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There’s a new Fate Musou, and this time it’s actually from the Musou people. It’s weird that it took this long for Omega Force to work with Type Moon on a Fate project. It’s especially weird since the Fate/Extella series was already based on the Musou style. Ironically, the house that Dynasty Warriors built opted for something much less traditional. Fate/Samurai Remnant is not only an original story in the series that started with Fate/Stay Night, it’s also a more experimental kind of “Warriors” game. It’s more comparable to Persona 5 Strikers than, say, Hyrule Warriors. It’s more comparable to Persona 5 Strikers than, say, Hyrule Warriors. Mostly what that means is you won’t be fighting massive hordes of dudes while galloping across massive maps and clearing objectives. Instead, you’re exploring various towns in Keian Era Japan as you unfold the mystery of the “Waxing Moon Ritual.” Fights are much smaller in scale, although the familiar Dynasty Warriors combat mechanics are still in play. Not unlike a Yakuza game, you’ll be running into smaller scraps against modest groups of enemies, or taking on challenging one-on-one boss fights that will not approve of blind button-mashing. We get it, we like petting animals In-between the fights you’ll buy food from street vendors, carve Buddha statuettes and sharpen your sword at home, pet dozens of dogs and cats (videogames in 2023, baby) and run errands for people who could kill you with their pinky finger. Fate/Samurai Remnant almost feels like a River City game instead of a Musou. Genre-blending aside, there’s no mistaking the story for anything but a new entry in the Fate series. While Nasu isn’t in charge of the scenario this time, there’s no shortage of waifu/husbando iterations of famous heroes and villains of yore. Ever since Fate/Stay Night in the early aughts, Type Moon has made a name for itself across several different mediums thanks to accomplished writer/creator Kinoko Nasu and an escalating rolodex of weirdly sexy versions of historical and literary figureheads. While Nasu isn’t in charge of the scenario this time, there’s no shortage of waifu/husbando iterations of famous heroes and villains of yore. Alan Moore couldn’t lace this guy’s boots. Sexy Robin Hood, sexy Francis Drake, sexy Jeanne D’arc, et al. Most notable this time is arguably Miyamoto Musashi, portrayed in Samurai Remnant as a rowdy, spiky-haired woman of the Berserker class. She’s one of the only Fate Berserkers who can form coherent sentences, and has the personality of a yoked-up himbo who lives for excessive drinking and fist fights. I would die for her. Genre-blending aside, there’s no mistaking the story for anything but a new entry in the Fate series. Besides the over the top characters, the most interesting part of Fate/Samurai Remnant is how it portrays the massive power imbalance between the Master/Servant pairings in contrast with Omega Force’s signature action style. Normally in Fate games you’d expect to raise Hell as the Servants (sexy history heroes) during action, while the Master (human, protagonist) is your story vehicle. Here, you spend most of the time playing as Miyamoto Iori, a regular dude and mediocre ronin samurai. In the typical Holy Grail War, a group of Masters are assigned Servants, who do most of the fighting on their behalf. Sort of like Human-shaped Pokemon. Masters may have certain powers or abilities and contribute, but they aren’t the muscle. Iori is no different, and can barely hold his own against regular enemies. Meanwhile Servants, such as the ever-popular Saber Iori’s paired with, are capable of superhuman feats of strength. But you’re stuck with Iori, which sounds like a huge bummer. Gods among men There’s a certain desperation Fate stories often want to instill in the audience, and that’s achieved here by forcing the player into Iori’s shoes. His damage isn’t great, his spells cost consumable gems, and he gets stuffed out of most moves while causing very little hit stun in return. However, as you scramble to survive you build up Affinity, opening the door to performing special tag team moves with Servants. The biggest problem is how long the story takes to get going, with what feels like several hours of setup There’s also a separate meter that builds alongside Affinity, which gives you temporary control of either Saber or another allied Servant if available. You get to harness the ridiculous power of Servants, but only for small bursts at a time. Outside of special occasions that give you more time with these godlike combatants, that’s all you get. And boy does it work. Usually in Musou/Warriors games everyone is more or less on the same playing field, and combat is more about being a larger than life general figure on the battlefield. Here you’re playing the role of a relative normie caught up way over his head in something beyond comprehension, and these restrictions help sell that vibe. That juxtaposition makes what would be standard play in other Musou titles feel special in an unfamiliar way. That juxtaposition makes what would be standard play in other Musou titles feel special in an unfamiliar way. Do we really need crafting that much? Even if the story isn’t my favorite, Fate/Samurai Remnant still holds court in the greater Fate universe. There’s a lot of detail and depth in this game, far more substantial than the average Musou joint. And I love these kinds of games for the record, so my expectations were fairly high. Some of the new Servant characters are awesome, and the way the game plays with its own series’ tropes to adapt the source material rules. At the end of the day, there’s a lot for Fate sickos to sink their teeth into, and there’s no outside required reading bogging it down. If the word “Saber” makes you think of angular bangs and a cutesy stray hair instead of a Civil War sidearm, this is a game for you. Do you have any thoughts about Lies of P? Tell us in the comments below, or talk about it on X, Bluesky, Threads, Mastodon, Instagram, and HIVE.

A new Story of Seasons spinoff has entered the chat. I feel like we were just talking about Rune Factory not too long ago. Huh! Silent Hope is a brand new game from Marvelous, but it’s vaguely set in the Rune Factory universe. You can tell by looking at the livestock - those cows are unmistakable! That’s about where the similarities end, as the unifying element for Story of Seasons and Rune Factory, farming, is all but gone. Instead, Silent Hope goes all in on the dungeon crawling, trading crops for color-coded loot. Pure, unfiltered dungeon-diving There are some neat ideas here, especially with how streamlined Silent Hope is. This is a game designed to get the player in and out of its dungeons with as little busywork as possible. You pick your character, jump into The Abyss, fight until you leave or get kicked out, sort out your goodies, then jump back in. Everything else on the margins is as simple as can be, intended to facilitate the most important part. This is a game designed to get the player in and out of its dungeons with as little busywork as possible. Silent Hope gets pretty close to hitting a home run in that regard. As the player you’re watching over a group of seven explorers, each with a combat class and a special role back at the base camp. Each role is some type of grindy resource-management, from planting crops and tending livestock to crafting components for blacksmithing. It’s all different-flavored versions of “number go up” menus, but it’s all so quick and simple each stop at camp is just a little dopamine injection. I dig it. The part that doesn’t land is the grinding curve. The chunk of game between the beginning and endgame is not measured well, and progress grinds (ha) to a halt. Good equipment drops slow down, cooking becomes less fruitful and crafting turns into a lot of labor for the sake of exp. By the time things pick up again you’ve already spent several hours spinning your wheels and dealing with HP sponge enemies so long the momentum struggles to turn around. The anime grindset All that said, I found a quiet boost in swapping characters. It isn’t super clear in the game, but when you change to a different fighter in a dungeon, your new hero gets a notable stat buff from the departing homie. The new guy also comes in with a fresh HP pool, extending your run if it was starting to turn down. So there’s a reason to try all seven heroes instead of sticking with the one you like the most. And catching up in levels and gear helps keep the dopamine flowing. While that does help, ultimately Silent Hope is still a slow burn, without a ton of gameplay variance to freshen up the novelty. Unless you’re fully bought into the grind loop, it’s hard to feel driven to see things all the way through. And I can’t imagine wanting to go back in after rolling credits, especially since there’s no multiplayer. It’s all different-flavored versions of “number go up” menus, but it’s all so quick and simple each stop at camp is just a little dopamine injection Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of stuff to like about Silent Hope. The vibes are adorable, and it’s fun to get those orange drops because they’re as goofy as they are powerful. Playing around with the different skills and combos each class has is compelling, and the story happening in the background is more interesting than you’d expect. It’s no Diablo IV, but Marvelous has made a solid effort here in trying something new with the Story of Seasons/Rune Factory/comically rotund livestock brands. A pure dungeon-crawler is not what I would’ve expected from the folks known for farming games, and especially not one so geared towards fast, simple action. A lot of Silent Hope’s problems stem from under the hood tuning, and I can see another swing at this idea landing a much cleaner hit. A lot of Silent Hope’s problems stem from under the hood tuning, and I can see another swing at this idea landing a much cleaner hit. I’m down for another one of these, especially if I get to keep bludgeoning monsters with a greatsword-sized turnip. Silent Hope launches on October 3, 2023 for the Nintendo Switch and PC. A Nintendo Switch code was provided by the publisher for this review. Do you have any thoughts about Silent Hope? Tell us in the comments below, or talk about it on X, Bluesky, Threads, Mastodon, Instagram, and HIVE.

