In this week's episode of The Game Informer Show, our host Charles is joined by Wesley and Eric to talk about Mafia: The Old Country, a prequel set in early 20th century Sicily, as well as the experience of Gen Con 2025, Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, and Wheel World. We discuss knife fighting and stealthy sneaking, the power scale of Metroidvanias, and... I'm reading a note here about Italian frogs?

The Game Informer Show is a weekly podcast covering the video game industry. Join us every Thursday for chats about your favorite titles – past and present – alongside Game Informer staff and special guests from around the industry.

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• Charles Harte (@chuckduck365)
• Wesley LeBlanc (@wesleyleblanc)
• Eric Van Allen (@seamoosi)

Check out the video version here:

Listen to "Mafia: The Old Country And Gen Con Takeaways" on Spreaker. Jump to a specific discussion using these timestamps:
00:00 - Introduction
04:18 - Mafia: The Old Country
35:05 - Gen Con 2025
1:10:26 - Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound
1:17:05 - Wheel World

Bithell Games, the studio behind titles like Volume, John Wick Hex, and this year’s Tron: Catalyst, has been hit with layoffs. The resulting departures have dramatically reduced the studio’s size.

In a social post, studio head Mike Bithell explains his team was unable to secure funding for a large-scale project. “It has become clear leading up to the release of our most recent game that we were not immune to the challenges faced by many game development teams seeking funding partners in 2024 and 2025,” Bithell writes.

As a result, 11 employees have been let go, which Bithell says “constitutes the majority of our full-time staff.” He adds that the studio had preemptively prepared for this outcome and is working with affected employees to ease their departure and provide severance packages.

Bithell also says the layoffs will not affect the availability and support of its current released catalog of self-published titles. You can read his full statement below (click the image to enlarge).

Mike Bithell came to prominence with Thomas Was Alone, a narrative-driven abstract puzzle-platformer. After forming Bithell Games, the studio gained a strong reputation for well-received releases such as the 2015 stealth game Volume and the acclaimed 2017 text-based adventure titles Subsurface Circular. The last few years have seen it delve into making inventive and stylish takes on licensed properties, such as the strategy title John Wick Hex (which was delisted last month), the visual novel puzzle title Tron: Identity, and 2025’s Tron: Catalyst, a top-down action game. Bithell Games has also published titles from its label developer Lunar Division: The Banished Vault and the upcoming Amberspire. 

Reviewed on: PlayStation 5
Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC
Publisher: 505 Games
Developer: Leenzee Games
Release: July 24, 2025
Rating: Mature

The Soulslike subgenre is becoming oversaturated, so it’s difficult for new takes to stand out. Wuchang: Fallen Feathers doesn’t reach the upper echelon of its stronger contemporaries, but it is a generally well-executed checklist of genre tropes with inventive ideas for combat customization and a unique form of dynamic difficulty scaling. 

As Bai Wuchang, you’re a battle-hardened pirate infected with a supernatural plague called the Feathering, which causes victims to transform into mindless, bloodthirsty beasts. However, Wuchang was somehow spared this fate, but she has lost her memory. As the Feathering sweeps across a well-realized Ming Dynasty-era China, it’s up to you to channel your newfound demonic powers, locate the source of this scourge and eradicate it, find a cure, and recover your memories. The story is middling and, in my specific case, wraps up in an abrupt and unsatisfying conclusion, unlocked from a pool of possible endings. While the art direction is strong, Wuchang suffered fluctuating graphical fidelity and performance (playing on a base PS5) that sometimes bordered on unacceptably bad, hampering the experience. 

Combat shines most in this adventure by drawing inspiration from Bloodborne. Battles are an often-entertaining dance of aggressively attacking foes while evading damage to stay within reach. Well-timed evades reward mana points called Skybound Might, used to cast spells. I love how Wuchang incentivizes skillful evasion in this way, and winning a fight only by dodging and retaliating with spells, such as lobbing a crimson spear or a fiery skull, is a viable (and sometimes wise) strategy. 

Wuchang gives players a near-overwhelming number of systems to tailor their playstyle through various weapons (including large skill trees for each one), augments, and passive perks. You can equip weapons with three perk-granting stones, which in themselves come in various types. Slotting up to four “needles” into Bai Wuchang’s demonically feathered arm bestows weapon “tempering” effects, like increasing fire damage or adding a health-leeching effect to attacks. A neat weapon-swapping mechanic unleashes a unique special attack depending on the tools equipped, adding another wrinkle to consider when choosing which two weapons to equip. It’s a lot to take in, and while I wish Wuchang didn’t throw all of its features at players in relative short order – firmly grasping everything took a while – I like how the game encourages multiple playstyles and tougher encounters often require shaking up your loadout or strategy.  

Weapon classes, including long swords, spears, and axes, sport unique special attacks and traits. For example, Wuchang can’t block inherently, but axes grant this ability for more defensive-minded players. Those who would rather rely on spells should lean on magic-centric short swords. By sparingly introducing new weapons, Wuchang allows players to become intimately familiar with what they have, and progression revolves around improving proficiency with chosen arms; I much prefer this to regularly cycling through new loot. 

