Austin Wood

In a year overflowing with great-looking Metroidvanias, Minishoot' Adventures popped out to me for the sheer oddity and novelty of its premise. It's a top-down twin-stick shooter where you play as a small spaceship in a bright, colorful world under attack from a shadowy villain called the Unchosen. And I do mean you play as a spaceship, not someone piloting a spaceship, which really adds to the charm of the world. I've only played the opening act, but it's officially my next weekend game, because it's immediately clear why it's been so well-received on Steam, with over 1,500 97% positive user reviews at the time of writing. 

As Helldivers 2 endures thousands of negative Steam user reviews prompted by mandatory PlayStation Network account linking, community managers from developer Arrowhead have been rushing around handing out context and clarification to disgruntled players. A key point comes from community manager Twinbeard on Discord: "It's Sony's decision, not ours."

We all knew this was coming. Destiny 2: The Final Shape will make sweeping changes to the MMO's overly complicated Power system, streamlining the grind and making it easier to play with friends. The kicker is that all "legacy" items – you know, the ones that were sunset years ago – are coming back. Except they're also not, because most players already deleted them after they were sunset, and developer Bungie admits "we have no recovery mechanism." 

While fans wrangle how to access the Hades 2 technical test, developer Supergiant Games casually dropped a hefty gameplay reveal stream for the hotly anticipated sequel.

Stellar Blade developer Shift Up, previously known for the likes of Goddess of Victory: Nikke, has repeatedly discussed the challenges of shifting to a more ambitious, current-gen action RPG, especially in a mobile-dominated market like South Korea's. In a new making-of documentary from PlayStation, some of the studio's heads explain in more detail that "many people felt we were out of our mind" for pursuing this project and platform. 

The official Helldivers 2 Discord server recently set up a poll channel to gauge players' opinions on various updates and features, and after seven hours its inaugural polls indicate that the game's community hopes to see a little more oomph from its Warbonds and marksman rifles.

Ubisoft's next open-world adventure, Star Wars Outlaws, breaks at least one of the company's time-honored traditions: climbing towers to progress the map.

Open-world roguelike Hyper Light Breaker is launching in Steam Early Access this summer, as developer Heart Machine affirmed in a new trailer showing off another slick boss fight.

We finally know what the Slay the Spire studio has been working on: it's Slay the Spire 2, baby, and oh boy, it looks good.

Wizard of Legend 2, a follow-up to one of my favorite roguelikes of 2018 which is in the works at a new dev collaborating with the original creators, was one of the high points of today's Triple-I indie showcase. We got a fresh look at the sequel's updated 3D art style and co-op, and so far it looks like a solid homage to what made the first game great.

Bungie dropped a big gameplay reveal for Destiny 2: The Final Shape today, loudly declaring that the MMO's next expansion is going to take a sledgehammer to every single build currently available with wild combinations of new and existing abilities. 

After quietly roiling away on Itch.io for a few months, bite-sized strategy gambling game Buckshot Roulette has come to Steam and instantly become one of the most popular and highest-rated PC games of the year. It only costs $3 ($2.69 thanks to an ongoing sale), you can finish it in well under an hour, and there's a very good reason that it's gotten over 6,600 user reviews with a 96% positive score since its April 4 Steam launch. 

In one of the biggest auctions for a raw boxed video game, a rare sealed hangtag copy of Castlevania for the original NES recently sold for $90,100 on eBay after a bidding war that started at $37,000, all for a hard-to-find game with a literal sticker price of $27.87. 

The Helldivers 2 community is once again wrestling with the satirical tone of the game and its development team, struggling to glean legitimate information as Arrowhead cautions all democracy enjoyers to "avoid" a "rogue item" in the ship management store called "Catalog Expansion."

A third season of beloved 2011 romance anime Kimi ni Todoke - From Me to You will air exclusively on Netflix this August, and the first trailer for the unexpected continuation is so pitch-perfect that it almost feels like it's been no time at all.

Few weapons strike fear into the hearts of Destiny 2 players like the all-timer ensemble of Recluse, The Mountaintop, and Luna's Howl, which defined an entire (miserable) era of the game's history. So the news that these three guns, alongside several other nostalgic favorites, are returning as part of the upcoming Into the Light update was met with a mix of excitement and trepidation. Are we going back to those dark days? No, hopefully. Bungie says these weapons are indeed returning, but not completely game-breaking anymore.  

