Genre News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

Today, ATLUS announced that Persona 3 Reload is the fastest-selling game in the franchise, having surpassed one million units sold within the first week of the launch date.

Every so often, a new anime season will start and I’ll find one series, in particular, to latch onto like a vice. This season, that series is Sasaki and Peeps. In only a couple of episodes, this series has shown me edge-of-your-seat action and rapidly developing plots and has dipped its toes into so many genres that it’s hard to even know what to classify this series as. The point is that Sasaki and Peeps has something to please everyone!

Monster capture games have certainly captured the attention of players for generations, with Pokemon being the most prominent and beloved series within the genre. Due to its popularity, it isn’t any surprise that games of a similar vein have popped up to occupy the same space. But that doesn’t mean all of these games are the same, despite sharing a similar foundation, or even considering several games that predate this wildly popular series. Either way, there’s a wide world of monster capture games for all you Pokemon fans out there.

Horror as a mode or genre encompasses a vast range of styles and approaches from the quiet and creepy to the over-the-top splatterfest. As a self-confessed horror fan, I’m generally pretty open-minded when it comes to different iterations of the form. The one exception to this, however, is the seemingly ubiquitous ‘YouTube’ horror game which relies almost entirely on jump scares and is mostly pitched towards overly performative streamer reactions. That being said, there are some excellent games within this rough genre, with the Amnesia series and Alien: Isolation standing supreme so I was hoping to be pleasantly surprised by Evil Nun. In the end, what I got was perhaps the very definition of an empty streamer experience.

A career-crowning achievement as monumental as Baldur’s Gate 3 doesn’t come out of nowhere. From Divinity to Dungeons & Dragons, Larian Studios has long been one of the loudest advocates for rich storytelling and true, meaningful freedom in Western RPGs.

Greetings, Polygon readers! Each week, we round up the most notable new releases to streaming and VOD, highlighting the biggest and best new movies for you to watch at home.

If you’re playing an RPG, you’re in it for the long haul and want an experience that’s going to immerse you and keep you entertained the whole way through. A genre that is both familiar and constantly evolving, RPGs are often tasked with having the total package. The best ones contain all the key ingredients, masterfully combining exciting combat, memorable characters, larger-than-life bosses, and a gripping storyline. 

It’s pretty easy to stand out in the Virtual Boy catalog. There were only fourteen games. Half weren’t very good, half felt like tech demos, and half were Virtual Boy Wario Ware. If a game didn’t fit into any of those three halves, it stuck out like a missing tooth.

Deckbuilding has become a hugely popular genre in recent years thanks to brilliant titles like Hearthstone, Slay the Spire, and Inscryption. They're easy to pick up and play but tough to master, and undoubtedly keep you coming back for more. Soon to be joining their ranks is Acolyte of the Altar from Black Kite Games, which, as well as compelling card-based antics, looks set to bring something new to the table.

As a lifelong fan of Pokémon, I’m used to seeing other games in the “monster tamer” genre that are clearly inspired by it, from Temtem to Ni no Kuni, but nothing made me do a double take quite like Palworld, aka Pokémon With Guns. The first trailer of what looked like a heavily armed Pokemon Trainer using a terrified little pocket monster as a bullet shield was like a meme come to life. While the ridiculous concept is good for a laugh, what’s not so much of a laughing matter is how developer Pocketpair has seemingly copied elements of more than a few Pokémon designs when making its own creatures for Palworld, called Pals.

Enshrouded is an early access survival-crafter RPG that has the unfortunate fate of debuting right next to Palworld, a similarly structured game enjoying massively viral success. However, while the appeal of Palworld is immediately obvious, it takes a little bit of digging to find what makes Enshrouded shine.

Despite being a gamer my entire life, I’m still relatively new to the fighting game genre. I put countless hours into Super Smash Bros. Melee and Soulcalibur II as a kid, but I’ve otherwise only played series like Street Fighter casually. That means that I’ve missed decades worth of storytelling from a genre that regularly cooks up the wildest soap opera dramas available in gaming.

