Arriving after the success of Moonlighter and The Mageseeker: A League of Legends Story, Cataclismo marks the studio’s first foray into strategy games. While much of the marketing and buzz surrounding the upcoming early access release (available on July 22) has focused on its LEGO-like building mechanics and the relentless onslaught of deformed monstrosities players have to survive night after night, it turns out more is happening under the surface.

After spending a few hours with the game, prioritizing its campaign over the skirmish offerings and the endless mode that everyone would’ve asked for had it not been there, I’ve been surprised by how much it owes to RTS classics once you look past its main blocky attraction, and I mean that as a compliment.

Without getting into spoilers at this stage, the world of Cataclismo feels like a mix of Against the Storm and Demon’s Souls, with an added touch of Attack on Titan and Dead Space for good measure. Before the current post-apocalyptic state of its fantasy world, a bunch of mysterious objects the humans called ‘Perlas’ descended from the heavens and everything seemed good. A bit later, however, the Mist showed up and engulfed all that mankind had built and turned anyone it caught into deformed monsters. Now, only the cities that are above the Mist – or can push back against it and the horrors it creates – stand tall.

You’d expect Cataclismo to play things relatively safe and focus on the basic resource management we’ve come to expect from similar indie games and on siege defenses that are literally built with LEGO, but it goes the extra mile to create its own voice and make a stronger impression. At least during its early levels, it manages to present the flurry of systems and interlinked mechanics with ease. That said, only a few of them come across as truly novel.

Cataclismo appears to be one of those indie games that excels at reusing and refreshing old parts that have never been put together before, or at least not exactly like this. When coupled with the striking art style and easy-to-understand flow of the levels, it starts to shine. You’ll be tinkering a lot with your base builds, defined by the planning done in a preparation and gathering phase, to survive past the early scenarios though. This is no walk in the park by any means. I personally went with the default Medium difficulty, but even in this early access build, Cataclismo invites players of all skill levels and experience with RTS games into its cursed world.

After a few tutorials about movement, combat, and exploration that won’t be news to anyone who’s been playing RTS in the past, things quickly shift to base defense and improving the location’s weakest spots as best as you can with the resources you have. On a basic level, you’re just picking up different blocks and putting them together to create sturdy walls, bridges, stairs, and even items that boost the performance of the warriors you’ll have to train as well as the main character, who’s a playable hero of sorts.

Resource-gathering is automatic, but much like the blocks used to build up defenses, gatherers can be optimized to collect more rocks and wood (among other things) and faster. This might not seem very important early on, but you’ll soon appreciate every new drop that comes into your main building. I was expecting Cataclismo to be more limited in its scope, yet the town management aspect eventually becomes as important as building the right walls and traps plus equipping them with defender units. As things get even more complicated, it’ll be interested to see whether the complete loop becomes a chore or things remain frenetic and interesting.

Watching the carnage unfold is equally satisfying regardless of the outcome, as entire structures can crumble if the foundations are trashed and the game never becomes visually cluttered, and while the enemies that attack the bases early on seem pretty basic, we do know things get more savage the further we move into the wilderness. Soon, the ability to save entire builds (and Steam Workshop support is there) with a couple of clicks for easy redeployment becomes as crucial to the experience as the protagonist’s in-universe save-scumming capabilities (yes, really).

Hooded Horse, a publisher who’s been making waves in recent times with titles such as Against the Storm and Manor Lords, could have another winner in its hands with Digital Sun’s latest, yet I’m remaining cautious, as much of Cataclismo’s appeal in the long run will depend on how much each map shakes things up and what new building blocks are added to my collection. For now, I’m going to go add another layer of rock cubes to my exterior walls.

Cataclismo is launching in early access on July 22 via GOG and Steam.

While most fans are too busy debating whether the new live-action Star Wars series is breaking the canon (no, the Legends stuff isn’t canon anymore) or fully embracing it, I’ve been quite frustrated by the choppy editing, plenty of awkward bits of dialogue, and the ‘movie-cut-into-short-episodes’ structure that’s (more often than not) barely worked in the past for neither Marvel Studios nor Lucasfilm.

Mind you, I firmly believe The Acolyte’s close examination of the Jedi Order and the dark forces plotting against them roughly one century before The Phantom Menace is far more engrossing on a conceptual level than the middling Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi series, yet it fails to avoid some of the pitfalls that made those disappointing in my eyes. For example, it very much doesn’t look like it cost $180 million in spite of the impressive sets and rad costume designs.

I want to focus on a more widespread problem though: it’s a TV show that doesn’t feel like a TV show. While The Mandalorian learned to walk the line between an episodic and serialized format from the get-go (though we might argue it’s noticeably weaker when it zeroes in on the main plot for too long), all other live-action Star Wars series have had bigger ambitions, offering us the kind of stories we used to watch on the big screen not that long ago, but over several weeks instead. That sounds like a sweet deal, and it kinda is… as long as the writing and editing feel adequate for TV.

Dave Filoni, who’s now also wearing the Chief Creative Officer hat at Lucasfilm, is no stranger to telling big stories that also feel episodic, and his tradition is alive and well with animated shows like The Bad Batch. In Ahsoka, however, he chose to tell a story that, under different circumstances, could’ve been a killer movie. I really liked what he did there, but it’s hard to deny the whole thing felt like one big adventure forced to fit the eight-episode mold that so many streaming services love nowadays.

More than a few comparisons have been established since The Acolyte’s two-episode premiere between Leslye Headland’s series and the Tony Gilroy-captained Andor, which turned out to be the best live-action Star Wars we’ve gotten so far on Disney Plus. For the most part, they’re surface-level similarities, such as the creatives staying away from the tricky Volume tech in most cases and shooting on location as much as possible, or the tone being much darker than the average Star Wars tale. Only Andor appears to understand it’s a TV show first and foremost though; some of its episodes felt ‘incomplete’ or too transitory, yet there were well-defined arcs that made the 12-episode season format make sense. The Acolyte, meanwhile, feels cut at random.

