January 2023

The latest free offerings from the Epic Games Store are futuristic RPG Gamedec - Definitive Edition, space-based party game First Class Trouble, and godly 3D brawler Divine Knockout. All of them are free for the next week, so you can pick them up for precisely zero outlay right now wherever you are in the world. The three games are a canny mix of genres, so there could well be something of interest there even if you’re not bothered about jacking into things or whacking chibi deities with a comically large mallet.

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I can’t even remember how my family came upon The Incredible Machine now, only that I spent many hours as a child happily fiddling about with mice, pipes, and a surprising variety of sporting balls. I’m pretty sure it was my first real encounter with a game that concentrated on a combination of physics and engineering to complete a puzzle, rather than ignorantly bouncing on an enemy, or trying to combine random items from an inventory with characters’ faces. Looking at you, rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle.

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Wadjet Eye Games are behind some of the greatest point and click adventures of the last two decades, and if you've been looking for an excuse to catch up on their back catalogue, Humble have put together a rather excellent bundle celebrating the developer's 16 years of operation - all for a very agreeable sum of just over £8 in the UK, and $10 in the US.

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The long-awaited Freelancer mode for Hitman 3 goes live later this month, tasking the world’s blandest professional killer with taking down nefarious organisations one target at a time. To prepare for Freelancer’s launch on January 26th, devs IO Interactive have shared a new trailer that’s essentially just the mission briefing your Agent 47 will see when he begins his bloodthirsty roguelike quest. You can watch the mission briefing below, if you’re feeling suitably assassinatey.

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Cosy photographic biking adventure Season: A Letter To The Future is out on January 31st, and a new trailer reveals a little more about the game’s story and the people you’ll meet on your journey. Season puts you in the loafers of Estelle, a young woman from an isolated village who sets off on a two-wheeled trek to capture and preserve memories from her home valley before a soggy disaster wipes them off the map. You can watch the trailer below for a glimpse of Season’s very pretty, but doomed, world.

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I've completed my first play through of Chop Goblins, a "microshooter" from Dusk and Gloomwood developer David Szymanski. All in all, it took me just under an hour to choppa' da goblins and I'm all up for more of the same, to be honest. I liked time-travelling between Dracula's abode and ancient greece, chopping a variety of killer goblins that squawked, "NICE TO MEET YOU!", in varying octaves.

While another FPS of the "micro" variety would be grand, I'd love a "microracer". Much in the same vein as my beloved Screamer, I'm desperate for a – linear or otherwise – arcade racer whose only concern is to burn rubber through all manner of world stages.

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Linda Tiger's career in gaming started two decades ago, in a test house in Glasgow. “I started in QA back in 2002. I worked on functionality and localisation testing. Eventually, I became a lead and then a QA manager at a studio,” she tells me, as we talk at India Game Developers Conference in Hyderabad, India. Now, Tiger is at Paradox Development Studio as the studio manager of Studio Black, and the former lead producer for Crusader Kings 3. She even stood in front of a suit of armor to drop the game's first tease.

An RPG-esque lifestyle system and neat backstab choices that deal with information round out Crusader Kings 3's host of improvements over its excellent predecessor. A court-themed expansion and a revamp of the game’s culture system after launch are a testament to Paradox’s resolve to deliver a refined plotting experience. Holy wars and illicit affairs go hand in hand in the world of Crusader Kings and the third iteration is no different. Weaving together systems to consistently deliver emergent gameplay is no simple feat, and it turns out that production also covers all manner of small but essential, and practical things. As the lead producer on a game as complex as Crusader Kings 3, Tiger had her work cut out for her.

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Grab your specialist gaming cassock, because historical 4X strategy Old World is doubling down on religion for its second wave of DLC on January 16th. The Sacred And The Profane pack bundles in more than 350 fresh events, mostly themed around worshipping things. There’s also six new figures from the past to encounter, including the Christian apostle Saint Paul and ancient poet Sappho, all bringing their own events. You can see some of the new characters in a teaser for the DLC below.

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Achievements are now part and parcel of the video gaming landscape, but that doesn't mean we have to like them. Indeed, the debate over whether the little reward messages add anything to games or not has been reignited today on Twitter by developers, with Ubisoft Massive's lead gameplay designer Fredrik Thylander saying they've been actively "bad for gaming". So we thought we'd put the question to you, readers. Do you agree and think achievements have been a blight on the industry, or do you think they're actually good way of getting more out of a game? Come and tell us in the comments.

