to the best Nintendo Switch 2 accessories if you already have a console secured.

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Nintendo Switch 2 one year on

A year after release, Switch 2 feels fresh and manages to sit between other gaming brands in a unique way. Nintendo does that no other gaming brand can do, capturing the joy of old-school gaming even while it innovates.

Nintendo Switch 2 features a performance bump, improved visuals, and new social features compared to the Switch 1, while retaining its hybrid handheld/TV console design. Inside is a custom NVIDIA chip that includes AI-powered upscaling similar to DLSS. But really, it's those first-party games and exclusives you're here for: Zelda, Mario, Metroid, Starfox and more.

This pocket-sized 5,000mAh power bank offers fast-charging while keeping things relatively cable-free. It offers a far more practical approach to charging than 90% of the bricks out there, and at the new price, I think it's one of the better super-practical, cool-looking tech deals.

Of course, if you want to explore more heavy-duty laptop chargers, we've got a guide for the best power banks out there. But if it's portability you're after, the Sharge Flow Mini is a strong recommendation.

Sharge Flow Mini 2 deep dive

At the heart of the Sharge Mini 2 is a 5,000mAh cell configuration, with a built-in USB-C cable for immediate top-ups with dual swappable connectors for iOS and Android. It's all pretty seamless, and the metallic trim, splash of orange and charge lights all look pretty cool (not something I ever thought I'd be saying about a power charge).

When put head-to-head with other options, such as the $55 Anker MagGo 5K, the Sharge Mini is smaller and costs nearly $30 less.

So it's perfect, right?! Well, no, and while the compact power bank battery reaches up to 22.5W and handles steady low-battery background anxiety well, it still trails the market-leading capacities found on the larger Anker Prime 20K. Yet that is $89! So for the sub-$30 price, I still think the Mini Pro is a great option.

Crisp blue skies, real-life planes modelled to every nut sitting alongside hyperactive anime heroes and sci-fi flying fortresses – oh yes, Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve is the most Ace Combat-y of Ace Combat games, and from takeoff it’s not really interested in being anything else. If you’re here wondering if Project Aces has finally decided to reinvent what it does, well, it doesn’t, and about six hours in, I didn't really mind.

Ray-traced clouds, a new war, the return of squadron orders you can bark at your wingmen mid-dogfight (well, via the D-pad), and for a while I waited for the moment the formula cracked open and did something really new. It never quite does. Lock on, cycle targets, cycle weapons, fire – Ace Combat's been running that loop in these blue skies since 1999 (for me, the series true self started with Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere), and Ace Combat 8, for all its polish, is still that loop wearing a nicer flying jacket now joined by teammates.

That's not really a complaint, because it's comforting to return to what it's like to play a game from a developer that understands what’s needed, and when it works – and it works often – Ace Combat 8 is still a wonderful, faintly ridiculous flight of fancy, with controls easy enough that you spend most of a mission looking at the sky instead of worrying whether you're flying it correctly, right up until a flying mega-wing-thing the size of a city block rises over the horizon and you remember exactly what game you're playing.

The story, such as it is, hangs a fresh look on that old formula, as it’s not in first-person: 2029, the Federation of Central Usea overrun, its navy shattered, and you aboard the ageing carrier Endurance, where a propaganda unit has turned a legendary pilot called the Wings of Theve into a rallying myth – except the legend was never real, and somehow you inherit the name anyway, flying with Baxter, Tasha and Coster as Joker Flight while what's left of the FCU tries to take its home back. It's Ace Combat doing what Ace Combat does: a war story about borrowed identity, the underdog doing what’s right against the odds, mostly as an excuse to strap you into increasingly swift and agile fighter jets.

Wings of Theve, and one thousand aircraft against your four

Like previous entries, the spectacle is where Ace Combat 8 earns its keep, because just as a mission starts feeling like another exercise in target practice, things shift a gear and a new mini-boss, an elite squadron, a change of objective, the horizon suddenly fills with something enormous or numerous, and Project Aces throws the next thing at you, usually a massive flying wing or 'land ship', and the soundtrack swells dramatically, convincing me that whatever's sitting at the far end of my lock-on reticle actually matters.

While Ace Combat 8 plays a little coyer with its biggest moments than Ace Combat 7, saving the real spectacle for later, when it arrives, it arrives properly: the space elevator returns, scaled up further still, and one of the best missions in the game puts you against a Land Battleship – a destroyer bolted onto tank treads – as it tries to ram and bring down the iconic megastructure, and you pick apart its armour plate by plate before it can fire again.

