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Last week, we asked you explore the new Photo Mode in 007 First Light using #PSshare #PSBlog for a chance to be featured. Here are this week’s highlights: call_me_xavii shared Bond blasting at enemies with his Aston Martin WildJogurt shared a turtleneck-wearing Bond receiving mission orders lucaslu_ckli shared a stylist look at James’ Aston Martin m1rko_vp shared a black and white portrait of James looking dashing in the field Milz_VP shares James checking out his outfit in the mirror wern_r shares James posing next to Jack the bulldog Search #PSshare #PSBlog on Twitter or Instagram to see more entries to this week’s theme, or be inspired by other great games featuring Photo Mode. Want to be featured in the next Share of the Week? THEME: Costume SUBMIT BY: 11:59 PM PT on October 28, 2026 Next week, share your favorite in-game costumes or outfits from the game of your choice using #PSshare #PSBlog for a chance to be featured. View the full article

Housemarque and Nixxes developed Saros in close collaboration; one area was developing the set-piece bosses. Housemarque brought the creative vision, world, combat language, visual concepts, and signature bullet-hell DNA. Nixxes brought the bosses to life through encounter design, animation, environments, lighting, and technical implementation. The result was a set of encounters designed to challenge players, surprise them, and deliver the kind of spectacle PlayStation players expect from a Housemarque action experience. Spoilers for the bosses of Saros ahead, so read at your own risk. Play Video Collaboration with Housemarque Boss fights in Saros are fully staged encounters, not just enemies with larger health bars, so that required close collaboration from the start. Housemarque handled boss concepts, visual direction, and VFX identity. Nixxes focused on animation, environments, technical design, boss behaviour, and attack implementation, with Housemarque’s final review and collaboration. The road to developing a boss started with a briefing that outlined the vision, gameplay goals, and visual direction for the encounter. From there, Nixxes pitched its take, built early prototypes and first-playable versions, refining each encounter through iteration, playtesting, and polish until shipping. Play Video What makes a Saros boss? When designing bosses for Saros, we followed a few guiding principles, starting with three distinct phases for every boss encounter, each with its own identity, changing how the encounter looks, feels, and plays. A typical boss battle in Saros lasts about three to eight minutes (Saros: Zenith has a tighter arcade experience), with the challenge coming mainly from boss behaviour, arena transformation, environmental hazards, bullets, beams, and physical attacks. These were also designed to encourage players to use their shield, jumping, parrying, and dashing abilities, knowing that a good boss attack should make players move with intent, not in panic. Most importantly, when players were defeated by a boss, we asked: do they understand why they lost, do they know what to do differently next time, did it feel like their own mistake rather than something unfair, and do they want to try again? Play Video The Bosses Prophet — the wall boss The Prophet was our introductory boss and a first major test for players. Because the Prophet appears early in the game, we wanted it to teach players what a Saros boss could be without becoming a major progression blocker. With the Prophet, we wanted a fight that felt dramatic and threatening while still welcoming players to the structure and expectations of boss combat. Architect — the flying boss The Architect is one of the game’s most dramatic encounters, fought atop a massive tower after earlier foreshadowing. The boss comes at you with everything it has, destroying the environment as the fight unfolds, and it doesn’t quit until the very end. The entire encounter centres on the collapsing arena, making the grapple hook a fundamental part of the battle. You are not just fighting the boss; you are fighting to survive the arena. Shepherd — the massive boss The Shepherd is the game’s largest boss and biggest visual spectacle, set on a ship on a stormy sea. It has an intimidating scale and culminates in a terrifying transformation by the end of the encounter. This boss is all about tentacles, which you must dodge and jump over throughout the fight. The tentacles also shrink the arena and spawn attacks from unexpected directions. In a dramatic conclusion, you face the boss on a sloped arena. Priestess — the magic boss The Priestess uses illusion and transformation, making for a less grounded, more surreal encounter with a strong phase identity. We wanted players to feel the Priestess could be the final boss, even if the journey was not over yet. The encounter evolves from illusion-based clone combat into a large-scale, floating arena, encouraging players to combine combat, puzzle-solving, and platforming to survive. King — the final boss As the final boss, we wanted the King encounter to feel