Fantasy News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

MMO Wayfinder has been removed from sale while the developers make "major changes" to the game and its business model via the upcoming Echoes update.

Something that makes television amazing is how it can build stories across hours, months, and years, expand whole worlds into deep and intense narratives, and beam it right into our homes, our brains. Something else incredible about TV is how sometimes the only thing people remember is the ending.

After a 2023 packed with generation-defining games, it felt like 2024 might be more of a comedown. There weren’t a lot of big new releases scheduled to drop outside of a busy first few months, and heavy hitters like Grand Theft Auto 6 aren’t arriving until 2025. Traditional wisdom would have you thinking that gamers were in for a very slow year with few highlights.

This review of AGGRO DR1FT was originally published after its screening at the 2023 New York Film Festival. It has been updated and republished for the film’s limited theatrical run.

As the gaming hobby grows, so too do the mechanisms that make games run. Deck building is a tried game mechanism that has been around for a long time, to the point that it has become a genre of its own. I’ve long been a fan of deck building and it’s been a delight to see how it has grown over time and been implemented in newer games, while the core concept- each player having an individual deck to which cards are added or culled in order to make it stronger- remains a satisfying strategic exercise.

Last week we asked you to take in the view from your favorite games, and share memorable landscapes and environments using #PSshare #PSBlog. Here are this week’s highlights:

Blizzard revealed nearly all the Hero Talent Trees with the launch of the War Within Alpha and subsequent builds. Our Outlaw Rogue guide writer, JustGuy, offers an early review of the Fatebound Hero Talents that has a compelling theme that aligns with the gambling buccaneer imagery of Outlaw Rogue, but needs a few touch-ups to reach its maximum potential.

Indonesian indie game studio Piknelsia was in the middle of development on its rhythm-based visual novel Afterlove EP when it received the devastating news: Mohammad Fahmi, the studio’s founder and creative director, had died. “When it happened, I remember our character artist, Soyatu, called me around 2 AM in the morning and said, ‘Is Fahmi joking about death again? This time it’s not funny, please tell me that this is not true!’” Afterlove EP game producer Ivor Dwitomo told Polygon.

You might remember Enotria: The Last Song as the Italian-inspired Soulslike that shifted its release date from June to August to avoid Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree... but found itself nestled next to Black Myth: Wukong. Well, scratch that August release, as now it's been shifted back to September instead! But hey, there's a demo coming out real soon that'll hopefully give us a better sense of what the game's like. I imagine it'll involve a lot of fighting spindly monsters, dying, and resurrecting at whatever object they've decided will be the equivalent of Dark Souls' bonfires. Likely something Leonardo da Vinci made or drew or invented. That man's stats were specced high.

PlayStation has revealed that it has managed to shift just over 59 million PS5s over the course of the system's first four years, but the platform's active user base of 118 million people implies that there are quite a lot of people still playing on PS4.

Square Enix announced earlier this week that it will aggressively pursue a more multiformat-focused strategy, after its big PS5 console exclusives failed to meet expectations. According to Bloomberg journalist Takashi Mochizuki, sales of Final Fantasy 16 did open in line with the company’s targets – but its momentum has since slowed and it’s failed to meet its subsequent goals. A PC port is imminent, and the publisher hopes that will get the title back on track.

First announced in December of last year, Visions of Mana has been stuck with a vague 'summer' release window for months — but now, it seems highly likely that a confirmed date is heading our way in the near future.

The year is 2024, and we now live in a world where Capcom considers Dragon's Dogma to be one of its «key brands». According to the publisher's latest financial report, the action RPG series currently sits alongside the likes of Monster Hunter, Resident Evil, and Street Fighter as a pillar property.

Final Fantasy 14 director and producer Naoki Yoshida has revealed that players will be gifted a free Fantasia upon the release of update 7.0, giving us the chance to alter their character's appearance following the release of the Dawntrail's graphics update.

In school, I once learned about British politics. I don’t remember the details, but our teacher showed us a video of a rancorous debate in the House of Commons. Shouts of Parliament members echoed throughout the chambers, and people booed in disapproval to someone speaking at a mic. People squished up next to each other like a loose mosh pit and waved papers at each other. It’s unruly, it’s chaotic — and it’s also exactly how I imagine Cloti and Clerith shippers would have it out if you corralled them all up and tossed them into a single hall to debate the best love interest for Final Fantasy 7 protagonist Cloud Strife.