Even the people who’ve been openly loving the (admittedly refreshing) series will admit the cuts to credits have been pretty bad so far, like the episodes are hitting an unavoidable time limit which doesn’t respect where the unit of storytelling is at. It’s the kind of annoyance that many viewers find hard to describe despite the impact it has on their enjoyment of the entire thing. A half-solution would’ve been to allow the episodes to breathe a bit more, maybe taking the count down to six from eight. 30-ish minutes simply aren’t enough to build up and pay off the suspense every week. The Acolyte is supposed to be a thriller, but its jumpy pacing and incredibly tight runtimes don’t let it fly and truly get into our heads.

We can predict that, unless the story completely crumbles apart in the back half of the season, The Acolyte will flow much better in one or two binge sessions, as its chapters don’t feel distinct at all, with only the third episode having a bit of an identity due to its flashback nature. Many viewers and disgruntled fans (of the type that still enjoys Star Wars) won’t give the season a second watch though, so this first impression isn’t as good as it could be. You’re free not to buy what’s being sold here, but it’s far more frustrating to enjoy something that’s actively fighting to be worse because of some made-up structural rules.

In a way, The Acolyte and other flawed Star Wars shows highlight we (as in everyone involved) need to get back to theatrical releases as soon as possible. As fun as getting new Mando & Grogu adventures every week for two months has been, Star Wars thrives on the big screen, and new live-action installments need to feel like cultural events again. That said, I’m of the opinion the franchise has also found plenty success on Disney Plus and learned some positive lessons about its flexible limits and what it can do to survive for many more decades thanks to the ‘freedom’ the lack of box office hauls allows.

As always, it’s a matter of telling the right story and finding the right balance and voice for it. But it’s safe to say that Disney and its star studios need to better define what a TV series actually is before putting certain projects through the streaming machine (which is undoubtedly showing signs of fatigue). Marvel Studios appears to be now aware of the power of ‘traditional TV culture’ over prestige shows that are ran like movies, but I’m fearing that Lucasfilm might never learn this lesson before inevitably shifting back to theatrical releases. May the Force be with us, I guess.

Lasting around 40 minutes, the Dark and Deep demo is split into several small sections, each defined by a ‘gimmick’ of sorts, that introduces the key mechanics and ideas that will permeate and glue together the entire experience. Woods, the lead (and largely solo) developer on the project, initially conceived Dark and Deep as a smaller experiment that injected art from renowned artists into game art and assets. According to Woods, he was deeply inspired by the visual storytelling of A24 movies like The Lighthouse and Midsommar. The French legend Gustave Doré (1832–1883) is credited as the influence behind much of the game’s art and textures.

Such an approach to building Dark and Deep’s most surreal environments makes certain elements of the game come to life give the entire thing a striking, dreamlike touch that feels unique. Going into the demo, I was expecting a far more constrained and familiar experience. Instead, I got something that felt like a layered fever dream.

At first glance, and without reading about what Woods is going for, Fatal Frame could be brought up as an influence, and the veteran horror series may very well be part of the mix, as the main character, Samuel Judge, uses frames and windows as weapons and to gaze into secrets. But these frames isn’t as prominent and game-defining—at least not yet—as the cameras in the Koei Tecmo-published games.

Instead, Dark and Deep comes across as more of a riff on games like Alan Wake (due to all the meta elements and the unreliable narration) and brainier, puzzle-oriented takes on horror. At least during the game’s earlier sections, combat isn’t really a thing, though an opportunity to defend yourself from ‘shadows’ arises at some point during the breezy demo. While I’m sure things will get a lot worse for the protagonist as the story progresses and more secrets are uncovered, the focus of the game doesn’t appear to be focused on heart-pounding chase sequences or tense combat encounters. It’s more of a slow-paced, exploratory stroll through some deeply cursed environments.

On the matter of level design, I was seriously impressed by the variety packed inside the 40-minute demo. The preview is bookended by two vehicular sequences that are really well put together (given the game’s art style and slightly retro vibes), and the bulk of it takes players through a number of underground scenarios that feel distinct and easy-to-read when it comes to the objectives that must be achieved. More often than not, plenty of cool little horror games, especially first-person ones, feel confusing instead of briefly disorienting. Dark and Deep avoids all that with clear art and smart use of assets.

Alongside the smart use of visual tricks and constant stream of specific situations, the demo does a good job of presenting a story with a hook, though it’s hard to predict its direction, and I doubt that will change before the full game’s credits roll. It truly feels like one of those ‘don’t believe anything you see or do’ kind of horror games, with the main character’s own psychology and muddled memories quickly becoming the most dangerous element of the script.

During the game, a conspiracy theory podcast voiced by Eric Albaugh pops up time and again, subtly adding to both the world and the task at hand. This is a highlight, largely because it’s so well-made. Do you love the unsettling but often funny Night Springs programs found in the Alan Wake games? There’s a lot of that energy in the segments used in the demo, even though the medium (within the medium) is entirely different. Together with the heavier-in-plot sequences, it’s not hard to start piecing together events that kind of make sense and a mental image of a protagonist who might not be who he thinks he is. That said, it’s far too early to tell where Woods could ultimately be taking this loopy horror tale.

Though it doesn’t have a specific release date yet, Dark and Deep is set to launch in August 2024 on Steam and Xbox consoles. This same demo will be available starting June 10 for an entire week on Steam.

The Dark and Deep demo is available from June 10 to June 17 on Steam. Dark and Deep will officially release in August 2024.

I had a fair share of problems with the story at the center of the fourth mainline Diablo entry, yet I walked away from it having enjoyed my time overall. In fact, I stuck around its fleshed-out world just because I thought it was the game’s biggest strength and a big improvement over Diablo III. Moreover, the game simply felt great to play. But there’s only so much fun you can have before hitting the inevitable wall of early-days action RPGs: What’s the point of all this if the progression and grindy loop aren’t quite there yet?

Around 50 hours into my time with Diablo IV, I bounced off and only popped back in to see how the first two seasons fared. I thought they were alright, with the second one, the Season of Blood, being borderline notable. Yet a daunting issue remained: The loot wasn’t good enough, and action RPG brains can only be happy for prolonged periods of time while making waves of enemies explode if there’s a good output of shiny swag to melt down or put on an avatar. Otherwise, they’re not likely to ever hit level 100 and beyond.

Leveling also became a bit of a chore despite the wide array of activities, dungeons, Helltides and whatnot at our disposal, especially when you consider the truly cool content lies beyond the halfway point of a character’s growth. Slowly but steadily, people turned to Diablo alternatives again like Path of Exile and brand-new surprises in the space such as Last Epoch while Blizzard sorted out the most pressing and road-blocking issues well ahead of Diablo IV‘s Vessel of Hatred expansion, which is still set to launch later this year.

