The wait is over, pilots. Flight control support — one of the most community-requested features for GeForce NOW — is live starting today, following its announcement at CES earlier this month.
Virtual captains can now bring dedicated flight gear into the cloud and feel every roll, yaw and throttle change with even more precision, starting with the Thrustmaster T.Flight HOTAS One.
Time is running out on our T.Flight Hotas One MSFS Edition + 1 month of @NVIDIAGFN Ultimate giveaway! ⏰
How to enter 👇1. Follow both @TMThrustmaster and @NVIDIAGFN accounts on social2. Repost this and share on your feed
🎁 5 winners will be chosen – ends 1/24. pic.twitter.com/B89mGwJoNQ
— 🌩️ NVIDIA GeForce NOW (@NVIDIAGFN) January 19, 2026
Remember to enter the giveaway for a chance to score a T.Flight Hotas One MSFS Edition and one month of a GeForce NOW Ultimate membership — follow Thrustmaster and GeForce NOW, and repost the giveaway post to enter before Saturday, Jan. 24.
Also on the horizon, Delta Force from Team Jade (TiMi Studio Group) is coming soon to GeForce NOW, adding another big-name title to the cloud lineup. Get ready for all the action by streaming the four new games in this cloud this week.
Pilots Wanted
Members can now jump into their favorite flight and space simulation games with a full stick-and-throttle setup streamed right from the cloud. It’s all about dialing in that authentic, hands-on flying experience while keeping latency low and gameplay responsive on GeForce NOW.
Full throttle in the cloud.
To get right to flying, members can look for a dedicated row in the GeForce NOW app highlighting games that support flight controls, making it simple to spot great titles for putting their new setup through its paces.
This initial flight control support rollout is just the beginning, with plans to keep tuning the experience and expand compatibility to more peripherals. Fire up the rig, plug in the Thrustmaster T.Flight HOTAS One and get ready to take off — the cloud cockpit is open and ready for flight.
Your Next Mission: ‘Delta Force’
Team Jade’s Delta Force is coming soon to the cloud, ready to drop players into high-stakes extraction with an all-out warfare mode where coordination and precision matter just as much as raw firepower. When it launches on GeForce NOW, members will be able to jump into the action instantly from almost any device, taking advantage of high‑performance streaming to stay locked at smooth frame rates even in the most chaotic firefights.
Get ready to squad up, Delta Force is inbound soon.
On GeForce NOW, every long‑range shot, helicopter insertion and tense objective push can feel crisp and responsive, whether playing on low‑powered laptops, Macs or mobile devices. The cloud makes it easy to squad up, drop in and get straight to the mission without worrying about downloads, patches or local hardware.
New in the Cloud
A graceful little robot having the worst day in the universe.
MIO: Memories in Orbit is a neon-tinged metroidvania about a nimble little robot waking up on a massive, overgrown ark called the Vessel with nothing but fractured memories and a whole lot of trouble coming its way. Dart through low-gravity corridors, chain together elegant wall-runs, glides and grapples, and tangle with rogue machines as the Vessel itself quietly steals the spotlight — moody, decaying and just alive enough to keep a few secrets.
In addition, members can look for the following:
MIO: Memories in Orbit (New release on Steam and Xbox, available on Game Pass, Jan. 20)
Bladesong (New release on Steam, Jan. 22)
Rustler (New release on Epic Games Store, free starting Jan. 22)
The Gold River Project (New release on Steam, Jan. 23, GeForce RTX 5080-ready)
What are you planning to play this weekend? Let us know on X or in the comments below.
If you could fly to any video game destination, where would it be? 🛫
— 🌩️ NVIDIA GeForce NOW (@NVIDIAGFN) January 21, 2026
We haven’t featured many open source games lately, so here’s an update you might be interested in, is the latest open source build for Transport Tycoon Deluxe ‘ as ‘OpenTTD 15.0 ‘. Although this was released at the beginning of the month and didn’t appear in our inbox, I thought it still worthy of a mention especially as Transport Tycoon Deluxe by Chris Sawyer was one of the highlights on the PC in the mid 90’s. This open source version makes the game so much better especially if you enjoy running your very own transport company, such as bigger maps, stable multiplayer mode for up to 255 players in 15 companies and much much more.
