https://www.thegamer.com Big games come with a lot of attention. TheGamer's team of experts will bring you all the freshest takes on triple-A titles, interviews with key people, and in-depth analysis. Wed, 31 May 2023 17:30:15 GMT en-US hourly 60 Tears of the Kingdom’s Tulin is a little sweetie. The young Rito is spunky, determined, and ready to take on the world for the good of his fellow bird people. He has a cute scream/warble that he lets out every time you ask him to gust. And his presence makes me want to deactivate his summoning seal every time I shoot a bird for its precious drumsticks, like an adulterous movie character turning their spouse’s picture down during an illicit tryst. Immersion! So, you know, I like the kid. But he’s no Revali.

]]> Wed, 31 May 2023 17:30:15 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/revalis-gale-missing-tears-of-the-kingdom-tulin/ For all intents and purposes, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is an open-world RPG. Link grows from a shirtless scrub to a many-hearted, heavily armored battlebot and mech master over the course of the game. You pursue an overarching main quest while completing side quests along the way, and there are many characters to meet, mysteries to uncover, and villages to visit along the way. It’s a better version of the same framework we’ve seen in countless games like Horizon Forbidden West, Assassin's Creed Valhalla, and — dare I say it — The Witcher 3.

]]> Wed, 31 May 2023 16:30:27 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom-xp-rpg-finishing-quest/ In theory, each year is a better time to start gaming than the last - it’s not like games from the past get deleted, and… wait. I’m hearing they do in fact get deleted all the time as we move from console to console and fail to account for backwards compatibility or availability in an all-digital world. It’s for that reason that remakes have become so common, and why this year really is the best time to get into gaming.

]]> Wed, 31 May 2023 16:15:26 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/2023-best-year-new-gamer-system-shock-resident-evil-totk/ I have played over 130 hours of Tears of the Kingdom and don’t plan on stopping anytime soon, so it’s fair to say that I’ve done my fair share of adventuring in this newly torn asunder Hyrule. But despite all of the time I have put into the game, I’ve played it relatively safe when it comes to constructing convoluted contraptions. I have built a few things, but once I find something that works, I just keep building that same thing over and over again. One small quest, however - a task so menial and straightforward - finally brought out the mindset of what this game wants me to do.

]]> Wed, 31 May 2023 15:30:22 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom-lurelin-village-log-quest-gone-wrong/ Between Star Wars Jedi and Spider-Man, ‘non-canon’ endings feel like an increasing rarity in the world of licensed games. We don’t get much choice in how stories unfold anymore, since so many developers are striving for a definitive cinematic experience. You don’t go to the theatre and take a vote to make Captain America side with Thanos. But games aren’t movies, and letting the player take control is a key part of how we experience them.

]]> Wed, 31 May 2023 15:00:20 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/spider-man-2-web-of-shadows-symbiote-morality/ Sony showed off Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 last week and there was a lot to be excited about. The game has an expanded map, a story with interesting angles on Kraven, Lizard, and the Symbiote that I can’t wait to see play out, and cool new powers for Peter. But what has me the most stoked is the ability to swap between its two heroes.

]]> Tue, 30 May 2023 19:00:17 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/gta-5s-protagonist-swapping-system-lives-on-spider-man-2/ Last week’s PlayStation Showcase set off a wave of discourse, as everyone watched it quickly found out that nobody else on the internet agreed whether the show was good, bad, or a secret third thing. I’m pretty firmly in the last category, but not because there weren’t any games I wanted to play.

]]> Tue, 30 May 2023 18:00:18 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/playstation-showcase-less-exciting-aging/ Back when God of War: Ragnarok launched, I wrote about how certain elements of its design and technology refused to play nicely with my neurodivergent brain. My mind was convinced it needed to keep fiddling with specific graphical and mechanical configurations until it nailed that perfect sweet spot. This established an awkward stop-and-start momentum which never felt befitting of a narrative blockbuster that required my constant attention.

]]> Tue, 30 May 2023 17:00:19 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/tears-of-the-kingdom-adhd-ocd-neurodivergence/ Blizzard Entertainment can’t catch a break these days, but it’s hard to feel sympathy for this company that seems determined to step on every single rake spread across a garden of its own making. Overwatch 2’s cancellation of PvE made the already languishing shooter even more enemies, while the extended production cycle of Diablo 4, alongside a noticeable lack of other projects, has players losing faith. Let’s not forget high profile scandals involving sexual harassment and systemic toxicity that has turned the once untouchable studio into a shadow of its former self. Blizzard is far from a golden child anymore, it’s a tatty statue of rust and decay with few redeeming qualities. Knowing this, why keep digging deeper holes?

]]> Tue, 30 May 2023 16:45:15 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/diablo-4-fan-interview-questions-future-games-show/ When Tears of the Kingdom is blown up on a big screen, hills are stretched, models are fuzzy, and the environments lack the usual obsession with minor details we see in modern games. Most people don’t care because its art direction is stellar, the sandbox tools are like nothing we’ve seen before, and it runs incredibly well despite seamlessly juggling three distinct worlds. For some reason, gamers aren’t okay with prioritising gameplay over visual fidelity unless it’s on a Nintendo console, as Spider-Man 2’s new trailer was immediately met with controversy for not looking current-gen enough. I have no idea what that means other than gamers wanting a generational leap like PS1 to PS2, but when you’re at the top of the mountain, how much higher can you go?

]]> Tue, 30 May 2023 16:30:16 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/spider-man-2-god-of-war-ragnarok-ratchet-and-clank-rift-apart-generational-sequels-unrealistic/ Street Fighter 5 was a valuable lesson for Capcom. It was the last game before the publisher entered a period that many consider its renaissance. Resident Evil 7, Monster Hunter World, and Devil May Cry 5 all sold millions and were subject to critical acclaim, reversing the fortunes of a developer who for an entire console generation was falling behind the competition. Slowly but surely, things started to change. Looking back, Street Fighter 5 was an outright failure.

]]> Tue, 30 May 2023 15:30:18 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/street-fighter-6-fighting-game-tutorials-newcomers-capcom/ Everyone is excited for Spider-Man 2. Everyone apart from the losers lying about the water, at least. There’s been a lot of talk over how the Symbiote factors into the story, as well as into the gameplay, alongside speculation around Kraven, Lizard, Venom, and Wraith. One villain conspicuous by her absence though was Screwball, and some seem to see this as a cause for celebration. If she really is gone though, the game will always feel like it’s missing something.

]]> Tue, 30 May 2023 15:00:17 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/screwball-return-spider-man-2-villain/ Despite her literal mask of confidence, Mileena is the most insecure and tragic character in Mortal Kombat. Her entire reason for being revolves around Kitana, who she will always be compared to and never be greater than. Worst yet, Kitana is the closest Mileena has to family, but also the furthest from what she could ever be.