Are you really able to play games anywhere with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate? Xbox Game Pass has revolutionized how you play games for not much money. But, aside from being able to play games on Day One of a game’s launch oftentimes, one big draw is the ability to utilize their Cloud to play games as well. We’ll break down what the Xbox Game Pass Cloud is and how to use it on both PC and mobile phones. What is Xbox Game Pass Cloud? Xbox Game Pass Cloud is another feature of the already expansive Xbox Game Pass. By choosing to pull from the cloud, it doesn’t require a full install of a game to be able to play it. In fact, Game Pass Cloud works very well with anything from your PC to a mobile phone. Yes, you can play Halo Infinite on your phone, and it runs great, as long as you have a good internet connection. Instead of taking potentially dozens to hundreds of GB of storage space, the Cloud pulls to your device using the internet. All of the heavy baggage of files aren’t stored on the device and you can play almost instantaneously anywhere. How can I use Xbox Game Pass Cloud? First off, you need to be a member of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. This option offers the ability to play games on your Xbox, PC, as well as the cloud. Luckily, it’s only $16.99 per month and comes with just a ton of benefits. Once you have that, ensure you have a really good internet connection wherever you are. If you’re using your mobile device, especially, connect to the wifi. With the amount of data that has to move, you won’t want to be using your own data for this. Luckily, you don't need to build yourself a fancy gaming PC to do it. You’ll need a couple of things to get going, though. You need an active Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription and a controller that connects to your desired device. You also need a good, secure internet connection to this device. How do I connect to Xbox Game Pass Cloud on PC and mobile? If you’re playing Game Pass Cloud on PC: Connect a controller to your PC, via wired or wireless options. If you don’t know how to connect a controller to a PC, KnowTechie has a fantastic how-to over there. You’ll need this before you get going. Yes, any controller can work, including the Xbox Adaptive Controllers. Head to the Xbox app. Click on it and you’ll see tons of options. In the top left menu of the Xbox app, you’ll see Game Pass, My Library, etc. Click on “Cloud Gaming”. Once there, you can view options like “Recently Added” or “Most popular”. If you want to see all of the options, scroll down to “All console games”. Choose a game. You’ll see a button with a tiny cloud icon that says “Play”. Click the Play button and the game will automatically load up and start. As long as your controller is connected correctly, you can play flawlessly now. If you want to play Game Pass Cloud on mobile: Connect a Bluetooth controller to your mobile device. There are some great and not-so-great options out there. If you don’t have it, download the Xbox Game Pass app to your device. Run the Game Pass app. You’ll be able to see all options for PC and console, but you need to click on Cloud. Choose a game and hit Play. The game will automatically start playing and you can hit the ground running. The Xbox Game Pass Cloud is super easy to use once you know where to go. If you’re already paying for the normal PC or console versions of Game Pass, it’s not much more to get all of the possible benefits with Ultimate. Personally, I use an older smartphone that doesn’t connect to any service anymore and it still runs great. Since the device doesn’t matter, it just needs Wi-Fi to get connected properly. If you want to get started, you can grab Xbox Game Pass Ultimate easily in both 1-month and 3-month intervals over on Newegg. (Note: We may get some money when you click and purchase from our affiliate links. That money is going straight into making GameCrate even better. Also, Newegg is our publisher. Thanks!)

We’re talking 98% of the SAG-AFTRA union members said yes. The unions are, ironically, working overtime lately. We recently reported on the imminent vote for video game actors to join the fight, and, well, they didn’t disappoint. SAG-AFTRA, if you haven’t been paying attention to the news over the past several months, has been hitting Hollywood pretty hard. Not only was the WGA (Writers Guild of America) in an even longer strike against Hollywood, but the actors were striking as well, hitting from two sides. Now, SAG-AFTRA is out for blood when it comes to the video game industry. Voice actors are pretty notoriously underpaid for their work in video games and they all agree that should change. We’re not talking about some of them either. They held their official vote and had an overwhelming 98.32% of voters say yes to the strike out of 34,687 member votes. This does not mean that they are striking just yet. It just means that SAG-AFTRA has demands and, if the terms or some sort of agreement are not met, they can immediately call for a strike without hesitation. The terms are under what’s called the Interactive Media Agreement and they’ve been in negotiations since way back in October 2022. The companies, some of the largest in the industry, have not offered acceptable terms to agree upon. After nearly a year, it’s come to a head. The bargaining session starts today and lasts until September 28th. Now that the strike authorization has been voted for, if the game publishers refuse to meet terms this week, a strike can come as soon as this Friday. Fran Drescher, president of SAG-AFTRA and The Nanny herself, is done “playing games”. She explained their stance on the game companies. “It’s time for the video game companies to stop playing games and get serious about reaching an agreement on this contract,” said Drescher. “The result of this vote shows our membership understands the existential nature of these negotiations, and that the time is now for these companies — which are making billions of dollars and paying their CEOs lavishly — to give our performers an agreement that keeps performing in video games as a viable career.” These companies, as mentioned, are among the biggest in the entire industry. Getting to an agreement with them would be a game-changer for any negotiations moving forward. They include (in alphabetical order): Activision Productions Inc Blindlight LLC Disney Character Voices Inc. Electronic Arts Productions Inc. Formosa Interactive LLC Insomniac Games Inc. Epic Games Take 2 Productions Inc. VoiceWorks Productions Inc. WB Games Inc. After 5 rounds of bargaining, the companies still won’t budge. While it’ll likely affect release timelines for video games in the future, it’s time for action. SAG-AFTRA has got this.

