Today, several games were shown during Microsoft’s Inside Xbox event, the first of a series of events that are being planned over the next few months. With a first-party event planned for July, the focus was on third-party games coming to Xbox Series X, and while the Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla “gameplay” reveal was the star attraction, there was a surprising number of next-gen horror games featured in the showc
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The Mafia trilogy is easily one of the best story-driven, open-world trilogies of all time. While opinions may be mixed on Mafia 3 , most people absolutely adore Mafia 1 and 2 for good rea
Updated March 23, 2022 by Allison Stalberg: Dogs and everywhere in video games, even when they are not, as recently shown in Elden Ring where players are writing messages next to turtles that just say “dog.” Popular video game dogs are ever-increasing, such as the newest addition, Argos, from Final Fantasy 14 . There are also older faces that deserve attention, such as the mabari from Dragon Age: Origins . From post-apocalyptic German Shepards to bipedal guitarists, video games have given society a lot of memorable d
It should take new players somewhere around ten hours to complete their first playthrough, and series veterans could likely do it in half the time. This is primarily thanks to the lack of meaningful sidequests or extraneous cont
The mabari companion in Dragon Age: Origins is the one unquestionably faithful friend in the party. No matter what the Warden does, the dog remains loyal. Like other companions, it can be part of banter while the player explores. This results in a lot of humorous relationships between companions and the
What was possible for open-world RPGs in 2004 versus what can be achieved now is drastically different. There are some exceptions, Morrowind managed to bring a well-realized open world to the Xbox, but Fable, visually, was a far superior game, obviously leading to restrictions in other areas. The core elements of RPGs have remained the same, but morality systems are an exception. For the past few decades, what gamers want out of a morality system has shifted dramatically, and with it, the way that gamers think about a narrative as a wh
First-party games may be the main focus of Microsoft’s E3 2018 press conference, but the company is also expected to give a proper introduction to Rocksteady’s rumored Superman Adventure Game reviews . Apparently, Superman: World’s Finest will be announced during Microsoft’s press conference, where it will be revealed that Brainiac is the game’s main vill
Nintendo is enjoying a serious comeback with the Nintendo Switch after the general sales failure that was the Wii U. Considering this, the Big N will want to keep the momentum going at E3, and if some leaks and rumors are to be believed, it will be an E3 Nintendo Direct to remem
It’s also worth noting that Playground is still in the process of hiring more staff and building a team so a close launch date is certainly out of the question, lest another studio is secretly working on the project. It’s also very possible that Fable 4 is being held back so it could launch for the company’s next-gen console.
Besides Fable , Microsoft is apparently set to leverage some of its other big franchises at the show as well. This includes Gears of War , which is rumored to have the biggest presence at the show in the form of three new games being announced. These games include Gears of War 5 , a Gears of War battle royale spinoff , and a Gears of War strategy game in the vein of Halo Wa
Earlier this year, unconfirmed reports claimed that Fable 4 is in active development at Playground Games, the studio best known for its work on the Forza Horizon series. These reports still have yet to be proven, but with Microsoft recently purchasing Playground Games, it’s clear that the publisher has a vested interest in the studio. If Fable 4 is in development as rumored, maybe an announcement will come at
Of course, it’s possible that none of the rumored games will be announced at E3, so fans should keep that in mind before getting their hopes up. Ultimately, we’ll just have to wait for the E3 festivities to kick off this weekend to see which rumors are validated and which are put to r
A major complaint from many animal-loving gamers is when there are cute animals, but you cannot pet or interact with them. Luckily, Polterpup became available for pets, and he certainly deserves them for being a good
On the other end of that are games that dropped the morality system entirely, one example being Fallout 4. Ditching the Karma system wasn’t a popular decision, but it did make players consider why they did what they did, rather than just making binary choices to fit the mold of a hero or villain. That’s not an easy thing to accomplish, and unrooting players from a mechanic they’ve used for the better part of a decade is commendable, even if there’s a notable shift in how well that change works. Morality in the game is by no means perfect, there were pointless decisions in Fallout 4 , and players were forced to play the hero in most situations, but it did make the smaller-scale decisions worthy of reflect