]]> Tue, 30 May 2023 14:28:36 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/mortal-kombat-1-mileena-story-kitana-sisters-happy-ending/ Assassin’s Creed Mirage looks good. After three gigantic games that transformed the series into sprawling action RPGs, Mirage is taking AC back to its stealth-action roots. I've enjoyed the new direction, but I’m stoked to see a major release scaling down for what appears to be a more focused game. But Ubisoft’s boring house style is preventing me from getting too excited for Mirage, even if everything else about it seems right up my alley.

]]> Mon, 29 May 2023 20:00:17 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/assassins-creed-mirage-ubisoft-house-style-graphics-aesthetic/ As Nintendo showed off more of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom in the run-up to release, a contingent of gamers whined about how it wasn’t a ‘real sequel’ because it was reusing the map from Breath of the Wild. I never agreed with this idea. Wonderful possibilities open up when developers are willing to reuse assets, and Tears of the Kingdom’s wells are a great example.

]]> Mon, 29 May 2023 19:00:16 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/wells-zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom-builds-on-breath-of-the-wild/ Oh look, it’s another season of Gaming Discourse! The topic this time? Asset reuse. According to people who have never given actual game development a more fully-formed thought than ‘if I won the lottery, I’d make the game of my dreams’, a developer reusing assets that they already have access to is pure laziness. The current victims of this discourse are the big open world titles du jour, Tears of the Kingdom and Spider-Man 2. These are small voices amplified by Twitter’s baffling algorithm, but it’s a debate that’s been bandied around the internet for years.

]]> Mon, 29 May 2023 18:00:17 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/asset-reuse-confidence-not-laziness/ Hot Tip: Do not develop feelings for a fictional fishman through years of fanfiction, fanart, and headcanons. Hot Tip 2: Do not then jump into Tears of the Kingdom with the expectation that your homosexual aquatic fantasies will soon come true after returning to Zora’s Domain with unrequited love on your mind. Hot Tip 3: Do not then plot to murder his fiancée in revenge.

]]> Mon, 29 May 2023 16:15:17 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/tears-of-the-kingdom-sidon-link-yona-engagement-gay-zora/ Assassin’s Creed Mirage looks great. Somehow I think I’m in the minority by saying this, but it’s exactly what I want for the series. It’s a return to its stealthy roots, with plenty of parkour and assassinations galore. It doesn’t look like it’s got a skill tree, and there’s certainly no open warfare on display in the early trailers, so consider me happy. This is exactly what I wanted for the series, and I thought it was what everyone else wanted, too.

]]> Mon, 29 May 2023 15:00:16 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/assassins-creed-cant-do-anything-right/ Tears of the Kingdom is somehow everything we all wanted, nothing like we expected, and still weighed down with the biggest controversy New Zelda has wrought. It's a wonderful conundrum. I remain mostly an outsider to the world of Tears of the Kingdom, untouched by its magic, so I can watch from afar with no real personal stakes. I like to think this helps me see the bigger picture, and it's remarkable that a game made under so much pressure has consistently managed to make exactly the right choice at every turn.

]]> Mon, 29 May 2023 14:30:16 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/tears-of-the-kingdom-perfect-balance-listening-ignoring-fans-totk-zelda/ The digital age is upon us. We have PlayStation and Xbox consoles with no disc drives, and the need for each platform to have a robust library of games for their respective subscription services is at an all-time high. Digital sales numbers far exceed physical ones, and the convenience of being able to visit a digital storefront and buy a game will always be more appealing to most people than pulling a game off the shelf. Despite all that, I can’t see a single good reason for Remedy Entertainment and Epic Games to decide against a physical release for Alan Wake 2.

]]> Mon, 29 May 2023 10:32:56 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/alan-wake-2-digital-only-game-bad-no-right/ Daedalic Entertainment’s The Lords of the Rings: Gollum didn’t look good when it was first revealed, with its entire concept failing to excite thanks to a confusing take on the character and yet another game in this franchise bound to the smouldering grey dunes of Mordor. We held out hope regardless that this puzzle platformer would somehow deliver on its ideas.

]]> Sun, 28 May 2023 17:00:15 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/gollum-reviews-bugs-glitches-lord-of-the-rings-bad/ Tears of the Kingdom is a nearly perfect game. Its puzzles? Brilliant. Its physics? Incredible. Its story? One of the best Zelda games, if not the best Zelda game. The game is an amazing achievement, and not just because it found a way to overshadow its predecessor, which itself is considered one of the greatest games of all time. Actually, that probably is why it’s an amazing achievement. But Tears of the Kingdom has one major problem.

]]> Sun, 28 May 2023 16:30:14 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/the-legend-of-zelda-addison-sign-holder-screw-himself/ Technology is supposed to improve with each new generation, though purists will often hold onto what came before. In music, we have moved from vinyl to tape to CD to MP3 to streaming, and while some cling to the magic crackle of vinyl, few today will tell you that CDs are the best way to listen to music. Film too has its different film stock and cameras, right up to our modern day 4K IMAX 3D.

]]> Sun, 28 May 2023 16:00:17 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/file-size-too-big-mortal-kombat-1-100gb/ If seven-year-old me could have played The Lord of the Rings: Gollum back in 2001 the fear I felt of its title character might have dissipated. When I was a kid, there was nothing I was more afraid of than Gollum. Later on in adolescence, I would develop more rational fears, like ‘heights’ and ‘the meaninglessness of life,' but from the first moment I saw the lantern-eyed leech in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies, I was fascinated and terrified in equal measure.

]]> Sun, 28 May 2023 15:31:17 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/the-lord-of-the-rings-gollum-game-childhood-fear/ One of the main takeaways from Assassin’s Creed Mirage’s gameplay debut during this week’s PlayStation Showcase was how much it looked like the original from 2007. We’re praising this game as a bold return to form, instead of a smaller title in a sea of leviathans that harkens back to the past out of desperation. All before the series moves on with its vision of bloated, live-service worlds wrought with content that doesn’t mean anything in Assassin’s Creed Infinity. Mirage is a side project, and is playing us like a damn fiddle.

]]> Sun, 28 May 2023 15:01:16 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/assassins-creed-mirage-classic-gameplay-history-past-ubisoft/ The best thing about Red Dead Redemption 2 was how ridiculously slow-paced it was. With its massive map, byzantine fast travel system, and epic runtime, it took forever to finish, and every little thing I did while playing it also took forever. With Take-Two Interactive's projected earnings for next year pointing to a Grand Theft Auto 6-sized release, my only hope is that Rockstar's follow-up to RDR2 is even slower.