Nintendo DS-era games in HD are always a welcome surprise. Things weren’t looking great for Rune Factory, but the Story of Seasons RPG spinoff series has managed to hang on. Rune Factory 4 Special was a great port of a 3DS classic and helped soften the blow when Rune Factory 5 didn’t go over so well. With Rune Factory 3 Special, we’re going back to the Nintendo DS and late 2000s, a patch of gaming history you wouldn’t expect to see blown up to high resolutions. But between this and the excellent Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection, it seems like a space worth exploring. There’s only so much room for improvement, and there are plenty of ways it could’ve gone worse. Rune Factory had its own niche carved out practically by itself back in the day, but nowadays there’s real competition. Games like Harvestella and Stardew Valley have done the farming/RPG hybrid thing exceedingly well, so it seems odd to dip back into such an iterative series after already re-releasing the best one. Especially for a singular release, rather than a Capcom-style compilation. That said, the Rune Factory team at Marvelous (formerly Neverland) has always had the juice, and Rune Factory 3 was and is a fine game. It has everything you’d expect from a Story of Seasons title of its vintage, plus a ton of RPG stuff dumped on top. You can harvest some crops and make some money, then go out in the woods and murder some kobolds with the same axe you were chopping wood with the day before. It’s simple stuff, but the loop has over 30 years of longevity for a reason. It’s simple stuff, but the loop has over 30 years of longevity for a reason. Rune Factory 3 has a solid reputation among fans, but newcomers might struggle to get into it. That’s mostly because the story is very light, and if you’ve already played Stardew Valley or even Rune Factory 4 (Special or not), it might feel like taking a step back. Since the story isn’t a driving force here by any means, you’re looking to the mechanics and visuals to drive the ship. And there’s only so much one can do here with either piece. Few changes have been made to the gameplay compared to the original, and while the visuals are fine, there’s a blurriness to the background art that betrays either a smudgy filter or AI upscaling, neither of which look great. Rune Factory 3 Special is a fine game, and its only crime is how closely it sits to games that used it as a stepping stone The character models are a huge improvement over the DS originals, but they still have that vibe, with exaggerated animations and jittery movement speed that were previously compensating for hardware limitations. To be fair, we’re dealing with a Nintendo DS game here. There’s only so much room for improvement, and there are plenty of ways it could’ve gone worse. At the end of the day, Rune Factory 3 Special is a fine game, and its only crime is how closely it sits to games that use it as a stepping stone. If you love the “cozy” genre and are looking for some farming action, but only have the budget for one game, it’s hard to recommend this. But if you’re more of a fan of Story of Seasons and/or Rune Factory as a series, there’s absolutely room for Rune Factory 3 Special on the shelf. And if you’re a sicko who’s even out there replaying the original Harvest Moon on the Nintendo Switch Online app, I’m not even sure why you’re here. I know you preordered this bad boy already. But thumbs up for the dedication. Rune Factory 3 Special Review Score: 7 Pros: Totally solid conversion of a Nintendo DS game to modern platforms The best Rune Factory when it came out, which you could say for every Rune Factory (except 5) Your farm is ridiculously close to the rest of the town, which is nice and convenient Cons: Nintendo DS games are kind of ugly blown up at this scale without going above and beyond Feels redundant without many improvements/changes/gimmicks or new features Controls can be awkward and finicky Rune Factory 3 Special is available now for the Nintendo Switch and PC. A copy of the game for PC was provided by the publisher for review.

This Souls-Like retelling of Pinocchio shows that being human isn’t always easy. As a huge fan of From Software titles like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and Bloodborne, when I saw the announcement for Lies of P, I was beyond stoked. I was still cautiously optimistic because I have played several games that try to capture the magic that FromSoft’s games bring to the table, and most of them just don’t feel quite right. I’m happy to say that while not perfect, Lies of P does the best job that I’ve seen so far. Lies of P is a story based on the literary classic Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. It’s about a puppet that wants more than anything to become a real boy and he goes on a perilous journey to do so. While that story was a children’s tale, this one is not. The setting for Lies of P is a Belle Époque era world that just hasn’t had the best of luck. Not only is there a disease going around that is petrifying people, but all of the puppets that were created to help humans have now gone insane and are killing everyone. Pinocchio is then awoken in order to put a stop to all of this madness. Lie to get what I came for Lies of P’s developers, Neowiz, have a lot of love for Souls games, and that’s putting it lightly. Lies of P meshes together the fast paced styles of both Bloodborne and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice with how its combat, dodging, and guarding systems work. Guarding is a very big component of the combat here. The way it works is that you can block an incoming attack, but if you just hold the guard button or don’t have the correct timing, you will take a bit of damage. If you retaliate against the enemy quickly though and hit them without taking any additional damage, you will recover a certain portion of your health. If you block an attack at the perfect time though, you won’t take any damage, and this will build up an invisible meter that can cause the enemy to be able to be staggered if you are successful enough times with your perfect guards and then are able to hit them with a charged heavy attack. Unleash the fury Enemies also have attacks where they begin to glow red called Fury attacks. These can’t be dodged through or blocked, but instead have to be perfect guarded. The only issue I have with this is that the timing window for perfect guards is incredibly tight and could probably be upped a few frames. Also, a lot of the enemies you are dealing with are puppets, and they have erratic attack patterns due to their stilted movements. This will definitely make the beginning of the game much more difficult for people who are just trying to block everything. Dodging is also extremely important, and being someone who got Sekiro vibes off of this game with the heavy emphasis on perfect guarding, I neglected dodges for several hours. There are some boss fights that became a million times easier once I started utilizing my dodge. The only real complaint I have about the dodge is that there are two abilities (dodging immediately after a dodge and a dodge recovery when on the ground) that were locked away behind an upgrade system and those felt like they should have been available from the beginning of the game. Attack of the killer…puppets? The weapon combat is fast and smooth, with light, heavy, and charged attacks with whatever weapon you choose at the start: a rapier, saber, or a greatsword. There are many weapons in the game to be found that range from a giant hammer to even a fire axe. The best part about the weapons is that they can be mixed and matched. Each weapon (with the exception of boss weapons) can have its top half removed from the handle section and then you can switch them around however you like. So if you really like the blade of a certain sword but you wish it could use the attack style of the rapier you have, you can make a new weapon like that. Every weapon can also be ascended for higher damage output using materials found in the world. You can even find different crank handles that change which stat the weapon scales damage with, or just raise the current stat a letter grade to make it stronger with that particular stat. Speaking of