On the agenda for February's State of Play: indie and third-party games, as well as the latest news from the PlayStation Studios teams.

To mark the release of Crimson Capes, a 2D action game that borrows both from the aesthetics of Moonstone on Amiga, the rotoscoped animations of Prince of Persia and Flashback and a level design approach reminiscent of Targhan or Colorado by Silmarils for exploration. As it's 2026, you can also expect Souls-like combat with the possibility to parry and dodge. Check out our gameplay video to discover the very beginning of the adventure.

With one month to go until its release, Crimson Desert is back with more gameplay in a brand new promotional video. Despite all the questions surrounding the title, we can't help but eagerly await its arrival. After all, for players who haven't tried Black Desert Online, it's not every day that you get to discover a whole new universe.

To take our minds off things and discover a new culture, Mindscape invites us to check out The Legend of Khiimori, coming to PC in early access on March 3. Set in 13th-century Mongolia, we play as Naara, a courier tasked with delivering goods to the tribes that inhabit the vast wilderness of her country. We'll need to prepare each delivery carefully, distributing the load evenly on our mount and making sure we take everything we need to cope with the climate, wildlife, and rugged terrain. Then, it will obviously be very important to choose the best route and to take good care of our horse throughout the mission.

Communication is ramping up for Crimson Desert, which is actively preparing for its March 19 release on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. Pearl Abyss just released new video presentation of this ambitious open-world game, which we hope will live up to its promises.

With Crimson Desert having recently gone gold, Pearl Abyss' game will be ready in time for its release on March 19. The video focuses on the hero's story and motivations, but it also gives us a glimpse of the continent of Pywel, the open world that will welcome us with its wild landscapes, cities, ancient ruins, and more. We are obviously curious to see what this ambitious project has in store for us, but we will all find out very soon now.

For French developers, the year begins with titles that require a pretty high level of skills to master. Following Haven, which was in stark contrast to Furi as it was not meant to be a challenging experience, French studio The Game Bakers is back with Cairn, a game that focuses on climbing in a way that is, to say the least, quite different from what we've been used to in the past 30 years. Far from the accessibility of a game like Jusant, this is more of a simulator wrapped up in a good dose of storytelling. Check out our impressions and gameplay video on PS5 Pro, just after the click.

Spellcasters Chronicles is back with a second closed beta, which will run from January 29 at 4:15 p.m. to February 2 at 10 a.m. Quantic Dream is also taking this opportunity to announce that early access to the game will be available on February 26. Initial feedback from players last December has already enabled the studio to incorporate their comments into this new phase of the game's development. A new non-playable character has also just been announced, Ozdam Devam, also known as the Chronicler of Ashkenon. The press release also states that “new combat items will be available, as well as a series of balancing updates affecting spellcasters, summons, spells, and the basic rules of the game.” For more information, please visit the official website, the Steam page, check out the YouTube page of the game.

Microsoft kicks off the year with its Xbox Developer_Direct 2026, during which we got to see Beast of Reincarnation, Fable, Kiln, and Forza Horizon 6.

MIO: Memories in Orbit is quite a challenging game, and we must confess we had our share of frustration when playing it, to the point we couldn't complete in time for the end of the embargo. Still, despite this, we can only praise what Douze Dixièmes has achieved in a game that is sold less than $/€19.99. People will certainly tell you about the tough boss battles, which are a lot of fun, but maybe a bit less about the challenging platforming sequences (that were probably the most annoying part of the game for us), so we chose to prepare a video showcasing some of those moments. Note that only the YouTube version of the video is proposed for the reasons we evoked in the RE Requiem news article.