Search Results

Just say "no." *Editor's Note: The review copy we received had a large amount of placeholder text, bugs, and missing voicework, some of which was addressed in a patch the day before release. This review is predicated upon that version of the game. Editor's Note 2: After playing the game post-launch, many of the technical hurdles described below remain. As such, a finalized score has been added to the review. At first glance, Ledgerbound presents itself as a raunchy, corporate-satire tactical RPG driven by star-studded voice performances and surprisingly robust customization mechanics. Yet beneath its lowbrow gags and tight grid-based battles lies a game that continually wrestles with its own comedic boundaries — landing somewhere between a genuinely engaging tactical exercise and an uncomfortable lightning rod for real-world labor politics, as Ledgerbound’s core satire reinforces tired, damaging corporate stereotypes. Publisher: OmniMegaSuperCorp Developer: OmniMegaSuperCorp Platform: Played on PC (Steam) Availability: Released on August, 2026 on PC (Steam) While Ledgerbound is not a deep, heartfelt story by any means, the characters are all engaging enough to hold interest in moment-to-moment scenes, and each has their own quirks. You can "romance" all of your companions, but the mechanic feels a bit awkward in practice. You just kind of talk with them from time to time and choose to enter a relationship or not — there’s no real buildup to any of it, making the romance system feel essentially meaningless. Where the narrative presentation genuinely holds together is in its audio delivery. The voice acting is excellent, which should be no surprise thanks to a top-tier cast of actors like Matt Mercer, Ben Starr, and Travis Willingham, just to name a few. The parody nature of the dialogue is certainly buoyed by these performances, as bad acting would make this miserable. Still, the overall presentation suffers from numerous technical bugs, like audio balance issues, where characters wildly shift volume mid-conversation, or instances where audio is absent entirely — leaving lines literally marked as "(MISSING VO)" in the dialogue box. Hopefully, issues like these are ironed out before full release. Underneath its irreverent skin, combat takes place on a simple tactical grid where each character has unique skills and other limited moves based on their equipment loadout. There is an additional function of opposing elements — similar to a weapon triangle in Fire Emblem or types in Pokémon — where characters do or take more damage according to specific element types (fire beats grass, grass beats water, and water beats fire). Each fight features a main objective alongside side objectives. Completing objectives awards vouchers for gear, and completing all objectives awards shareholder value, which has other uses. You can also replay fights at a later juncture to complete side objectives, though those mock fights don’t confer EXP. The combat loop hits a severe roadblock, however, due to its lack of a manual save feature. Some combat elements are finicky, and a misclick in combat or in conversation can really screw you over with no way to go back. While this is likely an effort to prevent save-scumming, the end result is deeply frustrating. I myself have experienced losses or objective failures due to minor misclicks, or even when one of my cats jumped onto my desk and caused an unwanted action to occur. Such mistakes come with penalties to your free time and fatigue, ultimately locking you out of conversations or actions you would like to do outside of combat, as every action taken requires time and effort to enact, even small things like changing equipment. Still, the overall presentation suffers from numerous technical bugs, like audio balance issues, where characters wildly shift volume mid-conversation, or instances where audio is absent entirely — leaving lines literally marked as "(MISSING VO)" in the dialogue box. These issues are compounded by the fact that bugs steadily worsen as the game progresses. Late in the campaign, an entire conversation bugged out and froze my progress, forcing me to restart. Because of the single-slot save structure, reloading skipped the conversation entirely and shoved me straight into the next battle — robbing me of camp time and locking me out of talking to my other companions. It’s yet another critical failure that a standard manual save system would have easily prevented. Eventually, as I neared what I assume to be the end of the game, I was completely unable to load my save file at all, putting an end to my time with Ledgerbound. Despite these frustrations, the game shines in its equipment systems, which allow for varied builds and strategies thanks to the powerful-but-limited nature of swag and liabilities. Swag works like your normal equipment in that it allows for one type of piece per designated slot, and you can equip them on any character. Liabilities can similarly be equipped on anyone, but they come at a cost, meaning you are constricted by not only the number of available slots, but also the liability cost of each item as compared to your limit. Unfortunately, engaging with this system requires wading through mountains of placeholder text. Crucial equipment descriptions are routinely left unwritten, making it impossible to know what an item actually does before equipping it. Here, the reliance on a single autosave turns gear management into a chore: there is no risk-free way to test an item's effects in combat. You are forced to either enter a story battle blind or spend precious resources replaying a mock fight, and who knows when the next bug will strike. This is discouraging, as the liabilities are where the biggest changes can be made to characters, with them conferring specific skills or effects that may otherwise be unobtainable to a specific party member. These liabilities can help flesh out and strengthen your preferred playstyle, or allow you to pivot a character's role in battle to something different than their natural inclinations. It’s all quite flexible, which helps make the otherwise mundane battle scenarios more interesting in the long run. Outside of combat, the