This is exactly the sort of setpiece event that sounds like nonsense but feels fantastic in flight, and making use of Unreal Engine 5 mostly just means more of it – more aircraft, more bombers, more tanks, more explosions – right up to a finale when a radio operator tells you, with sincerity, there are a thousand aircraft against your four (I counted around 100 planes at one time, but more and more were added). I gulped. Then I grinned. That's the whole review, really, if you want the short version.

What surprised me is how close Ace Combat 8 is willing to bring you in for a game that spends so much time at missile range with jets tumbling and rolling around each other until you're watching the enemy aircraft rather than the battlefield behind it, which is where the series has always been at its best, better than any attempt to play this straight as a simulator ever managed. The new clouds help here and become more than eye-candy and emerge as genuine tactical leverage: they break line of sight, mess with missile tracking, give you somewhere to vanish when a dogfight's gone wrong, and more than once I caught myself using weather instinctively to escape danger rather than simply admiring how good it looks rolling across a skyline and over mountains, and that backdrop finally feels like a place rather than a 3D-rendered diorama.

Systems that promise more than they spend

This is also where Ace Combat 8's attempts to grow up are more interesting on paper than they are in-game. Like previous entries, you have aircraft and special weapons to unlock, parts to fit, and MRP (Military Result Points ) to earn and spend. The returning squadron system lets you issue basic commands, like sending wingmen after targets, but it hasn't really evolved since AC5 and is less complex than AC6. However, you can now spend MRP on them and not just yourself, adding a degree of tactical plotting through the aircraft upgrade tree, so when you call them back to cover you, they have the gear to make it work.

It feels like squadron commands should be a genuinely tactical layer sitting on top of the old arcade skeleton, but in practice, it rarely changes how I actually play. I leaned on a teammate to watch my tail a handful of times and enjoyed the couple of missions where directing the squadron actually mattered, but mostly I left them to it; your standard missiles will lock on and destroy almost anything anyway, and the special weapons settle into a familiar handful of ideas – long-range, multi-lock, auto-targeting bombs – by the campaign's final third I was flying the same loadout I'd worked out hours earlier and never really questioning it.

Squadron orders are useful, and customisation is handy, but none of it breaks the lock-on-and-fire rhythm underneath, and maybe that's the series' whole compromise, really: push too far toward simulation and you lose the immediacy that makes this fun, push too far into pure arcade, and you lose the pleasure of actually feeling like an ace pilot, and Ace Combat 8 sits in that middle ground happily. Sometimes too happily – I let out an audible sigh hitting a stealth mission built around radar avoidance – but give me a sky full of fighters and a stupid objective, and I'm in love with how Ace Combat 8 feels. Ask me to creep around a maze of radar cones, and I start wishing it would just get back to the good stuff.

The campaign also weaves in something more personal, with new first-person interludes aboard the Endurance that bring you closer to the characters. And your performance, not raw decisions, shapes who survives, who joins Joker squadron, and who is there by your side for the grand finale, when every ally made along the way races to your side. Queue dramatic orchestral music as that pilot you faintly remember helping 18 hours earlier sweeps in from behind the clouds to save you. It doesn't transform the storytelling, not really, but it gives the battles a bit more weight than the usual faceless setup because it could affect something.

Bigger skies, actual humans

Then there's the multiplayer, which might be where all those half-realised systems finally make sense, because *deep breath* online features a hundred-player Air Base hub, its own progression track, co-op missions, PvPvE, four-player Scramble runs against AI, eight-player superweapon raids, Co-Op Warfare that pits two four-strong teams against each other with NPC forces flooding the map, and Co-Op Assault turns it into a straight scoring contest. I only had limited time with it before review, so take this as a first impression rather than a verdict, but even my short play made one thing obvious – putting actual humans on the other end of the fight, and your aircraft and weapon choices matter in a way the campaign's AI wingmen never quite do. Understanding positioning, cover, and roles means you have to watch your team instead of hunting the next lock-on. It's a singular multiplayer mode, and there's honestly not much else quite like it.

Which, in the end, is probably the whole pitch of Ace Combat 8. Project Aces hasn't tried to reinvent anything here; instead, the team has taken a formula it's spent decades sanding down, dipped back into fan-favourite ideas, and made the skies bigger, denser, prettier, and bolted on a unique dynamic narrative system onto these wings to make the old loop feel worth taking flight with again.

Is Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve worth playing?

Sometimes I wanted more: the weapon system evolves from AC7 and promises depths it doesn't deliver; the squadron commands could have been more effective; and here and there you can see the rails the game adheres to running behind the spectacle a little too clearly.