The Epic Mega Sale, an annual sale on certain games in the Epic Games Store, has just begun. The discounts and deals will last four weeks — from May 16, starting at 11 am ET, to June 13 at 11 am ET — promising an “enormous range of discounts across the Epic Games Store’s library,” according to PR.

Danish studio IO Interactive has welcomed back Ulas Karademir as its new chief technical officer.

Blizzard revealed nearly all the Hero Talent Trees with the launch of the War Within Alpha and subsequent builds. Our Vengeance Demon Hunter guide writer, Itamae, offers an early review of the Fel-Scarred Hero Talents that truly embraces Metamorphosis without completely unbalancing both forms for tanking.

Alzara Radiant Echoes is a clear love letter to golden age JRPGs, pulling inspiration from the likes of Golden Sun and Lost Odyssey for a 3D turn-based RPG set in a Mediterranean fantasy world. Dark Souls composer Motoi Sakuraba is on board, along with Genshin Impact and Fire Emblem artist Yoshiro Ambe. And if that hadn’t already sold me already, developers Studio Camelia are also paying tribute to the best Final Fantasy game: FFIX, obviously.

Sci-fi and fantasy epics on television have come a long way in the last several years, but you could be forgiven for finding it hard to believe that Max’s upcoming Dune prequel series could live up to the majesty of Denis Villeneuve’s massive movies. However, the Dune: Prophecy trailer, which came out on Wednesday morning, is here to prove you wrong.

Ubisoft gave Assassin’s Creed fans their first real look at the next flagship game in the long-running franchise with the debut trailer for Assassin’s Creed Shadows on Wednesday. Previously known as Assassin’s Creed: Codename Red, Shadows will send the franchise to feudal Japan for the first time this November, letting players live out their shinobi fantasies as the ninja Naoe.

Microsoft has announced the second wave of titles for Xbox Game Pass in May 2024, and it includes an often overlooked Soulslike title from 2023. May is shaping up to be an impressive month for Game Pass subscribers, with the inclusion of acclaimed titles such as or alongside completely new releases like,, and, which join the service upon their launch.

I have a couple of takes on Nico Papalia's new RPG Athenian Rhapsody, which launched on Steam yesterday and still has a demo. The first is that it's a brighter, glitzier version of Toby Fox's Undertale that looks like it belongs on Gameboy Advance - a retro parody created in GameMaker whose turn-based combat houses many an inventive minigame, and whose writing doesn't so much break the fourth wall as moonwalk along the parapet, showering the player in poop, anime tropes and off-colour mental health advice.

Immutable Games dropped their squad-based fantasy idle RPG Guild of Guardians globally today. This free-to-play game already soft launched in Canada, Australia and Indonesia. It’s set in the world of Elderym, a land torn apart by a corrupting force.

Jagex dropped the roadmap for their high fantasy open-world MMORPG RuneScape during a livestream yesterday. It shows what’s to come for the rest of the year. There are new modes, new dungeons and more. If you’re a ‘Scaper, then follow along for all the details on the RuneScape 2024 roadmap!

Square Enix has announced a brand-new business plan that will see the Japanese publisher shift to a multiplatform strategy.

may allow Geralt to zip across the land on the back of his trusty steed Roach but for those players who want to see The White Wolf take flight, a new mod does just that. Throughout CD Projekt Red's sprawling fantasy RPG, Geralt is only ever able to use his horse to cut down on travel times and while Roach is handy in a pinch (and excellent at climbing buildings) it would often just be easier to fly from town to town. In lieu of planes, the Witcher just has to make do with something else.

Megalopolis, legendary director Francis Ford Coppola’s first film in 14 years, is one of 2024’s most notable movies for two reasons. First, it is the decades-in-development self-funded passion project of a cinematic titan, and second, no one wants to distribute it. On paper, that’s plenty baffling, but it only becomes more so when you see what the film looks like.

Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power returns this August, and while the new trailer is short on story, it’s long on one undersung aspect of Tolkien’s world: epic fantasy monsters.