scaling, leveling up in Lies of P works just like a Souls game. Pinocchio just has to talk to a lady named Sophia in the hub area and she can increase his stats in exchange for ergo. Defeating enemies or finding certain items will give Pinocchio ergo, and this essence can also be used to purchase items, equipment, or ascend weapons. There are no strings on me There are plenty of other items to be found in the game like throwable weapons such as thermite or even saw blades, and all of these can be equipped to Pinocchio’s belt. There are upper and lower as well as an extra compartment to the belt, and these can hold a few items each. The two most important items are pulse cells and the grinder. Pulse cells heal Pinocchio and the grinder will replenish a weapon’s durability. Durability isn’t really a huge issue in the opening hours of the game, but from about the halfway point onwards, it becomes something you have to stay on top of. Another aspect of the grinder that shouldn’t be ignored is the fact that it can be equipped with an elemental effect. This can be used to put an effect like fire or shock onto a weapon for a brief period. Different enemies and bosses are weak to different elements, so using these can make a huge difference in battle. Armed to the nose Pinocchio is also equipped with an arm that can take on many forms. It can be modified to be stronger and can be turned into a flamethrower, shield, or even a cannon. I didn’t use this a ton, but it for sure helped sometimes when I was in a pinch. Enemies and bosses have a good deal of variety to them, with plenty of new stronger variants of enemies in each new chapter. If you think I’m kidding about the variety, just note that there is an operatic puppet spider lady. Yep, you read that right. Bosses were absolutely wild and always brought a nice stiff challenge, even if I do feel like the difficulty ramps up significantly where it should have had a little bit more of a gradual climb as opposed to a giant leap. My world’s on fire, how ‘bout yours? Lies of P isn’t the open world game you might be expecting. It’s broken up into chapters and follows a narrow progression. I don’t really think this is a bad thing though. There are enough places to explore within each chapter that things don’t get stale and you can return at any point to previous areas to do so. There are plenty of secrets to find, characters to interact with, and little side quests to obtain and complete. Sometimes these will even merit the player a record, which can be listened to in order to increase Pinocchio’s humanity. I really dig the tunes, too. They are calm, peaceful, and just all around pleasant to the ears. There is a hub world of sorts called Hotel Krat and this is where you will spend a lot of time in between chapters. It’s where you can upgrade, shop a bit, and relax. The locations in the game primarily take place in places throughout the city. Places like the streets, an Arcade, or an Opera house. There are also areas like forests, a factory, and a cathedral. A beautiful but broken world Most of the areas feel rundown, dark, and empty besides the few people left inside who haven't been taken by disease or the things stalking the streets. It's a sad and overall bleak world and the game captures that aspect quite well. Occasionally during dialogue with a character, you will be given a choice between two responses. One is typically the truth and the other a lie, and these choices impact how the game ends. It also shows that sometimes lies are just a part of being human. The visuals within the game are absolutely wonderful and the framerate was as smooth as silk during the majority of my first playthrough. There are a few visual bugs like certain weapons clipping through floors or large enemies clipping into the background, but nothing that was too terrible. While I do think the audio mixing could use a little tweaking, I really enjoyed all of the music, voice acting, and even the sound of the wind blowing through the trees in certain areas. Little touches like that really elevated the overall experience. Master of puppets Lies of P also has a new game plus mode, which is excellent because who doesn’t like keeping most of their gear and going through a game again with more of a challenge? There are a few things that I think could be improved in Lies of P, like the dodge issues I mentioned earlier as well as the parry window timing and difficulty spikes, but overall this is just an excellent game. It brings so many brilliant elements together and creates its own identity with them. Do you have any thoughts about Lies of P? Tell us in the comments below, or talk about it on X, Bluesky, Threads, Mastodon, Instagram, and HIVE.

It’s going to take time for Unity to earn trust back, but this is a good start. After a pretty grueling week or so of waiting for some sort of response, Unity put out a big blog post over the weekend that talks about their folly and what they should have done in the first place. It offers an extensive apology and details about their new policies that should be a good compromise for game developers going forward. Marc Whitten, head of Unity Create which handles the engine, started the entire blog post with a simple “I am sorry”. The next couple of paragraphs can be summed up as “Unity screwed up. We get it and want to try to fix this as soon as possible.” After looking at the new policy, devs are in agreement that it is leaps and bounds better than the original lay of the land. Starting with the Unity Personal plan, they’re keeping it entirely free. They increased that dreaded $100,000 cap that was mentioned in the original Runtime Fee plan to $200,000. Additionally, anyone making less than $1 million for the prior 12 months will be hit with the Runtime Fee, meaning that a dev gets to be entirely on their feet before they start working with them on payment. This lines up a little closer to Unreal’s $1 million policy. Another big deal is that Personal plans will no longer be required to use the Made With Unity splash screen before a game starts. While it seems simple, that’s a huge deal for many devs and speaks volumes to this olive branch that Unity is proposing. Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise users also got some great news. The new Runtime Fee policy only applies starting with the next LTS (Long Term Support) version that ships next year. If you remain on the current version, your terms will not change. This gives devs time to finish their current games without issues, at the least. It also gives them the option to remain with Unity going forward instead of a forced ultimatum. But, they went a step further for the Pro and Enterprise members. They introduced a real choice for those worried about going bankrupt over using Unity. The choice sits as either a 2.5% revenue share or “the calculated amount based on the number of new people engaging with your game each month”. You get billed the lesser amount between the two. Members get to self-report now, instead of the horrible black box reporting that they had originally proposed. “Black Box”, like in airplanes, would have meant that only Unity knew the answers and you just had to trust them. As we mentioned in a previous piece about this situation, this entire scenario resembles what happened to Dungeons and Dragons publisher Wizards of the Coast. WotC, late last year, proposed changing the terms of their famed OGL 1.0a which let creators work with their systems and IP at no cost to them. It became a similar situation to Unity in the here and now. And just like Unity did, they came back with a new proposal that made big changes while still offering benefits to both sides and compromising with the users. The positives are that a lot of smaller game engines are getting more spotlight from this fiasco. Godot, an open-source engine, got a lot of support from devs, including a huge donation from Terraria developer Re-Logic. If the WotC situation did nothing else, it shined lights on a ton of lesser-known tabletop games as well. So, this is having very similar outcomes. While it’s going to take a lot of time for game developers to fully earn back Unity’s trust, this is a real start on that journey. It’s nice to see a happy ending like this once in a while.

