The game is set in a dystopian cyberpunk future where the vast majority of the world is controlled by AI. In a crime-ridden, corrupt world, you play as Redline, who has acquired an AI implant. As the title suggests, the implant runs along her spine, enhancing her hand-to-hand combat and gun skills while granting additional abilities. It forms a symbiotic relationship with protagonist, growing stronger as their bond deepens. The stronger her bond with the implant, the more powerful she becomes.

During Summer Game Fest, we got some hands-on time with SPINE. We were told in advance that this was an early build of the game, but what we played seemed very promising.

SPINE’s combat is built around a “freeflow Gun Fu combat system,” a term coined by Nekki to describe the seamless integration of firearms, martial arts, and acrobatic movement. At one point, I was surrounded by six enraged diner patrons armed with bats and guns, but Redline is no damsel in distress. Wielding dual pistols and her SPINE implant, she can engage multiple enemies at once, dodging bullets and parrying attacks with ease.

While Redline’s pistols are her primary weapons, they inflict limited damage. Executions allow her to permanently eliminate her targets. Perfectly timed parries, dodges, or block-breaking moves against enemy attacks create opportunities for gruesome finishing moves. Fans of John Wick and The Raid will recognize many brutal executions.

While SPINE is fun and fast-paced, it has a notable learning curve. It isn’t quite a souls-like, but mastering its mechanics and handling multiple enemies takes time. Players can see the influence of the Batman: Arkham series’ combat system, though SPINE feels more demanding, adding to its engaging challenge.

I died quickly to the first mini-boss I faced, but by the end of my playthrough, I could hold my own against the level’s main boss. However, when the boss entered its second stage, it defeated me. Still, I grew more skilled at the game over time and felt confident that, with a replay, I could now defeat the boss, knowing its attack patterns and vulnerabilities.

SPINE was one of the highlights of Summer Game Fest for me. When I walked past Nekki’s booth, I knew I had to check out this game. I look forward to seeing more about the game as we get closer to its release later this year.

SPINE will be available for the Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, PC, and Xbox.

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Grace Ashcroft is an FBI technical analyst who is sent to investigate a murder mystery that involved her mother’s death. (I don’t think sending someone with an emotional link to the deaths is a good idea.)

During Summer Game Fest Play Days, we were invited to check out an extended gameplay of Resident Evil Requiem. It was revealed that the game will have options for both 1st-person and 3rd-person view. The majority of the gameplay shown was in first person, which captures the feel of Resident Evil 7 and Resident Evil Village. As a result, this helps to create more tense moments as Grace tries to escape inside a building as a giant creature lurks in the shadows. Additionally, be prepared for many creepy hallways and having the ability to turn on and off the lights.

Gameplay Presentation

The beginning of the presentation features a cutscene of Grace waking up and finding herself being restrained upside down on a bed. She finds a way to free her hands thanks to a broken glass. As she rocks her restraints back and forth, she falls down and is able to free her legs. The camera switches to first person, with the person now being able to control Grace. There are many gameplay elements familiar to Resident Evil fans including finding keys to open locked doors, and looking for items to help progress into another area.

Throughout the presentation, a giant hag-like creature is revealed with disturbing eyes and teeth. This horrifying monster stalks Grace and is able to create a hole in the ceiling, allowing itself to roam around the attic to surprise the players in different areas. (That’s a big hell no!)

At the end of the gameplay, the reveal was that there are options for both first-person and third-person view. This will make both fans of the old and new Resident Evil games happy.

Resident Evil Requiem will be released on February 27, 2026.

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Nerd Reactor had the chance to chat with Miller and Wilson about the show, pushing the limits on video game adaptations, nostalgic appeal, putting a comedic take on Conan in a New World: Aeternum episode featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Capcom having more restrictions than Bandai Namco and more.

John Nguyen: Let’s rewind back. You’ve been doing the interviews today, right? And then you’re talking about the things you learn? Something about nostalgia. What is it?

Tim Miller: Well, when you make something like this, you can never fully guess how people are going to take it. I did guess. I thought that people would be more excited about the triple-A games and the current games and people really are. And I think those episodes are amazing, but it’s amazing how excited people are about the nostalgia games and the indie games. The nostalgia ones in particular, because I’m guessing that they just bring such fond memories forth of people entering this world of gaming, this community. People just have so many good memories of playing these games a long time ago.

Dave Wilson: What is Pac-Man? Again, we’ve struggled with that too. When you sit down and wonder, “What is Pac-Man? What’s going on in that Pac-Man universe, anyway?” So I think there’s this sort of big black box of concepts, and you don’t really know what’s going to come out the other side. And I think that sort of unknown is exciting to people. The conversation we were having was, I think, polarizing in that there are people who are going to expect a bright, cheerful, 8-bit experience that they may have experienced when they were playing Pac-Man, or they may have experienced the one that we did. And so we made an episode out of it.

