Ken Levine hails cancelled Irrational project as 'the best game we never got to make'

Since Rockstar Games was established as a subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive in December 1998, the studio has released several acclaimed titles, most notably the and series. Despite this, the company has worked on several titles that have gone on to be either officially canceled or simply never completed.

Happy December, Polygon readers! The winter holidays are only a few short weeks away, but don’t fret: There’s plenty of presents in the form of movies new to streaming to enjoy in the meantime. With November now behind us, we’ve combed through the latest movies to stream on Netflix, Hulu, Max, and more to bring you the best of what December has to offer.

Critical Role is pretty much the biggest livestreamed D&D campaign, by sheer popularity and volume alone. Starting halfway through the group's home game in 2015, to call the game's rise to popularity 'meteoric' is an understatement. It's gone from an experiment by Geek & Sundry to its own enterprise with heaps of merch, a charity foundation, officially-sanctioned D&D settings, board games, its own unique systems like Candela Obscura, and a very solid animated series with two seasons and counting. And, according to a recent interview with Dicebreaker, we could get a Critical Role videogame, too. Responding to a question as to whether he'd like to make the leap to a digital world, Critical Role's DM Matthew Mercer responds with a bit of caution, saying it would «require the right idea, the right development studio and the right budget.» However, he goes on to say that he'd «love to see that in the future, should all those stars align». Coming from anyone else, saying 'sure, we'd love to make a game' wouldn't even register on my radar. Everybody with a world and characters they care about would love to make a game, it's just that games are both extremely difficult and wildly expensive to make. Looking back on Critical Role's history, though, I think it's very possible. If Critical Role as a company sets its mind on it, it's even likely. Back when The Legend of Vox Machina animated series was being funded, Critical Role put up a kickstarter with a humble goal of $750,000. It beat that goal, raising $1 million. Sorry, correction—it raised $1 million in its first hour. In total, the Kickstarter for The Legend of Vox Machina broke $11.3 million in funding, which is about 1,500% of the original goal. Not only would a Critical Role video game be able to easily get a huge wad of Kickstarter cash to get things started, it'd sell like hotcakes if it was even a little bit good. It also helps that Critical Role already has good ties to the industry, on account of the fact its entire cast are self-described «nerdy-ass voice actors.» Mercer, for example, voiced Minsc in Baldur's Gate 3—and you've likely heard his voice in a thousand other places before. Overwatch, Fallout 4, Pillars of Eternity World of Warcraft, League of Legends, The Legend of Zelda—he's been in the industry since 2002. If I went through the whole cast's portfolio (like how CEO Travis Willingham is Kingpin in Marvel's Spider-Man and Thor in like, most things that need voice acting for Thor, or how Ashley Johnson is Ellie from The Last of Us, or how Laura Bailey is Jaina Proudmoore) I'd be here all day. 

The Arctis 7 is one of the best headsets around for gaming, and it just got a big discount.

Black Friday may have been and gone, dear readers, but the deals still continue with the dawn of Cyber Monday. This will be the last day of the Black Friday extravaganza, so make sure you get those purchases in before midnight if you still want to take advantage of any offers. And to help you navigate the trauma of endlessly navigating several different price-checking sites to bring you the best Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, I'm back for one last day of liveblog duties. Hardware editor James will also be updating our dedicated Cyber Monday deals pages with lots more of the best deals if you're looking for something more specific.

Looking for Black Friday deals on streaming services like Disney+, Hulu, Paramount+, Peacock, Max, and more? Are you also looking for the chance to watch chief zaddy Pedro Pascal be a gruff but great father to adopted children on not one but two TV shows?

With the holiday season now in full swing, there's a pretty nice freebie available on the Epic Games Store: Deliver Us Mars. The sci-fi adventure game is a direct sequel to 2018's Deliver Us the Moon, taking place around ten years after the events that unfolded in the original game. Humans are closer than ever to extinction on Earth, and only a daring mission to the Red Planet to recover the ARK colony ships can change the fate of humankind.

For developers just starting in the industry, the task of choosing the best game engine can be daunting. Here, we'll try to address many of the issues concerning one of the most popular game engines, Unity, so you can see if it's the right game engine for your project.

Greetings, Adventurers!

By Antonio G. Di Benedetto, a writer covering tech deals and The Verge’s Deals newsletter, buying guides, and gift guides. Previously, he spent 15 years in the photography industry.

Ridley Scott’s $200 million historical epic Napoleon is the stuff prestige-movie dreams are made of. Spanning 32 years in the French emperor’s life, the 158-minute film blitzes through multiple massive, expensively staged battles, all in order to consider how Napoleon’s marital struggles with his wife Josephine may have shaped French history. But does all this pricey prestige drama live up to the other great Napoleons of media? The Polygon staff takes this kind of question very seriously, so we sat down to consider which media Napoleons matter most.

For developers just starting in the industry, the task of choosing the best game engine can be daunting. Here, we'll try to address many of the issues concerning one of the most popular game engines, Unreal Engine, so you can see if it's the right game engine for your project.