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Microsoft were hoping to complete their takeover of Activision Blizzard by the end of their financial year in June. That’s looking less likely now that the US Federal Trade Commission have published a schedule that sets dates for final hearings to decide on the merger, and they're going to begin on August 2nd. As this is just the kick off for hearings about the case, it’s likely that any FTC decision on whether the $68.7 billion (£56 billion) deal can go ahead will take some time to emerge.

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The AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT is the flagship graphics card in the Radeon RX 6000 series, and one of the most powerful graphics cards on the market even after the release of the first Radeon RX 7000 series cards. It is designed for gaming enthusiasts, content creators, and professionals who demand the highest levels of performance from their graphics card - and now that the next gen is out, this bleeding-edge card has been heavily reduced. In fact, you can now pick this up on Amazon for $730, a $370 reduction from the $1100 price this XFX Speedster Merc319 card launched at in August last year.

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Combined with the launch of Disney World’s new coaster, Tron fever is alive yet again

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Crunchyroll’s list of nominees also includes Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and Demon Slayer’s new season

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Studio DEEN’s latest Ito anime shows the limits of adapting him from manga

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GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas return in Definitive Edition form

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The first DLC for Marvel’s Midnight Suns has received its official release date, with the Merc with a Mouth, Deadpool, set to come to the strategy game on Jan. 26, 2023. The game made the announcement through the trailer “The Good, The Bad, and The Undead” on its official YouTube channel.

The DLC, which is included with the game’s season pass, will not only have a new playable character complete with his own set of cards but is also set to include some key new features to the base game. These include brand new story missions, new enemies to face in combat, one of whom looks to be a new variation of the HYDRA Mystic enemies, and a new Abbey upgrade called the Food Truck.

Of course, the DLC will also make Deadpool an interactable character at the Abbey, with the trailer teasing a few outfits for the mercenary, including the character’s swim trunks. Not to mention that Deadpool also teases that there will be vampires other than Blade within the DLC. The trailer certainly focused much more on the zaniness of the character, so fans will have to wait and see how exactly the DLC’s story and Deadpool come into play regarding the game’s overall narrative.

At the time of writing, HBO’s most popular films are Batman, Black Adam, and Elvis, but those titular heroes might soon be in jeopardy of losing their top spots as there’s a new tough guy in town. As per Flix Patrol, I Am Legend starring Will Smith has climbed six spots today and is already on the seventh spot on the most-watched list.

I Am Legend is an adaptation of Richard Matheson 1954’s book of the same name and tells the story of US Army virologist Robert Neville (Will Smith). Neville is the only man left in New York after a virus created originally to cure cancer has transformed humans into scary nocturnal mutants.

It seems likely that HBO’s The Last of Us premiere has fueled interest in the film as viewers look for other post-apocalyptic films while they wait for the next episode of the video game adaptation. If that’s the case, The Last of Us, and by extension, I Am Legend, might’ve infected the whole world as the Will Smith vehicle is one of the most watched in Brazil, Israel, and Cambodia.

This post-apocalyptic film was an incredible box office success, becoming the seventh-highest-grossing film of 2007 and earning $585 million worldwide. It has a 68% rating score for both critics and audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, lauding Will Smith’s movie star performance as he holds the movie by himself.

Directed by Francis Lawrence (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire), the film stars Will Smith (Bad Boys for Life), Alive Braga (Elysium), Charlie Tahan (Ozark), and Salli Richardson-Whitfield (Eureka)

You can watch I Am Legend on HBO.

It’s been nearly eight years since EA Sports released their own entry into the PGA Tour series, that being Rory McIlroy PGA Tour in 2015. And while players have been able to get their fix on the links here and there ever since, EA was once the home for PGA action for over 20 years. Soon, for players all over the world, they will be again. Because this Spring, EA is officially back in the game. And this time, they’re leaving no stone unturned in the process.

If you’re looking for realism, you’ll find it here, with the developers introducing Pure Strike as arguably the most crucial piece of their revamped gameplay puzzle. Being able to utilize official PGA Tour ShotLink® and TrackMan data, the ultimate goal is for players to be tested in the exact same ways as the professionals are — from hole to hole, from course to course, it’s all about navigating each blade of glass as well as what every element throws at you. Ideally that would mean a solid range of courses to experience, right? That’s where EA’s ‘Bucket List’ comes into play.