Fast-forward to season 4 aka “Loot Reborn,” and Diablo 4 now finds itself in a much better place. Helltides are available from the get-go (if you’ve either beaten or skipped the campaign), loot quality is far more consistent, and tempering is both an effective and streamlined process to fine-tune your build. Dropping all those tweaks and extensive changes at once has made a huge impact on the overall experience. While players are still waiting for something close to Diablo III‘s Rifts, Diablo IV‘s endgame is starting to make sense, and, more importantly, the grind is fun and rewarding.

The funny thing is that all this creative back-and-forth and delayed response to common action RPG issues could have been predicted. In fact, only around 5% of Diablo-likes seemingly avoid such a fate. At this point, it feels like a natural process. In 2012, in case you forgot, Diablo III was met with largely positive reviews, despite its many shortcomings, even before the Reaper of Souls expansion and some big reworks arrived, yet negativity took off when diehard players — the life and blood of this subgenre — hammered away at the progression and endgame content as usual.

Roughly a decade later, in 2023, it was the same story all over again: The bones, right moves, and style were all there for Diablo IV, but an extra year of development and testing was very much needed. At this point, it oddly feels like the norm, and action RPGs only stick around if developers are allowed the time and resources they need to course-correct.

We could argue the capitalist model that severely affects how big games are produced and tested before shipping them off (especially if they’re “live” online titles) may be responsible for this, but that only half-answers the recurring question of why action RPGs typically struggle so much to find their footing at first. My personal take after playing so many of them, isometric or not, is that it’s in their nature to be hard to fully come together before launching into the world.

You kind of need the anonymous sickos and extreme no-lifers that only live out there in the gaming wilds to get their hands on the systems and mechanics and to rip them apart. While stuff like the lack of proper endgame activities is easier to figure out and a clear byproduct of production constraints, finding out what “clicks” for hardcore grinders is a much harder task most of the time.

This struggle has affected every long-running action RPG I can think of, even greats such as Destiny 2 and Warframe. Developers Bungie and Digital Extremes excel at designing well-thought-out and compelling content year after year due to their extensive experience, yet they still manage to mess things up from time to time. And you know what? Shit happens. Even when you’re the best at making sick loot and numbers that go up, you often stumble. Misguided attempts to break into the genre are easy to spot by now, but even when things are figured out and the design feels rock-solid, the “loot-and-grind” formula is a tough nut to crack, and I doubt that will ever change.

However, it’s hard to imagine the first-ever Star Wars video game to truly feature an open-ended, single-player sandbox — after Jedi: Survivor’s push to feel more like a vast, classic Zelda title — not following Ubisoft’s tried-and-tested open-world formula to a certain degree. This isn’t necessarily bad, as fans had been asking for this type of Star Wars game for over a decade. ‘Grand Theft Auto but set in a galaxy far, far away’ was bound to happen sooner or later, and the fact we might be slightly tired of some design bits shouldn’t kill the excitement of finally getting one of the most dreamed-about Star Wars games.

Even after the release of Star Wars Outlaws’ story trailer ahead of its August 30 launch, we haven’t learned that much about the plot or key players beyond the scoundrel-y Kay Vess, little Nix, and the reprogrammed commando droid ND-5 that some people are already thirsting over. In fact, Ubisoft and Massive’s main focus during interviews and in press releases has been on the freedom of choice, the many factions and how they react to the player’s actions, and the many ways to uncover hidden secrets on the planets we’ll be visiting.

While, personally, I’m not expecting natural discovery in the vein of what Tears of the Kingdom or Dragon’s Dogma 2 went for, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora demonstrated that Massive has a more organic take on the infamous ‘Ubisoft formula’ that still sells millions every time a massive Assassin’s Creed comes out. The Pandora-set adventure doubled down on the premise of a Na’vi fantasy and natural interactions with the alien wilderness, and that ultimately made the exploration far more enjoyable than in recent Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry entries. I’m expecting something similar from Star Wars Outlaws, yet the universe’s unique traits also asks for something safer, and I’m okay with that.

We must go all the way back to the imperfect but immensely influential first Assassin’s Creed to properly understand how open-world games have evolved over the last two decades. At the time, the novelty was the size of the worlds and the complexity of the simulations making cities feel alive. Bethesda Game Studios had already cracked the code regarding the ‘alive’ factor, something it has continued to perfect over time, but always went deeper rather than wider. This gave Ubisoft an opening to define how almost every sandbox game not made by Rockstar would behave (for the most part) for three generations.

Of course, the rest of the industry has iterated on the modern ruleset of Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry, often improving on the most dated bits, while other developers chose to follow Bethesda’s style of designing massive worlds. Right now, we can even see the ‘huge map full of markers’ DNA in plain sight in action RPGs like the fourth Diablo. Why not go wide to farm more player engagement by covering the worlds with secondary quests, tasks, events, and whatnot? It works for many games, and the financial performance of long-running series supports this idea, but we also talk about ‘bloated’ experiences quite frequently.

In the case of a true open-world Star Wars experience, especially since we’ve never had one before, I strongly believe a more classical approach to the formula might be a good thing. I don’t want Outlaws to be a full-blown ‘collectathon’, full of leveled foes and generic bases and outposts ready to be raided (as much as I enjoy clearing those on a visceral level), but a ‘scoundrel fantasy’ that takes us to different planets and dares to let players go wild in the overprotected Star Wars universe (when it comes to expanding its history and mythology) needs that kind of juice.

There’s a good reason why gamers almost never complain about Rockstar Games’ traditional approach to open-world design: all the familiar bits and base-level rules are there, but immersion plays a huge role and receives special treatment, and the simulation and random events baked into the flow make sure the worlds are more than a big-budget backdrop for missions that can be easily ported to other games. Massive did a great job of letting Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora shine thanks to its universe’s more unique elements, and an open-ended Star Wars adventure set in the underworld of the iconic sci-fi fantasy setting demands structures and systems we’ve seen before.