But then the clouds break, enemy aces come charging out of them, the score kicks in, half the sky goes up in flames, your allies arrive, and I remember what Ace Combat does better than almost anything else – it takes the simple, stupid joy of flying a fighter jet, piles an emotionally charged amount of drama on top of it, and somehow convinces you the fate of this anime world genuinely hinges on whether you can get one more target locked.

The Goodtime State – Vice City Collection, now listed on the Rockstar Games Store, centres on Macca the Gator, a mascot from a fictional in-game TV show set in Leonida, GTA 6's answer to Florida. The $400 price gets you a Macca figure, a pair of Oakley Frogskins, a New Era cap, a Leonida Keys crossbody bag, a shot glass, a magnetic mirror, pins, stickers, a swizzle spoon, a razor-blade keychain, and a double-sided poster of the Leonida map, according to Rockstar's official listing.

There’s no game code and no mention of one anywhere in the bundle, but fans don’t seem to mind, because Rockstar is doing what it’s always been great at: developing fictional brands that feel as tangible as anything Taylor Swift or Sydney Sweeney put their name to.

Merch for a place that doesn't exist

And that’s what makes the box stand out: it isn't the price tag, but instead it’s the concept behind it. Rather than producing standard game-branded merchandise, Rockstar has designed the collection to look like something you'd actually buy inside Leonida itself: souvenirs from a fictional TV show, sold by a fictional tourist economy, to real people who haven't played the game yet. I can absolutely imagine buying this stuff at an airport store.

It's a natural extension of how GTA has always built its worlds (I still own my GTA IV dartboard and dominos from that game’s launch). The series has spent decades filling its maps with fake burger chains, parody beer brands (Pißwasser), dodgy adverts and radio stations that exist purely to make the city feel lived-in rather than designed. Rockstar rarely explains these details – we as players absorb them ambiently, glimpsed on billboards or overheard on the radio – until the setting feels like a real place with its own culture and history, not a collection of missions.

The Goodtime State box takes that same approach and makes it physical. The Leonida Keys bag, the branded cap, the souvenir poster. None of it feels like generic game merchandise; it’s not just a hoodie with a GTA6 logo, for example, and it doesn't read as tourist tat from a city that technically doesn't exist.

A souvenir, not a statue

Rockstar describes the poster as a double-sided map of the "full Leonida landscape," with Macca the Gator artwork on the reverse – deliberately framed as a keepsake rather than a reference item, according to the product description.

That distinction matters because Collector's editions have traditionally leaned on statues, steelbooks and hero art – items that signal this is the game you bought. The Goodtime State box instead leans into the fiction that Leonida is a destination, and it's full of the stuff you'd bring home from visiting.

Little is currently known about Macca the Gator beyond his appearance in the box art and figure – whether he's a children's TV staple, a washed-up local celebrity, or something stranger within GTA 6's world hasn't been detailed by Rockstar. That ambiguity appears to be intentional, consistent with how the studio has handled fictional media and brands throughout the GTA series. Rockstar also isn’t averse to sidestepping perfect brand tie-ins, such as when Phil Collins starred as Phil Collins in GTA Vice City Stories.

The bigger picture

The collection arrives as a pre-order, and collector's edition pricing across the games industry keeps climbing, with $400 putting the Goodtime State box well above typical special editions. Rockstar has not confirmed whether the collection will be limited in quantity or how it fits alongside any standard or deluxe editions of GTA 6 itself.

What's notable is the strategy behind the price: rather than selling players a bigger, shinier version of the game they're already anticipating, Rockstar is selling them a piece of the world itself – one built entirely from the kind of background detail most studios would never bother turning into a product.

Grand Theft Auto 6 releases on 19 November on PS5 and Xbox alongside this newly revealed $400 box of collector items.

If that sounds a bit like a nightmarish Black Mirror episode, fear not, as Meta has come up with an ingenious way to make things a little less dystopian. They've created a cute little mascot to distract you from the potential domination of a global superintelligence. Hey, at least it's got a cute character design.

The new face of Meta Muse is a little fuzzy guy with a soft smile and a distinctly unthreatening vibe. Aptly named Jolly, the character adds an endearing quality to Meta's once faceless AI, softening the technology for the more AI-skeptical among us. Alongside the new avatar was the debut of a pocket-sized device to house your AI pal – essentially turning Jolly into a glorified Tamagotchi.

Users can ask Jolly questions like a typical AI assistant, and thanks to the new Muse Realtime Avatar model, you can also call him up for a real-time video chat. Am I slightly worried there's a potential for parasocial connections? Yes, a little, but darn it if he ain't cute,.