Fortunately, players will have plenty of options at the outset. From The Old Course at St. Andrews and Pebble Beach Golf Links to Teeth of the Dog and Top of the Rock, there will be a wide variety of courses at launch play through — 30 in total, with some exclusives sprinkled in — and the hope that they can update and add more as the game’s lifespan progresses. Speaking of exclusives, PGA Tour also bills itself as the home of the Majors, which include the Masters, PGA Championship, the U.S. Open Championship, and The Open.

Even though it was released almost a decade ago at this point, The Witcher 3 players are still managing to find surprising and intricate details that CD Projekt Red has included in the game. That includes everything from a hidden easter egg only found by meditating and small changes made in the recent update.

One such detail that fans might have missed, though simple, is causing anyone that has already sailed to Skellige to find the nearest reload point in order to get a significant amount of their cash back.

4th playthrough and I’m just now realizing you can get your money back from the boat captain’s body after sailing to Skellige from witcher

Pointed out by user Gamesgar0 on the official Witcher subreddit, it seems it’s actually possible to find the corpse of the boat captain that crashes the ship you sail over to Skellige. By searching the remains of the crashed vessel and looting his body, you’ll be able to loot 2x grilled pork, a black magic doll, and the 1000 crowns you paid for the voyage.

After releasing a teaser back in December 2022, Paramount has released the official trailer for Scream 6, teasing that this Ghostface is not only the most public one yet, but is also seemingly the most brutal. This is a Ghostface who is not afraid to go after people in convenience stores and on the train and is willing to kill anyone who gets in the way of his mission.

The Scream 6 trailer was a bit light on actual story information, with one of the only things learned being that this Ghostface looks to worship previous incarnations, with him having a Ghostface collection. This is obviously unfortunate for the survivors of the previous Ghostfaces, as this one looks to have a major vendetta against them.

Scream 6 features the return of many Scream characters, all of whom are shown throughout the trailer. These characters include the four newbies introduced in Scream (2022), Sam, Mindy, Chad, and Tara, played by Wednesday’s Jenna Ortega. The four survivors are joined by fan-favorite Scream 4 character Kirby Reed, along with legacy character Gale Weathers. Unfortunately, due to Neve Campbell not being happy with the offer presented to her, Scream 6 marks the first movie in the series not to feature the franchise’s Final Girl, Sidney Prescott.

Emma Stone has reportedly been cast to star as the lead role in Edgar Wright’s next upcoming thriller title, The Chain. The film is an adaptation of Adrien McKinty’s 2019 award-winning thriller novel of the same name, featuring a dark and twisted story revolving around child kidnapping.

Accoring to the rundown of her role provided by The Direct, Emma Stone is set to play Rachel, a divorced woman fighting cancer whom receives a mysterious call telling her that her 12 year old daughter, Kylie, has been kidnapped. In order to safely retrieve Kylie, Rachel must kidnap another child. Only when the parents of the child Rachel kidnaps succeed in kidnapping a child themselves, will Kylie be released, thus completing a sick game known as ‘The Chain’. However, if the parents of the child that has been kidnapped don’t act on the instructions given, the previous child in question will be killed.

While the project was first announced two and a half years ago, there is currently no confirmation of an official release date. Emma Stone also has other significant projects in to work around, such as the sequel to Disney’s Cruella, which was planned to shoot during 2023.

It can be assumed that production of The Chain could potentially begin this year if they can squeeze it in before Cruella, or during 2024, if it has to follow. This means that depending on development schedules and progression, the release of the film could fall anywhere between 2024 and 2025, if everything goes to plan.

Hot off of Apple’s presentation as part of the Television Critics Association’s winter 2023 press tour, we have been treated to our first image from the upcoming third season of the heart-warming mega-hit, Ted Lasso.

Some #TedLasso news while we wait for the start of the next panel. The comedy will return this spring for a third season. Here's a first look photo. #TCA23 pic.twitter.com/2bXdC0GVMW

— The TCA (@OfficialTCA) January 18, 2023

Portraying the good-natured Ted (Jason Sudeikis) squaring off against his colleague-turned-rival Nathan (Nick Mohammed), the teaser sets the stage for what promises to be an epic showdown between good and evil. Or, at very least, pleasantly optimistic and sneakily duplicitous.