As usual, it all will come down to the execution and how the pieces come together. I’m more than happy to hunt for credits, new swag, and equipment for dozens of hours, so long as the wonder doesn’t wear off after the first few quests of taking on crime syndicates. With such an amazing setting ready to be explored, going for a timid angle wouldn’t be wise in my humble opinion. Burned-out players maybe should stop for a moment and consider whether they want the wheel to be reinvented precisely in the ‘Han Solo simulator’ Star Wars game. The galaxy is full of opportunities, and I want my in-game map to reflect that.

Following a number of half-baked collaborations in recent times to milk the remaining addicts even harder than before and little else, I was pretty damn sure that OW2 would be going into life support in less than a couple of years. After its confusing launch in 2022, which was disappointing for veterans due to misguided design choices that seemed to be chasing a competitive crowd that was never meant to be the game’s hardcore audience, the game I once loved was nowhere to be seen.

The class-based roster of characters had been far too overtuned and ‘flattened’ in search of a wider appeal the game had never lacked to begin with, resulting in a hodgepodge of colorful personalities and striking designs that weren’t nearly as distinct as they’d been in the past. The downsizing to 5v5 never made much sense outside of competitive teams, and with the game now reducing its esports presence, it feels like all that tinkering to chase Call of Duty and Valorant players never paid off and only alienated the casual crowd that had found a perfect FPS for them whether they played Unranked or Ranked.

It’s the kind of market-driven thinking that has devalued other major FPS franchises like Battlefield. AAA publishers have a great thing, but can’t stop looking at that one even greater thing, so they tell otherwise talented dev teams to change and change the cool unique thing they had going until they’ve Frankenstein’d it to death, lost the love of the OG players, and failed to capture what makes entirely different games click with players in entirely different ways. Go figure!

Even going free-to-play and finally embracing Steam as well as crossplay to bring in more players didn’t do much to fix Overwatch 2 and its popularity issues. Mind you, Blizzard’s most recent IP remained huge enough to avoid disappearing with the wind, often carried by its eye-catching aesthetic alone. But seeing a game that once threatened to give birth to a massive transmedia franchise (it truly was the biggest game of 2016) fail to keep veterans interested and to morph into a more competitive version of itself has been painful.

A little over a month ago, we also learned that PvE was 100% dead after the suspicious downscaling that had happened over the years. It’s an especially hilarious (and terribly sad) outcome for what once was sold as the sequel’s defining trait: A bigger focus on the universe-building teased by the stunning animated shorts and sparse comic books the company had been putting out since its 2016 debut. I can hardly remember anyone going “Overwatch should really double down on PvE” back in the day in spite of some cute limited-time events, yet Blizzard and the OW team rebuilt the entire game, slowing down content development for the first iteration, to chase an entirely different chunk of the FPS market.

The Microsoft acquisition of Activision-Blizzard, which isn’t even a year old, may have saved OW2 (ironically), as the team’s continued hemorrhage of key creative talent and all-time-low morale hasn’t stopped them from delivering a strong Season 10 update. It walked back many of the sequel’s most criticized changes, such as locking new heroes behind either a paywall or joy-killing grinds, and actually had the intention of setting the game on the right path: that of a welcoming casual-oriented FPS experience with strong class design.

Mind you, its Battle Pass system and overall rewards-progression pacing remain some of the worst I’ve ever experienced, and all of their efforts to rethink ‘free’ rewards and customization unlocks can’t still match the overall satisfaction that the (admittedly flawed and dangerous) loot boxes system provided. When it comes to monetization, there’s no easy way to make everyone happy this late into Overwatch’s life cycle, and I’ve personally moved on from complaining about that aspect of the game. Activision-Blizzard will, however, try to pump those numbers up after some truly bad numbers in recent times, so stay tuned for more terrible changes.

The Season 10 tweaks and a renewed promise of making us (those who’d left in disgust) care about Overwatch again tempted me just enough to reinstall OW2 on Steam and try the latest heroes. To my surprise, I actually had a great time, and I’ve been playing the game on-and-off again for the past few days. It still isn’t prime OW1, but it feels way more focused and flexible – without dropping the class-based element – than whatever OW2 was at launch, when DPS characters dominated the battlefield and even tanks were jumping around and going after kills like in a juiced-up version of Black Ops 4 (another ill-advised entry in an otherwise effective franchise).

Overwatch was always about true teamwork, about strengthening the bonds between the wildly distinct characters. Their design flaws were there on purpose and needed to be ‘fixed’ by other heroes. That was the main appeal of the game. It was meant to be an evolution of what Valve had achieved with Team Fortress 2 (a 2007 shooter that has often felt more alive than Overwatch) instead of yet another MOBA full of jack-of-all-trades characters.

It’s far too soon to declare that “Overwatch is back, baby” (sorry, Winston), but it’s in a far better place right now than one year ago. While it seems that everyone at Blizzard is still scrambling and trying to figure out what exactly the game needs at the moment to make a strong comeback, I believe it’s not a headless chicken version of a once-great FPS for the first time in years. There might be hope for this one yet, but I’m scared of raising my hopes too much.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness found lots of success at the global box office and was largely well-received by critics and general audiences, yet an annoying portion of the increasingly toxic Marvel fandom decided it sucked because it wasn’t the parade of unrelated cameos they’d wished for instead of, you know, a follow-up to both Doctor Strange and WandaVision. Moreover, it was an MCU movie that (gasp) dared to have a strong visual style. A sauce-less Sam Raimi comic book movie, imagine that.

While much of Deadpool & Wolverine is clearly setting up the inevitable multiversal event movies coming our way and having fun with the now-ended Fox sandbox of X-Men characters, it seems that the script is actually trying to give Wade Wilson and his gang of Fox refugees an emotional closure of sorts before all hell breaks loose. At the same time, the Logan-centric second trailer promises that Hugh Jackman didn’t just agree to do another one of these movies just for the laughs and a meaty paycheck. It could bump into the problem of repeating some of Logan’s emotional beats with this variant of the character, but it looks like there’s more to this iteration of the character.

For all intents and purposes, it doesn’t matter whether this Logan is Logan’s Logan (ugly phrasing intended). Deadpool & Wolverine is doing its own thing and running with the idea of a defeated and bruised Wolverine becoming (once again) the hero he truly is… alongside the multiverse’s most lovable idiot. It’s undeniably a killer pitch, but then there’s the question of whether Marvel Studios and the creatives behind the project can pull off the sweet balance between compelling character arcs and giving fans a bag full of surprises.