writing's lowbrow humor proves wildly hit-or-miss. While not entirely bottom-of-the-barrel, it plays like a slightly more vulgar Adam Sandler film wearing the skin of a harem anime. Some gags may come across as off-color, but it mostly never fully veers into offensive, save for two particular characters: the HR dragon Jazz, and an entity known as the Shareholder. I’m a bit touchy about the portrayal of Human Resources employees in media because it feeds into this misguided, pervasive blame of HR for all the bad things that happen in an office space. Here in Ledgerbound, the HR spectre is a literal sexual harassment dragon. If it were possible to separate the character Jazz from real-world context, perhaps I would feel better about it. I mean, there is no reading of this character that would position her as an exemplar of good behavior. She is quite obviously a joking stand-in for people’s worst imaginings of those who do that work. But nothing exists absent of context, and I am quite tired of hearing this same drivel over and over for my entire adult life. Why give options if there really aren't any? HR is not to blame for negative workplace outcomes, but the executives — who lay people off, take advantage of their workers, and otherwise implement all of the decisions that make your corporate life miserable — are certainly not going to take any accountability. If someone on the lower rung can fall on the sword, why would those in power volunteer to be put to it? Jazz here is the perfect distillation of decades of capitalist and corporatist propaganda made manifest, a slavish adherent to the worst interpretations of the adage that “HR is only here to protect the company.” She is a conversation in accordance with exactly who Americans imagine their “HR lady” to be. It is, by extension, a tired, sexist emblem for people to sneer at. This impulse to demonize HR extends far beyond gaming into broader political rhetoric, where anti-establishment figures frequently rail against "HR culture" or "corporate scolds" to justify brushing aside basic standards of conduct. In these spaces, holding individuals accountable for real-world misconduct is dismissed as mere bureaucratic overreach. Jazz's characterization directly taps into this sentiment, rewarding the audience's impulse to sneer at rules and oversight while ignoring why those safeguards were established in the first place. Jazz is not so much a parody of HR as she is a parody of broader cultural sentiment; she represents the antithesis of “Dem HR lady politics” that reactionary critics love to rail against. Jazz here is the perfect distillation of decades of capitalist and corporatist propaganda made manifest, a slavish adherent to the worst interpretations of the adage that “HR is only here to protect the company.” Jazz’s existence is therefore an upholding of prevailing sexist attitudes toward women in corporate spaces. While she is a parody, she simply could not exist outside of the conditions that make those prevailing attitudes real. Ultimately, Jazz is a single character in a sea of tropes — albeit a major driving force of the game — and expecting every parody character to land well in comedy is asking a bit much. As such, it can be easy to wash your hands of her existence, to turn a blind eye to the real-world attitudes and implications that a character like this represents, just as it is easy to dismiss a relative's offensive ramblings at a holiday. But I’m no longer interested in maintaining decorum for the sake of bad actors. I believe we can be better. More damning is the inclusion of the Shareholders — the controlling force behind your insurance company, who are portrayed as angelic doms. These shareholders present themselves as the end-all-be-all in the corporate structure, lording over you and your team while simultaneously thrusting Rayna into sexual situations and directing her to keep the meetings a secret. If only there existed an entity or department that could help prevent or reconcile such abuses. Alas, we (and by extension Rayna) are left without recourse. You wouldn't say "no" to your boss, would you? While all other characters give you the option to rebuff unwanted advances, the Shareholders do not. The only way to avoid a sexually-charged encounter with them is to never have engaged with them at all — something that is unknowable beforehand, and also not possible to take back due to the game's save system. I have toiled far too long in the office space to find much joy or humour in these types of workplace abuses. The power dynamics inherent to the employer-employee relationship make such things so toxic and coercive that even a play on such dynamics here hurts my heart. I have seen lives and careers ruined by similar abuses of power, and placing me unwillingly into the shoes of a victim (even if Rayna “enjoys” the abuses) really just grosses me out. It is not lost on me that the player character in Ledgerbound is a woman, and that the specific scenarios she endures are those that disproportionately affect women in the corporate workspace. Where does that leave Ledgerbound as a video game? Mechanically, it is a surprisingly simple tactical RPG with a flexible gear system, and it features a star-studded cast carrying its script. But games don't exist in a vacuum. When a title builds a major character (or characters) around lazy, punch-down satire and real-world harm, it forces players to decide whether the quality of its tactical trappings is enough to excuse its political posturing. For those who can compartmentalize its worst comedic impulses, there is a somewhat competent strategy game here; for everyone else, the nature of its underlying tropes may render the whole ordeal something to be written off. Verdict Ledgerbound is a semi-competent tactics RPG wearing the shell of satire. Unfortunately, that satire does more to uphold corporatist propaganda and stereotypes, while simultaneously glorifying real-world harms, than it ever does to tear them down. On top of distasteful storytelling, it is also plagued by numerous technical issues and a dearth of features. Image Credits: OmniMegaSuperCorp Disclaimer: We received a free copy of this game from the publisher.