As reported by Variety, Ted Lasso co-creator Bill Lawrence spoke briefly on the upcoming season during the presentation, stating, “I’ve seen cuts, and it’s fucking amazing”.

In a surprising move, Microsoft announced on Wednesday that it would be cutting 10,000 jobs across the company as it seeks to reduce costs amid a broader economic concern. More specifically, a portion of the job cuts will be in its video game division. This includes the developers of popular titles Starfield and Halo.

According to Jason Schreier in a report by Bloomberg, some staff affected by these layoffs have been with the company for over ten years. The exact extent of the cuts remains unclear, but Microsoft has simultaneously stated they will continue to look to hire in their AI department.

In an email to staff, 343 Industries studio head Pierre Hintze said the company had “made the difficult decision to restructure elements of our team, which means some roles are being eliminated.” It was made clear, however, that Halo Infinite’s multiplayer and other elements will remain completely supported for the player base.

The next big team-up film in the MCU, Thunderbolts, is currently set to debut in theaters July 26, 2024. Without much news about the progress of the film, that leaves room for the leakers and scoop accounts on Twitter to make some news. This time around @CanWeGetToast reported that a major character from the upcoming Thunderbolts film is being removed from the lineup.

Some may remember the poster reveal from D23 last year featuring CIA chair Contessa Valentina Allegra de la Fontaine, Ghost, Red Guardian, Yelena Belova, Bucky Barnes, US Agent, and Taskmaster. The one who will supposedly be getting the nix here is Hannah John-Kamen’s Ghost who made her MCU debut in Ant-Man and the Wasp.

As of right now, this is essentially just a rumor with no major momentum outside of this one Twitter account mentioning it. If this rumor is in fact true, it seems unlikely that a scheduling conflict is an issue with what we currently know. John-Kamen is playing a character named Maya in the upcoming film, Unwelcome. However, the film is in post-production which wouldn’t likely interfere with Thunderbolts.

If this rumor does come to fruition, then it’ll be interesting to hear the reason for this major change. Now if only every director could be like James Gunn and shoot down any rumors as soon as they pop up as he did here recently with Superman casting speculation. That would certainly help MCU fans sort out what truly comes from legit sources versus the “sources” that some leakers use.

Death in the Water was released back in 2019, garnering decent success and praise as it threw players into the depths of the sea. Players must fight off Great Whites in a challenging experience not many can say they completed, as the game centered on a wave gameplay approach, with each dive (wave) increasing in difficulty.

A rather surprising piece of news has been floating deep in the sea, and that’s the announcement that the two-man development team, Lighthouse Games, is hard at work developing a sequel to Death in the Water. Death in the Water 2 travels back under the sea on Jan. 26, 2022, and looks to be a much darker experience, at least from what can be garnered in this short snippet co-founder of the development team shared.

Death in the Water 2 – A new breed of underwater horror awaits. Steam Release 26 January. pic.twitter.com/4cGtTMWnBM

— Neil Jones (@JonesieJones) January 17, 2023

If Great Whites weren’t scary enough, the sequel is looking to make players rethink that thought. Death in the Water 2 showcases the protagonist fighting off various mythological creatures, who are controlled by the nefarious mind-controlling Kraken named Death.

Fortnite is great at laying the groundwork for future events if players know where to look. Though, at the same time, there are always plenty of false hints that don’t lead anywhere that the community latches onto. While it’s impossible to say which category this falls under, a new star constellation has been spotted in space above the staging island with the first update to the game in 2023.

While this normally wouldn’t mean much, the constellation has an unusual circular shape. The constellation can only be seen from the starting area, which makes the case that it is meant to be seen by players. All the right pieces exist to make this feel like a puzzle for those players who want a mystery to solve.

A circle of stars got added today. No idea if they play a part in something.