Going into this movie expecting it not to be playful about this whole multiverse deal is stupid. Let’s get that out of the way first. If you can’t stand Marvel’s universe-building and/or the entire superhero genre, you should get off this train. That said, the second Doctor Strange, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and Loki already showed us the powers that be could actually allow these stories to flourish on their own while also tying into the larger multiverse and time-related plans of the MCU’s current overarching saga.

It remains to be seen if Shawn Levy, Ryan Reynolds, and their team have managed to find a good spot between all the surface-level, fan-pleasing fun and dramatic beats that can make us remember the movie for years to come. Much of Marvel Studios’ past wins are linked to almost effortlessly walking the line between fan service and genuinely fine storytelling, and Phase 4 and 5 haven’t been completely devoid of that type of magic. It just feels far less common now.

Regardless of the final outcome, I fear that rabid fans are already setting themselves up for disappointment that doesn’t have anything to do with the actual quality of the movie, but instead is about not getting all the dopamine-boosting presents they’d wished for. I can’t help but think of Dudley Dursley’s 11th birthday in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone whenever this happens.

Deadpool & Wolverine has teased plenty of fun cameos already, and I’m not extremely hopeful about Cassandra Nova – one of Marvel Comics’ strangest and most interesting villains of all time – getting the treatment she deserves. There simply isn’t enough space in a fast-paced action-comedy-adventure to properly flesh out all the major players, so excuse me if nostalgic cameos aren’t too high on my list of priorities. This doesn’t seem to be a common sentiment among fans though. One look at social media or YouTube comments and it’s all wishing for bloated, meaningless slop that would rival Marvel’s blandest comic book events. I’d rather save the celebration of Marvel Studios’ massive multiverse for Avengers: Secret Wars and get some proper characterizations while we can.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ultimately worked because it didn’t lose track of Stephen Strange’s journey nor the consequences of Wanda Maximoff’s actions despite all the universe-hopping action that let Raimi flex his blockbuster muscles while indulging in some memorable horror moments that gave the MCU a sharper edge for a limited time. The Illuminati never should’ve been more than an obstacle to overcome and a cautionary tale, and Michael Waldron’s script understood that. Watching Wanda destroy them was satisfying because it represented Marvel Studios not falling into an all-too-common trap of franchise filmmaking. It wasn’t ‘huge crossover time’ yet.

Some naysayers at the other side of the spectrum may argue that Spider-Man: No Way Home relied far too heavily on nostalgia, yet I found it to be a focused and emotional exploration of who Peter Parker is and why he’s doomed to never ever have a normal life everywhere in the gigantic multiverse. You know, the kind of themes that Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse also explored last year. If Deadpool & Wolverine can apply some of that energy to its two leads and their self-worth issues, I’ll be a happy moviegoer instead of just another satisfied consoomer.

Well, it appears that Microsoft and Bethesda either had secret plans we don’t know about yet or didn’t consider the possibility that the series would turn out so awesome. The streets are asking for Fallout: New Vegas 2 or whatever, but right now it’s looking like there’s only more Fallout 76 and Fallout Shelter on the table (plus a timid current-gen Fallout 4 update that should’ve come out like a year ago).

Looking at other movie/TV studios and game publishers trying to plan ahead and use the potential success of their projects to boost brand awareness and sales via transmedia connections, it’s frustrating to see all the hype surrounding the show knowing that no new Fallout project is confirmed to be happening until Bethesda Game Studios (only a part of Bethesda Softworks) is done with The Elder Scrolls 6, something that for sure ain’t happening until 2027-28 at the earliest if I had to guess.

We’ve just received confirmation that Fallout is getting a second season. If both the quality and interest remain healthy in a couple of years, I can see this one surviving for quite a while. This gives Microsoft and Bethesda a decent enough window to cook something up before the Fallout series burns out. In fact, a new Fallout video game project releasing before 5 was a great idea before we knew the show had turned out great. Now, it feels like the clock is ticking as the IP enjoys its best moment in the spotlight. Hell, the sales numbers for Fallout 4 are currently unbelievable, and the aforementioned update hasn’t even come out yet.

With Bethesda Game Studios entirely out of the picture – besides the ongoing love that Fallout 76 continues to receive – as they focus on Starfield and the next Elder Scrolls, it now falls to Microsoft and Bethesda Softworks to move the IP around and get studios to work on something that isn’t a quick mobile cash-in. Maybe this won’t happen at all. Maybe the powers that be are simply content having 76 and Shelter print out MTX money, but right now, even a quick remaster of Fallout 3 and New Vegas (with a Nintendo Switch release) sold at a reasonable price would be a massive success.

In fact, a Fallout 3 remaster or remake of sorts might be happening sooner or later if we believe that leaked Microsoft doc from a while back and plans haven’t changed. The big issue is that it was marked as coming later down the line, with an Oblivion remaster set to arrive way before that. The success of the TV show could potentially ramp up development on that, but it’s all just conjectures and hopeful wishes on my part.

It’s far more reasonable to assume that absolutely no new Fallout video game project was on the cards before the series’ arrival and that Microsoft and Bethesda were hoping to ride 76 and Shelter into the next decade, with the astonishing barrage of new players jumping into all the games released so far being way bigger than anyone had anticipated.

After putting my ‘uber-capitalist’ hat on, any scenario in which the most immediate answer to the conversation happening at the moment isn’t brand-new games going into pre-production feels like leaving a mountain of cash on the table. With how dire things have been as of late for big and medium-sized publishers, this opportunity is one that many would kill for.

Getting the obvious what-if project out of the way first (Fallout: New Vegas 2 or a similar spinoff by one of Obsidian’s bigger teams), one advantage of Microsoft’s absolutely deranged ‘Monopoly strategy’ is that they’ve got a ton of people and a ton of valuable IPs they can tinker with, and having the Fallout property strictly linked to BGS robs the universe of potential expansions and new perspectives as satisfying for diehard fans and newcomers alike as the Amazon-backed TV series. We don’t need Fallout to always behave like a big Bethesda RPG; Shelter already unearthed some of that hidden potential.