I can't help but feel like there's something slightly infantilising about Meta's new AI avatar, given Zuckerberg's prediction: "In the coming years, I expect that Muse is going to grow into the personal superintelligence that billions of people around the world are going to use."

There's something about a cute character design masking the global takeover of Meta's AI that sits a little strangely with me. Pair that with the childlike novelty of Meta's new pocket AI device, and it seems like a calculated move to soften the more nefarious potential of the technology. With Meta's smart glasses already making headlines for privacy issues around both users and the company itself, the concept of an ever-listening pocket AI (however cute) certainly pushes the limits of my trust in Meta.

A particular kind of panic arrives when you start making something and realise you have absolutely no idea where it’s going. For many creatives, that feeling signals them to stop, find a reference and look at what worked last time; maybe open a familiar digital art software or iPad drawing app and find a safe place to return to. Do the thing you know you can do. Es Devlin takes almost the opposite view.

“I’ve learned that I make my most interesting work when I don’t know the rules and I don’t know what I’m doing,” she told Art Basel. She followed it with a line that feels almost like a manifesto for escaping your own creative comfort zone: “I don’t want to repeat experiments I’ve already done. Each piece has to be a prototype.”

That is quite a statement from someone whose work includes huge kinetic sculptures, Olympic ceremonies, Super Bowl performances and stadium-scale collaborations. These aren't exactly things you casually knock up to see what happens. Devlin says her projects can involve enormous resources and the time of many other people, meaning every new idea carries a genuine risk of not working as she imagined.

Not knowing what you're doing isn't necessarily evidence that you've made a bad start. It can be evidence that you haven't simply repeated yourself. Devlin has even created a room in her home for this kind of uncertainty: a space without a brief or commission where she doesn't know what she'll make by the end of the day. She credits advice from artist William Kentridge, who told her she needed a room where she could make a mess and not be in control.

With Devlin's first European retrospective, Es Devlin: Other Worlds, opening at London's Design Museum on 2 October 2026, it's a timely reminder that a 30-year career doesn't necessarily come from finding a formula and sticking to it. The exhibition brings together her work across sculpture, stage design, music, language and light.

What can we all learn from Devlin? Sometimes the uncomfortable bit at the beginning isn't the problem, and it might be the point of it all after all

Visit Es Devlin for art, insights, and inspiration in stage design, graphic art, and sculpture.

Our favourite Es Devlin art books:

Available now, both models could easily hit our lists of the best label makers, or the best laminators. But they're so much more than that. They serve as compact mini-print shops that print and laminate pro-quality, water- and scratch-resistant stickers and photos using ultra-vivid 300 DPI dye-sublimation technology.

That may be a mouthful, but it basically means these are very capable little things. The standard Cricut StickerPix Print (£159.99 for the Essential Bundle) works seamlessly with pre-cut sticker sheets—perfect for quick, uniform labels. Meanwhile, the advanced Cricut StickerPix Print + Cut (£249.99 for the Essential Bundle) adds a built-in cutter, automatically kiss-cutting custom shapes directly around your unique designs. Both connect effortlessly to the free Cricut Design Space app, meaning you can transform your smartphone photos and designs into tactile stickers in minutes.

So, who's this for? Well, everyone from label/sticker homebody maniacs to digital artists and small business owners.

If you run a market stall or Etsy shop, the StickerPix Print could be a really nice addition to your business. It’s efficient for batch-printing logos, price tags, QR codes, or packaging seals using the pre-cut circular and rectangular sheets. And, because the dye-sublimation prints come out completely dry and laminated, you won't have to worry about smudging labels. It's also ideal for anyone who wants to label their spice jars or craft room storage without fussing over intricate cuts.

I think there's also scope for illustrators to use these things, especially those who want to share their art at conventions – after all, everyone loves stickers! You can upload a hand-drawn illustration or a photo from your phone, and the machine will print, laminate, and precisely kiss-cut a custom border around the image so the backing stays intact for easy peeling.

For me, I'm excited to use them to create unique water bottle sticks and fun gifts for my son's birthday party bags.

Looking around at the other sticker makers in this price range, I think Cricut has successfully bridged the gap between a pro print shop and an everyday crafting tool. I can't wait to get my hands on them to fully try them out.

Continuing our regular series of artist showcases, he briefly introduces four examples of his work below. If you're inspired, see our guides to the best drawing tablets and the best laptops for drawing and digital art.

Blue

“This was done as a quick paint over practice on top of an old painting I did in 2019. I wanted to see how I can edit a painting to make it more interesting and in alignment with my current taste. I find I am now much more expressive with my mark-making.”