Dead by Daylight fans can check out the Dungeons and Dragons chapter starting today, but Behaviour Interactive teased another high-profile crossover during an anniversary showcase on Tuesday. A Castlevania chapter is on the way to DbD. There aren't any details yet about what that will include, but you just might get to play as Alucard or Simon Belmont in the fog. Behaviour plans to divulge more info about the Castlevania tie-up, which will arrive later this year, in August.

A Lego set based on The Great Deku Tree from The Legend of Zelda will be released in September and contain four figures, it’s claimed.

Square Enix‘s share price has dropped by nearly 16% following its FY2024 financial results on Monday.

Square Enix has admitted Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Final Fantasy 16, and Foamstars failed to meet its expectations.

Square Enix has announced a major shakeup dubbed ‘Square Enix Reboots and Awakens’ that will see them embrace full multi-platform game development, after PlayStation 5 exclusives Final Fantasy 16, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and Foamstars all failed to meet internal expectations. Additionally, they are making layoffs affecting US and European staff, including the Square Enix Collective indie label – per VGC.

Hello, Wanderers, or should I say, Authorizers? Welcome back! I’m SKY, the lead designer at Hotta Studio of Perfect World Games, and I’m bursting with excitement to share some thrilling news with you. Tower of Fantasy version 4.0, Gesthos Sector, is on the horizon, slated for release on May 28. 

Blizzard revealed nearly all the Hero Talent Trees with the launch of the War Within Alpha and subsequent builds. Our Markmanship Hunter guide writer, Azortharion, offers an early review of the Sentinel Hero Talents that while a strong offering in terms of raw damage they do very little to shake up the gameplay of the spec leading into the next expansion.

Blizzard revealed nearly all the Hero Talent Trees including 6 new ones with the launch of the War Within Alpha. Our Discipline & Holy Priest guide writer, AutomaticJak, offers an early review of the Oracle Hero Talents that has moved away from Power Infusion and now offers a unique buff playstyle that often feels like more work trying to 'catch' the right buff than a reward. Combine this with a lackluster fantasy and Oracle seems to still be struggling to find it's footing in Alpha.

Square Enix, the Japanese developer and publisher behind recent PlayStation 5 exclusives like Final Fantasy XVI and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, plans to release more multiplatform titles in the future.

Square Enix has revealed a new business plan — titled “Square Enix Reboots, and Awakens” — that will see the publisher “aggressively pursue” a multiplatform strategy for its biggest games across Nintendo, Xbox, PlayStation, and Windows PC.

A new trailer for MultiVersus shows The Joker in action, and also seemingly confirms The Powerpuff Girls as playable characters.

Today, Square Enix reported financial results for the fiscal year that ended on March 31. The results weren't great, as the Japanese publisher narrowly missed the revenue target and majorly missed the operating income target, with the latter also down 26.6% compared to last year.

Square Enix has announced a significant company reboot amid tumbling profits.

Wrestling is a huge part of Mercedes Varnado’s career, having gained notoriety as Sasha Banks for the WWE before crossing over as Mercedes Moné for the AEW. But her fans may not realize she is also a huge Sailor Moon fan. The professional wrestler, who recently jumped to acting for The Mandalorian, has a deep appreciation of the classic magical girl fantasy anime based on Naoko Takeuchi’s 1992 manga. Fans of both wrestling and anime know she donned a Sailor Moon-inspired outfit during the 2022 Royal Rumble. So it’s no surprise that she’s openly campaigned to play Sailor Jupiter in a live-action adaptation of Sailor Moon, if that ever happens.

There's a lot of impressive detail to be found in , and sometimes it's the smallest inclusions that end up proving the most impressive. Although can be content to fill out some of its content with meaningless tasks reminiscent of many modern open-world games, venturing into its cities, trying out minigames, and buckling in for the main narrative ride consistently impresses with the level of bespoke content. Some of these highlights will show up in every playthrough, but other things can be shockingly easy to miss.

The most recent Developer Livestream brought discussion on changes to monster health and difficulty. Going forward, World Bosses in World Tiers 3 and 4 won't be as easy as seasons prior. It seems that the days of World Bosses being deleted in a handful of seconds will be over with the arrival of Season 4 (looking at you, Hurricane Druids). Season 4: Loot Reborn — Developer Update Summary

Nintendo has announced new The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom merchandise to coincide with the game’s first anniversary this week.