]]> Sun, 28 May 2023 14:30:15 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/grand-theft-auto-gta-6-routine-rdr2-totk/ As much as I hate the tremendously toxic waste of time that is the Console War, I don’t mind a bit of friendly rivalry between the Big Two. After this week’s PlayStation Showcase, Microsoft took a playful shot at Sony on Twitter. Xbox shared an image of all 12 games shown during the PlayStation Showcase that are also coming to Xbox, with the caption “What a good looking group” and a cool guy sunglasses emoji that I can’t recreate, but you know the one I’m talking about. In a cheeky way, Xbox is pointing out how few exclusives Sony was able to show during its own showcase, while also flipping the current narrative that Xbox doesn’t have any games.

]]> Sat, 27 May 2023 20:34:18 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/playstation-showcase-xbox-cross-platform-marathon-snake-eater-immortals-alan-wake/ If you’re a Metal Gear Solid fan, it’s probably best to remain skeptical about the recently announced Snake Eater remake, at least until we see the game in action. The trailer didn’t do much to capture the vibe of the original (especially compared to the tonal masterpiece that is the original Snake Eater trailer), and if the rumors are true, the studio developing it, Virtuous, is relatively unproven.

]]> Sat, 27 May 2023 19:39:44 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/snake-eater-remake-metal-gear-solid-delta-kojima-confusing/ We all have games that we love, but we know aren't all that great. Those solid, dependable 7/10 games that we love despite their flaws, maybe even because of them. My favourite Saints Row is 4, sue me. X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Fable 3, Tomb Raider: Underworld, Mad Max, Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex... none of them are classics, but they are beloved by me and, quite possibly, me alone. I understand that these misfits aren't for everyone, and I can see where they're janky, shallow, derivative, and even bland. I'm perfectly fine with liking something that I know isn't all that great. But many Days Gone fans seem incapable of this understanding, and as talk of a sequel yet again rears its head, it's time to dig into why.

]]> Sat, 27 May 2023 17:30:16 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/days-gone-2-sequel-not-coming/ Over the years, triple-A development cycles have gotten painfully long. Rockstar launched three generation-defining Grand Theft Auto games in three years on the PlayStation 2, but if GTA 6 arrives in 2024, it will have been 11 years since the series' last game. Similarly, Naughty Dog's Jak & Daxter trilogy all hit the PS2 over the span of three years, while The Last of Us Part 2 was seven years in the making. Of the developers that were around at that time and still operating today, Insomniac is one of the few that can still pump games out at a steady rate.

]]> Sat, 27 May 2023 17:00:16 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/insomniac-triple-a-spider-man-ratchet-clank-rift-apart/ Tears of the Kingdom has a thousand systems that all interact with each other in myriad different ways. I dread to think what is going on under the hood in order to make it all happen, what horrors we’d see if allowed a peek behind the curtain. Recall alone is magic in action, but giving Ultrahanded contraptions accurate physics no matter what creations players make is nothing short of spectacular. When players are building phallic mechs and functioning engines, you see the power behind this Zelda game.

]]> Sat, 27 May 2023 16:31:16 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/tears-of-the-kingdom-underground-fight-club-brutal-trial-of-strength/ Spider-Man 2's gameplay reveal has taken the world by storm since it closed the PlayStation Showcase earlier this week, but nothing in life is perfect. If you were looking to find fault with the trailer, you will have found plenty. Kraven, despite a cool design that sticks to his comic origins, has an inescapably silly motivation. The decision to give Peter the symbiote suit, possibly at the cost of a true Venom character, could be seen as controversial or played out. The suits have new looks, which seem a little overdesigned. Peter's symbiote voice feels forced, although that may be the point. Some of Miles 'non-lethal' takedowns seem like false advertising. Those excited for the game will point out that these are minor criticisms, and they're right - but at least they're real criticisms. Complaints about the water are not, and they're extremely tiresome.

]]> Sat, 27 May 2023 15:31:16 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/spider-man-2-water-puddlegate-miles-morales/ Final Fantasy 16 is drawing closer, and as part of the final round of previews and interviews we’ve seen producer Naoki Yoshida whip out some takes. Known as the saviour of once maligned MMORPG Final Fantasy 14, Yoshida taking the wheel on a single player entry was viewed with ample excitement from fans, representing both a return to the series’ roots and a much-needed departure after a decade of mixed results by Square Enix.

]]> Sat, 27 May 2023 15:00:15 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/final-fantasy-getting-rid-of-numbers-naoki-yoshida/ At the end of 2022, I started a replay of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, my first full replay since devouring the game on Wii U back in 2017. This run was fairly thorough. I did all the Divine Beasts again, sought out some secrets, like the King of the Mountain, that I hadn’t seen in my first playthrough, and generally played the hell out of it. Now, Tears of the Kingdom is here and I’m wishing I hadn’t.

]]> Sat, 27 May 2023 14:00:17 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/tloz-breath-of-the-wild-totk-2023-too-recent-replay/ Videos of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom have been going viral every day over on Twitter, and the things that impress me as a player are never the same things that impress actual game developers.

]]> Fri, 26 May 2023 18:00:16 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom-game-dev-players-dont-understand/ The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, out this week, is the third console game in the past nine years to be primarily set in Mordor. Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor and its sequel, Shadow of War, also set their action on Sauron’s doorstep. I haven’t played enough of Gollum to determine how well it uses the setting, but it’s a shame that so many Lord of the Rings games are dead set on using Tolkien’s grimmest region as their primary environment.

]]> Fri, 26 May 2023 17:00:16 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/lord-of-the-rings-games-mordor-gollum-middle-earth-shadow-war/ Nintendo invites you to play The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom however you like. It doesn’t present any right or wrong answers for puzzles or combat encounters. The design philosophy is built around providing you with a few tools and limitless possibilities for how to use them. Gameplay is weakest when it takes this freedom away and forces you down a binary path of progression, like temple puzzles or shrines that tear away rampant experimentation in favour of traditional design the series will benefit from leaving behind. In a way, it invites you to break the game.

]]> Fri, 26 May 2023 15:22:13 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/tears-of-the-kingdom-patching-out-duplication-glitches-is-a-massive-bummer/ Our expectations are too high. I can’t blame the gamers for having them, especially with a company like PlayStation spending the previous console generation defining itself as an industry leader with untouchable exclusives like The Last of Us Part 2, Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon Zero Dawn, and God of War. The majority of its exclusives are blockbuster slam dunks, and after years of them it’s natural to expect more at a similar cadence. But realistically, it will never happen again.