If you’re anything like us, you’re always on the lookout for the next big thing on Netflix. You might just be in luck: a taut 90-minute German-language thriller has suddenly leapt up the charts on the streamer.

Cyberpunk 2077 is probably in the running for the open world game with the most hidden references and secret Easter eggs, with new discoveries being made on an almost weekly basis. GTA: San Andreas, The Matrix, Death Stranding, The Witcher 3, and pretty much every other popular game or movie release over the past two decades has made a little cameo somewhere, but one of the game's more interesting secret messages has been hiding in plain sight ever since launch.

A talented Pokemon fan artist designed both a baby version of Smeargle and a new evolution for Weezing. When it comes to Pokemon fan art, creating new evolutions, or even pre-evolutions, is a fairly common practice. These genres of fan art are popular as they take familiar creatures and showcase them in unfamiliar ways.

Dating sims are harder to create than people give them credit for. Hundreds of thousands of words, dialogue trees that stretch to the horizon and take into account successes and failures, trying to fit in as many characters as possible to suit different preferences; the complexity piles up and threatens to collapse. It gets more difficult when you try to merge it with another genre.

Sydney Sweeney is more than happy to throw herself deep into the genre-movie pool and we’re all better for it. With rom-coms already under her belt, as well as an erotic thriller, and soon a superhero movie, she’s now turning to the old classic of convent horror. The first trailer for her new movie Immaculate was released on Thursday and it looks like a creepy and weird throwback to horror movies of the past.

Islands of Insight, an open-world puzzle game by Behvaiour Interactive and Lunarch Studios, will launch on February 13. It’s coming exclusively to PC and will retail for $30. A public demo for it will be available from February 5 to February 12 on Steam.

Blizzard Entertainment’s untitled survival game set in an original universe is no more. In the wake of Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, and amid sweeping layoffs across various Xbox gaming teams, the company has canceled the project, according to a report from the Verge.

Why I Love is a series of guest editorials on GamesIndustry.biz intended to showcase the ways in which game developers appreciate each other's work. This entry was contributed by Scott Christian, co-founder of Hilltop Studios, which launched the narrative adventure game Lil' Guardsman on PC, Switch, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S this week.

Koji Kondo, the Nintendo composer and sound director best known for his work on The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros. series, will be inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences’ (AIAS) Hall of Fame during the 27th D.I.C.E. Awards.

The Pokémon Company has released a statement “regarding another company’s game released in January 2024,” and outlined its plans to “investigate” and “take appropriate measures to address any acts that infringe on intellectual property rights related to the Pokémon.”

The Pokemon Company said Thursday it has not granted any permission to “another company,” referring to Palworld-developer Pocketpair, to use Pokemon intellectual property or assets and “intends to investigate and take appropriate measures” against the fast-growing survival game operator.

Palworld, the uber-viral sandbox survival crafting game with Pokemon-like monsters, just had the biggest launch in Steam's history, and it's showing no signs of slowing down. Yet, as it attracts more and more players to its weird mish-mash of genres, it does little to inform them of a super handy trick that lets you collect a whole bunch of arguably its most crucial resource.

Inti Creates has released a single screenshot of a new title it plans to announce at PAX East 2024, which will run from March 21 to 24 at Boston Convention Center in Boston, Massachusetts. It will also be playable at the event.

Dragon’s Dogma 2’s director Hideaki Itsuno is not a fan of fast travel in open-world games. In an interview over at IGN, Itsuno affirmed his commitment to making traveling the world of Dragon’s Dogma 2 something players look forward to.

The creator of The Binding of Isaac, one of the most iconic roguelike games ever made, has said that he thinks his next game "will be seen as my best work."

Towerborne has an evolving world map, and that's something its MMO developer wishes they could've done earlier on in their career.

Krafton has more in store for its battle royale shooting game PUBG, its biggest mobile title, according to Goldman Sachs.

Note: This review is specifically of the PC version of Palworld available through Steam. Because the Xbox version and the PC version available via the Microsoft Store (both on Game Pass) has significantly more issues and different features , which the developer says is due to the certification process, we will post a separate review of that version later this week.