It turned out that the biggest villain that the Square Enix Avengers would face is time itself. The idea of “Games as a Service” isn’t really a new concept. When we talk about the idea of “GaaS” or “Live services”, that could be as little as a microtransaction in a game all the way up to being a product that has constantly produced content in your face with changing maps and monthly upgrades. I think it’s the catch-all wording that makes things messy. Nowadays, if a game announces that it will be a live service, it brings out a visceral groan from the depth of my soul. I just know that it’ll eventually end. This doesn’t happen if a game just says “You can buy extra cosmetics” or “We have a season pass”, even though those are all part of the same concept. But, the idea of Games as a Service means that it could be either a Fortnite or an Anthem, in my brain. Marvel and Square Enix had high hopes for Marvel's Avengers. Earlier this year, Crystal Dynamics announced that their big Marvel game about the Avengers, aptly named Marvel’s Avengers, would have the plug pulled this month. Marvel’s Avengers spent its entire three-year run in an uphill battle for its life. When it was announced during E3 2019, the idea was, as Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury in the original The Avengers movie would put it, to “bring together a group of remarkable people to see if they could become something more”. Sure, you could play the new game single-player, but playing with other people is what Marvel’s Avengers wanted to focus on. Live service meant that you could expect a churning out of new heroes to join the roster. This game had the potential to be the true Marvel Ultimate Alliance of the 2020s and bring together every major hero you could name to face off against AIM and other forces of evil. If you were playing Marvel games before the big superhero craze in Hollywood, you likely remember Marvel Ultimate Alliance. It was a game with an original story, a huge list of heroes to play as, and incredibly fun, addictive gameplay that became my personal comparison tool when anything superhero came out going forward. I feel like I've read this story before. And, as you can assume from my tone here, it wasn’t. The pandemic hit right smack dab between the original announcement of the game and its release. As with a lot of games during that era, it was affected. While the game definitely suffered from that, it seems that the game was just (Doctor) doomed to fail. The game came out with a small bit of fanfare and felt like it leaned too heavily on its “live service” foundation. The game’s story was pretty good and some of the DLC really understood the assignment. But, as a game designed to be a live service, it felt lacking and became part of meme culture. Aside from that, the reception has been mixed since day one. Design flaws mean that it had a difficult user interface to navigate and the game didn’t feel polished enough to merit such a high hype. The redeeming factor is that the story was pretty good, as long as you looked past the issues with bugs and repetitive gameplay. It became a “buy it when it’s on sale” game. They offered an exclusivity for Spider-Man on PlayStation, which to this day is locked only to that console. The game was just never given time to shine. But, it also leaned too heavily on being a GaaS. Square Enix, the publisher of the game, even called the outcome “disappointing” in 2021. This was meant to be the beginning of a big franchise and it sputtered out. Live services can make or break a game. Back in January 2023, Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix officially made the call and announced that the game’s official servers would be shut down this year. No one was surprised. Disappointed, sure. But, not surprised. Come September 30th, 2023, Marvel’s Avengers will be shut down. You’ll still be able to play the single-player campaign. But, without the extra heroes, DLC, or ability to team up with other players, you’re playing a desolate solo story with no special perks. Digital storefronts like Steam have dropped the pricing of the game super low. You can find the “Definitive Edition” on Steam right now for $3.99. The story alone makes that worth it if nothing else. They removed the microtransactions for this version as well. So, you can play the game as-is going forward, even if the online modes will be disabled. If you want to play the single-player option, you need to navigate through some required co-op, which will also be disabled. So, there’s no telling how that’ll affect the game going forward. As with many live service and online games before it, it could potentially become lost media, if it requires the servers to be properly playable. But, considering many games of this nature have come back via private fan servers, this may not be the end of the game. However, unlike the comic book heroes that are presented in the game, Marvel’s Avengers, with its lackluster gameplay and unsolved issues, may not come back from the dead at all. Only time will tell.

Like M&Ms, this cool, quiet beast doesn’t melt in your hands. Nothing beats handheld gaming in my mind. From the Game Boy until now, nothing makes me happier than laying down on the couch and holding a gaming device to my face. Today, things are way different. Platforms, such as the Nintendo Switch and the Steam Deck, have evolved the lines between “console-style” games and portable-friendly designs. Now, gaming is more homogenous, with specs and price being the difference-makers. Handheld PCs have been a thing for a while. But, the Steam Deck has ripped away from novelty and thrust it into the mainstream arena. ASUS has stepped up with the ROG Ally, the first major competition to Valve’s monster, as a combination of high performance and low price. I’ve spent some time with an Ally, courtesy of ASUS offering access to a review unit. For context, I own both a Steam Deck and an AYANEO 2. The “Republic of Gamers” has made an aggressive device versus the competition, aiming to hit a sweet spot between the Thermal Design Power (TDP) compromises of the Steam Deck and the scary price tags of AYANEO devices. At the end of the day, the ROG Ally has some problems, some of which are hard to ignore. However, it also exceeds expectations in surprising ways, making it an easy favorite among the three options in front of me. Frankly, I’m sad I have to send it back! I’m even considering selling my AYANEO 2, which I was not anticipating at all. The biggest reason, curiously, is cooling. ASUS used a two-fan approach for the ROG Ally, and it performs magic. Unless I have the device cranked up to “Turbo” mode (30-sh TDP), I don’t notice the fans at all. The thing doesn’t even feel warm in my hands. It’s incredible. It’s also significantly lighter than the AYANEO, and slightly lighter than the Steam Deck. I’m used to the AYANEO especially screaming like a PS4 in most cases. But, on the Ally, I can play Honkai Star Rail smooth as silk and as quietly as the Switch. It blew my mind on day one and continues to do so around a week later. My second reason for loving this bad boy is another one that caught me off guard. Sound! The speakers are incredible, like nothing I’ve ever experienced before with a handheld gaming device. Not only are the speakers loud, but the sound they produce is clean, clear, and deeply stereo. Unless I’m trying to be courteous to others in the room, I feel zero need to use headphones when playing on the Ally. I’m not even a sound guy for the most part, and never saw myself commenting on audio much. But, here I am, factoring in the speakers on a handheld with more weight than the damn screen. To be fair, it’s a really nice screen. Not only is the screen 1080p, it also runs at 120 Hz and supports VRR. Combined with games that support FSR, or the AMD driver software’s own RSR (so many goofy acronyms!), you can squeeze some incredible visuals out without sacrificing a ton of performance. The screen doesn’t have the color depth or gloss of the AYANEO 2, but it makes the Steam Deck’s sickly 720p display look like a toy in comparison. There’s a pretty thick bezel that makes the screen look smaller than it is, but considering everything else, that’s not a bad trade-off. The biggest drawback that the ROG Ally has is everything else on the outside. The shell, sticks, and buttons all feel and look lower quality. The sticks feel brittle and flimsy, and the face buttons look weird and don’t feel as punchy as I’d like. There are two alternative buttons on the back that awkwardly jut out from the plastic, and the directional pad is almost Xbox 360 levels of bad. It’s one of those circle pads with the directions raised, and it feels like it screams “Don’t play Street Fighter with me” when I touch it. Aside from the D-pad, none of these things are bad. But, compared to other devices and controllers out today (as well as the other parts of the Ally), they pale in comparison. In terms of software, you could do worse. Much like its gaming computers, you can use the ROG Armory Crate to tinker with settings and a halfway decent game launcher. The smaller stuff works really well, such as the quick menu that you can call at any time with its own button. It does things like summon a virtual keyboard, alter the brightness, or snap to the desktop. Some of the more bespoke features, like changing the settings on the stick LEDs or making custom button mapping layouts, are less friendly. Luckily, if you don’t vibe with Armory Crate you aren’t forced to use it, since this is a wide-open Windows platform. Windows itself is a blessing and a curse in a handheld gaming device. While Steam OS has issues with game and software compatibility, everything it can do is intuitive and the Steam Deck itself is able to function as you’d expect. Meanwhile, Windows-based devices continue to struggle with things like sleeping/hibernating, display settings, and more. Sure, with the Ally you can press the power button to make it take a nap. However, if you do that while a game is running, there’s no predicting what will happen when you wake it back up. On the plus side, of course, you can install whatever the heck you want, from game launchers to office software. If you aren’t a Steam absolutist, you’ll be jumping through all kinds of hoops to play your other games on a Deck, if you can at all. Meanwhile, if you have Microsoft’s PC Game Pass for example, you can install and play that content on the Ally with zero resistance. That said, you also don’t have ASUS doing compatibility work like Valve does with the Steam Deck, meaning that you’re at the mercy of native game settings. The goofy marketing line may say you can play “all your” games. But, that doesn’t mean you can crank all the settings up on Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and expect a high frame rate. Before now, jumping into portable PC gaming was a choice between a Steam Deck or a wide array of super expensive, confusing products that aren’t easy to shop for. The ASUS ROG Ally comes much closer to the Steam Deck in price and makes up for Windows’ various snags with shockingly great cooling and sound. There’s plenty of room for improvement, but at the moment this has been my favorite handheld for PC games. Asus ROG Ally Review Score: 8/10 Pros: Lightweight and easy to hold for longer playtime Excellent cooling; you don’t hear the fans unless “Turbo Mode” is on High-quality speakers that produce loud and clear sound Cons: Windows doesn’t have optimizations for handheld devices Buttons and sticks don’t meet the same standards as the speakers, screen, etc. Armory Crate software has some UI issues A loaner review unit was provided by ASUS for this review. The ASUS ROG Ally is available now at Best Buy and the ASUS official online store, the highest model being $699.99.