There was a 16-year gap between the 1990 release of Final Fantasy III on Famicom and its 2006 remake on Nintendo DS, and a 31-year gap before the Pixel Remaster brought something more akin to the original game to a new platform. That might be because the original game's legendary programmer was so good nobody could replicate his code.

Like a lot of people, I played the incredible cat-driven adventure game Stray back in 2022, and also like a lot of people, I came away wishing that the whole game was just a simply, atmospheric cat simulator like the opening hours had been. I loved scratching trees and hopping across balconies, but as soon as the game introduced coloured keys and nuanced NPCs I lost interest. Little Kitty, Big City is a game that’s laser focused on delivering that wandering cat power fantasy I had been dreaming of.

Blizzard has shared additional developer commentary explaining some of the new Shaman class changes in this week's Alpha build for The War Within, introducing the Stormbringer hero talent tree for Elemental and Enhancement specs! Check out the new tree now on our updated talent calculator!

A new update for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night adds two free game modes and a free cosmetic pack.

Back in 2007, alert fans of fantasy grand master Peter Beagle had a very short window of time to get excited about the announcement of his latest novel, I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons. The book was abruptly pulled from the release schedule, reportedly because of Beagle’s conflict with publisher Penguin USA over a new edition of his best-known book, The Last Unicorn.

A new strategy game by BoomBit Games has hit Android globally. It’s Dawn of Ages: Medieval Games which has no magic, but has plenty of fighting, building and crafting. A free-to-play game, its publisher is known for other hit titles like Bowling Club: Realistic 3D PvP, Zombie Survival Apocalypse, Boxing Ring and Idle Boutique (Role-Playing).

Mark Hamill will return to voice The Joker in Multiversus.

The enchanting world of The Enchanted World has now expanded its horizons beyond Apple Arcade. It has officially launched for global players on Android. The Enchanted World opened for pre-registrations on Android in early April. If you love games that have magic, mystery and mind-bending puzzles, then keep reading to learn more about this one!

Dragon's Dogma 2 performance issues may be caused by a baffling design decision, judging from some recent discoveries by modders.

Bandai Namco US is running a competition that will see one player receiving a 10-foot statue as a prize.

Whether you’re a new Game Pass subscriber or just looking to renew your membership, you’ll want to check out this deal at Woot. Through May 10, the Amazon subsidiary is offering three-month Game Pass Ultimate subscriptions for just $36.99 (was $49.99), saving you a grand total of $56 if you purchase a whole year. With three-month subscriptions of Game Pass Ultimate regularly discounted to around $45 at places like Target and Amazon, this deal is the best price we’ve seen in some time.

During the first few minutes of playing as Hades 2’s Melinoë, players encounter sights like a bubbling cauldron, the silhouette of a pointed witch’s hat, and the glowing lines of a summoning circle. Between the new gameplay and the story, Hades 2 goes all in on the dark magic — and that’s one of the biggest differences between it and its predecessor, Hades.

does a lot of work to set up a climactic conclusion to the remake trilogy, but there's one key regard in which it's making the next game's job harder. Splitting one classic into three games is a tall order, even if the original packed more story into its relatively efficient runtime than many RPGs twice the length manage to tell. 's approach to expanding the story tries a lot of different things, some of which prove significantly more successful than others.

Four months into 2024 and there have already been a lot of big games we'll continue to talk about and play throughout the rest of the year and beyond. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is unquestionably one of those games, not only because its story and side content comfortably provide players with more than 100 hours of things to do, but because its characters are some of the most beloved in all of gaming. Bring Arts models of some of those characters have now found their way onto Amazon, and the wait you'll have for them to arrive further demonstrates we'll be talking about Rebirth for a while yet.

A trio of Destiny 2 expansions have been made free to play in the run-up to The Final Shape’s release next month.

Final Fantasy Brave Exvius: War of the Visions will soon drop a new update and it looks kind of grim for global players. It’s not a biggie (or is it?) but the devs are taking a new turn with the Final Fantasy BE: WOTV English voice-over. They’re ending all English VOs for the global version of Final Fantasy BE: WOTV.

CD Projekt will release its official mod editor for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt this month.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth used all of the additional power offered by the PlayStation 5 to improve the game's frame rate.

