A decade ago, Abubakar Salim lost his father. That grief lives within him. An actor by trade, with credits in Raised by Wolves and House of the Dragon’s upcoming season, he searched for years for the right medium to work through the hurt. A film. A TV show. Nothing did it justice—until he tried to … Read more
Bloom, a non-player character with a face like a potato and a black beanie pulled tight around his ears, wants to know about my strategy and how I fare in combat. “I follow a map and I punch hard,” I reply into the microphone. Text of our conversation flashes across the bottom of my screen. … Read more
Super Mario Bros. Wonder’s titular flowers can make the game Get Weird, whether it’s by changing the game’s stage or turning Mario into something slightly terrifying. One prototype idea in particular, however, would have temporarily turned the game into a live-action one. During the development process of Wonder, the game’s team had an unprecedented amount … Read more
The popular farming sim and ultimate cozy game, Stardew Valley, dropped a major update on Tuesday after months of anticipation. Stardew’s 1.6 update has an insane amount of new content that touches every area of the game, from new menus and DIYs, to a new farm layout, new crops, and the ability to have multiple … Read more
Burnt rubber and gunfire are not the most pleasing of smells, but for action games, they might be the most common. At least, that’s true for GameScent, a new device that aims to make gaming more immersive by adding smell to the equation. GameScent, which dropped late last month to a bit of fanfare and … Read more
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom developers had a problem: The land of Hyrule kept falling apart. Anyone who has played Tears of the Kingdom might be able to guess why. Some of the game’s big advances—Link’s Ultrahand and Fuse abilities, which allow players to create any tool they’re clever enough to stick … Read more
“There are marginalized devs who work on these games, and they want to put that stuff in their games,” Belair says, adding that it’s strange that players feel like characters of color, for example, need to have their presence justified in any way. “I’m a huge Uncharted fan,” Belair says.”’Why is Nathan Drake white?’ is … Read more
There’s no more important death in video games than that of Final Fantasy VII’s flower girl, Aerith. In the 1997 game, Aerith meets her end at the hands of Sephiroth, who brutally stabs her in front of the game’s hero, Cloud Strife, and by extension the players. It was a permadeath that stayed with fans. … Read more
I’m insanely excited about the tweet Barone made in December revealing one of the new items: bigger storage chests! (If you know, you know, and if you don’t know, you will soon after you start playing and need to store everything.) How Should You Prepare for the Update? First and foremost: Buy the game if … Read more
A new Pokémon Legends game is coming to the “Nintendo Switch family of systems” in 2025. Pokémon Legends: Z-A, announced Tuesday with a brief teaser trailer, is an “ambitious new entry” into the series that will launch simultaneously worldwide. It’s also fuel for the fire that a new Nintendo Switch console is coming next year. … Read more