However, the massive, Path of Exile-inspired skill trees mean you can’t freely improve crucial traits, like stamina and health, since you can only unlock stat buffs in a predetermined order. This feels more restrictive than I’d like, and I didn’t like spending thousands of skill points unlocking a special move I didn’t want/need just to grab as many +1 stamina upgrades as possible along the way. 

Repeatedly dying builds a meter called Madness that raises your attack while increasing damage taken. Failing essentially makes you a glass cannon, and I like how Madness dynamically changes the stakes of encounters by giving me an edge while forcing me to sharpen my evasion/counter skills to nullify my weakened defense. When Madness peaks, a mini-boss spawns in the form of an “Inner Demon” in place of fallen XP; beat her, and then you get your points back. This is a fun and devious punishment that adds even more tension and excitement to the exercise of XP retrieval, though the Inner Demon became less threatening as I grew stronger. 

Wuchang’s neat ideas are wrapped around an otherwise familiar, if unremarkable, design core. Exploring the often corridor-like biomes, from a snowy palace to a hellish forest, and cutting down foes is a paint-by-numbers exercise of unlocking shortcuts and finding hidden items off the beaten path, with some annoyingly unfair level hazards sprinkled about. While tough in the way you’d expect from the genre, Wuchang is what I’d describe as “comfortably difficult:” hard enough to feel some sense of reward, but never overwhelmingly so. Most boss encounters took me fewer than five or six attempts to topple, and greater challenges were defeated through a combination of pure finesse and light level grinding. As a Souls enthusiast, it’s almost cozy how manageable Wuchang ultimately is (comparatively speaking), but that does make its bigger clashes less remarkable or memorable. 

That last point is my biggest takeaway from Wuchang. It’s very competent and enjoyable, but much of it feels like Soulslike junk food; tasty with a few neat ideas, but nothing will stick with me compared to more substantial offerings. Wuchang: Fallen Feathers may not revolutionize the genre, but it’s a good rendition of a favorite song.

Score: 7.75

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Magical spells can come in all shapes and sizes, but everyone knows that casting them aloud adds a little extra oomph. At least, that's the thought process behind Mage Arena, a recent Steam release that's had some attention swirling around it, thanks to its voice-controlled spells. Want a Fireball? Turn to your proper page and declare "Fireball," and one will fly out.

Join Eric and Alex as they dive into the depths of voice-powered magical combat. We did this one live, and with as little preparation as possible, to preserve the surprise and appeal here. We think the results speak for themselves. At the low, low price of $2.99, you'd be hard-pressed to find more frugal fun to have with a mic and a computer.

Mage Arena is out now on PC via Steam.

Following last week's Nintendo Partner Direct, Nintendo returned today for an Indie World Showcase featuring 15 minutes of new indie game goodness, release dates, reveals, and more. There was a lot jam-packed into this 15-minute showcase so we've rounded up everything announced during it for quick access!

Everything Announced During The July 2025 Nintendo Indie World Showcase

Below, we've listed everything shown during the showcase in sequential order. 

Mina the Hollower

• New gameplay trailer, Switch demo available now

Well Dweller

• New dark fantasy metroidvania from Crypt Custodian, Islets team; Launching in 2026

Neverway

•  Nightmarish life-sim RPG from a new studio co-founded by Celeste and Towerfall pixel artist, score from composer Disasterpeace (Fez, Hyper Light Drifter); Launching in 2026

Herdling

• An alpine herding adventure from the team behind the FAR series of games, published by Panic, the team behind Firewatch; Launching August 21. 

Is This Seat Taken? 

• A puzzle game about seating groups of shape people in a harmonious way; Out today. 

Little Kitty, Big City

• Free content update arriving later this year with new cat customizer, new areas and friends, new skills, and additional camera mode features. 

Content Warning

• The hit four-player horror PC game launches on Switch and Switch 2 sometime next year. 

Ball x Pit

• The roguelite brick breaker from Devoler Digital launches October 15 on Switch, and sometime this Fall on Switch 2. 

Ultimate Sheep Racoon

• Ultimate Sheep Racoon is the sequel to Ultimate Chicken Horse; Instead of platforming on foot, these animals have bikes.

Glaciered

• Play as a unique ancestor of a dinosaur in this aquatic RPG that features ranged and melee combat, lots of underwater sea creatures, and a unique experience system to level up; Launching this Holiday as a timed console exclusive on Switch 2. 

Quick Hits

At the end of the showcase, Nintendo showed off a variety of games in a medley blitz of trailers. We'll list each trailer below:

Winter Burrow – Launching This Winter

Undusted: Letters From The Past – Launching This October

Tiny Bookshop – Available Later Today

Caves of Qud – Launching This Winter

Strange Antiquities – Launching September 17

Opus: Prism Break – Launching This Fall

Go-Go Town – Launching Spring 2026

UFO 50 – Available Later Today

Demonschool – Launching September 3 (from Japanese Indie World Showcase)

And that's everything revealed during today's Nintendo Indie World Showcase!