If you asked me to name a genre that, in 2026, might be the hardest for a new game to stand out in, I think I'd probably pick "roguelike deckbuilder" without a second thought. According to SteamDB, over 400 games with that specific combination of tags have been released this year alone. If you spend a few minutes clicking around in that subgenre, you'll get a sense for how crowded the field has gotten with how strangely — almost maniacally — specific the implementations are. There's Vampire Crawlers, of course — a game from the Vampire Survivors folks that turns old-school first-person dungeon crawling into a combo-beast card game. Then there's Gambonanza, which updates the Balatro formula by swapping chess in for poker. There's even a sci-fi train game called Fogpiercer that emphasizes positioning and lets you attach different cars to your locomotive for various effects. In a world where discoverability is the buzzword on every industry analyst's lips, making a game in such an overcrowded genre is tough sledding. But that's exactly the challenge Jakarta-based devs Mankibo have set for themselves with their new release, Montabi, and the wrinkle they've added to the recipe is a slightly less overserved microgenre on top of the rest: monster collector. Oh, and it’s a tactics game too. There's a lot going on here. Publisher: Mankibo Developer: Akupara Games Platform: Played on PC (Steam) Availability: Released on August 6, 2026 on PC (Steam) At first glance, Montabi is a beautifully drawn, brightly colored adventure promising you all kinds of monster-collecting fun as you guide one of three trainers across three stages, recruiting a bunch of cute-yet-vicious creatures as you go. Quickly, however, Montabi materializes some pretty nifty tricks from its sleeves. First, instead of combat taking place in the classic turn-based JRPG style, they play out as a tactics fight across two 3x3 grids, with your units occupying the spaces on the left, and your opponent’s units occupying the spaces on the right. Second, rather than select from a menu of attacks and abilities like a traditional JRPG, each of your units comes with their own deck of skills, with each deck specializing in one or two tactical approaches. Some of your Montabi supercharge their attacks by flying across the battlefield every turn, while others may build up stacks and stacks of armor until they spend them all like currency in a massive attack. The result of this mechanical menagerie is a game where the creature collecting quickly feels a little like set dressing for Montabi's real interests — the mind-bending blend of deck crafting and traditional tactics. The complexity ramps up quickly, and as cuddly as Montabi seems, it's a genuine challenge to clock everything that’s going on, especially in its first few hours. Because each montabi has its own deck of skills, the game can at first feel like an explosion of possibilities that are a struggle just to keep up with. Once you're midway through a run, you'll likely have filled your roster with six different montabi, each with a deck full of its own unique cards and combos. Add in the surprisingly tricky positioning that the game's villains force you to navigate on the battlefield, and the three unique trainers whose decks bring their own unifying archetypes to how your units work together and, well, it turns out Montabi is a lot less approachable than its Saturday morning cartoon vibe makes it seem. It's a good thing then that, for the most part, Montabi feels absolutely dynamite to play. A good deckbuilder lives or dies on the sensation of its synergies, and each creature's deck is tuned to give you that good dopamine hit as many times as possible on every run. Most deckbuilders do this by forcing you to commit to one strategy or another as you craft your deck. The player who hops along too many bunny trails en route to the end is never going to find success: commit to the bleed or the churn or the armor counters, and you'll fare much better than spreading your card selections across every shiny new strategy that presents itself. Montabi, on the other hand, asks the beautiful question, "why choose?" With each new creature in your collection representing a completely independent deck, your strategies bloom across dozens of different vectors, shifting much of your strategy to a meta decision layer where you aren't just looking for synergies within decks, but across them. Then, once you've brought your team to the battlefield, the grid presents you with new puzzles. Attacks generally come in three varieties. There are melee attacks, which attack the enemy who is in the closest column to your unit, so long as they are within 3 columns. There are ranged attacks, which target the first enemy unit that shares a row with yours; then there are targeted attacks which might hit anyone at all on the opposing side. Montabi, on the other hand, asks the beautiful question, "why choose?" With each new creature in your collection representing a completely independent deck, your strategies bloom across dozens of different vectors, shifting much of your strategy to a meta decision layer where you aren't just looking for synergies within decks, but across them. Some of these attacks can be modulated to be area of effect, and then there are the traps and mines you can throw out there, as well as abilities that shift your opponents from one space to another. The game offers a preview of what your opponents will do on their next move, so it's up to you to play your cards right, minimizing the damage to your squad by positioning them correctly, while maximizing their damage output in turn. It's important to note that your units don't take their turns individually either, so when it's your go, you're going to be playing the hands for all three of your active units at once, even switching between hands on the fly as you chain your combos just right. I've had turns that felt absolutely magical, swapping off between units as I play 10, 15, 25, or more cards like a deckbuilding maniac, never giving my opponents a chance to blink. That said, even when everything is clicking, Montabi still presents