direct, intense, and skill-focused. It is also a major narrative moment, and the encounter needed to reflect its importance. The boss battle escalates in personality as much as in challenge. It starts controlled and relentless, then becomes more brutal, and finally something feral and unpredictable. As a result, the King doesn’t rely on a complicated gimmick. Instead, the fight tests everything the player has learned, where mastery matters most. Looking back and looking ahead to Saros: Zenith Working on bosses for Saros was an amazing opportunity for the Nixxes content team. We aimed to make each one feel fair, thrilling, and worth trying again. And each encounter challenged us to think about how we could create the most memorable moments for the player. More importantly, it let us collaborate closely with Housemarque on the fast, responsive, high-intensity action that defines the game. With Saros: Zenith, players can return to these battles in Housemarque’s new Overlord Rush mode and experience them in a fresh, faster, and more replayable way. We are excited to see how players take on the challenge and fight to reach the top of the Leaderboard. Play Video View the full article

Photo Modes are a rewarding way to get to grips with some essential elements of photography, while letting you more closely examine and appreciate a game’s art design and increasingly photorealistic visuals. Feature-rich Photo Modes put an entire suite of virtual lighting rigs at your fingertips, subtracting concerns about space requirements, or the patience of your models as you get your composition just right. Insomniac in particular continues to bring a superheroic heft to its photographic options, first established through its Marvel’s Spider-Man games, with Marvel’s Wolverine. The game’s out for just over a month, and we continue to be dazzled by the Photo Mode skills players have displayed since launch. We’ve equally had questions from budding shutterbugs asking for guidance on how to better their shots. Here, we unpack some of the options the studio offers up in Photo Mode and some examples to get you thinking. Warning: some of the photos here are spoilers for the game’s outfits and mid-game content Set up tips Chapter select: Once you’ve rolled credits, loading your save file will pop you back in Logan’s cabin. Head to the bed to access a chapter select menu, letting you leap into any location or moment from the story. From Canada’s snowy wilderness, neon-soaked Shinjuku arcades, to the compact districts of Madripoor and more, you got plenty of backdrops, blockbuster moments and quieter character moments to work with. Photo Mode UI repositioning: Insomniac has packed in a multitude of options in its Photo Mode to cater to every need you’d have. That includes up to 5 independent lighting rigs (plus customisable natural light options!), character poses, miniature mode, filters and more. Extensive options means a chunky, multi-tab Photo Mode UI. Remember: if you find the UI is blocking your shot, you can tap a button to alternate it between the left and right of your screen. D-Pad Shortcuts: As default you access Photo Mode from the Pause menu, but jump into Settings, and you can map a shortcut to Photo Mode to the DualSense’s D-Pad. And while you’re there, assign another D-Pad button to adjust the game speed, letting you reduce game speed by 30, 50 or 70%. Useful when you want to capture the perfect action moment. Landscape, portrait or between: You can use the Tilt option to angle the camera from a straight landscape shot, to a dramatic dutch angle, or a 9×16 portrait image. You’ll need to tilt your own head to better compose the shot with that last option (or, if you’re playing on a PlayStation Portal, just turn the handheld device on its side). I see five lights A headline feature of Marvel’s Wolverine Photo mode is five independent lights, each offering separate colour spectrums, intensity options, adjustable distances and such. You can choose each light to be Sphere (casting a wider glow from their centre) or Spotlights (a stronger directional beam). One to two lights: That can seem daunting, but you don’t have to use them all! In fact, for individual portrait shots, just one or two will do. In photography terms, two lights cover your key light, and your rim light. The former is the main light, illuminating your subject from the front. Play about with having this light to the side, above or below your subject to change the mood of the shot. The latter usually is positioned behind your subject at a lower intensity and at a slight angle, casting a soft fall of light onto your model’s side, shoulders or hair, which separates them from the background. But those guidelines aren’t rigid: play with lighting, shifting from traditional portraiture to something more startling, as I’ve done with the above. (Which positions Logan’s character model within the radius of a gun’s muzzle flash during a fight scene.) And once you’ve comfortable with one subject, extend it to two models, then group shots. So, 5 lights. There’s a few examples of location-based uses that could help