Strands is a brand new daily puzzle from the New York Times. A trickier take on the classic word search, you’ll need a keen eye to solve this puzzle.

Gaming is filled with jargon that sounds like complete nonsense to anyone not totally plugged into the space. Terms like Metroidvania and rouguelike/roguelite are rough enough, but when we abbreviate terms, it can be impossible to figure out what they mean, even when said in context. DPS is a term first used mainly in MMORPGs, but it has found its way into other genres like hero shooters and single-player RPGs, among others. It can, and is, applied to just about every game involving combat of some sort. If you’ve heard people complaining about their DPS, or see it listed as part of a weapon’s stats, here’s what it all means.

Blizzard revealed nearly all the Hero Talent Trees including 6 new ones with the launch of the War Within Alpha. Our Arcane Mage guide writer, Porom, offers an early review of the Sunfury Hero Talents that offer an incredible aesthetic making the mage feel like a general in Kael'thas' army but also complements the recent Arcane rework.

Final Fantasy 14’s servers are currently under a worldwide DDoS attack that’s preventing players from logging into Square Enix’s MMORPG.

After a bit of a bumpy landing on PC, it looks like No Rest for the Wicked is finally finding its feet. The early access action-RPG launched with notable performance problems that developers Moon Studios promised they’d address, starting with several hotfixes over the last few weeks that managed to claw back some frames. The game’s first big patch goes a step further, seemingly boosting the game’s performance to a degree that its minimum and recommended hardware specs have been lowered as a result.

I have a Dungeons & Dragons curse. You won’t find it in the Player’s Handbook or on any list of spells, and yet it’s demonstrably real. Gather round, listeners, and hear my woeful tale. (I have a lute now. I’m plucking it. It’s too late; the tavern door is locked behind you.)

I have some scoop about a new RPG that you’ll love if you’re into urban fantasy tales, and have a penchant for prose. Or if you love werewolves for that matter. Kyle Marquis’s latest interactive novel, Werewolf: The Apocalypse – The Book of Hungry Names, is out on Android.

Dragon's Dogma 2 is about to get some impressive modded new Vocations, including a new take on one of the Vocations that did not return from the first entry in the series.

The upcoming 2024 revision to the will feature multiple psionic-powered subclasses, but these largely strip away the unique feeling of having psychics in a heroic fantasy game. Including both psychic powers and magical spells may seem like an odd break from genre convention, but this pairing has been present since the very earliest editions of the game. In worlds full of gods and wizards, psionics still felt strange, and this was by design. Funneling the entire concept of psychic powers into a select few subclasses robs psionics of its weirdness, making less interesting overall.

"Nosophobia" is the fear of disease, "bathophobia" is the fear of depths, and "devlogphobia" is a mixture of nosophobia and bathophobia produced by reading Steam posts about Norland, a systems-rich and plague-ridden medieval colony sim from developers Long Jaunt and Hooded Horse, publisher of Manor Lords. Norland is sort of The Sims meets Dwarf Fortress meets RimWorld. It gives you charge of several new kingdoms that have sprouted from the corpse of a fallen Empire and are now feuding for supremacy.

From Software boss Hidetaka Miyazaki has ruled out making a second Elden Ring expansion, but left the door open for a potential sequel.

Carceri is a fizzy and kaleidoscopic, first-person "chaotic Art-toy" in which you explore/hallucinate an island resort that's also a concentration camp ("carceri" is Italian for prison) for sentient computer programs. Out sometime in May, it's the work of James Beech - who describes himself as "an on-again, off-again AAA veteran" with credits on Metroid Prime 4, Remnant: From the Ashes, and Crysis 3. The environments take hefty influence from Carceri d'invenzione, a series of prints created in the 18th century by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, whose name has become a byword for impossible spaces.

FF7 Rebirth sales in the US on PlayStation 5 are lower than those of Final Fantasy XVI in the same time period.

Blizzard has posted a substantial breakdown of the Demonology Warlock changes in today's War Within Alpha build going over Demonic Cores, Resources, and Cooldowns!

You might assume that Indika will be dour, given that it's a story-driven game about a nun in a grey, cold, alternative Russia. Then you watch its trailers and find surrealist imagery, genre-hopping, and a bleak sense of humour are part of its arsenal, and suddenly it seems, to me, irresistible.