Palworld director Takuro Mizobe did his homework on the open world survival crafting genre that spawned his Early Access hit.

Tekken 8 MSRP $70.00 Score Details DT Recommended Product Pros

Last year saw a legendary lineup of tremendous games spanning many genres and playstyles. Today, it’s time to look at the top PlayStation Store downloads across all of 2023.

League of Legends maker Riot Games is laying off around 530 members of staff around the world.

We’ve almost done it, everyone. January — the hardest month — is almost done. But before it is, we’ve got a lot of TV to watch.

The Nintendo GameCube might not have been one of the company's top-selling consoles, but the library of titles that the system racked up is up there with the very best. Thanks to a significant leap in capability from the Nintendo 64, the GameCube was able to build and expand on the blossoming legacy of 3D titles on Nintendo systems. From strong iterations of past formulas to games that experimented and broke the mold in new and exciting ways, there's no shortage of fascinating experiences to find on the GameCube.

Strategy and simulation games remain my go-to genres whenever I pick up the latest Atari console or turn on my rig to see the Windows XP startup. The reason is and always will be simple: I like to keep my brain ticking along, slightly delaying the decay that would lead to dementia. I am in my mid-thirties now; it's just a ticking time bomb; were this the middle ages, I would be the village elder. So, I will stave off this decay for another year with multiple roles of general, businessman, or village elder.

Palworld players are discovering glitches and exploits aplenty in early access, one of which lets you "get high off your balls" in a very literal sense.

NetherRealm Studios is a celebrated fighting game studio that’s brought us tons of hits in both the Mortal Kombat and Injustice franchises. Even with that success, the studio isn’t immune from hard-to-impress fans who are increasingly demanding. Thus, the “NetherRealm cycle” comes for all its games eventually.

Greetings, Polygon readers! Each week, we round up the most notable new releases to streaming and VOD, highlighting the biggest and best new movies for you to watch at home.

So, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a first-person game. This has come as a bit of a surprise to some people, who likely were expecting a third-person perspective thanks to not just the Great Circle’s movie roots but also Indiana Jones’ influence on the video game industry. But do you really want another Uncharted game where the only significant difference is that your sarcastic hero now wears a hat? After six Uncharted games, a reboot trilogy of Tomb Raiders, and uncountable third-person adventures going back to the dawn of the medium, I think developer MachineGames has made a wise move in making Indiana Jones first-person.

The grand strategy game Ara: History Untold, originally announced in June 2022, finally has a release window: Fall 2024.

Oxide Games’ upcoming turn-based grand strategy game Ara: History Untold now has a release window, and fans have been shown a behind-the-scenes look at its development.

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Obsidian has been working for years on Avowed, a first-person fantasy RPG set in the same world as its excellent Pillars of Eternity games. Unlike the isometric styling of those titles, Avowed is a first-person adventure more in the vein of something like The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, or The Outer Worlds.

Whether you call them Metroid-likes, exploration-based action platformers, big map adventures, or simply Metroidvanias, this sub-genre has exploded in popularity. What was once a criminally underused design template has become one of the most commonly used formats in games. That’s especially true for indie developers, who seem more than happy to make up for prolonged droughts between actual Metroid and Castlevania titles by concocting their own unique spins on the style. While some 3D games have adopted the formula to success (see: Batman: Arkham Asylum), this list will only highlight 2D-style titles for the sake of clarity. Here are 10 great modern Metroidvanias, in reverse chronological release order, that you’ll have a great time getting lost in. 

The revival of this long-dormant franchise moves into the gear-and-power-gated family of games colloquially termed Metroidvanias, thanks to its similarity to early classics like Super Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. It’s a genre that has been gaining traction in recent years, but Ubisoft’s return to the Prince of Persia franchise is one of the best we’ve seen in a long time. It's even managed to make a spot for itself on our list of the Best Metroidvania Games you should make a point to play. 

is the latest post-apocalyptic PC city builder that delves deep into the stark realities of how the human industrial complex may eventually doom Earth. Developed by newcomers Core Engage and published by Daedalic Entertainment, the game entered its Early Access phase on January 18, 2024. In what is quickly becoming a crowded field of quality city-building games, stands out as a solid entry with a few unique concepts melded together for a sometimes overly complex but generally satisfying experience.