I’d wager inXile would love to have a crack at Fallout and take it back to its turn-based roots after showing everyone what they can do with the Wasteland games. What about a pure FPS by id Software or MachineGames? I’d also enjoy a full-scale management sim or an RTS. The possibilities are virtually endless, and I refuse to believe the best plan they can come up with is “yeah, let’s just wait until Fallout 5 and keep 76 doing its own thing” while players are desperate for all-new experiences set in such a unique universe.

Mild spoilers ahead for Star Wars: The Bad Batch and Andor.

That might sound like an outrageous claim, but bear with me a bit. The progression of Star Wars animation from Saturday morning cartoons (at least that’s how the early stuff feels like) to televised installments that, for many fans, are as important as the big live-action entries have allowed these ‘cartoons’ to grow up with the original viewers. What once was a gateway into the galaxy far, far away for the new generations has essentially become an extension of the larger Star Wars story.

The original Clone Wars movie (a bunch of episodes glued together, really) focused on Jabba the Hutt’s little baby son, introducing Ahsoka Tano before the following series, and setting the stage for a galaxy-wide conflict that hadn’t been mined nearly enough through Genndy Tartakovsky’s (amazing) 2D series and Revenge of the Sith. For the first two seasons or so, beyond some remarkable exceptions, things seemed pretty safe. Season 3, however, allowed The Clone Wars to become progressively meaner, which led to the series eventually outgrowing its sillier story arcs and exploring some difficult subjects.

Star Wars Rebels and Resistance, alternatively, never hit incredibly dark notes and mostly kept the wonder of the original Star Wars movies alive despite their larger implications for the Star Wars canon. Hell, the former is now a key part of Dave Filoni’s ongoing storytelling efforts set in the New Republic era, which at the same time are linked to wherever The Mandalorian is going next. The Bad Batch, however, has worked as an extension of The Clone Wars, and that means exploring the galaxy’s uglier side and the repercussions of the terrible events that went down in Revenge of the Sith.

What could’ve been a swashbuckling adventure led by the irregular Clone Force 99 instead became an exploration of the Empire’s rise to power, which didn’t happen overnight, through the lens of soldiers forced to either follow orders or step away from the fight. When you frame the series’ main events and key thematic beats that way, it becomes abundantly clear that it shares more than a few strands of DNA with Tony Gilroy’s excellent Rogue One prequel show.

Gareth Edwards’ troubled but ultimately successful 2016 movie, which was the first-ever live-action Star Wars spinoff, inadvertently paved the way for more on-screen stories that directly dealt with the ‘nobodies’ that profoundly affected galaxy-defining events. Likewise, this new ‘breed’ of Star Wars movies/shows dared to get closer to the bad guys’ uglier side. We’d always heard about how evil the Empire was and how they oppressed countless worlds all over the galaxy, but we hadn’t seen much of that before.

Andor (at least during its first season) is a ground-level Star Wars story through and through. Nothing in those 12 episodes has a huge impact on the Empire’s galactic map. But that’s how rebellions begin, and the show’s slow burn will eventually explode into the Rebel Alliance that we know was formed shortly afterwards. Cassian Andor, Luthen Rael, and other ‘proto-Rebels’ aren’t much on their own, but sparks can ignite fires.

The Bad Batch, meanwhile, presents us a colorful group of characters that aren’t having a good time most days. While the option to run away and live their lives presents itself many times, they can’t help but return to the fight, a fight that’s nothing like the one the galaxy has just left behind. The surviving clones don’t know they’re among the first-ever proto-Rebels, but they’re already making a difference, even if they think it’s just because they want to save as many of their own as they can.

The group’s adventures and misadventures (they’ve been having way more of the latter recently) take them to occupied and exploited worlds and highlight how the Empire’s iron fist is quickly transforming the once plural galaxy into a grey sludge, crushing the hard-earned freedom of many worlds in the process. The Jedi games have also done a great job of closely inspecting how the Empire became so mighty, but, as the saga’s title indicates, are preoccupied with more mystical matters first and foremost.

Project Necromancer plot point aside (everything is connected, remember), The Bad Batch’s point-of-view is almost the same as Andor Season 1’s. Though the animated façade of the first might suggest otherwise, both get up close and personal and are often dirty. It’s remarkably weird to see a piece of Star Wars animation almost completely neglecting its younger viewers, but at the same time, this type of exploration of the galaxy feels almost perfect by George Lucas’ standards – he often called the Star Wars saga “a modern fairy tale,” but always strived to tell ultimately complex tales about our systems and how they can fail us… if we let them.

Spoilers ahead for the two Dragon’s Dogma games.

“Dragon’s Dogma 2 isn’t really about the story,” you might say. Yes, I know that. I’ve beaten the original game and Dark Arisen twice, and despite its assortment of bold and interesting concepts, it’s hard to argue the main plot was anywhere near cohesive or memorable. I (and most DD fans, probably) remember its most insane twists quite fondly, especially as the true final stretch was laid out before us, but that didn’t make everything that preceded it any less disjointed and awkward.

Back in the day, Dragon’s Dogma had the excuse of being rushed to completion, which is obvious even if you look past its narrative flaws: The world map was quite small and full of ‘empty’ space; loot didn’t make much sense until the late game; and the enemy variety wasn’t quite there. 12 years later, Dragon’s Dogma 2 has fixed many of those issues thanks to a noticeably chunkier budget and more time in development, yet a few shortcomings remain, and at this point, I just think they’re part of Hideaki Itsuno and his team’s vision.

It’s not hard to reach DD2’s post-game state, in which the game world is threatened by otherworldly forces and is, quite literally, coming undone. After slaying the titular (but not too present) Dragon, we get the choice of either becoming the Sovran and getting a happy ending or daring to ‘lift the veil’ and see the true world, that is, a world without the cycle that supposedly holds it together. It’s all fascinating meta stuff and the right kind of batting with big ideas that most AAA games are sorely lacking, taking things even further than the original’s shocking final stretch. Hell, we don’t get the Dragon’s Dogma II title drop until this optional section is reached. That’s awesome!

Likewise, the structure of the game and how we interact with the world are reshaped, with a ticking clock and much higher stakes making failure more painful and seriously encouraging several runs to make the most of it. Nonetheless, it all couldn’t make me forget how surface-level, oddly paced, and unsatisfying the main story path was up to that point. Dragon’s Dogma 2 is a rather frontloaded game with a couple of pretty sweet cinematic moments early on, but it struggles more and more with its narrative ambitions as the journey progresses.

