Summary Dungeons & Dragonstends to be filled with mindless monsters acting on instinct and terrorizing whatever nearby town they happen to be close to. While others have a base level human intelligence and can be reasoned with, few have Intelligence scores over 20 with access to immense knowledge and power. These kinds of creatures tend to be singular, named characters in the lore of Faerûn and actively participate in the politics, magic, and major events of their respective planes....

Summary MultiVersusfans think that an ongoing ARG that’s scheduled to end at some point today is going to reveal the next big character coming to the game - The Joker. As great as it was to finally see MultiVersus re-emergeafter more than a year without any substantial updates (and no,the constant Twitter teases don’t count),fans have been a little disappointed that we haven’t had any new character reveals in that time....

New World: Aeternummight be the most indefinable game I have ever come across. At first glance, you’d think it was an expansion toNew World, but it’s actually an entirely new game. Except it’s actually the old game. Somewhat confusingly, it’s an entirely new game that contains all of the content from New World and its only true expansion, Rise of Angry Earth, plus the entirely new content of Aeternum. It’s bringing the game to console, making it both a content port and light remaster, and it’s also designed to be played solo and Amazon calls it an action RPG....

Recommending new games to my wife after she rolled credits onBaldur’s Gate 3has been as tough as the Dark Urge resisting the compulsion to rip off Gale’s arm. Larian’s masterpiece was the first game to really grab her and refuse to let go — at least, the first in her adulthood. As a kid, she only had a couple ofGame Boy Advancegames, so she and her siblings poured hour after hour intoSuper Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2....

Summary Right now, thousands of Nintendo fans are going throughPaper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. For some, it’s their first time playing one of theGameCube’s best games, and for others, they’rereplaying a classic. And, of course, there’s the subset of people looking to get their hands on the limited edition GameCube cover art –don’t worry, we have you covered. But as it turns out, the game could have come out a lot earlier....

Summary The first time I playedHades, I did so on God Mode. I’m not ashamed to admit this. I play loads of games on the easiest difficulty, partly because I have a lot of games to play and I don’t want to spend more time bashing my head against combat than absolutely necessary, but also partly because gaming is a leisure activity for me. I don’t want to get frustrated at the difficulty of a battle and put a game down, never to pick it back up, when I could do the sensible thing and just play it on easy to avoid the whole situation....

Summary It’s been a minute since we’ve heard anything aboutSonyand Haven Studios' live-service PvPvE heist shooterFairgame$. However, a new survey being sent out toPlayStationplayers might mean we’re due for some updated news soon. On Reddit, user trevx shared on the PS5 subreddit that they had received a survey from Sony via email. The email, which was posted on Imgur, asks survey doers to share their thoughts with the Fairgame$ development team....

Summary I, like many others, am horrified at just how muchStar Wars Outlawsis going to cost. Because I live in Singapore and buy my games in local currency, looking at the pre-order prices felt like getting hit with a blaster bolt in the chest. The base game is $70, which is to be expected for a triple-A game, but still nearly $100 in Singapore dollars. The other editions, which would allow you to play the game early and play future DLCs, are priced at $110 and $130....

Summary Apex Legends players are always looking for the next challenge. Three-stacking in ranked gets boring when you and your teammates are the best in the world, and ALGS competition is exciting but infrequent. Any way to keep the competitive scene fresh and earn a little more money is welcomed with open arms. Enter Realm. The esports tournament provider broke into theApex Legendsscene last year, offering eye-watering $150,000 prize pools for a ranked-style league competition, including an exciting solo queue system, so players had to manage with random teammates – albeit they were all professional players....

Afteraccidentally hyping up fans for a sequel, Returnal developer Housemarque announced that a graphic novel adaptation called Returnal: Fallen Asteria is coming this October. I’m looking forward to seeing how the book handles the story, especially since it’s being created by the same narrative team that wrote Returnal, but even as a huge fan of both the game and graphic novels I must admit I’m apprehensive. The gameplay and narrative structure of Returnal is such a big part of its deeply affecting story, and I’m not sure how an 88-page book is going to recreate that....

Shadow of the Erdtree kicked my butt.Bandai NamcoandFromSoftwareprovided press and creators with a rare prerequisite prior to attending the hands-on preview event: everyone has to have beatenElden Ringat leastonce. We were marching straight into the endgame kitted out with powerful gear and a Level 150 character, so a steep challenge was to be expected. I’d beaten Elden Ring, so naively didn’t think that revisiting any of my previous saves ahead of the event would be necessary....

FromSoftwareis one of gaming’s most consistent developers. Qualitatively, that’s obvious. Can you name a better run of games thanBloodbornetoDark Souls 3toSekirotoElden Ring? And those are just the iconic ones from that period. In between those marquee titles, the company also snuck in a port of a Monster Hunter spin-off and a tiny narrative VR game. It’s that consistency — rarely letting a year go by without a release — that matters most for the health of gaming in the current climate....

Many people know Lee Jung-jae as Squid Game’s Seong Gi-hun, or perhaps by his number, Player 456, or given how synonymous his lead role was with the show’s success, maybe even just as ‘the Squid Game guy’. While it’s true that Squid Game was a breakout role for Lee in the West, to reduce him to a single role diminishes what has been a stellar and consistently successful career in South Korea....