Delicious in Dungeon, the new culinary fantasy anime from Studio Trigger (Cyberpunk: Edgerunners) that premiered on Netflix earlier this month, does a lot in the opening five minutes of its first episode.

Nothing about what Palworld attempts to do seems like it should work in the slightest. A thinly veiled Pokémon clone where you and your collectible monsters shoot people in the face with literal guns? A base building survival game where you use your kidnapped creatures as laborers, and are then forced to cook and eat those unpaid employees when times get tough? An open-world co-op adventure where you and your friends thwack helpless sheep over the head with a baseball bat to harvest their wool? Defying the odds, this wholly irreverent, gun-toting take on the creature collection genre has proven unrelentingly fun for the 15 hours I’ve binged so far. Its survival mechanics are intuitive and deep, its action-packed combat is silly and satisfying, and exploring the world in search of new Pals to kick the snot out of hasn’t come close to getting old – all of which is even more impressive considering this is just its Early Access release. I am baffled to report, dear reader, that Palworld is very good.

Potentially dangerous accessibility features present in the Tekken 8 demo will be removed both there and in the full game, seemingly by launch on January 26.

Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles will launch on 26th March, Wired Productions and solo developer Tomas Sala have announced, with a new demo coming out at the end of January. Bulwark is coming to PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, Xbox One and PC.

I skipped over Trace Memory when it was released on DS back in 2005. I wasn’t into the adventuresome puzzle-solving genre at the time because I was boring. So, I got to go into Another Code: Recollection with fresh eyes.

Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles will launch on 26th March, Wired Productions and solo developer Tomas Sala have announced, with a new demo coming out at the end of January. Bulwark is coming to PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, Xbox One and PC.

The Last of Us 2 Remastered's new roguelike mode, titled No Return, was directly inspired by genre greats like Dead Cells, Hades, and Vampire Survivors, according to game director Matthew Gallant.

The developers of an upcoming Stardew Valley-style League of Legends spin-off have said they know what life sim fans' expectations are, so they made sure to include the staples of the genre - farming and fishing. 

The Nintendo Switch has had a lot of success in the nearly six years since its release. The console-handheld hybrid has been on the market since 2017, and a slew of fantastic games from first- and third-party developers have launched over the course of the system’s life cycle. Recently, heavy hitters such as The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Pokémon Scarletand Violet, and Super Mario Bros. Wonder have boosted the system’s appeal, while a healthy list of upcoming Switch games continues to drum up excitement.

I'm pretty picky when it comes to city-builders - a requirement in a genre so full of excellent, unique attempts to put a spin on the ideas that SimCity laid down so long ago - but there's one that I've had my eye on for a while, and it's finally coming out in just a couple of months.

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The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered has a new No Return mode that brings the roguelike genre into Naughty Dog’s postapocalyptic franchise for the first time, and with it comes a bevy of unlockable characters, skins, and more that dedicated players are certain to want to unlock for use in-game.

Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters is going to be released for PS5, PS4, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S, Frontier Developments has revealed. The turn based strategy title will be available on those platforms from February 20th, and has been priced at £34.99 / $44.99 / €44.99, though those who pre-order will get a 15% discount. Pre-orders will also include the Relics of Titan, which are two unique items.

Even though the series has never fully embraced the Metroidvania design, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown proves that this franchise was tailor-made for it. The dynamic movement, time abilities, and acrobatic combat, when packaged in a tight, well-designed 2D game, mix like a cold drink in the desert. With that genre shift, you can count on most of the tropes to come along with it, most notably the intricate and intertwining map. Exploration is key to these games, as is backtracking, which means you will frequently reference your map to get your bearings. But until you’ve uncovered the rooms yourself, each section of the map will remain shrouded in fog. While you could manually fill in each and every corner, finding Farbia in a given zone will instantly reveal everything there is to see on your map. The trick then becomes figuring out where to find her.