A new premium Helldivers 2 Warbond appropriately called Democratic Detonation is coming Thursday, April 11, and it's got everyone's new favorite Booster.

After tumultuous back and forth, there's a new Major Order to liberate all Automaton planets in Helldivers 2 and crush the bot threat in the Western front. It's looking like the climax for an arc of the Galactic War that's now defined several consecutive weeks of Helldivers 2, and as players continue to spill oil in the name of democracy, the nature and direction of the game's emergent narrative has gotten some timely details straight from developer Arrowhead.

Dead Cells is officially finished after seven years of support, and based on what I've seen of it so far, developer Motion Twin's next game may quickly take its place in the hearts of many fans and join the ranks of the best roguelikes. Windblown is an isometric action roguelike with support for up to three-player co-op, it's hitting PC early access later this year, and it looks like a compelling mix of modern genre staples and Dead Cells DNA.

Just when you think the Helldivers 2 Automaton warfront can't get any worse, the bots bring not one, but two new menaces to the battlefield. As flying Gunships shred players from the skies, new machine walkers called Factory Striders are also flattening democracy enthusiasts down on the ground. 

No Rest for the Wicked, the Diablo-esque action RPG in the works at Ori and the Blind Forest and Ori and the Will of the Wisps studio Moon, won't be $70. CEO Thomas Mahler says the game's price point is down to the nature of the team, their shared stance on the rising price of games, and the notable lack of shareholders pawing at the company's books. 

The Witcher 4, the best working name we have for the currently untitled project Polaris, will introduce "gameplay elements and new mechanics" not seen in the previous games.

In a confusing twist that's seen developer Arrowhead and Game Master Joel follow the will of the player base, Helldivers 2's new Major Order has put a bullseye on Malevelon Creek to free the controversial planet once and for all.

As the Helldivers 2 community formally piles into Malevelon Creek for a surprise Major Order following a failed operation, creative director and Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt says the studio is talking about ways to make such orders easier to understand.

When we sat down to chat with Chris Bullock, lead animator on open-world roguelike Hyper Light Breaker at developer Heart Machine, nobody had beaten its GDC demo yet. The show's recent demo was an exciting up-close look at what's quickly become my personal most-anticipated open-world game of the year, and Bullock's comments on some of the game's nitty-gritty details have only deepened my suspicion that it could be the biggest roguelike of 2024 in more ways than one. 

Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead Game Studios recently received a gift package from Alan Wake 2 and Control developer Remedy Games, and it came with a letter penned by none other than Alan Wake himself. It's a fun read, an in-character mix of two game worlds worth of lore, filtered through the persona of one gaming's most iconic writers, and spliced with the events of today's industry. Here's the letter in full: 

A new Helldivers 2 Major Order has upped the ante in the ongoing fight against the Automatons, sending players straight back to Malevelon Creek in a push to destroy a major bot factory. But this order has come amidst a suspiciously quiet moment on the western war front, and I'm more convinced than ever that we're just in the eye of the storm.

It all comes back to Malevelon Creek. Helldivers 2 players smashed the latest major order, and now a new one's come in to shut down an Automaton factory on planet Tibit, but we're going to have to punch through some other planets first, and the infamous Malevelon Creek is marked for liberation once again.

Swen Vincke, head of Baldur's Gate 3 developer Larian, has been vocal about the ongoing wave of layoffs in the games industry, and reckons that cuts affecting critical departments and senior developers are especially shortsighted. 

Dragon's Dogma 2 is, to put it mildly, an atypical RPG. To put it less mildly, Capcom was well and truly off its rocker and on a bender with this one. Exhibit A: the Unmaking Arrow, an arrow so powerful that, per its hilariously blunt in-game description, it auto-saves the game when fired, "so choose your moment with due care." Dragon's Dogma 2's approach to game design – friction-first, rule-breaking, and seriously unserious – has sparked some division but ultimately earned the game critical acclaim, and the Unmaking Arrow in particular has been lauded by many veteran game developers.

Helldivers 2 just got two new heavy weapons for democratic soldiers to bring to the ongoing fight against the Automatons, spurred by a new Major Order to liberate Troost and head off the bots' "Reclamation." The LAS-99 Quasar Cannon and MG-206 Heavy Machine Gun are now available "for immediate battlefield distribution," as developer Arrowhead Game Studios announced via Twitter today. 