@/Arcticfr0st pic.twitter.com/jAiKxOJsw9

As announced in a recent blog post, 13 new games are coming to PlayStation VR2, and they’re all expected to release “within one month of the February 22 launch.” They are as follows:

• Before Your Eyes
• Kayak VR: Mirage
• Pavlov VR
• Puzzling Places
• Song in the Smoke: Rekindled
• Synth Riders: Remastered Edition
• Thumper
• NFL Pro Era
• What the Bat?
• Rez Infinite
• Tetris Effect
• Creed Rise to Glory: Championship Edition
• The Last Clockwinder

The blog post also mentions that Gran Turismo 7 will receive a free VR2 update on launch day. A statement from the president of Polyphony Games details that “While 2-player splitscreen races are not supported in VR, all other races, including online races, will be available.” In case you missed it, Resident Evil Village will also get a VR update on launch day.

Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: EA Tiburon
Release: March 24, 2023
Rating: Everyone

EA Sports has been producing officially licensed PGA Tour video games since 1990, with stars like Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy lending their names to the product over the years. However, the company has not released a PGA Tour video game since 2015, meaning other franchises have had time to slide into the space once occupied by EA Sports’ mainstay series.

It’s been almost two months since Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II blitzed the gaming industry, rising to the top of the charts and becoming the most-sold entry of all time in the FPS franchise. However, as quickly as it rose, it fell just as fast as player counts have been severely dwindling post the launch of Warzone 2.0, according to Steam Charts.

While the player count rapidly nosedived, an eerie rumor surfaced that the upcoming second season of content could see a delay in its delivery date. Needless to say, that rumor turned out to be correct, as the official Call of Duty account tweeted out a post confirming the delay. Season 2 will arrive on Feb. 15 instead of its original target date of Feb. 4. 

Season 02 will be launching on February 15. Stay tuned for additional intel. pic.twitter.com/G80TiutG62

Microsoft has laid off 10,000 employees. 

This news comes from a Bloomberg report detailing that Microsoft's layoff come as the company attempts to reduce costs amid a larger economic slowdown. These layoffs come amidst Microsoft's ongoing fight against the FTC to acquire Call of Duty makers Activision Blizzard for a staggering $69 billion. Bloomberg reports that some people at Bethesda Game Studios, which is hard at work on getting Starfield ready for its release sometime in the first half of this year, were laid off, but that Halo Infinite developer 343 Industries was hit hardest in the company's portfolio of game studios. 

According to Bloomberg, Microsoft has plans to hire in "strategic, competitive areas" like AI but that other tech-focused departments like HoloLens and some engineering divisions were hit by these layoffs. 

Reviewed on: Switch
Platform: Switch, PC
Publisher: Playtonic Friends
Developer: MegaWobble
Release: December 14, 2022

Everyone has something they loved spending time with in the past – a restaurant, a daily-play video game, a group of friends – only to one day unknowingly enjoy doing so for the final time. It's a poignant and often heartbreaking truth of how places evolve, tastes change, and priorities divert as we all grow older. For the eponymous hero in Lil Gator Game, that activity is live-action role-playing with his big sis. With his sister home from college, Gator assembles a master plan to pry her away from her coursework for one more game. The resulting adventure is a short, cute, Zelda-inspired romp that conjures our own bittersweet nostalgia for the activities, places, and people we once spent our days with but no longer do for one reason or another.

Developer Avalanche and publisher Warner Bros. Interactive have released a new cinematic trailer for Hogwarts Legacy, giving viewers a bird's eye view, literally, of the titular school and the surrounding castle grounds. 

With Hogwarts Legacy due out on current-get consoles and PC in just a few weeks, on February 10, it's no surprise we're getting a trailer like this today. It's a great look at what to expect in the game, including beasts and creatures, characters like Professor Weasley and Nearly Headless Nick, and more. There's even some Avada Kadavra-casting foes to be seen, as well as dragons and spiders to fights. And all of it is shown through the view of an owl delivering a Hogwarts acceptance letter to a soon-to-be wizard. 

Check out the 4K version of this Hogwarts Legacy cinematic trailer below: 

Heads up, Stadia owners: Google’s cloud gaming program is shutting down today, January 18. The service began issuing refunds for all hardware last November, but if you haven’t received one yet, information on how to obtain one should have been emailed to the Google account used to make the purchase. However, past Stadia Pro subscriptions will not receive refunds.

There's a silver lining for those of you with Stadia controllers and nothing to use them for. You can download an update that will allow your controller to use Bluetooth. However, be warned: this permanently disables wi-fi capabilities, so if you download the update now, you won't be able to play Stadia games before the shutdown. For more details, you can visit the Stadia Help Center.