Xbox Game Pass made quite a splash in the marketplace when it arrived. This offered a wide collection of video games for players. If you’re playing on the latest-generation Xbox Series X/S consoles, chances are you might be participating in this subscription service. With a wide assortment of video games constantly rotating monthly, even if there’s no major release on your radar, you’ll likely have a few games to check out through this service. That said, two waves of game reveal posts typically come to Xbox Game Pass each month. Today, we’re getting word as to what that second wave of games is for this month.

The rise of streaming services means there are more options than ever about which movies to watch and how to watch them. But those options have also left a lot of us jaded. It’s easy to feel so overwhelmed with choice that you end up watching movies out of a sense of obligation, whether that means doggedly trying to keep up on the Marvel Cinematic Universe or taking in all the awards-season conversation-starters. Or, maybe, wind up not watching anything at all. But when watching feels like homework, it’s easy to feel like any given movie that isn’t an absolute banger is wasting precious time you could have used on something else.

Rebel Wolves, the studio founded by a few of the CD Projekt folk behind The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, have officially titled their forthcoming dark fantasy RPG. That title is… Dawnwalker. They’ve also shared a new teaser image, which I think could depict one of two things: a) a vampiric or otherwise supernaturally-inclined hero flying through the air care of a Dishonored-style Blink teleport, sword raised and clawed fingers stretched towards an unseen foe against a blood-red backdrop. Or b) a man with his trousers aflame swinging through the window of a second floor spa while attempting to use his umbrella as a parachute, having received only half a pedicure before the building caught fire.

Often we come to you with these TV dispatches with a focus on the biggest premieres of the week — which we are now doing again. But this week also sees a whole host of finales, all of big shows that started in the tail end of 2023. While none of these three shows made our top 50 of the year, they’re all pretty big in their own way.

I'm pretty picky when it comes to city-builders - a requirement in a genre so full of excellent, unique attempts to put a spin on the ideas that SimCity laid down so long ago - but there's one that I've had my eye on for a while, and it's finally coming out in just a couple of months.

A crown isn’t the only thing that’s lost in Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. By design, you’ll often find yourself wondering what to do, where to go, and how to get there — lost, in other words.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League's developers are leaning into build-crafting and Diablo-style tweaks after launch.

Since it first entered open beta in 2013, Hi-Rez Studios’ multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game Smite has been a genre mainstay. Smite 2, a full-on sequel to that game, was announced today ahead of 2024’s Smite World Championship.

A year after being branded a flop, Ubisoft’s Mario + Rabbids sequel, Sparks of Hope, has racked up nearly three million sales, VGC understands.

Steam's top three best sellers of 2023 are Baldur's Gate 3, Hogwarts Legacy, and Starfield - with the Larian RPG coming out on top. 

has many different layers to its combat and exploration that can be difficult for beginners to wrap their heads around without knowing some important tricks first. You play as Sargon, the youngest member of an elite group called the Immortals who defend Persia. The challenges and time-warping effects of The Citadel, where your journey takes place, will test every ability you have at your disposal.

The next few months are absolutely stacked when it comes to roleplaying games coming from Japan between Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Granblue Fantasy Relink, Persona 3 Reload and Dragon's Dogma 2. But the season kicks off with an excellent indie that no one saw coming. 

Following a solid albeit not outstanding 2023, adventure games fans can look forward to the release of several long-anticipated titles throughout 2024. As usual for this genre, the selected titles offer a unique mix of intrigue and serenity (sometimes seamlessly intertwined) that you are unlikely to find elsewhere.

Outside of that development space, Ubisoft has a history of alleged rampant sexual abuse by employees in positions of power. An ongoing issue that came to light in 2020, with five former employees being arrested in late 2023. Because of these allegations, I have stayed away from Ubisoft games outside of work, and this led me to Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown.

Arkham series developer Rocksteady has claimed that the upcoming Suicide Squad is “easily our biggest game” in terms of narrative.

Metroidvania heads are eating good in 2024 with two certified bangers releasing back to back this week - and we're still only in January.