wrap your head around how to operate them. Try this: Take the arcade early on in the “In the Shadows” chapter. It’s a barrage of colour, glowing cabinet screens and neon ceiling lights battling for dominance. Switch to Photo Mode and use each light to mimic the glow of a different arcade cabinet screen, or infer ones that aren’t even in shot. Tinker with the intensity and light type of each. You’re just trying to best replicate the mood and look of an arcade bar. I applied the same trick to the casino scene below, but with two lights only. One was positioned just in front of the fruit machine to give off that notable glow, which bathed Jean Grey’s left side in purple light. Logan on the other hand was the focus of an off-white light off-camera, mimicking the glow from the wider casino floor. Three lights: The below photo ups the set to three lights, this time coloured to replicate the flow from the two lanterns to the rear of the shot, and the candles on the floor in the foreground. I upped the intensity of the front light to cast a strong shadow on the floor. A similar trick I applied to an alternate version on the arcade scene: notice the shadow of the grabber claw cast on the back wall? Move him as you need him In all the shots thus far, my focus was ever on the position and body language of NPCs, rather than Logan himself. That’s because with the Character Pose option, you’re able to cycle through a set of different locked poses, and then, with movement options, you’re free to move Wolverine to anywhere within a generous radius (up, down, left, right, back and forward). You can rotate him, cycle through a variety of facial expressions and switch between any suits or claws you’ve currently unlocked. You can also hide him entirely, or any enemy NPC thanks to a toggle option in the menus. A good rule of thumb with any photo: once snapped, cycle through the different suits before exiting. Some might fit the mood of a shot better, and the various materials on each react differently to light sources. Note: Logan’s original position when entering Photo Mode will be taken as the centre point to which the 5 independent lights will circle around, not where he is moved to. So you’ll need to adjust lights accordingly if you want him lit a certain way. Ready, set, action (figure) A fun feature making a welcome leap from Marvel’s Spider-Man 2: Action Figure mode. Found in the Character Pose sub-menu, one click turns Logan miniature. Ripe for some creative executions. For myself, I envisioned Wolverine sitting in Jean’s outstretched palm. In trying to capture that moment during a combat moment, I stumbled onto something unexpected: the world’s smallest Fastball Special. Worth noting: despite his (more than usual) diminutive size, mini-Logan’s model has the same movement radius (up, down, left right, forward or back) as his normal-sized version. The above had a comic book cover-like look I liked, which led me to the rabbit hole of using miniature work, and the ability to switch backgrounds to a specific colour palette to mimic something you’d see on the front of a graphic novel. The above was possible due to another feature worth flagging: Logan has an entirely separate set of poses when he’s airborne, as exampled below. Merging Figures The Wolverine character model isn’t blocked by other character models or environmental objects when moving him, giving you the flexibility to get characters side by side for some dramatic shots. Don’t worry about any clipping or overlaps between models! The right camera angle will hide that imperfection (such as the shots below: in the first Jean’s right arm is actually clipping through Logan’s jacket, the second, Logan’s knee is clipping through Jean’s back). That said, don’t be afraid to get creative with the clipping. Example below: having Jean and Logan’s heads blend together, a nod to sci-fi movie-style posters and referencing how the game’s story delves into his mind and memories. Composed and captured your shot? Now pan around Captured a great shot? Great. But before you back out of Photo Mode, train yourself to do one last pan around. There may be an alternative angle to your setup, a hidden detail just out of view. Heck, there could be a completely different photo worth capturing in the frozen moment. For me, an early example was the below. Originally this was a neon-lit picture of Wolverine in a completely different pose. But I widened the lens and spotted Jean’s hand in the foreground, which made for a fun framing device and also gave a different vibe to the photo. Now go grab some great photos The above isn’t intended to be an exhaustive run down of the game’s many Photo Mode options, but a few primers to get you thinking and start on capturing great shots of your own. If you need more inspiration, find a few more galleries below! Street Photography Gallery Remember to look beyond your immediate view. Every location in the game is rich with cool environments or background characters going about their lives. View and download image Download the image close Close Download this image View and download image Download