This F.E.A.R. spiritual successor packs a lot of punch There aren’t too many moments in Trepang2 that allow you to catch your breath. Between elite soldiers, cultists, and even a Mothman, everyone wants you dead. Bullets, grenades, and bile were flying at me from every angle for almost every minute of my time in this game and I have to say that overall, it was an absolute blast. In Trepang2 you play as Subject 106, someone so bad that they are locked up in a vault inside of a blacksite filled with elite guards. Luck isn’t with the guards though because a mysterious someone has infiltrated the site, unshackled 106, and left the vault door open. As soon as you finish a short section of moving through some vents and the first few squads of guards undetected, Subject 106 finds an H&K Mark23 pistol and some armor. You then quickly discover why they wanted 106 locked up. Much like the game series F.E.A.R., 106 is given the ability to slow down time, and much like the Crysis series, they are also given the ability to use a cloak and leave the enemy frantically searching to relocate them. This is just the tip of the iceberg because 106 can also slide, jumpkick, take an enemy as a hostage (allowing you to dispatch them or even turn them into a human grenade), or surprisingly just straight up kick an enemy in the face so hard that their head explodes. The small dev team that created this game wanted players to just have a fun time experimenting with all of these moves and create a spectacle of absolute carnage and badassery. Trepang2 isn’t a walk in the park though. Every mission is filled with enemies pouring out of almost every door, dropping in reinforcements from helicopters, using grenades to keep you from taking cover, flanking, and just doing everything in their power to keep pressure on you at almost all times. The enemy variety is nice too, with having soldiers of different ranks fighting you with increasing amounts of armor and firepower. You aren’t just fighting soldiers either, there is even a section involving some zombie-like enemies who try to puke on you, and cultists in a castle that either try to swarm you with bullets or immolate themselves in front of you in hopes to take you with them. The cultists were a lot of fun to fight, but the zombie enemies I personally could have done without. Boss fights also are included, but they are a bit of a mixed bag. Some of them are fun, but they mostly just boil down to being against bigger baddies with a lot more health and that’s about it. The arsenal that you can carry is impressive, with the Mk23 pistol, the Kriss Vector SMG, the absolute beast of a weapon SPAS-12 shotgun, the VHS2 assault rifle (which I used probably more than any other weapon next to the SPAS-12), the SL8 DMR sniper rifle, a minigun, bolt launcher, frag and flash grenades, molotovs, throwing knives, and tomahawks. What’s even better about this fantastic array of weapons is that after a few missions into the game, you can find a serum that allows you to use all of the guns akimbo. I never knew how much I needed to be able to dual wield two SPAS-12s in a game until I played this. Add on top of that the ability to find weapon cases hidden within missions that can unlock different attachments like suppressors, compensators, and scopes; or even change the firing type or ammo type on a few weapons. This can change the feel of a battle entirely and it’s wonderful to be given options like this to play with. Guns and grenades also feel like they have a great amount of heft to them and periodically sound speaker-breakingly loud. There were a few times that I am certain my sound bar’s speaker was bottoming out with all the explosions happening all at once. The missions are broken up into primary and secondary ones, with the primary of course furthering the developing plot, and the secondary just being side objectives like taking out high value targets (elite enemies that show up in certain missions and some only show up on certain difficulties), exploring a crash site, and hacking servers while fighting off hordes of soldiers. My least favorite of these was definitely the hacking ones, not because they were bad, but because of these certain enemies that have equipment on their backs that interfere with the hacking signal, and even reverse its progress, so having to hunt them down in haste while also having to try and avoid more serious threats like some of the juggernaut soldiers (who have insane amounts of armor) that were swarming the area, was a bit of a pain. Mission locations like the Pandora Institute have a lot of detail put into them, with that one having everything from offices, bars, courtyards, and even a hospital within it. Although the stages are quite linear, the game’s settings and atmosphere feel believable and keep the pace of the action moving at a brisk clip. There is also a bit of a destruction aspect to the combat, with things like concrete pillars and walls taking damage from gunfire and grenades; this is a nice touch because it shows off the aftermath of 106’s battles quite beautifully. There are some issues though: enemies can have a lot of jerky animations at times when they have passed on from their virtual lives, and they can even get launched far into the air (however this one was quite hilarious), or get stuck in doors, but thankfully the latter issues didn’t seem to happen too often. The AI’s pathfinding can seem to break when it comes to the player occasionally and they just wander off in a different direction or even run right by you. I had one of the high value targets lose me even though I was right behind him, so I gave him a hot lead enema and he didn’t even seem to notice. For the most part the enemies didn’t seem to have issues with this sort of thing, but it is something that I’m hoping can perhaps be fixed in a future update. The next issue is more of a personal gripe, but I do wish that the Focus (the slo mo feature) and Cloak gauges on the HUD stayed on all of the time or at least had an option to do so. I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to use Focus only to not have any meter left and I had no idea. Overall, I have to say that Trepang2 is a really wild and fun albeit short, ride. My playtime for the main campaign missions was a little under four hours, but with the side missions it was around six. Outside of the primary and side missions there is also a combat simulator that can add several hours of playtime. It’s a horde mode with a great selection of maps and I found it to be a fun way to just unwind my day with some pure insanity. On top of that there are several difficulty modes, and the higher ones can unlock things like particular high value targets and even cheats like infinite ammo or health. All in all, I think people who are fans of high-octane action and fun with a John Woo, John Wick, or F.E.A.R. style to it are going to have a blast with this title. Pros: ● Combat feels fantastic and is full of tools for the player to have fun with ● Graphics look clean and environments are full of great atmosphere ● Being able to dual wield SPAS-12s ● Hours and hours of fun to be had between the campaign and horde mode ● Skittles camo Cons: ● Enemy bodies can sometimes be a bit janky ● Some boss fights can be a bit bland ● Enemy AI needs some tweaking in places Score: 8/10 Reviewer played on PC. Trepang2 is available now on Steam and GOG.