Shopkeeping

“This image is inspired by Orientalist paintings that are pretty complex with a lot of props and materials. For this image, I tried to balance all of the different details while trying to imply some kind of narrative as well.”

Pigeons

“This is inspired by Old Master paintings. I was particularly interested in the hands; I wanted them to have some kind of swirling motion and gesture to them. Hands are always fun to paint.”

Spirit

“This is probably my favourite painting that I have done. I wanted to capture something spiritual and mystical, a sense of movement, yet stillness, while also letting the viewer’s imagination interpret what’s going on.”

You can see more of Brian's work on his website

Today's best drawing tablet deals

Inspired to work on your own digital art? See below for deals on drawing tablets that we've reviewed.

This article originally appeared in ImagineFX. Subscribe to ImagineFX to never miss an issue. Print and digital subscriptions are available.

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With animated films having a resurgence thanks to Marvel's Into the Spider-Verse and recent announcements like Laika's Wildwood, all eyes are on the latest animation releases. Despite Ray Gunn's director swooping in to defend his stylistic choices, it seems the film has some high audience expectations to meet upon its release.

Created by Skydance Animation, the film follows detective Raymond Gunn as he investigates a potential murder involving celebrity star Venus Nova. A blend of sci-fi and classic noir, the movie has a surprisingly adult feel despite its humble PG rating, with romance, pummeling action and a hint of romance. But that's not why critics are peeved.

In a heated tweet on X, one user wrote, "watched this Ray Gunn trailer over and over because I absolutely cannot get over how sh**ty and plastic and awful this animation is." The impassioned reaction sparked a flurry of debate among animation fans who were torn by the provocative statement.

For some, the 3D animation style felt like the wrong fit, with one X user claiming, "Brad Bird’s Ray Gunn looks like a movie that’s BEGGING to be hand-drawn." Another lamented, "I do still really wish Ray Gunn was 2D animated. I’m tired of the 3D animated movies looking so similar & in general prefer 2D," while one user wrote, "Just saw the early designs for Ray Gunn and wow what we could’ve had (if only studio execs weren’t fu**ing babies)."

In defence of the 3D animation style, Director Brad Bird told Discussing Film, "My love of hand-drawn is not shared by nervous executives. Studios think audiences won’t accept that, which I don’t agree with. So, it became seen as a commercial decision [to make Ray Gunn in 3D CG]. But you are collaborating with a lot of people, and if somebody is putting forth the resources possible to make the movie, you have to play ball."

Others were more on board with the film, praising its more mature feel. "Am I the only one who’s glad that Ray Gunn has a slightly more grounded art style that still retains elements of stylisation?" one X user wrote, adding, "Ray Gunn has the feel of a more visually mature Pixar movie, and that’s great. We need more of this in moderation with different visions and art direction." Another chimed in, "I’m really excited for Ray Gunn. It’s a type of animation you barely see these days, and for nostalgia’s sake, I wish Brad Bird the best."

For more movie news check out why Laika is the animation house of the future or take a look at our guide on how to break into animation.

The next logical step to that idea would be to create a 'premium tier', allowing players to skip the adds if they pay a monthly fee. And it seems Sony's devised the perfect frictionless way to charge people for that.

It's filed a patent for a game controller that would also serve as a card reader, allowing gamers to make contactless payments directly via the device (I'll say it again: it might be time to consider one of the best retro gaming consoles).

Sony's patent application for “Video Game Controller-Driven Information Transfer" proposes a device that would support tap-to-pay with credit card, gift card or a phone. If it advances with the idea, you might be able to make payments on your PS6 directly via the Dualsense controller without having to look away from a game or enter a card number.

The patent was filed back in March 2025 but only published this month. Sony doesn't name the PlayStation or any other specific application but suggests that the controller could be used to pay for games, in-game credits and add-ons. It also cites an example of a player buying a game after trying a demo at a store or expo.

The console would request payment information and tell the player to move a payment method towards the controller. Payment details would then be beamed to the console via NFC or Bluetooth. These would be verified by the console, which would then process the purchase.

In the post-physical age of digital games, it feels inevitable that console makers would be exploring new ways to charge customers. Reduced friction could lead to more spontaneous purchases in free-to-play games or for additional DLCs. And I think I'd rather this than having to sit through an advert like in Microsoft's concept.

Of course, the concept quickly led to suggestions that the PlayStation 6 could be rebranded as PayStation if Sony actually ends up making controllers with this tech. Some people are surprised that Nintendo isn't already doing something similar on the Switch 2 given that it has NFC on board for Amiibo support.