the image close Close Download this image View and download image Download the image close Close Download this image View and download image Download the image close Close Download this image View and download image Download the image close Close Download this image View and download image Download the image close Close Download this image View and download image Download the image close Close Download this image Action Gallery You can increase the amount of blood or damage on Logan’s character model via a specific menu option in Photo Mode. View and download image Download the image close Close Download this image View and download image Download the image close Close Download this image View and download image Download the image close Close Download this image View and download image Download the image close Close Download this image View and download image Download the image close Close Download this image Verify your age to view this content. Verify your age to view this content. View the full article

It’s time to see which PS5, PS4, PS VR2, and free-to-play games topped last month’s download charts. In September, Marvel’s Wolverine led the PS5 charts in the US, followed by EA Sports FC 27, while in the EU, EA Sports FC 27 led the PS5 charts, followed by Marvel’s Wolverine. Check out the full listings below. What titles are you playing this month? PS5 Games US/CanadaEUMarvel’s WolverineEA Sports FC 27EA Sports FC 27Marvel’s WolverineNBA 2K27The Blood of DawnwalkerHalloweenHalloweenThe Blood of DawnwalkerGrand Theft Auto VMadden NFL 27MinecraftOnimusha: Way of the SwordOnimusha: Way of the SwordControl ResonantNBA 2K27NHL 27Forza Horizon 5College Football 27Control ResonantCall of Duty: Black Ops IICall of Duty: Black Ops IIMinecraftValheimValheimThe Witcher 3: Wild HuntGrand Theft Auto VSilent Hill: TownfallSilent Hill: TownfallResident Evil 4Minecraft Dungeons IIMinecraft Dungeons IIForza Horizon 5NHL 27Call of Duty: Black OpsDune: AwakeningDune: Awakening007 First LightResident Evil 4It Takes Two *Naming of products may differ between regions *Upgrades not included PS4 Games US/CanadaEURed Dead Redemption 2EA Sports FC 27Call of Duty: Black Ops IIIRed Dead Redemption 2Batman: Arkham KnightBatman: Arkham KnightGang BeastsA Way OutCall of Duty: WWIICall of Duty: WWIIResident Evil 5Call of Duty: Black Ops IIIResident Evil 6Gang BeastsMinecraftNeed for Speed HeatNeed for Speed HeatLEGO Marvel Super HeroesLEGO Marvel Super HeroesCall of Duty: Modern WarfaretheHunter: Call of the WildCrash Bandicoot N. Sane TrilogyCall of Duty: Modern WarfareMinecraftA Way OutUnravel TwoGod of WarThe ForestStar Wars Battlefront IIMafia TrilogyMortal Kombat XResident Evil 6Crash Bandicoot N. Sane TrilogyResident Evil 5EA Sports FC 27God of WarThe ForesttheHunter: Call of the WildInjustice 2LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2 *Naming of products may differ between regions PS VR2 Games* US/CanadaEUI Am Cat I Am Cat Horizon Call of the MountainBeat SaberBeat SaberPavlovPavlovHorizon Call of the MountainJob SimulatorJob SimulatorCities: VR – Enhanced EditionMetro AwakeningArizona Sunshine VR 2Arizona Sunshine VR 2Bootstrap IslandCities: VR – Enhanced EditionMetro AwakeningVampire: The Masquerade – JusticeHard BulletSwordsman VR *PlayStation Store purchases only. Game upgrades or games bundled with hardware not included Free to Play (PS5 + PS4) US/CanadaEUCall of Duty: WarzoneAniimoOnce HumanFortniteFortniteCall of Duty: WarzoneAniimoRobloxRobloxOnce HumanMarvel RivalsRocket LeagueRocket LeagueeFootballApex LegendsAsphalt LegendsAsphalt LegendsMarvel RivalsFall GuysFall Guys View the full article

When Lara Croft first leapt onto screens in 1996, she was a few hundred polygons and a fistful of pixels. Thirty years later, Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis reimagines that same adventurer with technology the original team could only dream of. Through it all, one goal held steady: she had to look like Lara. For a generation of players, their first adventure with Lara unfolded on PlayStation. Tomb Raider and PlayStation came of age together in the mid-nineties, each helping shape what that new era of gaming could be. Thirty years later, that connection still resonates, and Lara’s latest journey continues on PlayStation 5. Play Video Building on the original “Now we have that technology and the computing power, we ask, how do we make this the most realistic-looking Lara while sticking with that original design?” For the character team, the 1996 design is the anchor every choice answers to. “When the original Lara was made, we could only have a certain number of polygons, a certain number of textures,” says Brendon Bengston at Crystal Dynamics. “There were a lot of things we wanted to do to make things look realistic that we just didn’t have the technology for. Now we have that technology and the computing power, so we ask, how do we make this the most realistic-looking Lara while sticking with that original design?” Every console generation since has moved that design a step forward. The PlayStation 2 era of Legend, Anniversary, and