]]> Fri, 26 May 2023 15:00:16 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/playstation-showcase-ps5-exclusives-indies-third-party-expectations/ It’s always the characters who draw me in. Whether it’s a video game, movie, book, or TV show, the characters come first. Plot, action, themes, visuals, all come second to who the story is about. Not what, not when, not why. Who. Most of my favourite games are driven by character work. Mass Effect 2 is all about delving into individual arcs. Red Dead Redemption 2 is the best character study I’ve seen committed to polygons. Life is Strange is full of characters I can’t help but connect to. But nothing made me feel for characters more than The Walking Dead.

]]> Fri, 26 May 2023 14:00:15 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/the-walking-dead-best-cast-characters-lee-clementine/ Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 looks pretty cool. Insomniac Games finally broke cover during this week’s PlayStation Showcase to unveil an extensive gameplay presentation alongside a menacing introduction to Kraven the Hunter. As far as sequels go, it seems to incorporate everything we loved about the first game and Miles Morales into a more ambitiously grand superhero adventure filled with action, drama, and all of our favourite characters. Our hero also dons the Venom symbiote suit now, which means he is super-duper tough and grumpy.

]]> Thu, 25 May 2023 19:00:16 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/spider-man-2-symbiote-suit-puddlegate-all-venom-insomniac/ Spider-Man 2 got an extended look at the PlayStation Showcase last night and it looks like what we, in the biz, call a ‘true sequel’. There’s been a lot of talk recently about what exactly a game needs to do to earn the 2 in the title, culminating in some players claiming that Tears of the Kingdom didn’t look like a real sequel in the run-up to its release because it reused assets from Breath of the Wild.

]]> Thu, 25 May 2023 18:00:17 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/spider-man-2-true-sequel-totk-miles-morales/ There were a lot of reveals in Spider-Man 2's PlayStation Showcase trailer. Most notably, we saw Peter Parker don the symbiote suit, which brings with it new powers, but also new challenges. Presumably new responsibilities are in there somewhere too. Peter has all new attacks with this suit, but also seems to be affected emotionally, which would make sense given its parasitic nature. It has been confirmed that Venom will be in the game, voiced by Tony Todd, but it could yet be that Venom is Peter, rather than taking over Eddie Brock. We also saw Lizard, gameplay in the water, new web abilities, the confirmation of the likes of Black Cat returning, and our first look at Kraven the Hunter. But the most important reveal was for Wraith.

]]> Thu, 25 May 2023 16:31:16 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/spider-man-2-wraith-biggest-reveal/ Players aren’t happy with today’s PlayStation Showcase, and while some degree of bitching is always to be expected, I am astounded at what gamers have to say. There are some valid criticisms of the stream – there weren’t enough first-party games, barely any PlayStation exclusives, and too few gameplay trailers. There were some noted absences too, like Factions 2. But many comments have said that this year’s showcase was particularly bad because there were too many games that nobody cared about, like indies and new IPs. Complaining about the games not being established or big enough is mind-boggling to me.

]]> Thu, 25 May 2023 16:15:16 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/weird-playstation-showcase-2023-indie-games/ Yet another big studio has announced it’ll be using artificial intelligence on its games in the future, despite the potential impact on the quality of its products and the real-world impacts the technology has on its employees. It was recently revealed that Blizzard will soon have an AI art-generating tool called Blizzard Diffusion, which is trained on Blizzard’s art to replicate Blizzard’s specific style. This comes in the wake of yet another round of game industry layoffs, which have affected studios both big and small.

]]> Thu, 25 May 2023 15:30:14 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/blizzard-diffusion-ai-art-tool-death-knell-creativity/ Okay, I take it back. I’ve long said that Assassin’s Creed is over, dead, and buried, and that it has departed so far from the essence of the original games that the series is barely about Assassins anymore. Mirage, however, has proved that Ubisoft is prepared to return to its roots, finally giving us a game where an Assassin acts like an Assassin. But I was immediately struck by a thought while watching the Mirage gameplay trailer streamed during the PlayStation Showcase – isn’t this just the original Assassin’s Creed?

]]> Thu, 25 May 2023 15:00:17 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/assassins-creed-mirage-2007-similarities-ubisoft/ PlayStation’s Showcase is getting mixed responses, and that alone is unheard of for a company so used to taking the world by storm and blowing its competition out of the water. As ever, your mileage may vary. Dragon’s Dogma 2, Assassin’s Creed Mirage, and Metal Gear Solid Delta/Triangle/Whatever were all warmly received, and we also saw a lot of Spider-Man 2. There was a decent amount of gameplay footage, but that meant little when we had a lack of games to begin with. PlayStation, what gives?

]]> Thu, 25 May 2023 14:30:15 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/does-playstation-have-any-games-showcase-disappointment-upcoming/ In news that shouldn’t surprise anyone at this point, the launch of Destiny 2’s Season of the Deep wasn’t the smoothest. The scheduled maintenance window, which was meant to end at 10am on Tuesday, was extended by an hour. Then it was extended another hour, then it was extended again until it finally launched sometime around 12:30pm. Once players could get into the game, many found themselves disconnecting from servers and getting kicked back into orbit. As if on cue, complaints started to fill up the replies of the Bungie Help Twitter account.

]]> Thu, 25 May 2023 02:07:16 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/i-cant-hear-the-destiny-players-complaining-because-im-too-busy-fishing/ Last year’s Witch Queen expansion ended with Season of the Seraph, which is probably my favorite season of Destiny ever. Everything about it was exceptional. Season of the Seraph had an exciting and unpredictable story that had us working with sworn enemies to rebuild an AI that can destroy worlds, only to have the rug pulled out from under us in the 11th hour - and I was absorbed by every second of it.

]]> Thu, 25 May 2023 00:59:16 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/destiny-season-of-the-deep-expecting-too-much/ We are living in an historic era for video games. When you ask someone what the best year for games was, they’ll often point to 2004, which gave us Halo 2, Half-Life 2, Metal Gear Solid 3, World of Warcraft, and GTA: San Andreas, among others; or 2017, which gave us Fortnite, Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, Resident Evil 7, and many more. But when we look back at 2023 years from now, it will be hard to deny that this wasn’t one of, if not the greatest years for video games ever - and it’s not even halfway over yet.

]]> Wed, 24 May 2023 23:39:50 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/game-awards-2023-nominees-spider-man-street-fighter-diablo-tears-of-the-kingdom/ In The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, I sprinted to upgrade my stamina as soon as I possibly could. Hyrule was big, and riding a horse sucked. At any given time you might run into a mountain that needed scaling, and the options at your disposal were limited. If you wanted to see all the game had to offer, you needed to get some green.

]]> Wed, 24 May 2023 19:01:16 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/stamina-less-important-botw-zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom/ Spoiler warning for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

]]> Wed, 24 May 2023 16:00:17 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/tears-of-the-kingdom-zelda-memories-playable-geoglyphs/ There's a shrine in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom that had me solidly stumped for about 30 minutes. It presented two rails moving up toward the finish line, and provided planks and fans to build a car to travel up it. The problem was that about halfway up, the two rails ended and were replaced by one central rail between them. To make it the rest of the way, I had to figure out how to get my rail car onto the central rail without falling off and having to start again. Eventually, I found a solution, but that process of tinkering towards it is where Tears of the Kingdom is at its most electric.

