Thrasher is another gorgeous and nauseating rhythm game from the creator of Thumper

Welcome to Polygon’s final weekend deal collection of 2023. While we won’t have another weekend post for you all until Jan. 6, 2024, we’ve got plenty of awesome discounts below to carry you through the new year. For instance, the Epic Games Store Holiday Sale is offering a sitewide 33% discount on games, in addition to offering a new, free game every day through Jan. 10, 2024. But just in case Epic doesn’t have what you’re looking for, you can also check out the holiday sales happening at Steam and Fanatical too.

Chinese regulators have announced far-reaching curbs on monetisation and reward systems for online games, in a move that has wiped almost $80 billion from the market value of the world's biggest videogame publisher Tencent and their rival NetEase. Under the new government restrictions, which are pending final approval, online games in China will be banned from giving players rewards for logging in every day, spending money within the game for the first time, or spending money several times consecutively.

Steam has updated its privacy settings to allow users to hide certain games from their profiles if they wish.

Bloober Team, developers of Layers of Fear, The Medium and the upcoming Silent Hill 2 remake, have added another notable name to their plans for the next few years. The horror-focused studio is working with the creators of zombie comic book-turned-TV show The Walking Dead on a new video game adaptation.

What does it mean to be an indie developer? Well, the definition these days seems to about as broad the Action-Adventure genre. Games with all the hallmarks of an indie production can come from a small team within a multi-billion dollar conglomerate, from indie publishers that have brought developers in-house, and then we’ve seen independent developers build up and grow over the course of decades to the point that they can craft landmark, genre redefining RPGs.

Similar to other large-scale RPGs, has a number of characters and locations that it can be easy to miss some — especially when one is locked out by certain decisions, like the githyanki Orpheus. With the many possible ways that players might progress through, it might be easy to miss many of the game's best moments and characters, which can bleed over to other quests and even the overall ending of the entire game.

When developing Baldur’s Gate 3, the studio took inspiration from some games you might not expect.

A new leaked image has released of The Last Of Us Online, that will still be of interest to fans even now that it’s been cancelled.

Lightbulb Crew, the developer behind 2020’s Othercide, have announced their next game, Nova Hearts. A departure from their last game, Nova Hearts is a “turn-based combat dating adventure game.” The first episode, Nova Hearts: The Spark will be out on January 17, 2024.

Dead Cells developer Motion Twin is set to deliver another helping of lightning-fast battles and breathtaking visuals next year with its new game Windblown, and if you simply cannot wait, fear not, as this stunning 2D action roguelike is here to fill the void. 

House Flipper was a surprising Steam hit of 2018. While not necessarily enthusing the critics straight from launch, the simulation title found a large and faithful community that ensured its long-term success.

A long-awaited follow up from the artist and composer behind the ‘rhythm violence’ game Thumper, Thrasher will be releasing across Meta Quest and Steam VR in 2024.