FraserG

@Fiendish-Beaver I hope it outlasts me too!

Your loyalty doesn't go unnoticed and it's great to have you here. We have an amazing and passionate community for sure.

@Fiendish-Beaver I like to be as transparent as possible, so happy to answer your questions!

1. Push Square has more staff than Pure Xbox. It's always been that way because they're the older and bigger site.

2. I don't make these decisions, but rest assured that Pure Xbox is achieving a lot of views every month

3. Pure Xbox has never had a massive team - it's operated with two full-time writers for the majority of its existence since relaunching back in 2020 (it was actually just one back then!). We do have other staffers writing for us as well, but they're also part of the Nintendo Life team, and the Switch 2 launch has kept them particularly busy over there recently.

I'll be playing it and I'm sure I'll enjoy the gameplay, but everything around it (all the free-to-play stuff) will probably put me off.

Hopefully that's not the case.

@Gr81 Was that in the show? Did I totally miss it? I've seen the announcement (we'll cover it soon), but I didn't think it was part of the Nintendo Direct.

@Banjo- We knew you'd love this! 😁

@GlasgowGuy I LOVED Deliver Us The Moon. What a game!

Just a quick update to this - EA is now listing these games with a November 8th (2025) closure date.

Still keeping "potentially" in the headline as who knows what EA is doing here (they're still saying Grid 2 is on Switch for example), but it looks like November will mark the end of these servers.

Thanks everyone! All of your latest updates have been added to the list

I've been playing Rhythm Towers and it's actually amazing! Definitely worth a play if you like tower defense / rhythm games.

@WildConcept6 You're welcome!

It's definitely a Bandai game, but the developer is the little-known "Brownies inc.", hence why it's included in the roundup here.

@SodaPop6548 Thank you! I'm glad they're coming in useful

Yeah, I'll try and remember to do that for articles like these. In this case, the game is Jump Space.

Update: List has now been updated with a bunch more demos! This is now the full selection for the 2025 Xbox Demo Fest.

@Fiendish-Beaver Haha, no problem! Sounds awesome 😁

@Fiendish-Beaver Great to hear! You enjoying it?

@Lup Hopefully more to come! This is just what's been made publicly visible so far.

I'll update the list if/when more are added.

@Ricky-Spanish It's hard. To the point where it's become one of the biggest discussions amongst the fanbase so far.

@GeeEssEff You and me both! Game Boy in the backseat, trying to manoeuvre so the sun didn't make the screen impossible to see.

And then, of course, throwing up an hour later due to staring at a screen in the backseat of a car for too long... 😅

@Fiendish-Beaver I believe it's single-player only.

@Fiendish-Beaver I don't actually know to be honest! Would be surprised if we don't get reviews prior to release though.

@Fiendish-Beaver Not in the plans unfortunately! We'll definitely be rounding up the reviews as soon as they start going live though.

@SMJ I'm with you, I like it.

Probably helps that I went in with terrible expectations and ended up thinking it was much better than I'd feared.

@Trmn8r Wait, you've never heard of Operation Sports? Those folks have always been a great source for sports game reviews.

Anyway yeah, I know what you mean, but the idea is to share the early impressions for those who are diving in (or at least contemplating diving in) today on the release date.

Nice to help the smaller sites out sometimes as well

For what it's worth, I've just checked GRID 2 and DIRT 3 and those servers are indeed still working in 2025!

All of the games have since been delisted on the Xbox Store though, so if you don't own them digitally or physically, there's no way to access them anymore.

@acmiguens That poor, poor dev team

@RandomAndy It's busted everywhere, a lot of people can't see it on the Xbox Store right now.

The mobile method worked for me, everything else didn't.

@Lup It has a career mode, not exactly a story mode. You go through events ranking up, improving your player, etc.

Here's our review:

https://www.purexbox.com/reviews/xbox-series-x/topspin-2k25

@ILuvGames Unfortunately not, but we should have a roundup of reviews for it on Pure Xbox either today or tomorrow

@Link41x Enjoy, it'll be amazing!

@Fiendish-Beaver The demo was added at the start of August, but yeah - they've announced it's disappearing on Sep 2.

We covered it in here originally:

https://www.purexbox.com/news/2025/08/three-new-demos-have-been-added-to-the-xbox-store-already-in-august

Won't be reviewing this one unfortunately, but good news about the solo impressions - apparently it's fun whether you're playing single-player or co-op.

@BaldB3lper78 Yes! Here's what Microsoft has said:

https://www.purexbox.com/news/2025/08/microsoft-explains-why-rog-xbox-ally-price-and-pre-orders-havent-been-announced-yet

"This is always a challenge... and you always try to find the right balance between affordability and price point, and I think especially in a mobile form factor that also adds in dimensions such as battery life in as well. And then, as you said, the macro-economic climate is challenging."

"I think we will have to... we need more time to figure the macro-economic impact to pricing, and that's why we'll be sharing more later, in September and October."

@Fiendish-Beaver Perfect! Enjoy

@Fiendish-Beaver The standard version doesn't include the Annihilation Line narrative expansion, but I don't believe there's anything else exclusive to the Complete Edition.

In terms of whether it's worth it, the expansion has mixed reviews from critics (IGN gave it a 5/10 for example) but it also has a "Very Positive" rating on Steam. Depends how desperate you are for more content, I guess.

@Scummbuddy My Friendly Neighborhood is actually on Game Pass! It's like a Five Nights at Freddy's / Poppy's Playtime kinda thing.

https://www.purexbox.com/games/xbox-series-x/my_friendly_neighborhood

@EdgarTheBug You're welcome!

@SodaPop6548 Thank you very much! We're being more picky with our reviews these days as they unfortunately weren't performing well enough to justify the expense / time commitment in many cases.

You'll definitely still see them, but just less regularly.

@TrollOfWar Haha, you're forgiven 😁

@TrollOfWar Indeed! Mentioned at the bottom of the article

@BaldB3lper78 I'm glad to hear it! I don't agree with all the decisions they're making, but I'm definitely still excited for the future of Xbox - and particularly for the ROG Xbox Ally

@Fiendish-Beaver You're welcome!

It's multiplayer-only, so no campaign.

@Titntin You're welcome!

@Nighto4 I believe version 1.0 is launching today.

@Exerion76 That observation is based on the video alone, which features a small portion of footage running at 30FPS / 60FPS with very few dips.

This should all be taken with a pinch of salt until an outlet like Digital Foundry does a full deep dive into it.

@Lup I'm sorry, that was a mistake

PR material we've received says:

"Absolum will launch on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and PlayStation 4."

@Vipor007 You were too quick for us! It's live now

@Scummbuddy You're very welcome!

@Kaloudz We'll definitely see some reveals, but probably not first-party ones. Wouldn't get your hopes up for SOD3.

@GuyinPA75 I hate that I don't know if you're joking or not...

This guide was based on a request I received over the weekend (I think it was Fiendish Beaver, apologies if I'm wrong!).

Hopefully it's useful

@Questionable_Duck Thanks. Hopefully we get more details soon.

@Ricky-Spanish Nothing yet, we got a press release but it didn't say anything about release dates or prices.

@Coletrain Yeah, Sea of Stars feels like the biggest loss here. Still haven't played anywhere near enough of it.