To test Starfield, Bethesda gave the team a build that was "basically done" last year and said "this should be the game you're playing over the holiday"

For my money, web-swinging around New York City in Marvel’s Spider-Man is perhaps the singular best game mechanic I’ve come across in the last decade or so. It feels so incredibly right, and almost everything else in that game is built off it. I never really wanted to use fast-travel features, because swinging around was much more fun, and finding hidden missions and helping citizens in trouble as you traverse NYC is almost as rewarding as following the game’s main story. Of course, a great mechanic isn’t enough to make a great game, but Spider-Man is one of the most successful open-world style games I can think of, because it felt packed without being overwhelming.

It's been almost a year since I finished Astlibra Revision, the unquestionably weirdest and arguably best JRPG of 2022, but it's still stuck in my head not so much like a catchy song, but rather more like a pickaxe. The hard-to-pronounce RPG is now headed to Nintendo Switch on November 16, which means a whole new audience can and absolutely should experience the narrative and combat system that positively fried my brain over the course of 58 unforgettable hours. 

By Adi Robertson, a senior tech and policy editor focused on VR, online platforms, and free expression. Adi has covered video games, biohacking, and more for The Verge since 2011.

I'll admit I passed on the original House Flipper craze because I'm not one for job sim games. But I really like to build and decorate houses, which, it turns out, House Flipper 2 is totally prepared to support. House Flipper dev Frozen District has already announced that the sequel would have a sandbox mode, but now it's been shown off in a new trailer. I'm all in this time.

Tencent, Apple, Nintendo, and Ubisoft reduced their carbon emissions from 2021 to 2022, while companies including Sega, NetEase, and Unity saw increases year-on-year.

Regular readers may be familiar with our This Week in Business column, a collection of stats and quotes from recent stories presented with a bit of opinion.

An upcoming game describes itself as Zoo Tycoon, but with fantastic creatures. All I can say to that pitch is: finally.

One skilled Starfield player has turned the RPG's lockpicking mechanic into a game all of its own.

Bethesda boss Todd Howard says Starfield was designed and built for longevity, even more so than RPGs like Skyrim or any of the modern Fallouts, with the studio already considering how the game will evolve for years and years to come. 

Starfield was extensively playtested by Bethesda devs often working from home, and Todd Howard says this approach worked so well that the studio's going to apply the method to its future games, with the studio's next confirmed, albeit far-off project obviously being The Elder Scrolls 6.

In Phantom Liberty’s Lucretia My Reflection, President Myers must be escorted to safety through the tunnels of Dogtown. After reaching a fork, there’s the chance to make progress through a room with security cameras and a steaming hot pipe. The issue is, there is no way either you or the president will walk under that pipe without burning to death. This triggers a puzzle to find a valve around the area and use it to stop the steam from flowing through the pipes. That way, you can both get around this door safely.

Tilting Point has revealed a new SpongeBob SquarePants mobile game developed by Whaleapp, titled, with a trailer. It’s now available on iOS and Android devices.