Larian is done with Baldur's Gate 3, with no DLC or sequel planned, but the developer is still working on more epilogue content and regular hotfixes for the mammoth RPG. Its latest patch takes aim at a gaggle of bugs and multiple economy-breaking exploits, preventing clever thieves from effectively duplicating items using the power of containers – again. 

A Helldivers 2 player by the in-game name of OkamiCheems sadly passed away earlier this month, as their friend Fine-Clothes-1209 recently informed the game's Reddit community, and has been sent off by tens of thousands of like-minded democracy enthusiasts in a bittersweet display of community support. 

With lovely strategy RPG Unicorn Overlord being a Vanillaware title, it obviously has a cute little minigame where you scarf down illegally delicious-looking food. It turns out the main artist behind these entreating entrees is also responsible for the way the game upholds another Vanillaware quirk: curiously jiggly women. 

The wrong kind of bug has thrown a wrench in Helldivers 2 right as players eagerly throw themselves at a daunting challenge from Game Master Joel. Developer Arrowhead has confirmed that, as players had begun to suspect after barely making any planetary progress today, democratic activities aren't being tracked properly, skewing progress in the warfront.

The Unreal Engine 5 remake of Riven: The Sequel to Myst, previously known as Riven: New Discoveries From the Lost D'ni Empire but now officially just called plain-old Riven, is coming this year, original developer Cyan Worlds has announced. 

Destiny 2's big Into the Light update, an interim patch to catch players up and tide them over in the lead-up to The Final Shape expansion, is coming April 9, and I don't say this lightly, Guardians, but its headlining activity might be the horde mode we've wanted for years.

The finest democracy spreaders in Helldivers 2 have all but been dancing in the streets on the heels of a big win that saw six planets liberated, two defended, and two sectors captured, and game master Joel has turned up right on cue to put them straight back to work. A new major order has arrived, and it's a doozy. Players have 72 hours to liberate both Fori Prime and Zagon Prime, and they'll get 35 medals if they pull it off. 

Brighter Shores, the upcoming MMO from original RuneScape creator and Jagex founder Andrew Gower, loosely channels RuneScape in its focus on relaxing grinds, a mix of idle gameplay, and branching professions. In an interview with GamesRadar+, Gower touched on another similarity with Old School RuneScape especially: "It is more about the journey than it is about the endgame."

As original RuneScape creator Andrew Gower marches toward the release of his new MMO, Brighter Shores, later this year, he's comforted by the fact that his small team of just eight developers only has to answer to themselves.

RuneScape creator and Jagex founder Andrew Gower recently revealed his next MMO, Brighter Shores, which has been in the works at his new studio, Fen Research, for about 10 years. That said, it's technically seven years if you separate engine time, prototyping, and "earnest" game development.

Since launch in January, Palworld players have been begging for the survival game to add an essential colony sim feature: the ability to precisely assign workers to different tasks. In a new image posted to Discord by community manager Bucky, developer Pocketpair has teased just that. Have a look:

I'm struck by the fact that I've spent exactly half of my life, a full 15 years, waiting on a new anime adaptation for Spice and Wolf, and now it's finally airing next month via Crunchyroll. 

The undercurrent of propaganda that shapes Helldivers 2's obnoxiously yet endearingly democratic universe has truly boiled over in the wake of conflicting, definitely real reports from the game's community and developers alike.

Good job, recruits. Helldivers 2 players have descended on four "high-priority" planets to deploy a grid of Termicide dispensers that should shut down the local bug population for good, and the latest report from developer Arrowhead indicates the community is about to "permanently contain bugs."

Astlibra Revision is a genre-blending, timeline-hopping experience that makes the usual JRPG plot of steadily escalating toward fighting god look downright tame. It feels like reading a '90s sci-fantasy manga in a wind tunnel. It's also infuriatingly difficult to explain without spoiling the crap out of it (I gave it a try in 2022). That girl in the above image? I cannot begin to describe her character arc. 

The Genshin Impact version 4.5 release time is getting close, with the update due today, March 12, at around 8pm PT / 11pm ET / 3am BT (March 13). As ever, patches technically arrive a day early thanks to time lag from Chinese developer Hoyoverse, but the exact release time will depend on maintenance downtime. If we're lucky, version 4.5 may arrive up to an hour early. 

Granblue Fantasy Relink, a surprise hit that's managed to stand out in a year positively stuffed with JRPGs, is barely a month old but already rolling out an exciting roadmap of free content that starts with a new boss coming this Thursday, March 14.