Others reckon Sony's thinking too conservatively by focusing on traditional card payments – couldn't it store card details in advance and put a fingerprint reader on the controller for authorisation? That way, players wouldn't need to lift their fingers to make payment.

As ever, we should remember that a patent doesn't necessarily signal an intention to bring the idea into production. Sony's also recently patented an AI system that would allow PlayStation consoles to repair software problems themselves.

You can preorder Sony's limited-edition Dualsense GTA VI controllers now.

The latest example is an Apple Games advert that might even impress Laika for how well it blends stop-motion animation with CGI wizardry. The company's now released a behind-the-scenes video showing how it was made – and perhaps to prove that it wasn't AI-generated.

Behind-the-scenes videos for pieces like this are becoming as important as the finished adverts themselves in these AI-dominated times. If your brand is going to invest in the expense of traditional, human-created art, you want to make sure that people recognise it as that and appreciate the craftsmanship that went into it.

The behind-the-scenes video for the Apple Games stop-motion ad is a wonderfully produced and edited ad in itself. It shows how the team sculpted and painted physical props, game characters and real-world sets and moved them frame by frame rather than relying on automated digital or artificial intelligence tools. We also see glimpses of software like Dragonframe being used to produce the animation on Macs.

It's a stark comparison to when Coca-Cola made a bizarre AI-narrated behind-the-scenes video to try to claim there was some artistry behind its AI-generated Christmas advert.

There may be a suspected design fail on the new MacOS 27 wallpaper, but I think we can forgive that when Apple's still producing things as impeccable as this.

The good news is that Amazon's brought forward the start of its October Prime Day sale just in time. Its catchily named Early Prime Big Deals include some pretty decent discounts on coffee makers of all kinds. They range from $10 off a classic Chemex, my favourite method for the rare weekend when I'm feeling mindful enough to have the patience to pour, to up to a massive 42% off Bodum French presses (what I actually end up using most days!)

There are some great deals of mechanical methods too, including on the iconic Moccamaster. Here's my pick of the best. A couple of the deals are for Prime members only, but you could take advantage of the 30-day free Prime trial, which you can cancel afterwards if you don't want the other benefits.

• Browse coffee machines at Amazon

Also see our round up of early Prime Day deals for creatives.

With handmade assets, traditional storyboarding and live performers, the film's creators turned to Autodesk Flow Studio's AI-powered motion capture workflow to transform reference footage into customisable 3D character animation. That move allowed them to create a production that they never imagined could be possible when they first embarked on the project.

Daughter of the Inner Stars premiered with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House in 2024 and made its North American debut with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra in 2025. It follows a young girl called Fia. Searching for her lost father amid a cosmic war, she encounters ancient spirits forgotten by her culture and deeper truths about folklore, animism, grief and kinship.

The film was conceived by composer Nicholas Buc, writer and director James Vinson and producer Melanie Hiluta. It was originally going to be something like a picture book brought to a concert stage. Fia and a cast of fantastical characters developed by Ukraine-based Tubik Studio were going to be shown as static 2D imagery while the live narrator guided audiences through the story and voiced the characters.

However, the vision became more ambitious when production designer Nathan Su, the architect founder of Inferstudio, was brought on board. He began exploring how Tubik Studio’s illustrations could be translated into 3D.

Character artist Ludvig Holmen sculpted the characters as full 3D meshes, and early tests helped the team understand which qualities from the original illustrations carried over successfully, and which elements needed to be reinterpreted for the new format.

But another leap in the project's ambitions occurred just 18 months before the scheduled premiere in Sydney. Autodesk'sFlow Studio and the Unreal Engine MetaHuman Animator emerged as technologies that could potentially allow movement to be added to the project.

Flow Studio provides a web-based workflow for turning live-action performances into 3D character animation in a simple and intuitive way, without the need for a suit. Users can upload video footage alongside a custom 3D character, and then use AI-assisted motion capture to translate the performer’s movements onto the character, preview the result within the original live-action scene, and export the motion-capture data for refinement.

In an early test in 2023, Holmen performed a simple range-of-motion study that the team captured on a phone. They uploaded the footage into Flow Studio to see if the resulting character animation might be usable. Fia didn't yet have her final face or hair, but in that rough form, Flow Studio was still able to composite the character back into the scene and translate Holmen’s performance into her movements with surprising accuracy. That offered the first real indication that fully animated sequences might be within reach.