Following the whole ‘court intrigue’ arc, which is somewhat interesting but doesn’t play to the game’s strengths, the Arisen and his party of pawns are sent to the neighboring country of Battahl, probably hoping the players get sidetracked long enough to make things seem much grander than they actually are. I’ll admit: It’s quite the trek, and the sense of discovery once you cross the border is amazing. Again, I think DD2 is a very good game, and the hard-hitting combat and satisfying exploration make it shine. In a way, it’s an RPG that becomes better the more time you spend in the space between major locations and events.

A couple of promising cutscenes aside, which stop being a thing halfway through until you reach the ‘true’ ending, the emotion and intrigue simply aren’t there. We’re told about tensions between Vermund and Battahl, but they never factor into the plot nor actual gameplay beyond the casual xenophobia that some NPCs spill out. The villains can control pawns, but it’s never an explicit menace. Lord Phaesus is supposedly the bad guy, yet he barely opposes our advancements and we end up actually helping his research for a good while for no good reason. Some ‘main’ (I guess?) characters drop off the face of the world until the post-game. It all becomes increasingly baffling and makes you wonder whether the team was hit with budget/timing issues again, but I’m inclined to believe it’s just how they chose to deliver this excuse for a story.

I guess I wouldn’t be so mad about the massive disappointment DD2’s main story arc (there are solid side quests!) turned out to be if it didn’t try to actually tell an interesting tale. I wouldn’t have minded if the whole thing was just a shameless riff on Breath of the Wild and its refreshing (back in 2017) “go defeat Ganon whenever you want, but maybe get a bit stronger before” structure. It’d have rocked, actually. But this game does put some effort into actually telling an epic story the traditional way, and it just doesn’t keep the required level up. In fact, it drops all the plates and runs to the nearest exit shortly after we reach Battahl. It’s so disconcerting and made me wish they looked at FromSoftware’s enigmatic yet subtle narratives instead.

I’ve thought of describing Dragon’s Dogma 2 to anyone who asks about it as the straight opposite of Final Fantasy XVI, which is to say that it excels at careless adventuring and side questing, and only stumbles when it tries to say something meaningful. In fact, I’d say that even Bethesda’s largely outdated and half-goofy storytelling efforts in Starfield landed far better than whatever Itsuno and the gang clumsily tried to deliver here. If history repeats itself, we might get something much more engrossing whenever the (I’d say inevitable) DLC expansion arrives.

After two poor attempts at bringing the Alien vs. Predator crossover to the big screen later (one in 2004 and another in 2007), diehard fans of both sci-fi franchises haven’t given up on the idea of a movie that can capture the inherent coolness of the Dark Horse-published comics and the many video games that both nightmarish extraterrestrials have shared over the years.

In a way, both Alien vs. Predator and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem already had the right mindset in place: making the creatures the stars of the show. This is what has eventually made the MonsterVerse an exciting, slightly different franchise to follow. Sadly, neither the writing nor directing talent was up to par in both cases, and as much as those two alien species clashed together over the course of both runtimes, critics and audiences didn’t react positively to what ultimately felt like a B-grade detour for two once great movie series.

Mind you, both Alien and Predator have had their fair share of solo stinkers and so-so entries over the years, and they seem to be recovering only just now with surprise hits like Prey and the exciting back-to-the-roots promise of Alien: Romulus, which arrives later this year. As for the upcoming (and still untitled) Alien TV series, we’ll have to wait a bit longer to see how it pans out.

With Disney now reigning over 20^th Century Studios and all its properties, it’s only a matter of time before “connected universe” aspirations reach both IPs and executives realize they have a potential killer crossover movie waiting to be made… as long as they can find the right creative vision for it. There’s no easy way to approach such a task, especially when a good portion of the target audience still shudders at the thought of the two previous Alien vs. Predator movies. But there might be a clear path forward to at least start working on it.

Legendary’s MonsterVerse, which already feels more successful than whatever Warner Bros. and DC were trying to do with the DCEU (for example), may have unsuspectingly given Disney and 20^th Century Studios the perfect blueprint to set up an enticing enough crossover between their two sci-fi monsters: Not overplaying the “connected universe” angle until the destination is reached and betting on director-driven flicks with strong visual styles that stand on their own.

Somehow, 20^th Century Studios could already be halfway there, as Prey was praised by critics and horror movie buffs alike and would’ve likely made great box office numbers had Disney released it theatrically in summer 2022; this year, they won’t be repeating that mistake with the next Alien, which quickly made the jump from Hulu to cinemas after reportedly garnering extremely positive internal buzz. It’s already a better start than the MonsterVerse’s, as 2014’s Godzilla reboot – directed by Gareth Edwards – caused some division despite a notable box office performance.

Legendary and Warner wouldn’t bet their chips on the monsters themselves until 2017’s Kong: Skull Island and 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters, though audiences and critics still rejected the half-baked and often overabundant human drama in the second Godzilla (which Toho’s Godzilla Minus One thankfully nailed in late 2023). Personally, I think Mike Dougherty’s King of the Monsters is vastly underrated and perfectly nailed a Heisei-era Toho feature with a strong reverence for the kaiju as mythological figures, but that’s an entirely different discussion.

The MonsterVerse’s current stage is that of unabashedly silly fun that resembles the Showa-era Gojira movies – but placing most of the narrative weight on Kong’s shoulders – in ways we couldn’t have imaged a decade ago, at least not from a Hollywood franchise. Pacific Rim was kind of the outlier back then. There’s progression to the MonsterVerse, both when it comes to narration and tone. It’s fascinating to study how it’s gone (almost effortlessly) from framing the monster attacks as if they were real-life disasters to having the titans clash like huge action figures. It all came down to believing in the source material’s many facets and creative possibilities and letting wildly different filmmakers put their stamp on their respective movies while establishing connections that never felt like the main goal.

Could such a model ever be replicated and applied to Alien vs. Predator as a shared universe? Looking at how comic books have handled such matters, often over several series, it shouldn’t be terribly hard. There’s enough space and time, as well as common ground, in both franchises to allow for healthy cross-pollination. With one hit already in the bag, another potentially in the way, and at least two more Predator movies currently in the works and expanding the series’ horizons, I’d say there’s a remarkable window of opportunity here to reinvigorate both franchises as sci-fi touchstones while also building towards something bigger that puts pulpy fun over themes.