Arlecchino, one of the Fatui Harbingers introduced in Genshin Impact's July 2022 story trailer, is coming to the open-world RPG in update 4.6, due April 23. 

Final Fantasy 7 writer Kazushige Nojima says he "regretted" how Aerith and Tifa's relationship was handled in the original JRPG, and therefore saw Remake and now Rebirth as opportunities to make good on the friendship he envisioned all those years ago.

Man, y'all really like mechs. The long-awaited Helldivers 2 mechs hit the game earlier today following the liberation of planet Tien Kwan, and it seems the community's enthusiasm has outpaced developer expectations and server limitations once again. 

Earlier this month, Kay Yu, the lead dev behind Vampire Survivors-esque roguelike phenomenon HoloCure announced a promising new co-op brawler called Holo X Break. Yu has since confirmed that Holo X Break will feature voice acting from at least nine streamers of featured vtubing organization Hololive – all sizable internet celebrities in their own right, with enough subscribers to put them at the top of the whole vtubing industry – but it seems getting them on-board put him through the most embarrassing moment of his life. 

Helldivers 2 mechs are finally here, people. Just one day after galactic game master Joel added factory planet Tien Kwan to the war front in a surprise twist that delayed the mecha mayhem, hundreds of thousands of Helldivers have successfully liberated the joint and unlocked the new mech Stratagem for everyone. 

Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead Game Studios is working on what's handily been the most-requested balance change since launch: nerfs to the Chargers, Hulks, Bile Titans, and other heavy enemies that are currently running roughshod over even the most democratic players.

Cyberpunk 2077 patch 2.12 hit the RPG on February 29 alongside some relatively short patch notes. The patch notably didn't mention a newly discovered Easter egg attached to an unassuming diner in Watson district, which the devs at CD Projekt Red were only recently musing about being undiscovered.

After a few incendiary statements from development and community figures poured kerosene on the debates dominating the Helldivers 2 player base after its recent balance patch, Arrowhead CEO and game director Johan Pilestedt stepped in to assure players that such snippy remarks are "not a message that the studio stands behind."

As the Helldivers 2 community learns a whole new meta in the wake of a major balance patch that took a hammer to favorites like the railgun and personal shield, one balance lead from developer Arrowhead has advised players to learn to embrace nerfs rather than constantly asking exclusively for buffs.

The original three Stalker games made a surprise appearance at today's third-party Xbox showcase – surprising to those who hadn't seen the leaks, anyway – with a "refined" trilogy bringing the games to consoles for the first time.

Destiny 2 players, we've got another unintended farm for the record books, and this one's a doozy. Following today's Guardian Games update, featured Lost Sectors would auto-complete the second you'd load in, spitting out enhancement materials and even Exotics immediately after starting the activity. Sadly, Bungie was quick on the draw here: it's been patched. 

Long-rumored Helldivers 2 mechs are officially on the way, and they're coming "soon."

Formally addressing community unrest stirred in part by recent comments from its CEO, Temtem developer Crema released a lengthy statement explaining the future of the game, why it's sort of but also not really an MMO, as well as the other games it's working on.

Helldivers 2 players died over 10 million times taking one planet, Mort, from the Automatons last week, and you'd better believe that galactic D&D game master Joel was watching the whole thing from the front row with a bucket of popcorn in one hand and a waving lighter in the other.

Helldivers 2's dynamic warfront is being conducted almost exclusively by a single D&D-style game master named Joel, but the co-op shooter's explosive launch has gotten so big that Joel needed "emergency" reinforcements of his own within developer Arrowhead Game Studios.

HoloCure - Save the Fans is still one of the best and best-rated roguelikes on Steam, and its lead developer, animator Kay Yu, is now at work on a second game that looks like a River City Girls-inspired 2D co-op brawler. 

Pseudoregalia, a 3D Metroidvania released last summer for just $6, ended up being one of the best and biggest surprise hits of the year. As lead developer Rittz told me in an interview in September 2023, he made most of the game himself in about four months after getting into game dev as a self-taught newcomer. As of today, which has yielded a chunky map update for the game, Pseudoregalia has passed 100,000 copies sold, and Rittz is "still having trouble processing." 