We’ve featured OpenTTD for many years now, and this version was certainly worth a write up, as according to the team behind the game, this is a huge update to OpenTTD make it the first milestone of 2026. Here’s the following changes. Companies in multiplayer no longer have passwords, invite specific players using buttons in the Online Players list instead
Island maps can be surrounded by infinite water instead of voidRivers can end in wetlands if unable to reach seaBridges can be placed over stations and road stopsRoads can now have waypointsHouses can be placed manuallyIndustries and towns have graphs of their cargo historyImprovements to menus, including a new main menu and a combined game options and settings windowMany more features, changes, and fixes
And that’s pretty much all there is to say, but do be aware for OpenTTD you can use the original Transport Tycoon Deluxe data files IF you so wish but there are (free alternatives without the need for TTD: OpenGFX (graphics), OpenSFX (sound) and OpenMSX (music). These can be installed automatically by the Windows and OS/2 installers.
There was a brief period of time where the most charitable thing you could say about the first Sonic the Hedgehog movie was that Sonic had a face for radio, and maybe that feeling has stuck with the blue blur, because he’s about to feature in the new audio drama Sonic the Hedgehog Presents: The Chaotix Casefiles.
A collaboration between Sega and Realm, The Chaotix Casefiles will debut on 27th January 2026. It sees Vector the Crocodile, Espio the Chameleon, and Charmy Bee of the Chaotix Detective Agency looking to solve a grand mystery. This will lean on classic detective radio dramas for inspiration.
One of the great things about this is that it will feature a bunch of the regular cast members from the video games, including Roger Craig Smith as Sonic the Hedgehog, Keith Silverstein as Vector the Crocodile, Matthew Mercer as Espio the Chameleon, Colleen O’Shaughnessey as Charmy Bee, and plenty more.
Meanwhile, this story has been put together by director, Ian Jones-Quartey (OK K.O.! Let’s Be Heroes, Steven Universe), lead writer Dan Jolley (Transformers, Dying Light, Superman), and a writers’ room with Ian Flynn and Evan Stanley, who have come from the Sonic franchise. Then there’s new music from two-time Grammy and Tony award-winning composer Charlie Rosen, leader of the 8-Bit Big Band. The production team also brings over thirty years of combined Sonic game development experience to the series.
Realm has been exploring this particular avenue with a number of other adaptations into audio series and podcasts, including Harley Quinn and The Joker: Sound Mind, DC High Volume: Batman, and Star Trek: Khan.
“Sonic the Hedgehog Presents: The Chaotix Casefiles is an exciting milestone for the Sonic franchise, allowing SEGA to expand the Sonic universe with a completely new medium,” said Ryan Hamlyn, Senior Director, SEGA Lore & Creative Strategy. “We combined the appeal of a noir detective drama with Sonic’s fun and action-packed style, creating a fresh story that’s both true to the Sonic series and new to fans. Thanks to our collaboration with Realm, listeners can look forward to this immersive mystery adventure anywhere they get their podcasts.”
“We’re honored to partner with the innovative team at SEGA that oversees Sonic and has successfully expanded the story world in so many ways over the last five years. I can’t wait for fans to be able to dive into the world of the Chaotix Detective Agency – they’re in for an action-packed, sound rich adventure.” said Molly Barton, CEO & Co-Founder of Realm.
We are only a few months away from the launch of Marathon, Bungie’s highly anticipated extraction shooter, which finally led to pre-orders going live on Steam.
So far, so good, right? Everything seemed to be going according to plan until an unusual error caused Destiny 2 (which is another Bungie title) to automatically install on the PCs of users on Steam who purchased Marathon in advance!
Related
Destiny 2: Every Dungeon, Ranked
Dungeons are a key part of Destiny 2’s endgame activities. Offering unique challenges for your fire team, the best ones really put you to the test.
Of course, the glitch quickly went viral on social media and gaming forums, with players having a good laugh about it.
Some users from X (formerly Twitter) wrote that the pre-order “installs a virus on your computer named Destiny 2”, while another one joked that “Marathon’s development was so cursed it created a malevolent spirit in the code. If it catches you, it will force you to install Destiny 2”.