In case you weren’t already aware, Capcom has been killing it. The company revealed in May of this year that their net sales have grown and set new records year-over-year for the last six years. I mean it’s not really a surprise when you look at the games they’ve released during that time. Monster Hunter World, Monster Hunter Rise, Devil May Cry 5, Resident Evil Village, and Street Fighter 6 to name just a few of their more recent, well-received releases. With so much success, especially in these large, well-known franchises, I feel like your average AAA publisher would be less eager to take a risk on brand new IPs. Admirably, this isn’t the case with good, old Capcom as their latest release is the all new Exoprimal. However, is this competitive shooter good enough to keep Capcom’s winning streak going? I’d say, at the moment, no. Not really. The story’s characters are inoffensively bland and not memorable at all, but you’re fighting dinosaurs with mech suits so they don’t take anything too seriously. Set in the year 2043, Exoprimal sees a rampant AI program called Leviathan opening rifts through space and time to pull pilots of fancy Exosuits into an endless stream of wargames. Why? For data, apparently, to make even better Exosuits. Oh, and the wargames see those pilots, you included, going up against swaths of dinosaurs. Why dinosaurs? Because robotic suits fighting against dinosaurs are, in professional terms, totally sick. Yes, the story of Exoprimal is extremely goofy. Which is fine, because the story is basically nonexistent after you finish the game’s tutorial. As briefly mentioned above, Exoprimal is strictly a competitive multiplayer shooter. Two teams of five compete to finish dino-killing objectives in the fastest time possible. The story only exists through cutscenes and audio logs that you unlock as you complete matches. Image: Capcom The story’s characters are inoffensively bland and not memorable at all, but you’re fighting dinosaurs with mech suits so they don’t take anything too seriously. This is good because the idea of mech suits fighting an endless stream of interdimensional, time-traveling dinosaurs that drop from the sky like they’ve been poured from one of those giant buckets you see at a children’s water park is a very goofy and fun thing. No matter how many dinos were crawling over one another, getting blown up, or thrown through the air my game didn’t stutter or drop a frame even once. Not only are the dino swarms a goofy premise, but they’re actually a technical achievement. Every single match I’ve played of Exoprimal ran at a beautifully steady sixty frames. No matter how many dinos were crawling over one another, getting blown up, or thrown through the air my game didn’t stutter or drop a frame even once. A feat that’s made even more impressive since ten players are connected to a match and their Exosuit abilities are flying around at the same time. Also, there’s just so, so, so many dinosaurs. One would think that having so much going on would make the game hard to read, and one would be surprisingly wrong. When you start out it’s a lot to take in, sure, but the more I played the more I was able to appreciate just how neatly the game’s HUD is implemented. Nothing ever feels like it’s getting in the way, highly-detailed and polished animations on both Exosuits and dinos convey action beautifully, and no explosion or visual effect is ever overwhelming either. Provided you turn off the disgusting plague that is floating damage numbers in the settings, of course. Yes, it’s all very pretty and blowing up a pack of raptors is delightful, but is it fun to play? Yes! There are ten different exosuits (three must be unlocked by leveling up and using in-game currency or you can use real money), and each one is a blast to use. Their designs and animations are stellar, their abilities make them feel distinct from one another, and there’s quite a bit of depth in the way that you can use them to take down your prehistoric prey. Roadblock, for example, is a huge, tanky fella that can give large groups of foes a shove with his Shield Blast. This is good for pushing things back and giving your teammates some room, but it’s even better when you find opportunities to bash large groups of dinosaurs off of cliffs for a bunch of instant kills. Image: Capcom Now, considering all of the glowing praise I’ve given Exoprimal so far, you might be confused about that point earlier in this review where I said It doesn’t really continue Capcom’s streak of strong releases. This is because despite all of the polish and effort that’s gone into making the game look and play great, there is only one game mode. One. That’s it. Even more frustrating, is the fact that it’s a PvEvP game mode. Why, Capcom? I thought I was here to fight dinosaurs, not other players. It’s extremely upsetting to be told you’re not having fun fast enough. True, you do fight dinosaurs, but I completely despise the fact that I’ll be having a great time making those giant lizards extinct again until the AI Leviathan interrupts my joy saying, “You are completing objectives slower than the enemy team.” Who cares? You don’t even see the enemy team for ninety-eight percent of the match anyway. It’s extremely upsetting to be told you’re not having fun fast enough. You will see other players, however, in two different ways. The first is Dominators. These are powerful abilities that can be used once per team by one player in each match’s “final mission.” You gain the ability to control one of the larger dinosaurs, (triceratops, carnotaurus, or a t-rex) and invade the enemy team’s world. This is admittedly fun, and it’s a great way to allow teams to either catch up or cement their lead. At the same time, I’d much rather just be fighting increasingly difficult hordes of giant AI dinosaurs. Image: Capcom The other way you’ll run into enemy players is far worse and completely baffling to me. In the very last moment of a match, players forget all the dinosaur killing they’ve been doing and everything devolves into a wildly unbalanced PvP brawl of Exosuit vs Exosuit. It’s so bizarre, and a team’s lead can be completely lost if you aren’t as good at fighting player-controlled Exosuits as you are at killing dino hordes. Why would you be? It’s not what the entire game has been about until the last possible second. Imagine you’re taking a math test, and right before you solve the last problem you’re told to write an essay on the influence that Edgar Allen Poe’s work had on southern gothic literature. It’s one of the weirdest and poorly thought out game design choices I’ve seen for quite a while. Stranger still, is that the game has raids which see ten players working together against enormous bosses and wackier, unique dinosaurs, but said raids happen completely randomly in matchmaking. Why? Why not allow people to matchmake into the modes they’d like to play? Image: Capcom The sole saving grace here is that a PvE mode does exist. Though it shouldn’t be labeled PvE, because it’s the exact same game mode that has teams racing to complete objectives, but there’s no nonsensical Exosuit fight at the end. Which makes the opposing team thing really redundant. Thankfully, Capcom has said that a true PvE mode will arrive on July 29, but until then there’s only one way to engage with the game. Once again on the frustrating side of things, Exoprimal is a live-service game. That can be good when things like a (hopefully) fun PvE mode arrives and the game’s promised 10 Exosuit variations that are set to arrive in August finally show up, but these regular content drops are also a pain. If you bought Exoprimal for its full retail price, you might be wondering why you have to wait weeks and months for the game to feel more complete. Also, as recent months have taught us with games like Marvel’s Avengers, Spellbreak, and Knockout City, being a live service game with promises of regular content doesn’t guarantee your survival. Image: Capcom Speaking of survival, Exoprimal also has a “Survival Pass” that costs even more money. But, this is just to be expected from any multiplayer game these days, isn’t it? On the bright side, Exoprimal has plenty of Exosuit and weapon skins that you can earn solely by playing the game which is an admitted breath of fresh air when compared with contemporaries. The core gameplay