]]> Tue, 23 May 2023 19:00:17 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/zelda-totk-shrines-open-world-design-levels/ Yesterday was a head spinner for Spider-Man fans. After being starved of information on the game for months and anticipation ratcheting up ahead of what is likely to be a bulky deep dive into its features in this week’s PlayStation Showcase, the game finally sprung a leak - Miles Morales actor Nadji Jeter ‘confirmed’ the game had co-op. It was an exciting time. A few hours later, Insomniac slapped some tape over it like a salesman on the shopping channels, and the leak was unsprung. Despite the initial excitement at hearing something - anything - from the game, in the cold light of day the truth is clear. It’s great news that Spider-Man 2 has no co-op.

]]> Tue, 23 May 2023 17:00:16 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/good-thing-spider-man-2-no-co-op/ I was first introduced to the Final Fantasy series at a friend’s house when I was just a kid. The only thing that really stuck with me was, ‘teehee, you put the guy in a dress’, and I didn’t think much of it until I played my cousin’s copy of Final Fantasy 8 sometime later and fell utterly in love with it. To be fair to FF7, my friend didn’t exactly showcase its selling points in the brief time he kept showing me Cloud in a dress.

]]> Tue, 23 May 2023 16:15:17 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/final-fantasy-16-xiv-understands-the-importance-of-fan-service/ Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was a good game, but it wasn’t great. I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as I enjoyed its successor, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, which improved on the game’s existing formula while keeping the spirit of what people loved about it. On top of letting you keep all the skills you’d unlocked in Fallen Order, it gave you more traversal abilities, added a variety of different stances to spice up gameplay, and provided quality of life improvements like fast travel. It’s more fun overall, and expanded on a story and character that finally absorbed me after the first game failed to capture my attention.

]]> Tue, 23 May 2023 16:00:16 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/spider-man-2-star-wars-jedi-survivor/ In The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, finding Koroks was rarely all that hard. You’d lift up a rock, and one was there, waiting. You’d push a stone into a gap in a circle, and wow, a Korok. Sometimes they’d give you a little task, like following a white flower as it teleported from place to place, or shooting a balloon with an arrow. Of these tiny tasks, my favorite were the little block puzzles you needed to use Link’s Magnesis power to solve.

]]> Mon, 22 May 2023 17:30:17 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/tears-of-the-kingdom-reference-botw-korok-magnesis-puzzle/ One of my favorite birthday parties as a kid was an evening of revelry I dubbed “NintendoFest.” It wasn't much of a festival: three of my friends came over and we played games all night. Some multiplayer, but mostly we worked our way through the first few dungeons of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, passing the controller back and forth until the sun rose in the morning.

]]> Mon, 22 May 2023 17:00:16 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/too-tired-to-stay-up-playing-tloz-tears-of-the-kingdom/ I’m not doing the weapon degradation discourse again. I simply refuse. I do find it funny, however, that Nintendo decided to make 99 percent of weapons in Tears of the Kingdom physically degraded from the moment you pick them up (the only weapons that aren’t are weapons found in The Depths and makeshift weapons like Sticks and, um, Long Sticks). If this isn’t a message to Zelda players saying, “Suck it up, this is the direction we’re going in,” then I don’t know what is.

]]> Mon, 22 May 2023 16:30:16 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/hylian-pine-cones-secretly-tears-of-the-kingdom-best-weapon/ When I was a kid, I would often play half a game, whether that was experiencing the wonders of Bionicle through an unintentional roguelite perspective thanks to serial renting, or just passing the pad between my friends as we each tried to beat levels of whatever PlayStation platformer they had bought last. I often experienced the same levels over and over, and missed others entirely. I couldn’t always play an entire game myself, so watching someone else play was the next best thing.

]]> Mon, 22 May 2023 16:15:17 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/voiceless-youtube-lets-plays-are-sometimes-the-best-way-to-play-games/ Whether you love, hate, or are fairly indifferent to Zelda, you’ll no doubt have seen hundreds of clips circling on social media since the game launched. Tears of the Kingdom is a game where you really can do anything, and the variety of clips highlights that. Whether players are coming up with bizarre ways to punish Koroks, constructing creative solutions to all of their problems, or just thirsting over the characters, whatever you want TOTK to be, it is. And I’m not complaining - if anything, we need more Purah positing. But I don’t think I’ve seen a single clip of combat, and that tells you everything you need to know.

]]> Mon, 22 May 2023 15:30:16 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/tears-of-the-kingdom-zelda-totk-better-without-combat/ I liked Star Wars Jedi: Survivor a lot. I’ve written about how it improved on Fallen Order in all the right ways, especially in its character development, and the major plot twist left my jaw on the floor. But there was one particular part of the game that felt vastly different by design, and I didn’t like it at all. Spoilers ahead, obviously.

]]> Mon, 22 May 2023 15:00:17 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/playing-cere-junda-star-wars-jedi-survivor-pacing/ The big joy of the Nintendo Switch comes from its portability. While I do play some games docked, on the TV like I would with the PlayStation or the Xbox, most of the time I play it handheld. I don't necessarily need to go anywhere with it. I might play it in bed before I go to sleep, at my kitchen table on my lunch break, or even just sitting on my sofa while my wife watches TV or while the football is on. The Champions League has been very dull this year, so something needs to distract me. It's supposed to be convenient, but that's making it feel like a fringe console I just can't find the time for.

]]> Mon, 22 May 2023 14:31:16 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/nintendo-switch-games-too-easy-ignore-dredge-zelda-space-unbound/ Summons have long been a staple of the Final Fantasy series, but in Final Fantasy 16, they become a stronger focal point than ever before. I spoke with producer Naoki Yoshida, art director Hiroshi Minagawa, and localisation lead Michael Christopher Koji Fox about it, and Yoshida-san explained that the idea came to him at the 2014 Tokyo Game Show, long before he had even been told he would be working on FF16.

]]> Mon, 22 May 2023 13:30:15 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/final-fantasy-16-xiv-interview-naoki-yoshida-michael-christopher-koji-fox-hiroshi-minagawa/ Final Fantasy openings have long held a special place in my heart. I always feel a mixture of excitement for what’s to come alongside waves of nostalgia as I recall all the times I’ve gone through this saccharine ritual over the years. You normally go into mainline FF games with high expectations, opening hours setting the bar for tone, narrative, character, and the memories we’re bound to make along the way. There’s a reason they stuck with us.

