Rewinder Media

This month's episode sees the team discuss Resident Evil Requiem, Xbox, Bluepoint's closure and more. Welcome to the 14th episode of Rewinder's podcast, Be Kind, Rewinder. This month's podcast includes the crew chatting about the future of Xbox in a post-Phil Spencer world, Resident Evil Requiem, Mewgenics, Romeo Is A Dead Man, Yakuza Kiwami 3, and bunch of Steam Next Fest demos. Catch us on your podcast service of choice as well, or subscribe to our RSS feed through Podbean.

In a slow month for new releases, the crew mainly caught up on their back catalogue, while Lex found Cairn to be fascinating. Our 13th episode of Rewinder's podcast, Be Kind, Rewinder, is live. On this week's podcast, the team reunited for its now monthly catch up on the world of gaming. With a slow month for new releases, the crew mainly caught up on their back catalogue, while Lex found Cairn to be rather fascinating.

Well, that was fun. So first off, I (Lex) just want to say I am unbelievably proud of what we built with Rewinder in a very short time period.

It's 2004, deep within the twilight of the year, and my palms are sweat-slick around a Wavebird Gamecube wireless controller. There's a distinct feeling in the bottom of my stomach, which – aged 10 – I am unable to quite name, or describe. Funnily enough, the series I'm playing will eventually borrow the name of this sensation for one of its own titles. But we're a long way off from that. The feeling is called 'dread'. It is a palpable sensation dangled equidistant from anticipation and terror.

Here we are, at the end of our first calendar year as a website. So we present to you Rewinder's Game of the Year awards for 2025 Here we are, at the end of our first calendar year as a website. And while we're mere days away from Editor-in-Chief Henry Stockdale leaving us, it's been a pretty good year. Thank you to everyone who has supported us so far, and we hope we've made it worth it between the site, our podcast, and now our big Game of the Year blowout.

You don't often see many 4X turn-based strategy games dominating on mobile over PC, so what sets The Battle of Polytopia apart? Nearly a decade since Midjiwan first released The Battle of Polytopia, the more casual strategy game is still going strong. Using procedurally generated worlds, you take control of a tribe with unique abilities but the same technology tree. Your goal is to take down the other tribes, constructing and upgrading cities along the way as you research new technologies.

Cloudheim is out in Early Access now, delivering a physics-based combat system with plenty of chaos, some base-building, and all sorts of Norse flavour. You take control of a being called a Runari, which is basically Cooler Daniel from the meme. You know the one. Anyway, they're a lot like humans, but they're better at jumping, falling, fighting, and all that good stuff. Basically, Ragnarök happened and it's been a bit of a rough time since.

I've been told this could be considered either a good or bad indicator of mental health, but I recently restarted the Trails of Cold Steel series. I know, I know, that's asking for trouble with its steep time commitment, but god… there's still something incredible about these games. Which is saying something when Cold Steel is arguably the worst ​arc of the four. Rather than go through New Game Plus off the PS4 editions, I bought the first two games again purely to run them through Steam Deck.

I've spent several days piecing together my Skate Story impressions, and it's not been particularly easy. Not because Sam Eng's latest game lacks any impact, far from it, more that it's the type of game you have to try to truly “get.” It's the sort of wonderfully irreverent experience you often get from a Devolver Digital published game, and I fear words alone don't completely do it justice.

Summer has always been the traditional conference season for video games, which isn't as strictly followed these days. Not that it ever needed to be, of course, though having everything relatively contained does keep things organised. Record numbers of games continues releasing each year, presenting new challenges for discoverability across all sections of the industry.