loop and presentation of Exoprimal are solid. Shooting dinos as each one of the Exosuits is great fun, and there’s some depth to be found in how you use your abilities and support your teammates. However, one game mode isn’t enough, especially when it’s so hyper-fixated on competing with other players in what feels like it ought to be an exclusively PvE experience. Hopefully, plenty of strong additions will find their way to Exoprimal sooner than later, but as it stands right now this is an extremely polished dino shooter that doesn’t have enough bite. Pros: Runs beautifully Stellar animations and designs Each Exosuit feels great to play Cons: Only one game mode at time of writing Too much focus on PvP in a PvE experience Having to wait weeks for content Score: 7.5/10 Reviewer played on Xbox Series X. A key was not provided by the publisher. Exoprimal is available on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, PS5, and PC Do you have any thoughts about this topic? Tell us in the comments below, or talk about it on Twitter. Don’t forget to tag us in the discussion! And don’t forget to subscribe to our weekly Patch Notes! Check out some other topics on GameCrate: Toxic Destiny 2 “fan” owes half a million dollars to Bungie over harassment Xbox gets a long-awaited feature: Voice reporting UPDATED: Microsoft wins case against FTC, can now legally buy Activision Blizzard Most classic video games are no longer accessible

In childhood, summer seems to stretch out forever. Whether it’s an idyllic season spent in nature or just a break from the drudgery of school, those brief months of freedom hold endless possibilities. Even if, as in Dordogne, you’re forced to spend them at your grandma’s house, caught in the middle of family drama you can’t understand. Dordogne is the second game from French developer Un Je Ne Sais Quoi, a studio founded by award-winning animator Cedric Babouche. Maybe not surprisingly, then, Dordogne’s animation is immediately jaw-dropping, and its story feels akin to an animated short as much as a video game. It would be hard to overstate how gorgeous Dordogne is. Watercolor paintings inspire many games, but Dordogne genuinely feels like being inside one. Objects stack on each other like layers of canvas overlapping, and vibrant colors make the city of Dordogne feel as magical as any fantasy game setting. Dordogne follows Mimi, a young French woman recently fired from her job as a copywriter. When it rains, it pours, as the saying goes, and soon after, Mimi’s grandma passes away. Dordogne opens with Mimi sleeping in her car in a rainstorm while on the way to visit the city of Dordogne, where her grandmother lived, to clean out her house. Watercolor paintings inspire many games, but Dordogne genuinely feels like being inside one. The first bit of interaction in Dordogne is simple: using an onscreen cursor, you need to grab Mimi’s bag, open it up, and take out her buzzing phone. This mundane action may not leave much of an impression, but small tasks like this will come to define the game. On Mimi’s phone is a message from her father, angrily demanding that she give up on her trip. It’s the first hint of the story about a long-fractured family and Mimi’s quest to figure out where things went wrong so many years ago. Conveniently, she’s lost all memory of her childhood years, including one pivotal summer she spent at grandma’s house. Upon reaching the house in Dordogne, your first challenge is to get inside. Mimi quickly finds a key in the mailbox, and another small interaction unfolds. First, you must take all the mail out of the mailbox. Still unable to reach the key, you shake the box loose, turn it over, undo the screws holding it together, and finally retrieve the key. Each step is done manually — removing letters one by one with your cursor, wagging a thumbstick to pry the box loose, and unscrewing the back plate with a circular motion. It might drag in a game with more going on, but this almost obsessive focus on minutiae makes Dordogne work. Mimi’s hand trembles as she unlocks the front door, the key jittering out of control when you need to guide it into the keyhole. These small, intimate sequences feel something like close-ups in a film. You’re not just close to Mimi; you’re in her head, experiencing the small moments that make up so much of life. Mimi sees the remnants of her grandmother’s life inside the house, and memories of the summer they spent together so long ago come rushing back to her. For the rest of its four-hour runtime, you’ll mostly be playing as a 12-year-old Mimi during that summer. The story is told in a series of vignettes, only occasionally returning to the modern day. You’re not just close to Mimi; you’re in her head, experiencing the small moments that make up so much of life. Mimi starts off petulant, resenting that she’s losing her summer to this long trip to Dordogne. She sulks as she puts her clothes away, and words flash on the screen for you to select (hope, mum, moving away). Do you wallow in self-pity, think about missing your parents, or try to make the best of the situation? This idea repeats throughout the game — whatever word you select will trigger a different bit of dialogue and be filed away for you to work into a poem later on. As the game goes on, you also get access to a camera and audio recorder and find stickers strewn around the landscape. Everything you capture or find can be put into a binder given to Mimi by her grandmother at the end of the day. It’s a bit too limiting, only allowing one photo, recording, sticker, and poem. Still, the daily ritual makes you slow down to remember and appreciate the smallest parts of your stay. The best part of this system is the poetry. While the photos you can take are undoubtedly beautiful, writing your daily poem lets you reframe the day in your mind. You choose three words you collected that day and select one of three lines generated for you using the word. It lets you decide whether Mimi is secretly resenting everything going on around her or starting to enjoy the slow pace of Dordogne. For the first few days, this dynamic works wonderfully. But in its final third or so, Dordogne shifts its focus from an appreciation of small moments to an unraveling mystery. This mystery isn’t the stuff of thrillers; it’s a misunderstanding that shaped your family’s dynamic for years, building on tensions already simmering under the surface. It’s incredibly low stakes for a typical adventure game. Still, it shows how even seemingly inconsequential moments can have long-lasting consequences. While it’s a significant event in the lives of its participants, investigating this crucial memory derails Dordogne. The camera pulls away from Mimi, focusing instead on what is not a particularly compelling narrative for the last hour or so of the game. Despite how much attention Dordogne pays to this singular memory, it doesn’t wrap up in a satisfying way, with characters acting erratically and then simply moving on. For a game about the power of everyday moments, Dordogne doesn’t seem to believe the mundane is compelling enough on its own. Dordogne makes for an engaging trip, but I wish it had the confidence to stay just that. In one of Dordogne’s best scenes, you painstakingly make dinner by chopping potatoes, filling a pan with fat, and shaking it all together until it’s browned. While you’re carrying out this mundane task, your grandma talks in the background, pulling at the threads of the game’s central mystery. This feels like the right way to handle the incident — as an important moment that weaves itself through the seemingly unimportant fabric of everyday chores. Dordogne makes for an engaging trip, but I wish it had the confidence to stay just that. Wrapping its story around one dramatic memory — and not even addressing it in a particularly compelling way — robs Dordogne of the potency of its message to appreciate the simple things in life. Dordogne Review Verdict: Pros: Gorgeous watercolor art Charming story about living in the moment Focus on mundane interactions is satisfyingly simple Cons: Loses focus midway through the story The story's finale is not compelling Score: 7/10 The Dordogne review was written from the perspective of Nintendo Switch. No key was provided by the publisher. The game is also available PC, PS4/5 Xbox One, Xbox X|S.