]]> Mon, 22 May 2023 13:00:17 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/final-fantasy-16-xvi-preview/ Part of what makes Tears of the Kingdom such an incredible and groundbreaking game is the way that it defies all genre labels. It’s open-world, but that’s more of a structure than a genre, and it doesn’t really tell you anything about what the game is. Tears of the Kingdom, Forza Horizon 5, and Cyberpunk 2077 are all open-world games, and they have almost nothing in common. It’s also an immersive sim, but that’s like describing a movie as film noir; ImSim speaks to Tears of the Kingdom’s design ethos, but it doesn’t define what type of game it is. TotK is part RPG, part survival/crafting, part action-adventure, and part sandbox game, but what interests me the most about it is the way it intersects disparate genres to create new ones. You could come up with any number of hybrid genres that TOTK represents, but the one that excites me the most is something I’m calling the survival platformer.

]]> Sun, 21 May 2023 18:53:46 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/tears-of-the-kingdom-has-invented-a-new-genre-called-survival-platformer/ The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is an immersive sim. Strange as it is to see Link and Ganondorf lumped in with the likes of Corvo Attano and Andrew Ryan, the new Zelda shares design principles with all things 0451. Tears of the Kingdom rewards player experimentation and lateral thinking. It encourages multiple playstyles; if there’s a problem to solve in Tears of the Kingdom, there are roughly one million ways to proceed. Breath of the Wild already incorporated this design, but TotK doubles down on the kind of creativity that makes games like Dishonored and Prey sing.

]]> Sun, 21 May 2023 18:00:17 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/tears-of-the-kingdom-weird-games-redfall/ The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has revealed us for the monsters we truly are. We were never especially fond of Breath of the Wild’s Koroks, but the worst things we could do to them was drop rocks on their heads after finding one or leave a pile of metallic items at their feet before retreating to a safe distance as they were struck by lightning. You know, good innocent fun.

]]> Sun, 21 May 2023 18:00:17 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/tears-of-the-kingdoms-korok-minions-zelda/ There's maybe no family in The Sims with a history as varied as the Calientes. In some games, Nina and Dina live together and compete for the attention of the womanizing Don Lothario. Sometimes, they're the result of an alien abduction. Others, they're somehow connected to the disappearance of Bella Goth and are persistent in chasing her husband once she's gone.

]]> Sun, 21 May 2023 16:45:16 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/the-sims-complete-history-caliente-family/ I’m not so good with money. There’s a world in which I’ve saved my paychecks and felt safe with my future, but it ain’t this world. If you sold a literal piece of shit and put a Nintendo logo on it, there’s a 50-50 chance I’d buy it. I’m a mark. I’m a sucker. And that’s why I own so many fucking useless Amiibos.

]]> Sun, 21 May 2023 16:43:38 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/legend-of-zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom-useless-amiibos/ This article contains spoilers for Eventide Island in both Tears of the Kingdom and Breath of the Wild.

]]> Sun, 21 May 2023 15:30:15 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/breath-of-the-wild-eventide-island-tears-of-the-kingdom/ Dragon Age has a fairly unique structure. All of its games are fantasy epics involving dragons, but for the most part, they occupy different genres. Origins is a slower, more in-depth tactical RPG with sprawling questlines that veer off in new directions with every decision made, and require careful party management as you dutifully read every piece of lore. Dragon Age 2 is a faster-paced all action affair, with combat that verges on hack 'n' slash alongside a more linear narrative that allows for greater and more controlled character development. Inquisition mixes the scope and RPG sensibilities of Origins with the pacing of 2, making for what we might deem an action RPG. As for Dreadwolf, we don't know what direction it will head in yet, but it should pay close attention to Dragon Age Origins.

]]> Sun, 21 May 2023 15:00:17 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/dragon-age-dreadwolf-more-like-origins-inspiration/ Sony has announced its annual PlayStation Showcase and I feel nothing. That’s partially my declining mental health talking, but it’s also quite sad that a platform that used to ignite such feelings of excitement within me can now barely manage a dejected hurrah. Since the PS5 launched almost three years ago, true exclusives remain in the single digits and what we can expect in the coming months are all sequels, remasters, and live service expansions of universes we’re already familiar with. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is going to be great, there’s little denying that, but deep down I know it’s an open world superhero game with all the bells and whistles that come with it. I’ll enjoy it, but to say I’m excited would be a lie.

]]> Sun, 21 May 2023 14:31:17 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/ps5-exclusives-playstation-showcase-spider-man-2-horizon-ghost-of-tsushima-2/ Tears of the Kingdom, like Breath of the Wild before it, is jam-packed with Easter Eggs and references to both Nintendo and Zelda history. Many of them are obvious, like the bottles of Lon Lon Milk in Hateno Village or when Link hums Saria’s song as he cooks, but others are more obscure. For instance, the Ultrahand ability is a reference to an old Nintendo toy from the ‘60s. But Tears of the Kingdom’s best reference isn’t to a Zelda or even a Nintendo game. On the way to the Wind Temple you’ll find a shrine dedicated to a famous scene from Resident Evil.

]]> Sun, 21 May 2023 01:43:11 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom-sahirow-shrine-lasers/ This article contains spoilers for the Lightning Temple in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

]]> Sat, 20 May 2023 17:30:19 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/lightning-temple-zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom-easier/ As a kid, my parents sent me to weekend classes to learn Punjabi, the language my father’s family speaks. I didn’t speak a word of it, but all the teachers and students were conversing in it, having spoken it at home from birth. I would sit in class, trying to absorb what I could, but barely understood anything. Right now, if you asked me to speak Punjabi, I could say ‘I love you’ and also ‘elephant’, but that’s it.

]]> Sat, 20 May 2023 16:30:16 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/honkai-star-rail-story-lost-me-plot-gacha-lore/ The Final Fantasy 14 community is banding together once again — quite literally — to raise money for a special cause. This weekend, the Bards For Brains event will host multiple bard bands over three stages on the Marilith server to raise awareness and funds for several charities.

]]> Sat, 20 May 2023 16:00:17 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/final-fantasy-14-xiv-community-spotlight-bards-for-brains-charity-event/ Here’s a list of top 100 things I hate about Tears of the Kingdom. Number 100 is those puddles of gloom hands that appear out of nowhere and grab at me when I’m just trying to mind my own business. Seriously, get your dirty little fingers off of me. Number 99 is the fact that I have to sleep and eat and work instead of just playing Tears of the Kingdom all of the time. And then numbers 98 all the way through number one is every time I’m forced to scroll through a menu trying to find a specific thing. Whether I’m in the pause menu or the quick access menus, trying to find something I’m looking for is guaranteed to be a bad time.