Despite the memes and the laughs, the unexpected error caused a lot of confusion among players, who have been scratching their heads until now to figure out what happened.
Bungie Deploys a Swift Fix for the Pre-Order Bug
It didn’t take long for the situation to reach the folks at Bungie, who quickly announced that the forced installation was indeed a bug and has since been resolved.
In addition to fixing the Destiny 2 error, the team also addressed another issue that was preventing owners of the Collector’s Edition from successfully redeeming their game codes on Steam. This means that pre-ordering Marathon now should no longer generate any unexpected errors.
“We’ve resolved an issue where Destiny 2 would begin installing after pre-ordering Marathon on Steam,” read the official post on X. “We have also resolved an issue where Collector’s Edition owners would receive an error when attempting to activate their game code on Steam.”
In addition to fixing the Destiny 2 error, the team also addressed another issue that was preventing owners of the Collector’s Edition from successfully redeeming their game codes
Even with the fix, the internet did not let the blunder slide, continuing to joke about the situation. “This is a hilarious bug. Glad it’s fixed, gave me a good laugh,” wrote one user, while another admitted he “thought this was a parody post.”
Jokes aside, many players are still looking for an explanation as to how this error occurred in the first place. After all, it isn’t every day that pre-ordering a title forces the installation of an entirely different game, especially considering that Marathon and Destiny share no connection other than being developed by the same studio.
In any case, Marathon is still set to launch on March 5th, 2026, for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, featuring full cross-play and cross-save support. Pre-orders remain available across all digital platforms – this time, apparently, without any uninvited downloads.
As part of the launch campaign, PlayStation also announced a new limited-edition DualSense with Marathon’s futuristic aesthetics, with pre-orders starting on January 29, 2026, at 10 am local time. And well, for the sake of the fans, let’s just hope that ordering a controller doesn’t result in any more unexpected “bonuses” arriving at their doorstep!
Next
Marathon is Already One of Steam’s Best Selling Games Despite Controversy
Against all odds, Marathon is currently a top 5 selling game on Steam.
Run, jump and flip gravity in the narrative-heavy horror platformer LOVE ETERNAL when it releases February 19th. The atmosphere in this looks simply awesome.
Admittedly, I don’t actually play a lot of 2D platformers nowadays, but I might have to make an exception for LOVE ETERNAL because after watching the trailer I was really impressed at how unnerved it made me feel. Bringing together the creepy horror elements with what looks like some channelling of the classic VVVVVV for the gravity-flipping platforming — it’s looking very interesting.
More about it: “A mundane family dinner becomes a waking nightmare for teenager Maya. One minute, she’s dealing with her frustrating parents; the next, the dinner table’s empty, the house destroyed, and the remaining husk has been spirited away into a cavernous, eerie alternate dimension. Escape the echoing chambers of a decaying fortress, avoiding deadly traps and altering gravitational forces, and confront the powerful deity who kidnapped Maya.”
The developer just recently revealed the release date with a new great trailer you can watch below:
From the press release: “We wanted to explore the subtler aspects of psychological horror with LOVE ETERNAL, and tried to imbue every scene and environment with a sense of unease that was unmistakable, but impossible to put your finger on,” said Toby Alden, designer at brlka. “Everyone who’s tried the game so far has felt it, and we’re really excited for players to experience how uniquely unnerving it is.”
Animation studio MAPPA, known for massive global hits such as Jujutsu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man, and the second half of Attack on Titan, has renewed and strengthened its partnership with Netflix that started in 2020, the two companies announced on Jan. 21. While details remain vague, MAPPA and Netflix will “work together on new projects with a global perspective,” and the streaming giant will have exclusive rights for a slate of MAPPA productions.
This shouldn’t sound completely new, as some MAPPA anime are already streaming exclusively on Netflix, including the 2024 Ranma 1/2 remake and Kakegurui Twin. Netflix stressed the importance of anime for its platform, as more than half of its subscribers enjoy anime on the service, and anime viewership has tripled over the past five years, according to the announcement. A footnote specifies that in 2024 alone, anime titles on Netflix have been viewed over 1 billion times, and Japanese content, including anime, is the second most viewed globally after English-language titles.