Stadians, you can now update your Stadia Controller’s firmware to enable Bluetooth Low Energy connections.

Find the update tool here: https://t.co/o0iU2x0NsV pic.twitter.com/SxzUYJyRrh

Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC
Publisher: Koei Tecmo
Developer: Team Ninja
Release: March 3, 2023

A new image from Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League has leaked and it seems to confirm that it will be a live service game, or at least feature games-as-a-service elements.

This image, which you can view in the tweet below, comes from the 4chan forum, as reported by Video Games Chronicle, which has also verified with sources that the image is real. The image appears to be Suicide Squad's start menu and features standard things like game mode selection, chapter select, difficulty, and matchmaking. It also features some menus to page through at the top, including a "Battle Pass" one. Under those top-bar menus are what appear to be various currencies, too. 

First look at the Suicide Squad game menu. Mentions Battle Pass, Loadout, Missions based structure. #Batman #SuicideSquad pic.twitter.com/t3vmHmjQ8k

Reviewed on: PlayStation 5
Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC
Publisher: Bandai Namco
Developer: Ilca
Release: January 13, 2023
Rating: Teen

"You know how fuzzy memories can be." It's a convenient and hand-wavy line delivered by the new character Lim, warning the Straw Hat Pirates of the impending adventures into some of One Piece's most popular story arcs. Likewise, One Piece Odyssey can be a fuzzy experience. It oscillates between being thrilling and tedious. The promise of discovering "what if…?" scenarios is enticing for longtime fans, but it rarely follows through in a meaningful way. And as a potential introductory point for new fans, One Piece Odyssey falters as most of the context and characters in the core story flashbacks are stripped away. While I'm conflicted about my time with One Piece Odyssey, it's a testament to the series' RPG outing that I'm fond of the overall adventure despite some glaring holes throughout.

The Last of Us, the highly anticipated TV adaptation of Naughty Dog's hit game of the same name, finally premiered Sunday and it's looking like a massive hit for HBO. 

That's because The Last of Us' premiere was the second largest debut for an HBO series since 2010, beaten only by last year's House of the Dragon, the first TV spinoff from HBO's Game of Thrones series. The Last of Us drew in 4.7 million views, according to a Deadline report, coming in second to House of the Dragon's 2022 premiere which pulled in 9.986 million watchers. The Last of Us is matched by HBO's Boardwalk Empire, which premiered in 2010 to 4.81 million viewers. 

Deadline writes that HBO says Sunday night viewing usually represents 20 to 40% of a given show's gross audience per episode (HBO shows typically release episodes on Sunday nights). 

"We are thrilled to see fans of the series and game alike experience this iconic story in a new way, and we extend our gratitude to them for helping to make it a success," CEO and chairman of HBO and HBO Max Content Casey Bloys said, according to Deadline. "Congratulations to [showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, who is also a co-creator of The Last of Us], and the brilliant cast and crew who worked tirelessly to bring this show to life. We look forward to fans around the world enjoying the rest of the season." 

This week on All Things Nintendo, Brian invites Kyle Hilliard on to preview the 2023 release schedule as it exists in January. The two cover everything from Kirby's Dream Land Deluxe to The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and all the releases in between. In addition to that, this show signals the return of the news, Definitive Ranking, and eShop Gem of the Week segments.

If you'd like to follow Brian on social media, you can do so on his Instagram: @BrianPShea. You can follow Kyle on Twitter: @KyleMHilliard

The All Things Nintendo podcast is a weekly show where we can celebrate, discuss, and break down all the latest games, news, and announcements from the industry's most recognizable name. Each week, Brian is joined by different guests to talk about what's happening in the world of Nintendo. Along the way, they'll share personal stories, uncover hidden gems in the eShop, and even look back on the classics we all grew up with. A new episode hits every Friday!

Reviewed on: PC
Platform: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Switch, PC
Publisher: The Arcade Crew
Developer: JoyMasher
Release: January 12, 2023
Rating: Teen

Retro platformers are not hard to come by. I count myself among the group of video game players who welcome efforts from small development teams that play to our nostalgia for an era where playing video games meant tuning to channel 3. Some are fantastic, some are too hard to be enjoyable, but most land somewhere in the middle. Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider won’t go down in history as one of the greats that both embraces the past and modernizes the action, but I would place it closer to the fantastic side of the scale, even if it doesn’t quite make it all the way.