When you think of film noir movies, you may assume they’re predominantly American. While this isn’t true, it’s a fact that many American film noir movies have become cult classics, with some becoming synonymous with the genre. You may think the genre requires the movie to be in black and white, and there are no new good film noir movies, but that isn’t the case. The morals need to be dark, but the genre doesn’t require films to be void of color....
I went into Sandfall Interactive’sClair Obscur: Expedition 33without knowing exactly what to expect. Having seen little beyond the first trailer, I knew it would be a very stylish RPG with some interesting takes on turn-based combat, but that’s as far as my guesses went. What I experienced was one of the most thought-provoking, beautifully crafted, and satisfyingly challenging experiences I’ve had in this medium. Clair Obscur is a game that has you begging for answers from the very beginning....
Summary Stardew Valleycreator Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone has been working on his next game,Haunted Chocolatier, for quite some time. It was announced all the way back in 2021, yet we’ve seen very little of it since, as Barone hasstruggled with leaving his other baby behind for too long. In fact, he admitted in December last year that Haunted Chocolatier hadbeen “getting dusty on the shelf"due to how much work he was still doing for Stardew Valley....
Summary There’s a lot forDeath Strandingfans to be excited about right now.Death Stranding 2is less than a month away, andHideo Kojimais working with A24 on a Death Stranding movie adaptation. Turns out there’s also a third Death Stranding project in the works that Kojima just casually announced as if we all knew about it already. TheMetal Gear Soliddesigner sat down withVogue Japan(thanks,VGC) to talk all things Death Stranding with the sequel’s arrival on the horizon....
Summary In 2009, Hidetaka Miyazaki simultaneously blessed and cursed the gaming world when he releasedDemon’s Soulsto the masses. It seemed like your usual third-person action-adventure game at a glance, albeit with a bleaker tone. We went through the motions until an unclear scripted death would take us to a state where we lost half our health bar and would have to fight tooth and nail through gauntlets and bosses to get it back....
The 2010s were an interesting time forDisney. As a company, it was doing incredibly well thanks to the success of the MCU, Star Wars, and its many other ventures. However, when it came to movies produced by either Disney or Pixar, the brand wasn’t quite as consistent. This is due in part to Pixar releasing more sequels and fewer original films. Disney did make a few big hitters during the decade, but not a lot....
Summary Dragon Age: The Veilguardconcept art has revealed a bunch of ideas that never made it into the final game. Fromthe Hero of Ferelden turning up as a blight-ridden ghoulto amuch more antagonistic Solas,BioWareplayed around with a variety of plot points that were dropped or altered during development. Now, we’re getting a look at a completely new area. Courtesy of artist Matt Rhodes, we now know that there were plans for players to explore another part ofTevinter, rather than just smaller parts of Minrathous....
Summary Nintendoheld what was a surprisingly packed Direct for the originalSwitchtoday, even if most of the games it was packed with weren’t exactly blockbusters. The arrival of a brand new installment in the Everybody’s Golf series was pretty surprising, though. Everybody’s Golf Hot Shots was saved for one of the Direct’s final announcements, and while it doesn’t have a firm release date, it will launch on Nintendo Switch at some point in 2025....
Quick Links Pokemon Gointroduced a new monthly feature in April 2025,the Reward Road, a new and unique way to earn additional items and rewards on a monthly basis. They havedecided to bring the Reward Road back for a second month, making this new feature available to all players throughout the month of May 2025. Although this month’s Reward Road will follow the same structure and layout, it will be updated to include a new set of rewards and items that can be earned throughout the month....
Fighting games are in a strange spot. Over the last few weeks, almost every popular name has had an unfortunate event. Tekken 8 received its Season 2,and the result was devastating. Capcom finally announced Elena for Street Fighter 6, but with only two months before its release, this creates doubts about what will happen with balance patches during the professional circuit. Riot announced that2XKO will launch with only ten characters, and NetherRealm Studios has been rather silent in the wake of the rumour thatMortal Kombat 1’s Kombat Pack has been canceled....
Summary Clair Obscur: Expedition 33has been a monumental success for Sandfall Interactive and its publisher, Kepler Interactive. Clair Obscur currently has the highest score on Metacritic of games released in 2025, andone of the highest user scores of all time. Despite releasing day one on Game Pass and in the shadow of the shadow-dropped Oblivion Remastered, Clair Obscur surpassedhalf a million salesjust over a day from release. The success of Clair Obscur has not gone unnoticed....
Summary The Duskbloods was definitely one of the more interesting announcementsduring this week’s Nintendo Direct, as not many people expected a new FromSoftware IP to be exclusive to a Nintendo console. There was a lot of excitement during its initial reveal, understandably, but a lot of it fell off afterFromSoftwarerevealed thatThe Duskbloods is actually a PvPvE game with a multiplayer focus. With Elden Ring: Nightreign coming next month, and The Duskbloods set to release in 2026, a lot of concern rose about FromSoftware new focus on multiplayer experiences, and whether we’d actually see another single player game from the studio any time soon....
Summary GeoGuessrwas finally ported toSteamlast week, after years of popularity as a browser game. However, it also brought with itcontroversial monetisation practices, severely limiting how long non-paying users can play for. Now, the developer has responded, explaining why GeoGuessr is monetised through a subscription system. In response to TheGamer, the developer says that it is committed to “expanding and improving both the free and paid experiences” and stresses that this is the early access release, not the full game....