]]> Fri, 19 May 2023 23:19:17 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/zeldas-messy-menus-are-an-affront-to-immersion/ During Tears of the Kingdom’s tutorial on the Great Sky Island, you meet a Forge Construct and learn about the foundry, where you can trade Zonaite for Zonai Charges and Crystallized Charges. At the time, I didn’t really understand what any of that stuff was. I decided I’d figure it out later, and got back to my adventure. I spent the next ten hours seeing the sights across Hyrule, and completely forgot about the foundry. I was only reminded of it when I started seeing the amazing machines everyone was building with Ultrahand, and I realized I need more battery charges if I’m ever going to construct my own flamethrowing bomb-dropping flying machine with laser guided missiles. I didn’t realize it back then, but meeting that Forge Construct on the Great Sky Island was the beginning of one of the most demanding resource grinds I’ve ever seen.

]]> Fri, 19 May 2023 22:24:05 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/is-anyone-else-getting-burned-out-by-zeldas-zonaite-grind/ A YouTuber named GrandTheftDiamonds posted a video digging into Hogwarts Legacy’s files, and it’s a doozy. Among unused voice lines, NPC-to-NPC relationships and more, one particular thing has been highlighted over and over are the reputation morality systems present that weren’t implemented in the final version of the game. Bad behaviour would have resulted in House Points deductions and possibly a change in the way NPCs saw you.

]]> Fri, 19 May 2023 18:01:22 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/hogwarts-legacy-unused-morality-system-house-points-funny-cry-laughing/ Nimona continues to give me emotional whiplash. As a fan of ND Stevenson’s original webcomic and his other works like She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, to hear such a beloved story of queer rebellion was set to receive a feature animated adaptation filled me with excitement. A feeling that immediately morphed into disappointment as Disney acquired Fox and shut down Blue Sky Studios, merely to thin out any potential costs or weird competition.

]]> Fri, 19 May 2023 17:00:20 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/nimona-release-date-nd-stevenson-netflix-annapurna/ Let’s deal with the elephant in the room. Not everybody agrees that Grand Theft Auto is misogynistic. It’s a curious case of seeing misogyny in the game, knowing it’s misogyny, but saying it doesn’t count, because the entire game is satire, and satire isn’t offensive. I get it, I know what satire is, and I also know Grand Theft Auto is interested in representing people’s darkest natures.

]]> Fri, 19 May 2023 16:00:18 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/grand-theft-auto-6-woke-misogyny-sexism/ Everyone will play Tears of the Kingdom a little differently. Some will rush through the story and explore later on, others will travel widely across Hyrule before getting down to business. Die hard Zelda fans will want to drink in every pixel, finding old friends and Easter Eggs, racking up hours into the triple figures. Newer players, or those who don't quite feel the series’ magic, will tread more cautiously, trying to find whatever it is about this game that speaks to so many others. And if you're a game dev, you might play it with sweat forming on your brow, knees trembling, and notice the seat of your pants suddenly feels much heavier. Much like Breath of the Wild before it, Tears of the Kingdom offers a transformative look at the future of game design, and many studios will follow in its footsteps. I only hope they don't get lost down the wrong path.

]]> Fri, 19 May 2023 15:00:16 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/wrong-lessons-game-development-zelda-tears-kingdom/ Whenever people talk about wanting a Pokemon game like Breath of the Wild, they mean a very specific thing. A large open world with freedom to go anywhere, more traversal options, roving Pokemon who impact the environment in meaningful ways, and a story that lets you carve your own path. For some, Scarlet & Violet’s openness was the first step towards that, despite the issues with the game at a launch and many still present today. That’s not really what I mean though, and it took me until Tears of the Kingdom to realise that.

]]> Fri, 19 May 2023 14:30:15 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/pokemon-still-waiting-breath-wild-moment-zelda-new-formula/ The PlayStation Showcase is right around the corner, and it’s made some odd thoughts leap forward. For the last ten years, PlayStation has been the dominant force in gaming. Clueless parents who once called all games consoles ’Nintendos’ now call them all ‘PlayStations’. It has launched killer app after killer app, be they sequel, reboot, bought and paid for existing IP, or completely new projects. Xbox meanwhile has fumbled - Redfall is the latest in a long line of awkward failures. But as the Showcase nears, it feels like the reality of ballooning budgets and longer development cycles are taking a toll on PlayStation’s lustre.

]]> Thu, 18 May 2023 19:00:16 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/playstation-exclusive-ps5-showcase-reveals/ Tears of the Kingdom is out, and it’s incredible. I played it all weekend, and can’t stop thinking about it when I’m supposed to be working (which actually is not that big a problem in this line of work). There are so many quests I want to do, chasms and floating islands I want to explore, vehicles I want to build, shrines I want to solve, and temples I need to visit that I'm having a hard time imagining ever being done. It’s a great game, and while it isn’t quite giving me the same feeling of discovery I got from Breath of the Wild — that seems basically impossible for a direct sequel — it’s not for lack of quality. In every way I can think of, it’s an improvement on its predecessor.

]]> Thu, 18 May 2023 18:00:14 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/after-zelda-totk-what-makes-breath-of-the-wild-special/ Star Fox Adventures didn’t even begin life as a Star Fox game. Shigeru Miyamoto rocked up to Rare’s offices and saw it was working hard on a Nintendo 64 game called Dinosaur Planet. It had an alien world to explore, Zelda-esque puzzles, and an emphasis on fantastical combat that Star Fox had never flirted with before. Because, as I said, it was never intended as one.

]]> Thu, 18 May 2023 17:31:16 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/star-fox-adventures-remaster-nintendo-switch-gamecube-rare/ I was at BlizzCon 2019 when the ambitious vision for Overwatch 2 was first announced. This reveal was sudden, and focused around a promised co-op campaign and PvE elements that seemed like a huge departure from the tight multiplayer action the hero shooter traded on for all of its lifespan. Lead developers Aaron Keller and Jeff Kaplan excitedly shared their hopes for the upcoming sequel, and how it would remain loyal to what Overwatch was while lifting it to ambitious new heights. The reality was far more sour, and four years later it has all begun to fall apart.

]]> Thu, 18 May 2023 17:00:17 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/overwatch-2-single-player-cancelled-blizzard-sequel/ Presently, we are obsessed with time. Each era has its own obsession, whether that be war, technology, politics, celebrity status, or anything else. The '90s were all about counter-culture. The '70s were all about political intrigue. The new millennium was all about endless opportunity. Right now, we are all about time.

]]> Thu, 18 May 2023 16:08:22 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/mortal-kombat-1-time-multiverse-saga/ Star Wars Jedi: Survivor likes to make you feel powerful, but it never trusts you to get there by yourself. I’ve been far less enamoured with the game’s action sequences than many, and part of that is because I never felt in control. You can run along walls and ride zip lines and backflip down into combat, but you push so few buttons and feel detached from Cal as you do it, it barely matters. Combat is better - that’s all you, baby. But in the two most climactic battles, when you should feel at your most mighty, even this is ripped away from you.