Was Bandai Namco all in for that?

Dave Wilson: To put a fine point on that – that episode is more theirs than ours.

Wow, wow! Whose idea was it?

Dave Wilson: They got on a call, and they’re speaking in Japanese, and then the translator confirmed what they just said. And then the mission statement was, “We would like audiences to wonder what the **** they did with Pac-Man.” And so there were a few more specifics beyond that. But other than that, we distilled down a lot about what makes Pac-Man Pac-Man. We brought in authors, and we went through this pitch process of eliciting ideas from all our favorite science fiction and fantasy authors. It all felt too timid and safe. And then eventually, J. T. Petty, our head writer, went away to his woodshed one weekend and came back with the script that is Pac-Man. JT actually writes for a lot of video games too. He was the writer of Outlast Trials and so he loves all of that stuff, right? He came back, and there was a line from our discussion stuck in his head, which was, “Yeah, you can eat them, but never their eyes.” And I think if there was a line that inspired it. It was probably that.

Outlast Trials to Pac-Man. It’s very fitting with just the episode, just how dark it is. There are so many episodes, but as you mentioned, the Pac-Man one, that’s going to have a lot of people talking. Let’s go with Sifu. It’s short, it’s violent, and I feel like it’s more violent than the actual game. The game is pretty violent, but this one has more blood and throat-cutting and all that. I guess there was no limit for you guys, right?

Tim Miller: There was.

Dave Wilson: There are. Some of our partners. The Mega Man guys were like, “Could you please not pull any heads off?” Someone at Comic-Con before we released anything was like, “So the Mega Man episode. You guys made Love Death + Robots, right? Is Mega Man going to rip heads off of people?” And I said, “No, he’s not really going to do that.” It was a range of violence.

With Sifu, in particular, they were fine with it within reason. I wish we could release the stunt viz. Our stunt team, led by Wayne Douglas, did that corridor fight. I said, “We want to do a two-minute fight in this glass-bottom corridor.” And they made it six or seven minutes because stunt guys can’t control themselves. And if you want to see violence, that thing is violent. They’re amazing if you’ve seen them. They throw in all their crew, they film it all, and throw in rudimentary visual effects, like eyeballs popping out of heads and intestines they disembowel. But we toned it back from that. We showed it to Sloclap, and we were like, “We’re gonna remove that part and this part and that…

Tim Miller: We should put that on the site. Why can’t we put that on the site?

Dave Wilson: Yeah, I think we talked about it with Amazon. We pushed it as far as we could go in the episodes because we knew there were some that we couldn’t have. We’ve wanted to take some chances.

And then one of the funnier episodes, the New World with Arnold Schwarzenegger, caught me off guard with how comedic he was in that. It’s the concept of video games, just dying and coming back to life and learning. So what was the concept behind that?

Dave Wilson: If you’ve played New World: Aeternum, you probably wouldn’t go to comedy. We had been struggling to find the right episode for a long, long time, and I’m sitting in the studio with JT, and we can’t come up with anything. And then I get this video sent to me from Tim, and it’s Arnold. And Arnold’s like, “Dave, whatever you want me to do. I’m in, like the series.” I called him, and I’m like, “Is this for real?” He’s like, “Yeah.” He wants to do an episode. And I’m like, “Okay.” We were like, “Let’s just write it for him and the idea right there on the spot.” John Scalzi was there sitting with us. He’s one of the authors we worked with on Love Death + Robots. And the idea was, essentially, what if Conan was all talk, and then we were like, “Yes, let’s write that episode,” and that was it.

Tim Miller: It’s really funny. He likes comedy, and he’s really good at it, so he had a good time with it. I don’t know if you noticed, but Gabriel Luna, the king he fights, the Persian king, is Gabe Luna, who’s the other Terminator in the Terminator movie I made, the bad Terminator. So a little Terminator rematch in that episode.

We’re talking about nostalgia before, and for me, watching the Mega Man one, and then the music, it just hits me. So what was that like trying to make sure, “Alright, we were going to have a new take or twist on certain games, but then we still have to add this. The fans are going to love this.”

Dave Wilson: That music was stuck in my head for a long, long time. And I remember the director came on and I was like, “I don’t mind what you do, but you gotta use this piece of music at some point in the episode.” But that one we worked very closely with Capcom and went through multiple iterations on. Nostalgic things always make me a bit nervous. I love that episode so much, and I’m so pumped by the end of it. I remember when I saw the story reel and then we had that music in and everything like that. I was like I needed 20 more minutes. So I think with all of these, I think what we’re trying to do is just capture the tone of it like. I don’t think a lot of people know the whole story of where Mega Man comes from and his relationship with Dr Light, so I wanted to do that in as succinct a way as possible.