This also sounds like a natural next step for MAPPA. In 2022, the company bypassed the traditional Japanese system of a “production committee” (a board of partners financing an anime production, thus exerting an amount of control over it) to self-fund the first season of Chainsaw Man. A strong partnership with Netflix will allow MAPPA to develop its IPs with an amount of freedom that is rare for Japanese animation studios — though that doesn’t mean Netflix won’t have a say in these projects. MAPPA also made headlines in the past for the poor working conditions of its animators, a practice that VP Hiroya Hasegawa promised would be addressed by focusing on mentorship and work-life balance.
What worries anime fans most, however, is the strong focus that both MAPPA and Netflix representatives put on anime’s global reach. “Japanese animation studios must proactively lead every stage, from understanding global audience needs and developing projects, to reaching viewers and expanding related businesses,” Manabu Otsuka, MAPPA CEO, said. This statement resurfaces the debate on the effects that anime’s global popularity could have on the business. Recently, industry icons such as Hideaki Anno (Neon Genesis Evangelion) and Tomohiko Ito (Sword Art Online) expressed their concerns regarding anime trying to cater too much to Western audiences. “It first needs to be a work that will be well received and found interesting in Japan, but if by any chance people overseas also found it interesting, I’d be grateful for that,” Anno said.
There’s no reason to cry wolf yet. Despite its controversies, MAPPA has produced some of the best anime of the past decade, and it has been truly pushing the boundaries of traditional anime production, as the news release says. Netflix’s global reach doesn’t necessarily mean a change in the philosophy and culture that make anime so interesting in the first place. The recent disaster of One-Punch Man season 3 proved the harm that the production committee system can do, so MAPPA truly has a chance to change the industry forever. Let’s just hope that the streaming platform won’t force every character in MAPPA’s new anime to repeat the plot constantly, as it does with its movies.
While ex-BioWare producer Mark Darrah made a whole pitch about how EA could still salvage Anthem for relatively cheap, it does seem more likely that BioWare and its parent company are going to let the game die a meaningless death. However, some fans are looking into how the game could remain playable despite the servers being shut down, and one person has already managed to get it running on a P2P server.
YouTuber And799 has posted a video of the game running on local servers. Though some of the online features, such as looking at your online profile, didn’t work, And799 was able to get the game running with two players in the same matchmaking space. According to the video description, this is all just for “research” and an “experiment,” and shouldn’t be considered indicative of any kind of Anthem revival process. However, it is exciting to see that a playable version of the game is still possible, even if EA and BioWare aren’t helming it themselves.
If that’s already possible mere days after Anthem was shut down on January 12, hopefully fan efforts to preserve the game bear fruit in the coming months. Even if you didn’t like Anthem or thought BioWare shouldn’t have made it, a game shouldn’t disappear without a trace afterpeople paid money for it and hundreds of developers spent years working on it. Fans may get the game’s unfinished campaign back up and running, but it’s unclear how much of the online experience they’ll be able to rebuild.
Anthem’s shutdown comes about a year after BioWare was subject to significant downsizing following the launch of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, with remaining developers all working on the next Mass Effect. The studio put out a small tease for the game on N7 Day last year, but was completely silent when Dragon Age’s equivalent fan day came and went in December.
The other day Ubisoft announced that Far Cry 3: Classic Edition is getting a current-gen update on January 21st that will enable 60FPS on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S/X. Well, now they’ve announced that two more Far Cry titles are getting the same treatment.
First, we have the standalone Far Cry 3 expansion, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, and then we have Far Cry: Primal. That last one was an interesting game because it took Far Cry back in time to where sabre-tooth tigers were a legitimate problem you had to consider when stepping outside your abode.
Both of these updates will also launch on January 21st for PS5 and Xbox Series S/X
Of course, Xbox technically already got 60fps in both titles via Backwards Compatibility. It’s a real shame Microsoft has stopped bothering with all that.
At launch, Blood Dragon was a cult hit. Critics loved its neon-soaked 80s satire, synth-heavy soundtrack, and willingness to be silly in ways the mainline games rarely dared. It felt like Ubisoft cutting loose, and the result was a tight, memorable spin-off that many still argue is one of the best things the series has ever produced.