]]> Thu, 18 May 2023 14:30:15 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/star-wars-jedi-survivor-boss-battle-cutscenes/ Ubisoft is going all-in on Assassin’s Creed, and that sucks. We’ve known for a while that there are already four AC games in development, but we recently also learned that there are four more in the prototyping stage. Ubisoft has 2,000 people working on Assassin’s Creed games, and they’re intending to increase that number by 40 percent to “"fuel its ambitious expansion”, by pulling developers from other projects, despite a loss of existing developers due to office closures, layoffs, “tight controls on recruitment”, and, allegedly, a toxic work environment.

]]> Thu, 18 May 2023 14:00:16 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/assassins-creed-ubisoft-big-changes-microtransactions-writing/ Tears of the Kingdom has an incredible starting zone that effortlessly walks you through each of the game’s major new mechanics and abilities. It’s a mostly guided experience from one shrine to the next, with optional detours for extra challenges, but everyone will take the same path through this intro until they unlock the four new powers and take the dive off of Great Sky Island to land in Hyrule proper. As you emerge from the lake and swim to shore, the world around you spreads out endlessly in every direction. It is here where your journey begins, and it’s up to you to decide where you want to go - or at least, that’s what I thought.

]]> Wed, 17 May 2023 22:56:15 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/tears-of-the-kingdom-feels-a-lot-more-gated-than-botw-ever-did/ There’s a BioWare bundle on Steam right now that’s way too good to pass up. As part of the EA Publisher Sale, you can pick up the BioWare Mega Collection, which includes every Dragon Age and Mass Effect game for 90 percent off their normal price. That’s Dragon Age: Origins - Ultimate Edition, Dragon Age 2: Ultimate Edition, Dragon Age Inquisition, Mass Effect Legendary Edition, and Mass Effect Andromeda Deluxe Edition for just $19.73. That’s $190 worth of BioWare classics (and Mass Effect Andromeda) for the price of a decent lunch. These six games (and Mass Effect Andromeda) are considered to be among the best RPGs ever made, and if you don’t have any of them you would be a fool not to pick this bundle up.

]]> Wed, 17 May 2023 22:40:35 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/the-outrageously-cheap-bioware-mega-collection-has-the-strangest-restriction/ In most Zelda games, solving a puzzle is only useful because it solves the puzzle. You figured out how to Z-target a weird tentacle in Jabu-Jabu’s belly? Great, you can keep moving through the dungeon. You figured out where to position the mirrors in Wind Waker to direct a beam of light? Cool, carry on. This was even true in Breath of the Wild to an extent. Though you could pick up some new techniques in shrines — like using your metal weapons to conduct electrical current — most of the shrines asked you to use your powers to solve a single, specific problem that wasn't replicable in the world outside.

]]> Wed, 17 May 2023 17:00:16 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom-shrines-teaching-moments/ I am so sick of hearing about NFTs and crypto nonsense in gaming, and yet it keeps persisting. Companies like Square Enix and Ubisoft have continued pushing for blockchain-infused bullshit despite pushback from fans. There is no discernable reason for them to be doing this, and yet they keep going. Most recently, Ubisoft has announced a series of limited edition Assassin’s Creed Smart Collectibles that have “digital souls”. The Twitter account for this Smart Collectibles seems to be collecting many excited replies from crypto accounts, but the hidden replies reveal the swathes of fans vocally upset about Ubisoft’s newest NFT venture.

]]> Wed, 17 May 2023 16:31:15 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/ubisoft-nft-figurines-smart-collectibles-assassins-creed/ I probably won't finish Tears of the Kingdom. This isn't a comment on the game's quality, or even my overall enjoyment with it. I'm not sure I'm far enough in to come to that sort of conclusion about it yet. It's just a prediction - I persisted with Breath of the Wild for 20 hours, enjoying parts, tolerating most, being bored by others, and eventually gave up. I've only just left the Great Sky Islands in Tears of the Kingdom, and so far it's giving me the same sensation - I just feel nothing, and when the game is an 80 hour long playground where you do whatever you want, mostly what I want is to play something else. But skateboards intrigue me.

]]> Wed, 17 May 2023 16:15:16 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/tears-of-the-kingdom-skateboard-zelda-tony-hawk-minecart/ Nintendo’s magical whimsy tends to fade away when you look into its operations and realise how litigious the company is not just to its consumers, but also fellow development studios and creatives. Nobody does it like Nintendo, although how much of that is thanks to patents that ensure nobody is capable of doing so in the first place? Judging by Tears of the Kingdom, perhaps more than previously thought.

]]> Wed, 17 May 2023 15:00:16 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/nintendos-zelda-patents-tears-of-the-kingdom-innovation/ When it comes to a series as enduring as The Legend of Zelda, it's a given that the Zelda timeline of events might get shaken up after nearly 40 years of content. What began as a simple adventure game in 1986 has spun a twisted web of high-fantasy lore that, while exciting to learn and piece together, can be a little complicated to un-jumble.

]]> Wed, 17 May 2023 14:21:15 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/the-legend-of-zelda-timeline-explained-all-zelda-timeline-splits/ There was a distinct moment when the Tears of the Kingdom hype train stopped being fun and exciting and instead became obnoxious and unbearable. For many months I was riding that train with eager anticipation like everyone else, and it was fun dissecting each new trailer for clues and trading theories. I remember the energy in the air when Nintendo finally revealed Link’s new abilities during a livestream last month, and how excited everyone was to create their own mechanical marvels with Ultrahand.

]]> Tue, 16 May 2023 22:00:16 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/im-glad-weve-stopped-pretending-to-care-about-zelda-spoilers/ Recency bias be damned, the Flux Construct is one of the greatest boss fights in video game history. These building block bullies scattered all across, above, and below Hyrule aren’t just thrilling to fight, they’re also perfect representations of Tears of the Kingdom’s expressive gameplay and design philosophy. Tears of the Kingdom’s essence is represented by the Flux Construct in one succinct, exciting boss battle. Let me explain.

]]> Tue, 16 May 2023 21:31:15 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom-flux-construct-best-boss-fight/ Like many, the last game I played before Tears of the Kingdom was Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. It’s been many years since I played the games that preceded both of these sequels, and I had a similar experience starting out in each one as I relearned the controls and adjusted to changes both major and minor. In each case, I had a hard time adjusting to the button layout.

]]> Tue, 16 May 2023 21:14:24 GMT https://www.thegamer.com/tears-of-the-kingdom-button-remapping-controls-interview-aonuma/