Suddenly, the vision for the project had gone from static 2D images to 3D, to a fully animated film. The team brought performers into the process, while the transition also put Animation Technical Director Nour Hassoun in a central role. He worked with the motion-capture data generated through Flow Studio, interpreting and refining it to help shape the quality and character of the final animation.

Meanwhile, the team tested facial animation in Unreal Engine and MetaHuman Animator, exploring how these could be combined with Flow Studio’s body-tracking workflow. They also tested different render styles, frame rates, and texturing techniques to see how the animation could be shaped to fit the intended storybook-inspired aesthetic.

The team estimates that Flow Studio reduce animation times by 80%, but it also helped redefine the project's focus. Thinking about the shoot in practical, performance-driven terms helped the team hone in on the details that mattered most and on the emotion of the story. The use of real performances also kept the production grounded in an analogue approach.

“I delivered scripts. I delivered storyboards, which were all hand-drawn and painstakingly put together,” Vinson says. “I think there were about 200 boards or something like that, maybe more. And critically, I provided directorial guidance over all major aspects of the creative department. So, music, visual effects, environments, cinematography, and motion capture performance, where a lot of my experience working with real actors of flesh and blood became surprisingly relevant.”

Instead of technical perfection, the team focused on what would create the strongest emotional impact. That approach helped clarify the project’s creative priorities and define what the team wanted to achieve.

You can learn more about Flow Studio on the Autodesk site.

Also see our reports from AU26 and our interview with Nikola Todorovic, the founder of Wonder Dynamics, which created Flow Studio.

With its preexisting Monotype fonts, Canva already boasts a wide collection of some of the best fonts of all time, but not all possess the right language support. The expansion is yet another leap for Canva, empowering its users and further opening up creative choice for its global community.

The expansion features additions in Arabic, Bengali, Hindi, Khmer, Lao, Thai, and Vietnamese, focusing on languages that have historically had fewer professional-quality font options. Tapping into the extensive font libraries of Monotype and its foundry partners, the new additions take Canva's font offerings up to 3000+.

The new font additions are much more than blind expansion – it's a calculated move to offer variety for creators that prioritise curation and character through their typography, not just language support. The largest increases are across Hindi, Bengali, and Vietnamese, adding 99 Hindi families and 298 styles, 72 Bengali families and 237 styles, and 114 Vietnamese-supporting families and 249 styles.

“Supporting the characters in a language is only the starting point,” says Charles Nix, global head of creative strategy at Monotype. “Real choice means having different voices, styles, and personalities to choose from. By bringing more than 1,000 additional styles in a wide array of scripts to Canva, we’re giving more creators the freedom to find type that fits not only their language, but how they speak visually.”

For more design news, take a look at how Monotype's new AI search tool is changing design for the better or check out why Canva hit the brakes on its huge AI rollout

But Taylor is about to release an 'Encore' for that album, and the promo colour is overwhelmingly dark red. What is the new iPhone colour of the year? Yup, you guessed it, it's also dark red. And black. There's also black.

This has led people to look back on the pair's releases, and 1989 (Taylor's Version), Midnights, The Tortured Poet's Department, and TLOS all fall under the same matchy-matchy design pattern.

• Pre-order iPhone 18 at Apple

See most of those eras/matches in the post below, with the exception of Midnights – during which Apple released a Navy Blue iPhone.

I want to say that this is slightly tongue in cheek, but it is a ridiculous coincidence how often the colours align. Is it just a case of the two brands following universal colour trends every single year?

But the thing is, it wouldn't actually be totally unbelievable given the fact she works closely with Apple Music – that platform often hosts tiny Easter eggs for fans to obsess over. Taylor has also done ads for Apple Music in the past. And with Apple and Taylor Swift among the world's biggest brands, it's not a stretch to suggest behind-the-scenes conversations may have happened.

What do you think of this potential collab?

"My friend had a Genesis and one weekend we rented Shining Force 2 from Blockbuster, and I instantly loved it," says Christian Smith, founder of indie studio Zenahive.

"That was the first tactical role playing game with grid based combat that I had played. So really, [Aegie Force] was kind of a response to loving these types of games, that idea of having combat on a grid involving movement and positioning in addition just to selecting commands was really enticing, and then being able to explore the world a little more fully without having to worry about fighting a battle every handful of steps."

Admittedly, what also caught my eye about Aegis Force is that rather than a top-down affair like the 16-bit Shining Force games, its pixel art sprites are in a 3D world, which is more reminiscent of Shining Force 3 on the Saturn.

However, Smith tells me that Aegis Force's aesthetic takes inspiration from the more recent HD-2D style coined and trademarked by Square Enix, albeit a style that other devs are trying to put their own spin on. It should also be noted that while Square Enix's HD-2D games are developed in Unreal Engine, Aegis Force is developed with Unity.