Elden Ring, like all of FromSoftware's famously challenging action RPGs, has been trivialized in about a million different ways. Two Malenias at once, no-hit randomizer runs, literal mind games – the list goes on. Arguably the most popular way to absolutely flex on the denizens of the Lands Between is clearing the whole game without leveling up a single time, with Elden Ring now a major part of the OneBros Reddit community where unleveled FromSoft diehards gather. 

Addressing the Helldivers 2 meta while leaning into the game's winking fascist veneer, CEO Johan Pilestedt of developer Arrowhead Game Studios advised veterans to treat new players kindly by showering them in heavy armaments, not fascism.

Gearbox may be the next to escape Embracer Group as the massive company continues to hemorrhage staff and studios as part of a restructuring effort sparked by a $2 billion deal that fell through last year. 

On the heels of 670 layoffs at EA, merely the latest publisher to add to a dizzying list of thousands of game developers put out of work in the past year – hell, in the past two months alone – FPS legend and veritable Doom man John Romero reckons this is an unprecedented dip for the games industry. 

The campaign to defend a single planet, Mort, from Helldivers 2's encroaching Automaton threat saw players die "over 10 million" times in the past two days alone. 

To the dismay of bugs and bots everywhere, it sounds like the weakest weapons in Helldivers 2 are due for a buff in an upcoming balance patch.

Old School RuneScape – and also regular RuneScape – developer Jagex has a new corporate owner, but it's business as usual for the MMO's community, which is still hard at work finishing grinds that nobody, not one soul on this Earth, asked or expected them to actually do. The latest landmark achievement comes from well-liked content creator Limpwurt, who's finally emerged from a self-imposed grind that started some 2,500 hours of game time ago in August 2023, but at least he's got a really cool cape and a baby mole to show for it. 

Helldivers, we have yet another problem. Despite their best efforts, some Helldivers 2 recruits – and I'm not just talking about new cadets, who get the benefit of the doubt – are really struggling with the escort missions currently dominating the Automaton warfront. I get it, they're hard. Arguably too hard on occasion, the occasion being, almost every single one on any remotely high difficulty. But the bugs and bots ain't going anywhere and neither are escort missions, so we're gonna have to get through this together. Luckily, the community's been hard at work sharing helpful tips for escorting civilians while keeping their insides inside at least 25% of the time. 

In amongst the expected Star Troopers chatter, a less obvious comparison for Helldivers 2 has quietly been making the rounds: 2015's Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain. Unexpected overlap in stealth, movement, and gunplay has brought Kojima's open-world action espionage masterwork back into the spotlight, and director Josh Sawyer of RPG powerhouse Obsidian reckons it's all just more evidence that more games shouldn't feel bad about copying stuff that works well and feels good. 

Prolific Nintendo Switch emulator Yuzu is the latest to receive a lawsuit from Nintendo, and it's a big one. The house of Mario alleges that the program fueled a rush that saw The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom illegally downloaded over 1 million times before the game was properly released, and that's just one item on Nintendo's laundry list of alleged damages, which collectively take aim at a major emulator in a way that's rarely seen, even from such a famously litigious company, drawing many comparisons to Sony's lawsuit against Bleem. 

Technology, as storied author Ursula K. Le Guin noted in a prescient 2005 post, is not limited to high-tech hardware but also encompasses the likes of paper, furniture, medicine, and much more. I would go further and argue that some outwardly high-tech hardware should not be classified as technology, and I will now point any naysayers to the GameScent Automated Gaming Scent Atomizer, a $180 AI-powered box that will fart out smells designed to match whatever game you're currently playing.

The line between bugs and features grows ever thinner as Palworld developer Pocketpair apologizes for "inadvertently fixing a bug" that players were having a lot of fun with. 

FromSoftware director Hidetaka Miyazaki would love to make more games that are as big as Elden Ring, which is sure to be music to the ears of many fans.  

As it lays off around 900 people across Sony's stable of studios, including cuts at Naughty Dog, Insomniac, and the entirety of now-defunct PlayStation London, PlayStation Studios is also canning multiple unannounced projects. 

Honkai Impact 3rd, which was Hoyoverse's big action RPG before Genshin Impact ate all the money in the universe, is gearing up for a relaunch of sorts with its Part 2 update, a massive patch bringing a whole new storyline. It's coming to PC and mobile this Thursday, February 29, and I can already tell I'll end up trying this Hoyo game too, especially now that it's on Steam (with 72% positive reviews, if you're curious).