Primal had a more mixed reception. Some praised its bold setting, survival focus, and stripped-back approach to exploration, while others missed the guns and modern chaos that define Far Cry. Over time, though, it’s earned a warmer reputation, with players appreciating it as a weird, atmospheric outlier that dared to do something genuinely different. Still, it’s usually considered the black sheep of the family, if anyone remembers it all.
Personally, I’m tempted to give Primal a go. I’ve never played it because the idea did not appeal to me when it first launched, but these days it sounds like it could be fun.
A Casual-RPG That’s So Messy It Eventually Drops The ‘Casual’
Steven Universe: Unleash the Light is a gem on Apple Arcade. It’s a lightweight RPG in the vein of Costume Quest and Adventure Time: Pirates of the Enchiridion. And it was my personal gateway to Steven Universe as a thing. I hadn’t watched the series before playing the game, but it gave me that push.
When I heard that the team behind Unleash the Light was basically the team working on Ink Inside, I jumped at the chance of a review. Reading a synopsis, it felt like a spiritual sequel sans Steven Universe. An insecure warrior leading princesses through a casual RPG, collecting crystals on the way? Yeah, there were definite echoes.
You’ll want to Stick it to the Man!
Stick It To The Man
More specifically, Ink Inside is about a one-armed drawing named Stick (as in stickman) who materialises in a world of sketchbook drawings. The world has existed for some time, but recently it’s been tormented by the Sog. Whole Queendoms have been flooded and its citizens have been infested by polluted water. Now they’re roaming the forests, attacking anyone they find.
The source of the Sog isn’t a secret. Through live-action cutaways, we’re shown that the world is a box of sketchbooks, created by a young girl called Hannah, that have been abandoned in a leaking cupboard. Drips have been ‘sogging’ the sketchbooks, and the forgotten box is at risk of being destroyed.
Ink Inside is a hero’s journey through the Sog to answer several questions. Who is Stick? Why does he have a yellow arm that materialises in battle? Who is Hannah? And what happened to the Hero who held back the Sog several years ago?
An Unexpected Combat System
All of this is told through the medium of a casual RPG. And dodgeball. Which isn’t necessarily the most unusual combo: we’ve seen something similar in Dodgeball Academia. Instead of combat in the traditional JRPG sense, you throw balls (or, in this case, Cores) back and forth with the enemy.
These dodgeball battles feed the RPG side of Ink Inside. Experience is gained, Stick levels up, and new warriors join the party. The Cores can be upgraded with the loot you gain from battle. Plus support mechanics, in the form of Agility Items and Tech Items, can be upgraded too. There’s even a neat Job system, where you can complete feats in battle for perk-like benefits.
It’s a substantial amount of stuff for – checks the Store – only £8.39. Scratch that: it’s a ridiculous amount of gameplay for less than a tenner. Particularly if you’re in it for the sweet completionism, this can be a twenty, thirty hour game.
Not Everything Is Ink-Redible
What saddens us deeply is that we think there’s a reason why it’s lowballed in price. As huge fans of Steven Universe: Unleash the Light, it rankles in our gut that Ink Inside is a bit of a mess. It’s an endearing, full-hearted and even occasionally inspired mess, but a mess nonetheless.
The dodgeball battles feel like a good place to start. It’s refreshing to resolve grievances through something other than a JRPG UI. They play out in realtime, and you’re picking up and tossing Cores with a free-aim system. LB uses your ‘tech’ – a shield or parry – and LT uses a dash or blink, depending on what you have socketed. You can melee with X if the enemies ‘break the rules’ and come over to your side of the court, while you are also capable of building up a special bar and then expending it to bash through their side.
It is chaos, and not in a predictable, masterable way. Ink Inside dearly wants you to dodge and counter, but the enemy cues are particularly bad: it’s not clear when you are being targeted. The game also dearly wants you to uppercut enemies and juggle them with various finishing moves and something called Hangtime, but the uppercut takes an age to wind up and the enemies have often buggered off by then. There’s minimal visual feedback that these attacks have even been initiated, and frequently Ink Inside doesn’t recognise the input. One boss demanded that we solely use Hangtime, a sequence of melee combos, and we could only pull it off on a 1 out of 4 basis, before it would heal up again. It was a real low point.
A disco dodgeball disaster?