a mighty challenge. On the middle difficulty that I used, the units you'll face often have much more health than yours, and the AI is cleverer in their tactics than I expected. The bosses are as varied as they are deadly - more than a few times I found myself scraping just barely by, pressing my units to the edge on a final win-or-die gambit. The game makes you earn your wins, and punishes you for inattentive builds or poorly composed teams. Where Montabi lets itself down, unfortunately, is in the roguelike elements which feel needlessly opaque and at times perfunctory. While there's a helpful encyclopedia in the main menu cataloguing every new item, charm, boss, and creature you collect, as well as a slightly hidden but mightily helpful card library for each unit you've unlocked, it still feels difficult to track exactly what new unlockables you're making progress toward between the runs. It's been a while since I've played a roguelike where the rogue aspects felt this vestigial, this detached from the main pleasures the game itself is offering. I could tell I was getting better with each new run, but if you asked me what was contributing, exactly, to that growing success, I don't think I'd have known what to tell you. The actual maps you're traversing are almost entirely static as well, with each new run only presenting a slight rearrangement of the main locations from the last. And while the world itself is vibrant and cheery in its presentation, the narrative's impact and worldbuilding are incredibly slight. Without a clear power arc to boast of or a lovable world that feels worth exploring, the rock-solid core systems are left a little stranded. As a result, though there is an ending you can work toward, Montabi feels a little bit like a game you kind of play until you don't. Still, even without the trappings of a worthy roguelike loop, Montabi is a compelling debut from Mankibo. After playing it, I feel convinced that despite the crowded market, this game deserves to find an audience all its own. While the maximalist, chuck-everything-in-the-pot approach to design doesn't always flatter the games it produces, in this case, Mankibo has threaded the needle to make something that is competent in its worst moments and very nearly great in its best. Verdict Image Credits: Mankibo Disclaimer: We received a free copy of this game from the publisher.

Slumber Realm is one of the more unique-looking roguelike deck-builders I’ve recently come across, but the gameplay opts for a more familiar structure to its baseline mechanics. Utilizing a familiar pattern of choosing pathways, fighting battles and getting cards, the game distinguishes itself via a day and night cycle for both its battles and beyond. Players decorate their room and do chores in the real world by day, and enter a dream state where they engage in combat at night. Publisher: Chugga Chugga LLC Developer: Chugga Chugga LLC Platform: Played on PC (Steam) Availability: Releasing Q4 2026 on PC For the daytime, this preview build holds very little to do. You buy decorations for your room, which you can place and organize as you see fit, which in turn earn you more points as you progress through the dream world at night. These items, bought from the room’s corkboard, are not always just decorative, however. Some can be beneficial for the dream world, like new abilities or cards to use, but there is little to do in this waking world outside of a few clicks now and again. On the other hand, the night segments place players on a branching pathway of various encounters against nightmares that take the shape of broccoli, mushroom men, and even the sun. This dream world has some other oddities, like a shopkeeper that eats the equipment you want to buy, and an almost watercolor-esque aesthetic to the environments and figures that appear onscreen. It’s a structure that will feel very familiar to genre enthusiasts, as it does somewhat mimic the heavy-hitters of the genre, but the slumber realm does a few things mechanically to separate itself, at least a little bit. First, that aforementioned day-night cycle is key to the battles. Players have cards in their deck that work at specific times of day. While many cards can take effect at any time, the most powerful tools are often those that need specific times of day to work. Chugga Chugga LLC Each card has a number range that dice rolls must fall within to activate, as well. If a card shows 1-4 but you roll a 5, the card will not activate. Additionally, cards confer resources when activated, signified by the color and symbol in the bottom left of each card. This means players must consider not only which time of day their cards are most effective in, but also calculate the resources needed to make the best use of their abilities, and the die ranges needed for activation. A card with ranges 1-3, 4-6, and 3-5 would be impossible to activate all at once under base conditions, but there are ways to empower your cards to align them more easily. Forging a card increases the top-end value of a card’s activation range, and there are aspects you can unlock that provide the ability to manipulate die rolls by rolling additional dice and taking the lower or higher result (depending upon which specific ability you use). Those are special abilities that take the aforementioned resources to activate, so there is a resource management aspect to all of this as well. But if you’re worried about this all seeming overwhelming, I wouldn’t fret. The actual battles are quite simple, and after a few runs to get your feet settled, it lands safely on the breezier end of the genre. The preview build only let us run through a few battles at a time before forcing players into an “awake” state, something that may not be changed at full release, and the card pool, enemy variety, and decorative aspects are quite limited (the full game will have more of those, at least), so while I am not deeply satisfied by what exists now, it does have some promise as a lighter take on one of the more saturated genres out there. Image Credits: Chugga Chugga LLC Disclaimer: We received a free copy of this game from the publisher.

