How Cyberpunk Games Are Thriving Beyond 2077

With its rainswept cities and bleeding neon signs, the cyberpunk genre is often a feast for the eyes. And Cyberpunk 2077 is no exception. However, beyond CD Projekt Red’s ambitious adaptation...

Monster Hunter Rise Breaks With Tradition to Tell a More Intimate Story

Monster Hunter Rise might not look it, but it’s the next evolution of the massively popular formula laid down by Monster Hunter World. The two games have very different art styles — with...

Streamers Are Getting in on the Animal Crossing Tourism Business

From the unspoken rules of being a good host, to popular island themes, in-game tours showcase the best of island decorating in Animal Cros...

The Official Silent Hill 2 HD Sucked, So These Fans Made Their Own

James Sunderland’s haunted visage stares back at him from a grimy bathroom mirror in the opening of Silent Hill 2. A letter from Mary, his late wife, has just come in th...

THE 2020 JORDIE AWARDS

Hello everyone, and welcome to the 46th annual 2020 Jordie Awards. I’m your host, the frog/whale mafia boss from Mirai Sentai Timeranger, and it is my genuine pleasure to be here with all of...

I Trained My Hair Like Sephiroth for 14 Days and Now I'm a Living Weapon

Final Fantasy VII Remake has been the game on everyone’s hit list recently, and for good reason. Everyone in it looks really fu...

A Chocobo Built For One: Why and How I Got a Divorce in FFXIV

Final Fantasy XIV is arguably the biggest MMO out there right now, with a subscriber base that’s surpassed the old guard of World of Warcraft and relative new...

The Unsung Artist Who Defined the Look of Sonic the Hedgehog

It’s hard to overstate just how important the Sonic Adventure series was to the Sonic franchise and video games as a whole. Not only did these games take Sonic in a bold new narrative direction...

Whatever Happened to Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings?

After hearing the announcement that Lucasfilm Games and Bethesda are working together on a new Indiana Jones game, I couldn’t help but think back to Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings. No, no...

Gaps and Pauses: The Role of Negative Space in Games

At the end of Act 1 in Diablo 3, you’ve descended through the Highlands and the Halls of Agony, battling Khazra, Dark Cultists and the fearsome Warden to meet the Butcher. After a pitched battl...

Inside Nookazon, the Troubled Animal Crossing Marketplace

The operators of Animal Crossing marketplace Nookazon faced community backlash last weekend for attempting to quell a surge in anti-police sentiment within their official Discord server. As mem...

Meet the Gamers Bringing Achievements Back to the Past

Ever since Microsoft introduced their Gamerscore system in 2005, it’s been increasingly rare for games to ship without achievements or trophies, and today there are countless websites for tracking and...

A Star Trek: Discovery Primer to Get You Ready for Season 3

The Star Trek franchise is currently in the throes of an aggressive expansion, with plans to juggle as many as six ongoing series at a time to keep fans subscribed to CBS All Access all year ro...

How Tinder Inspired a New Genre of Political Video Games

Do you like Tinder? Do you like video games? Do you like politics? If you answered yes to at least two of these questions you should know that there’s a whole emerging game genre that mixes the playfu...

Digging Into the Secret Feng Shui of Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Back in May, Twitter user and daily Animal Crossing player @1c3b3rgmama appealed to New Horizons’ feng shui by placing four pop-eyed goldfish in the corners o...

Meet the Sea Shanty-Singing Sailors of Sea of Thieves

It’s not every day that you’re treated to a concert in a video game (unless it’s Fortnite), but for some fortunate Sea of Thieves players, it’s happened when they stumbled across...

Revisiting BEN Drowned on the 20th Anniversary of Majora's Mask

We’re living in a creepypasta boom. Anything you want, you can find it — or make it yourself and get an audience. Cursed video games? You can literally download and play them. Ruined childhood? Some o...

I Think the Strangest Game I Played at PAX Was Secretly Just Hypno Fetish Art

PAX plays home to a wide variety of games: from outstanding indies to AAA games that came out two months ago and, for whatever reason, people still line up to see at the show. Installations like the I...

Friendly Traders Fight Seedy Scammers in the Animal Crossing Turnip Community

Animal Crossing: New Horizons provides a number of ways to hustle in its Bell-based economy if you want to get rich quick and pay off Tom Nook’s endless loans. One of the best is...

Meet the Fuel Rats, the Players Making Elite: Dangerous a Little Safer

I was up late playing the online space game Elite: Dangerous one night, having spent a couple of hours telling myself I’d quit right after this next thing, when I s...