We ended up dreading these frantic battles, and we’d often refuse to use our special bar, simply because it was more useful after a battle to spend on healing up. It’s not good when you’re neglecting entire systems deliberately.
But you can’t avoid these battles. They’re frequent, not only because they’re overused, but because they refresh when you return to an area. Backtracking is punished in this way, but so, so many of Ink Inside’s puzzles require backtracking. The mid-section, where levers need to be found and pulled to navigate four corners of a skeleton dungeon, is the absolute worst for this. If not for reviewing, we think we might have given up on Ink Inside at this point.
A Map To Nowhere In Particular
Which leads us to the Map, an unusual focus for ire. For reasons that are inexplicable and seemingly misanthropic, it opens to a black screen. You have to search around in the darkness for something that looks like your location, presumably because it’s a large image and the relevant bits only take up a small portion of it. But even if it did default to a ‘You Are Here’, it’s not fit for purpose. Locations are inconsistently included (several tears, or portals, aren’t featured), and there are precious few labels to help you identify what you’re looking at. It’s precariously close to useless, yet the game is a maze of portals that demand you use it. At least there is a fast-travel system, I suppose.
The rest of Ink Inside is like its sketchbooks: half-artful and a sign of what could have been, and half sogged with issues.
We really cared for the story and its mixed media, moving from different styles of sketchbook to the home video footage of Hannah. Those home videos are a little on the amateur side but they perk you up, make you pay attention. The characters in the sketchworld are generally brilliant too. We had a soft spot for Traff, the cussing fairy, who bleeped every other word but dearly wanted to do better.
It just introduced itself poorly, with an opening that was so distracted by setting up its own mysteries that it forgot to include some clarity. And there’s a frustrating habit of using a hundred chat lines when only a few would do. We love story in our video games, but Ink Inside could really have done with some self-editing.
The progression systems are so deep and involved, giving you plenty to aim for as you wade through dodgeball fights. The Jobs are a fine idea, allowing you to set personal tasks for yourself. Can I uppercut straight out of a dash? I’m not sure, but I’m willing to give it a go. The idea of using single slots for multiple effects and forcing the player to choose, is also a winner. We couldn’t decide how best to use our Tech slot, and switched it up on the regular.
Now for the counter-blow. Why is progression gated by items that are randomly given in loot? You might need a specific Core or gem to be able to access a critical portal, but you’ve not gained it yet or – worse – you’ve used it as collateral in crafting. At several points, we were farming dozens of dodgeball battles in the hope of getting what we needed.
This quest struggles
The Stink Inside
There are so many of these niggles. Bugs caused us to restart on three separate occasions. Graphical glitches caused pink billboards to appear behind characters. Level-ups are near invisible, making you feel like your progress is static. Bosses were stalagmite-sized difficulty spikes.
Such are the issues that I wondered if there were development troubles behind the scenes. Did time or money run out? Did someone dismiss the idea of user-testing? Did ideas become unviable but they were too far along to stop? Oh, to be a fly on the wall of Ink Inside’s development.
A Struggling Quest for Sketchbook Glory
We dearly wanted to love Ink Inside. Steven Universe: Unleash the Light was one of our honorable mentions when it launched, and so much of the team responsible are back for this. It seemed like an open goal: a return to past casual-RPG glories.
Too many bugs, messes and faulty design decisions effectively scratch off the ‘casual’ from casual-RPG. It’s a game at war with its own combat system, map and navigation. There are so, so many good things here – not least the story and progression systems – but Ink Inside struggles to stay enjoyable for more than a few minutes at a time.
Important Links
Buy Ink Inside from the Xbox Store – https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/ink-inside/9nhxjgm1wgf5
Developer Kenny Sun has announced that Ball X Pit’s first free major update is launching on January 26th. The Regal Update will add two new treasure seekers, eight new balls, and new passives too. You can get a glimpse of the action in the video below. The two new seekers are the Carouser and the Falconer. The Carouser has returning balls orbiting around him, while the Falconeer has two falcons that throw balls. Ball X Pit players will also get an additional surprise, though no details have been revealed.
In our Ball X Pit review, Dom said, “Ball X Pit carries the spirit of an arcade classic, while imbuing it with modern roguelike ideas. It’s immediately one of the best indie games of the year.”
