This week’s top game rankings saw a major shake-up as Pearl Abyss’ ‘Crimson Desert’ was removed from the voting pool following its March release. Filling that void and taking the top spot is Blizzard’s new expansion, ‘Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred,’ which officially launched on April 28.
‘E-hwan’ climbed one spot to take third place. As an open-world subculture game released on April 29, it has maintained its ranking by word-of-mouth since launch. ‘Pragmata’ in fourth and ‘Imjin War: Counterattack of Joseon’ in fifth also each moved up one spot, showing steady interest following their releases. ‘Game of Thrones: Kingsroad’ at sixth and ‘Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era’ at seventh maintained their respective positions.
Meanwhile, the biggest riser was ‘Forza Horizon 6,’ which jumped three spots from ninth last week to sixth. A new entry on the list is the martial arts RPG ‘Yeonun,’ which debuted at tenth.
‘Forza Horizon 6’ appears to be drawing significant interest as the first in the series to be set in Japan, while ‘Yeonun’ applied its 1.6 version update, ‘River Flowing Through Jincheon,’ on the 30th. This update added the new Heseo region of ‘Jincheon,’ along with various Jin-su battles, field bosses, and seasonal reward pools.
Notable New Releases, Events, and Updates
Last week saw a rush of releases, including the Diablo IV expansion ‘Lord of Hatred.’ Among them, the most notable titles were Director Kim Tae-gon’s new game ‘Imjin War: Counterattack of Joseon’ and the subculture RPG ‘E-hwan,’ both released on April 29.
Diablo IV maintained high interest following the launch of Lord of Hatred; according to SteamDB, its concurrent player count rose from the 3,000 range to 64,000 as of last weekend.
On Metacritic, SIE’s new PS5 title ‘Saros,’ released on April 30, received the highest score with 88. Ubisoft’s new turn-based strategy game ‘Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era’ also launched on the same day. Other titles across various genres, such as ‘Aphelion,’ ‘Invincible VS,’ and ‘Moomin: Winter’s Warmth,’ also made their debut throughout the week.
In terms of events, ‘Gamescom Latam 2026’ opened on April 30 and ran through May 5, while ‘EVO Japan 2026’ was held in Tokyo from May 1 to 3. The ‘New Zealand Game Festival,’ which also began on May 1, continues until May 9.
This Week’s ISSUE: Season 2 Finale, ‘Zenless Zone Zero’ 2.8 Update
The main topic this week is the 2.8 version update for HoYoverse’s ‘Zenless Zone Zero,’ titled ‘Sunset of New Eridu,’ arriving on May 6. It will feature story content marking the finale of Season 2 and introduce new S-rank characters such as the Black Branch Arbiter ‘Promia’ and ‘Starlight Billy.’
The indie title ‘Mixtape,’ launching on May 7, is also worth noting. Developed by Melbourne-based studio Beethoven & Dinosaur—creators of the BAFTA-winning ‘The Artful Escape’—and published by Annapurna Interactive, this narrative adventure game follows a group of friends in 1990s Northern California. For fans of indie and alternative music, the soundtrack is a major highlight.
On the same day, Netmarble’s ‘Solo Leveling: ARISE’ will hold its 2nd-anniversary update, officially implementing the new content revealed at the offline event on April 25.
Additionally, the PC version CBT for ‘Freestyle Football 2’ will run from May 8 to 9. This new soccer game is being developed by Ure, a subsidiary of Joycity, and was first unveiled at Gamescom. The plan is to maintain the signature cartoon style of Joycity’s flagship ‘Freestyle’ IP while utilizing Unreal Engine 5 to deliver higher-quality graphics.
The PC CBT will be playable for two days, May 8 and 9, from 20:00 to 24:00 each day. Players will also be able to try out the new Korean character, ‘Quri,’ for the first time.
Last Week’s METACRITIC Scores?
Among last week’s releases, the highest-scoring title was ‘Inkonbini’ by indie developer Nagai Industries. It had a stable start with a Metacritic score of 85 based on 4 reviews. ‘Inkonbini’ is a simulation game depicting the daily life of a college student working part-time at a convenience store in 1980s Japan. It was first showcased at the ID@Xbox event during GDC 2024. The fact that the developer is a self-proclaimed fan of the Shenmue series also drew attention.
‘Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley,’ which holds a score of 83, is a title from the Norwegian developer Hyper Games. Based on the ‘Moomin’ book series by Finnish author Tove Jansson, this adventure game has been well-received for its warm atmosphere and for capturing the unique sensibility of the original work. While the sample size is small with 17 reviews, the game appears to have garnered a favorable response, particularly among fans of the source material.
Milestone’s ‘MotoGP 26′ scored 79. As the latest entry in the simulation racing series utilizing the MotoGP license, the consensus is that it provides the stable gameplay expected of a series released annually. However, the series’ characteristic incremental improvement structure does not seem to have led to any major fluctuations in its score.
Skybound Games’ ‘Invincible Presents: Atom Eve’ received a score of 76. This 2D fighting game, based on the popular animated series ‘Invincible,’ has accumulated 34 reviews since its official release on May 1. While it has been praised for its fan service, some critics have pointed to a lack of depth in its fighting game mechanics.
Finally, DON’T NOD’s new title ‘Aphelion’ only reached 63. It is an adventure game depicting the survival of astronauts who crash-landed on a frozen alien planet, and it drew attention as a project involving developers from the climbing game ‘Jusant.’ However, the reviews were harsher than expected, with negative opinions making up the majority of the 28 reviews.
New Game Popularity Poll
This week’s poll covers games released or scheduled for release between March 20 and May 20. Consequently, games released in March, such as ‘Life is Strange: Reunion,’ have been removed from the voting pool, while new titles like ‘007: First Light’ and ‘Path of Exile 2’ have been added.
[Read Original]
PakarPBN
A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a collection of websites that are controlled by a single individual or organization and used primarily to build backlinks to a “money site” in order to influence its ranking in search engines such as Google. The core idea behind a PBN is based on the importance of backlinks in Google’s ranking algorithm. Since Google views backlinks as signals of authority and trust, some website owners attempt to artificially create these signals through a controlled network of sites.
In a typical PBN setup, the owner acquires expired or aged domains that already have existing authority, backlinks, and history. These domains are rebuilt with new content and hosted separately, often using different IP addresses, hosting providers, themes, and ownership details to make them appear unrelated. Within the content published on these sites, links are strategically placed that point to the main website the owner wants to rank higher. By doing this, the owner attempts to pass link equity (also known as “link juice”) from the PBN sites to the target website.
The purpose of a PBN is to give the impression that the target website is naturally earning links from multiple independent sources. If done effectively, this can temporarily improve keyword rankings, increase organic visibility, and drive more traffic from search results.
