The trailer for Death Stranding, revealed last week during E3, is proper batshit. It features a naked Norman Reedus clutching a baby to his chest while crying (that has seemingly been delivered by him via c-section, and is still attached to him by the umbilical cord), lots of dead fish, and five dis
The “dream” of scuba diving is separated by the actual, body-in-water act by one significant detail: there is no equipment. To scuba dive, you must submerge with a wetsuit, mask, flippers, then there’s the air cylinder, compass, line cutter, and dive light. There’s more too and it all bears down upo
It’d be foolhardy to make any big claims about The Last Guardian, Fumito Ueda’s massively long-in-development third game, after 45 minutes of playing it at E3. So I will start with what I know, which is that the big feathery chicken-cat, who is the ostensible star and raison d’etre of the videogame,
Alongside the newest edition of God of War and a horror VR title, Sony Santa Monica talked about a smaller, quieter game at their E3 Conference. Bound is a 3D narrative platformer set to release August 16th. Bound doesn’t look like any other game currently out, both in terms of its unique take on lo
Upon seeing the new Norse mythology reboot of God of War at Sony’s E3 2016 press conference last night, I was ready to declare Kratos the new God of Phwoarr. I changed my mind pretty quick. Just because Kratos has a beard now doesn’t automatically put him up there with the lumbersexual appeal of Hot
I already want to cry. No, it’s not that The Last Guardian has a proper release date of October 25th now—which, you know, at last, it’s been 11 years since Shadow of the Colossus (2005) for crying out loud. It’s that the first minute or so of the game’s E3 trailer features the many whines and sobs o
It’s been tense leading up to the arrival of No Man’s Sky, especially if you follow the game’s lead programmer Sean Murray as he occasionally lifts his head from the milieu of computer code to make appearances around the net. “Anyone been to sleep yet?” asks one of his latest tweets. You can see the
There’s a brief moment in the first hour of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End where Nathan Drake, a retired treasure hunter, combs through the artifacts from his adventures that he keeps in his attic. The space is ruined with meticulous clutter—each individual relic a callback to some grand excursion—and a
Chinese studio Dotoyou recently released its game Koi on the PlayStation 4, making it the first game from its native country to be released on the PlayStation 4 in the West. Koi stars a koi fish facing dangers beneath the surface of its resident lotus pond, such as predator fish and spiked barriers.
As you can surmise from the title, Push Me Pull You (PMPY) is about the delightful tension between polar opposite forces. Even the world behind this couch co-op game is simultaneously the same and exact opposite of our own world. Because, you see, PMPY is populated by a very similar society with one
Seraph is a shooter in which you don’t aim. It’s set to hit Steam Early Access this month and PlayStation 4 at a later date. But if you don’t want to wait until then to find out how it works, here, it’s simple: it’s a 2D sidescrolling shooter that aims and fires your guns for you, leaving you to fo
Very soon, thousands more will have the opportunity to get lonely with a videogame in the most beautiful way. Yes, The Chinese Room is bringing both its poetic narrative games, Dear Esther (2012) and last year’s Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, to new platforms—the former is coming to Xbox One and P
There’s a moment in the demo of Rez’s PlayStation VR inception (retitled as Rez Infinite) where I accidentally transgressed my professional demeanor and said “holy shit.” Not a lone “holy shit this is kinda cool,” as I glanced around the technicolored space of Area 02. Nor a woozy “holy shit I feel
Everything is coming exclusively to PlayStation 4 in the near-ish future. Er, that is, Everything, the next game by David O’Reilly. Not, you know, everything. It’s a simple idea with a huge scope: you can embody and play as everything that you see in the game’s universe. Damien DiFede, the game’s pr
Firewatch gets it. Beauty alone isn’t enough to carry an experience. There needs to be some grit, a bit of dirt, conflict even, to elevate a videogame (hell, any piece of art) from the whimsical to something more. I have a problem with 2009’s Flower and 2013’s Proteus precisely because there isn’t a
Despite being a child of ’90s clubbing and music television, the 2001 rail shooter Rez didn’t quite resonate with its majority audience as its visionary creators had hoped it would. A small niche of players got it—no, they really got it—but it didn’t have the impact of, say, a killer DJ set sending
It’s fair to say that we’re quite fond of Gone Home. It was our Game of the Year when it came out for PC back in 2013. And its mark has been left not only on our own minds, but in those of other creators, with Gone Home‘s intimate exploration of household objects manifesting in various game narrativ
Delightfully repulsive couch co-op game Push Me Pull You is headed to PlayStation 4 and PC, Mac, and Linux early next year. The game pits two teams of two players each in a literal head-to-head duel, where team members control their own side of a stretchy, noodle-like body conjoined at the midsectio
“Come, bunnies,” I announced to the empty room behind me. “Follow me, your glorious leader!” In Future Unfolding, you run around a forest that has the florid appearance of spilled paint, and you can talk to the animals. As if some glorified Pied Piper, you stride with great bounds across flower patc
If you’re still anxiously awaiting the hungry jaws of the big monster heads in GNOG, you’ll have to keep waiting until its 2016 release date. But, in the meantime, feel free to get swallowed up by the latest screens released by Ko-Op Mode. The screens highlight GNOG‘s polished yet playful art style,
Sign up to receive each week’s Playlist e-mail here! Also check out our full, interactive Playlist section. Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture (PS4) BY The Chinese Room and SCE Sonta Monica Studio The reclaiming of the term “walking simulator” is a great example of a community turning something deroga
From the melting clock to the overgrown green apples, the paint-chipped fingerprints of René Magritte and the flamboyant moustache of Salvador Dali are all over the topsy-turvy dreamscapes of Back to Bed. This puzzle game about escorting a somnambulist named Bob back to his duvet using the physical
Spider: Rite of the Shrouded Moon has a title that would probably be accepted as part of the Castlevania series (which includes Legacy of Darkness, Circle of the Moon, and Curse of Darkness for starters). This is probably not a mistake. Consider that Rite of the Shrouded Moon, as often with Castleva