Underworld gave Lara smoother geometry and more expressive animation, and the Survivor trilogy pushed her detail and realism further still. Each leap added polygons, texture, and nuance, and each one answered back to that same 1996 silhouette. For the concept team, the harder challenge was balance: pushing the fidelity forward while keeping her instantly recognizable. “You want them to feel believable, but you also want them to look recognizable,” says Aleksandra Skiba, Senior Character Concept Artist at Flying Wild Hog. “You have to figure out what you can do now to make them better.” Rendering a living character The leap from 1996 is most visible in the details that used to be impossible. Take her hair. “Back in the first couple of Tomb Raider games, it was all polygons, all big shapes,” Bengston says. “Now we are able to create hair cards and craft exact strands.” Hair cards are thin, overlapping strips of semi-transparent texture, layered to mimic real clumps of hair rather than the solid, helmet-like shapes of the past. The difference is in the motion. “How does the bang move? What does the ponytail feel like? What does the braid feel like? We can get in and craft every nook and cranny.” Her skin carries the same fidelity. “We can do a lot of things with our materials for the skin. We have subsurface scattering, we have flow maps,” Bengston says. Subsurface scattering is the effect that makes skin look alive rather than plastic, light sinking slightly into the surface and glowing back out, the way your ear looks lit from within when the sun is behind it. The face goes further still. “We can craft custom blend shapes so that when Lara squinches, we see bespoke lines on her face, on the forehead, when she smiles or when she frowns.” Blend shapes are sculpted facial poses the game moves between, letting a single face form thousands of natural expressions. “We weren’t able to do that not long ago. Using this technology from Epic in Unreal has let us take the characters to the next level, not just in their static model but in how they move and emote.” Real fabric, real folds “We actually hired a tailor to create an actual outfit for her. They made it, we put it on a mannequin and scanned it, and now we have a real-world asset of the digital version.” To dress Lara believably, the team leaned on the real world. “Early on we decided to leverage a scanning pipeline,” Bengston says. “We sculpted the base body, got it 3D printed at real scale, sent it to a vendor, put real-world clothes on the mannequin, and scanned that. It gives us real-world cloth. Denim folds differently than silk. It folds differently from chiffon or cotton or wool.” For one of Lara’s outfits, they went all the way. “We actually hired a tailor to create an actual outfit for her,” Bengston says. “They made it, we put it on a mannequin and scanned it, and now we have a real-world asset of the digital version.” What we kept, what we reimagined Technology renders the surface. Identity is what the team fought to protect. John Stafford, Narrative Director at Crystal Dynamics, frames the reimagining in three parts. “What we kept: Lara’s intelligence, fearlessness, and thrill-seeking spirit remain completely intact,” he says. “What we evolved: we deepened her emotional depth and relationships without losing her confidence. What we reimagined: we unified the mythic, grounded, and larger-than-life tones of multiple Tomb Raider eras into one Lara.” It is a challenge the studio has faced before. “Anniversary was about retelling a classic through a modern lens. Legacy of Atlantis is about synthesizing thirty years of Lara into something new,” Stafford says. “Anniversary taught us that, outside of plot points, fans remember how Lara makes them feel. We want to evoke similar emotions from across all previous eras.” That includes the younger, rawer Lara of the Survivor trilogy. “The Survivor era showed us Lara works well when danger has consequences,” Stafford says. “We carried forward her physicality, emotional credibility, and sense of earned resilience. Even at her most confident and badass, this Lara still feels human.” One Lara, every era “No matter the era, Lara must always feel like someone who needs to know what’s behind the next door.” The result is a Lara built to resonate with anyone who has ever picked up a controller in her name. For players meeting her for the first time, the target is simple. “That she’s the smartest person in the room, and the boldest,” Stafford says. “That adventure isn’t something she survives, it’s something she actively pursues.” One quality, Stafford says, was non-negotiable no matter which era a fan loves most. “Lara’s curiosity and spirit of discovery. No matter the era, Lara must always feel like someone who needs to know what’s behind the next door.” Everything about how she is made has changed. What makes her Lara has not. Pre-order Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis Lara Croft’s greatest adventure begins February 12, 2027. Pre-orders are live now on PlayStation Store, so secure your edition before launch. View the full article