Today in video games – 12th September

It’s Friday, 12th September and we’re back with another day of video games goings-on. It’ll all be sucked in here, through the flexi-nozzle vacuum of the liveblog, where we can ponder what it all means. What does it all mean?

And note: we will be doing a separate liveblog later to cover today’s Nintendo Direct, which starts at 2pm UK time and runs for an hour. This blog will be superseded by that one.

Today’s coffee question: What have you played this year that surprised you? I’ll start; Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden. It was released last year in February and reviewed well but sunk like a stone in the ocean amidst everything else going on. It’s on subscription services at the moment I believe, and it’s well worth a look.

Our live coverage of this event has finished.

Key points

• 11:58 am 09/12/2025 Borderlands 4 suffers poor performance on PC
• 11:09 am 09/12/2025 Slay the Spire 2 has been delayed
• 10:41 am 09/12/2025 Neil Druckmann to retain "high level" role on The Last of Us TV show
• 09:11 am 09/12/2025 Intergalactic is Naughty Dog's most expansive and expensive game yet
• 09:05 am 09/12/2025 How much do you know about the Itch/Steam adult game crackdown?

08:51 am UTC

Akuma says: The game that surprised me was Oblivion Remastered in that they managed to make it even janker than the original. I tried for a about 7 hours but it’s just unplayable.

A sizzling burn for Friday morning there!

Robert Purchese 09:05 am UTC

How much do you know about the Itch/Steam adult game crackdown?

I’m sure you’ve heard that it’s going on but how much do you know about the Itch.io and Steam payment processor-related crackdown on adult games? What even is an adult game? It suggests one thing but can include many things.

Matt investigated the collateral damage on queer-themed adult games yesterday and received some incredibly powerful quotes in response. At its heart, it’s a story about censoring and controlling art, and if you whittle away what’s allowed and what’s not, where then will you find the edges sharp enough to pierce and make a point?

“We are sick and tired of how games are viewed as vile and derogatory by people who don’t understand them,” says Bobbi Augustine Sand of developer Transcenders Media. “We want games to be taken seriously as a medium. Games that include sex as a topic or content are no different from other media doing the same.”