The MonsterVerse has shown us we can actually have a bit of everything in a cinematic universe, and that applies to both aesthetics and the actual stories being told. With Godzilla x Kong, we’re deep into the silly era of the franchise, and that’s okay, as things started off much darker and went through adjustments distinctly linked to the creatives behind each flick. It’s a bit like the Marvel Cinematic Universe at its best, only much more flexible and far less overabundant (for now). Now imagine a series of seemingly unconnected Alien and Predator movies with distinct settings and tones that slowly plant the seeds for a bigger, more explosive blockbuster.

New Alien and Predator movies shouldn’t face much trouble making cash, either. Stuff like Mad Max: Fury Road, Joker, and the Deadpool adaptations have shown us there’s a hunger out there for adult-oriented event movies right now. Incidentally, all of these are getting follow-ups this year that seem poised to hit the box office hard. Moreover, Evil Dead somehow remains a perfect example of how to read the room and safely budget (big or small) an enduring horror franchise.

Whether you’re into creatures – giant, prehistorical, or extraterrestrial – hurting each other quite badly and terrorizing humans, it’s hard to deny creature features are making a comeback. Maybe the Jurassic World movies ignited that fire, The Meg managed to jump the shark twice, and the last two Godzilla & Kong movies have hit cinemas at the perfect time. Mix that form of brain-numbing entertainment with the unending allure of horror productions, and as the late Carl Weathers said, “Baby, you’ve got a stew going.”

Running out of Ferrystones? Too bad, time to embark on a true adventure and make better plans ahead of the next trip. Dragonsplague has ruined your game? Learn how to resurrect NPCs as soon as possible and pay attention to the signs next time. It’s the kind of modern RPG that’s equal parts genuinely awe-inspiring and infuriating. From Elden Ring to Baldur’s Gate 3 to Dragon’s Dogma 2, it increasingly feels like most players are getting used to AAA role-playing games that actually ask players to learn unique rulesets and grow up.

Going into DD2, one of the most useful tips would be to actually pay attention to what the game says about its systems and mechanics and treat key characters and quests as carefully as you can. While there are solutions to most of the game’s harshest events and potential screw-ups, it will hold you accountable very often.

On the surface, it’s hard not to instinctively compare the sequel’s firm approach to open-world exploration and reactive interactions not just as an evolution of what the 2012 original already did (after all, it behaves a like pseudo-remake of sorts), but also like a continuation of what Elden Ring and the last two Legend of Zelda games achieved so well. Dragon’s Dogma 2, however, consciously forces players to own their mistakes, whether it’s failing to cure the Dragonsplague, losing hired Pawns in bloody battle, or simply wandering off into the wilderness unprepared and with empty potions.

Mind you, DD2 isn’t a game filled with busywork. It actually respects the player’s time and throws excitement our way every couple of minutes, but the experience can quickly turn miserable if you’re believing too much of the Chosen One narrative its predecessor already subverted. Aside from what’s actually going on story-wise with the Arisen (no spoilers in this piece), the Dragon, and whatnot, you’re far from a faultless protagonist and every bit as frail as the Pawns. Some madman will probably try this, but I don’t think you can solo this game without going crazy (this will probably age like milk).

Suffering a terrible death and resetting to a previous checkpoint or save isn’t the kind of consequences I’m rambling about here though. There are no souls nor entire inventories (cue Diablo 2 Vietnam flashbacks) to be lost. You can waste hour-long treks instead, though I’m sure you’ll get into cool side adventures. Make the mistake of incorrectly reading a quest log and you’ll find yourself crossing the map and facing innumerable foes only to arrive to the place marked on the map and realize you’re missing a key item. Maybe you can use a Ferrystone to fast-travel to Venworth or Bakbattahl, but you’re screwed if you don’t have a usable Portcrystal to place on the location you just spent so much time getting to. If that’s the case, you probably won’t forget the next time (after a second trek).

Portcrystals aren’t super abundant either (but far from rare despite what the noisy MTX controversy might suggest), so the game indirectly tells you to be careful with those too. Hey, you’re free to use them however you see fit, but don’t come back crying later if you waste them on random locations that are relatively near the big cities (which have permanent Portcrystals of their own). Unless you’re looking at guides every couple of minutes, these are things that you’ll probably find out on your own. And you know what? It rocks. We’re seriously lacking AAA games that aren’t holding our hands through the entire thing.

Back to the whole Dragonsplague epidemic and the whining surrounding the fatal consequences that are only triggered if you ignore its many signs for far too long: Dragon’s Dogma 2 enjoys being as weird as (if not weirder than) the original. One reasonable fear as we approached the final pre-release stretch was that maybe Itsuno and his team had been ‘subdued’ by Capcom, leading to a more market-tested and ‘safe’ installment. Instead, DD2 has only upped the trolling levels and doubled down on pretty much everything that made the original such an imperfect gem, unless there was enough time and money this time around to land closer to perfection. The game-player friction found in many of its systems isn’t up for debate. It is what it is. Take it or leave it.

I vividly remember similar conversations around the early Souls games happening for a while roughly a decade ago. Fast-forward to 2024 and we’re still raving about Elden Ring as one of the biggest mainstream RPG hits in recent memory, and waiting for countless riffs on FromSoftware’s tried-and-tested, undoubtedly hostile formula. It certainly took a while, but players got used to the risks that eventually created fresh norms that, in turn, defined an entire new subgenre. It’s the kind of stuff I’d like to see happening more often in this space.

Things as common in RPGs as not completing urgent quests fast enough or making the wrong calls should have tangible, lasting consequences, especially now that NG+ is a thing in almost every sandbox game. Don’t allow us to savescum our way out of ugly situations every time. Freedom and choices only have weight if we’re forced to deal with the ramifications. This might not fit the artistic vision for countless games, but it would definitely help certain AAA behemoths which pride themselves in the sheer amount of content available above all else.

When was the last time a good tabletop Dungeons & Dragons campaign went smoothly for you, huh? I’m pretty sure you had a great time regardless. Video games, especially when they’re this big, need more of that magic.