Zenahive's specific approach is to present its sprites with a more dynamic 3D camera in comparison to Square Enix's HD-2D titles that despite using modern rendering and post-processing techniques, still largely keeps everything to one fixed perspective. "We wanted you to be able to spin the camera around both for exploration and also for the combat so you can see different elements of the combat."

That in itself isn't unique, since you can also rotate the map in games like Final Fantasy Tactics, but Aegis Force's camera isn't just isometric but can even come down close to ground level, almost like you're playing a third-person action game. "The buildings and environment assets are created in 3D. All the characters are created in 2D. And what we did is create sprites at multiple angles, and then as you move the camera, we've got it programmed with billboarding where the pixels move with the camera."

Where this use of the camera really stands out is during combat animations. In tactics games, these can usually be done by transitioning to flashier cutscenes like Shining Force and Fire Emblem, or just seeing the actions play out on the grid, which can be, in the case of Final Fantasy Tactics, quite no-frills.

Aegis Force actually opts for neither approach (Smith had incidentally ran a poll on the kind of battle presentation fans preferred and found it had split down the middle) and instead has a hybrid solution where combat animations do happen in real-time but the camera is also moving in when this happens to give it a more cinematic presentation.

"We're working in the camera in such a way that it is reminiscent of those Shining Force cutscenes," he explains. "It's very cinematic without dragging down the combat, so to balance that out you can also see the battlefield, you move people around and then the camera zooms in for attacks and spells in real-time, and we didn't create different pixels, sprite character animations, or backgrounds. So far, the overall feedback has been pretty good."

That dynamic camera is also very effective for the game's pincer mechanic where if you have two units positioned in front of and behind an enemy they'll both attack that same turn for extra damage. And Smith also promises more exciting ideas for even more dynamic-feeling battles.

"We want to do some pretty cool cinematic work with some of the bigger spells, like a summoner where we can bring in some cool effects when they summon creatures, and we even have an idea of an archer shooting an arrow where the camera follows that arrow as it attacks."

While Aegis Force's story starts as a more grounded low fantasy centring on a century-long conflict between two nations - one with advanced technology, the other with advanced magic - I'm also pleased to see it also includes a wide variety of races beyond just the fantasy staple of humans, dwarves and elves.

"We wanted to have a variety of races, so we've got fox people, frog people, bird people," Smith concludes. "We want to just make it a little more unique with underrepresented classes you don't see as much in role-playing games." And of course, appealing to my Shining Force sensibilities, it's also one of few fantasy games that also lets you play as centaurs.

Aegis Force: The Scorian War is available in early access on PC, a free Steam demo is also available.

Now Microsoft has provided evidence that tech companies are thinking about how they could deliver ads in games – and it sounds like a bit of a nightmare for players. ' The company behind Xbox has filed a patent for an ad-supported gaming concept that would see players forced to watch adverts before they can continue playing a game (perhaps it's more than ever time to opt for one of the best retro handheld game consoles).

Entitled Contextually Aware Management of Interactive Software Application Access, Microsoft's patent filing describes a model in which players would be granted access to games only on a temporary basis. Credits would allow play for a give length of time or up until a certain point in the game.

After that, players would have to sit through an advert to earn more credits to be able to continue the game. In-game events would determine when the ads are served. The system would seek to identify natural breaks that could serve to divide the game into playable blocks.

Ads could appear after boss fights, cutscenes, quests and multiplayer rounds. Microsoft describes a model that could identify menus, animations, sounds and player inputs to determine when the ad would would be less disruptive. That would be less infuriating than if the ad appeared at a crucial moment, but it still sounds like a killer for immersion.

Spotted by TechSpot, the filing was uploaded by the US Patent and Trademark Office on 3 September. The document suggests that the system could work both on locally installed games and streamed games across PC, consoles, smartphones, smart TVs and headsets.

The ads themselves could be video, audio or static, while credits might last 15, 30 or 60 minutes or up until a certain point of progress in a game, such as the end of a level or after three multiplayer matches. Players could also be shown a notification or countdown to alert them to an upcoming ad and allowing them to watch it early if they choose.

It's important to remember that tech companies file lots of patents, including for concepts they have no intention of developing. Sometimes that's to prevent other companies from using the idea. If we're going to be charitable, perhaps Microsoft is patenting this abomination to keep it locked up so nobody else can subject us to it? I'll let you decide its most likely intention.

In the meantime, don't miss the Walmart banana hack for getting cheaper Nintendo Switch games.