Tim Miller: But I do think that was interesting because if it was us trying to satisfy a client or something, we would go, “Okay, well, they have to fight that. People always want action, so we’re going to have to have a little bit of action here.” Capcom said, “No, we’re fine with just an emotional piece here. And kudos to them, because it gave us a lot more time to focus on that.”

About Secret Level

Secret Level premieres on Prime Video on December 10, 2024.

Synopsis: Secret Level is a new adult-animated anthology series featuring original stories set within the worlds of some of the world’s most beloved video games. From the creative minds behind LOVE, DEATH + ROBOTS, each of the 15 episodes is a celebration of games and gamers.

Secret Level features the voice talent of Arnold Schwarzenegger (The Terminator Franchise), Kevin Hart (Jumanji), Keanu Reeves (John Wick), Temuera Morrison (The Book of Boba Fett, Chief of War), Ariana Greenblatt (Barbie, Ahsoka), Heaven Hart, Emily Swallow (The Mandalorian), Gabriel Luna (The Last of Us, Terminator: Dark Fate), Ricky Whittle (American Gods, Land of Bad), Patrick Schwarzenegger (The White Lotus), Merle Dandridge (The Last of Us), Claudia Doumit (The Boys), Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Lost, The Union), Clive Standen (Vikings, The Morning Show), Laura Bailey (The Legend of Vox Machina), and Michael Beach (The Perfect Couple, Tulsa King)

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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We had the chance for some hands-on time with the early demo build during Summer Game Fest: Play Days. Overall, Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess was a hectic action strategy game where we had to deal with taking out the bad guys while preventing enemies from attacking and killing Maiden Yoshiro.

As her guardian, Soh, you can control him and fight enemies just like a typical hack-and-slash game. The fighting mechanic is balletic thanks to the dance-like sword techniques and we didn’t have a hard time learning the basics. The controls are also smooth and responsive.

The tower defense portion comes in the form of protecting the Maiden from the Seethe, and there are different paths they can take to get to her. You’ll have to be alert to move across the map and stop the enemies in their tracks. Once you have completed your mission in an area, the Maiden will purge the defilement from the Torii gates and purify the villages.

You won’t be alone since you can enlist the aid of the villagers to help protect the Maiden. You can talk to and give these villagers specific roles, and they will have the ability to fight thanks to the magical masks. With many ways to protect the Maiden, your options aren’t limited and you can mix up between attacking the enemies up-close or using the villagers to help you out.

The game’s art style is to be commended, and it is beautiful to see the aesthetic and combat flow together. From the lush environments to the colorful outfits, Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess‘ graphics won’t be dull.

Check out the reveal trailer from last year.

Our session was short, but it was enough to get a feel for the characters, the presentation, the lore, and the gameplay. It’s a game you should put on your radar if you like a mix of hack-and-slash and tower defense set inside a beautiful, feudal Japanese-inspired fantasy world.

Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess will be available on Xbox Game Pass, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and PC/Steam on July 19, 2024.

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The first to arrive for Year 2 is M. Bison, who’ll be released in summer 2024. Terry arrives in Autumn 2024, Mai in Winter 2025, and Elena in Spring 2025.

M. Bison was at the very top of the food chain, and now he’s back with amnesia and wearing a raggedy cloak. We had the chance to play the Street Fighter villain during Summer Game Fest Play Days, with the option of choosing his cloaked or classic outfit. He arrives on a horse before a match and gets off the horse in the most M. Bison way you could think of with his arms still crossed.

He has many of his classic moves including the Psycho Crusher (hold back then forward and press any punch button), Double Knee Press, Head Press and many more.

Capcom is still keeping the in-game look of the rest of the characters a surprise by using 2D animation to reveal the characters. However, it’s still a good indicator of their designs when they become available in Street Fighter 6.

The SNK characters are seen in their classic outfits with Terry in his red and white baseball cap and blonde ponytail and Mai in her revealing red and white kunoichi dress. Elena has a new outfit with a white bikini top and white pants. With many of the Street Fighter 6 characters having both their new Street Fighter 6 look and their classic outfits, players can expect to see Elena’s classic bikini-like outfit.

About Street Fighter 6

Street Fighter 6 was developed by Capcom and was released on June 2, 2023. It currently has 22 characters including new ones such as Akuma, Ed, A.K.I., and Rashid. The game has different modes including Fighting Ground (to practice or get right into the fight), Battle Hub (a community lobby that emulates the feeling of going to an actual arcade), and World Tour (the open-world story mode where you can meet Street Fighter characters as your custom character). The game has reached 3.3 million units sold worldwide.

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