Tukoni: Forest Keepers is a short point-and-click puzzle adventure where you play as a forest spirit known as Traveller, whose task is to help the creatures of the woods prepare for the coming winter. To succeed, you must gather ingredients, brew teas, and solve immediate problems for each little forest critter. With such a simple conceit, what is there to take away from the experience? Publisher: Dream Operator Developer: Dream Operator, Gamersky Games Platform: Played on PC (Steam) Availability: Released on August 17, 2026 on PC (Steam) Based on the books by Oksana Bula, developer Dream Operator has wonderfully translated the original pages to the screen — a transition aided by the author working directly alongside the development team. While calling the art style "painterly" is technically accurate, describing it as "storybook-esque" feels far more fitting. Still, those broad brushstrokes bring the backgrounds and characters to life on screen, making players feel as though they are walking directly through the pages of a children's book. As part of that book-styled framing, the game features no dialogue, letting its narrative unfold in two distinct ways: real-time character animations within the environments and vignette-style sequences designed to look like book pages. In this way, the player is tasked with viewing and interpreting the stimuli onscreen, using the context clues of the imagery and sounds to understand the characters’ feelings and desires. But don’t worry, those emotions are unmistakable. You’ll never be left wondering what someone wants, only how to get it. When a critter looks confused or sad, a thought bubble will appear to tell you which object or solution is required — in image form, of course. Once completed, your forest pals will let out excited bleeps or contented hums as flowers or other imagery flow from their bodies. In this way, the player is tasked with viewing and interpreting the stimuli onscreen, using the context clues of the imagery and sounds to understand the characters’ feelings and desires. The core gameplay consists of discrete puzzles solved by picking up items, combining them into tools or teas, and using them on environmental objects or characters. While puzzle complexity scales as you progress, the challenges never become overly difficult. You may occasionally need to backtrack across the map to decipher a code, but most tasks revolve around gathering, crafting, and delivering items. Solutions are generally intuitive, but the game also offers helpful built-in reference tools. Because interactable objects are not always immediately recognizable, Traveller diligently keeps hand-drawn notes that offer subtle hints about what to do next. If you get stuck, a built-in hint feature provides direct clues on how to solve specific puzzles, guiding your search through the environment. Resolving a region's main puzzles unlocks the door to the next zone, introducing new characters and mechanics. However, moving forward permanently locks you out of previous areas. Because certain items only spawn or become accessible after specific criteria are met, fully scouring each map before stepping through the exit is essential. Thankfully, missing these small items and tea sessions doesn’t prevent you from completing the game in any way, but it does mean you’ll miss viewing those aforementioned heartwarming tea sessions, which may be punishment enough on its own. Tukoni: Forest Keepers is a children's book brought to life. I found myself thoroughly charmed in the short few hours it takes to complete Tukoni: Forest Keepers. Being able to brew teas and share them with the adorable creatures of the forest was heartwarming, and though it may not have been necessary to advance the story in most cases, I looked forward to sitting down for a cup with Traveller’s friends. Seeing the steam flow from the pot as the tea was completed and witnessing the happiness brought by sharing that time with the other creatures was its own reward. Each critter has their own favorite brew, and finding the right ingredients so I could make their special treat spoke to a sense of community that these characters have. Here in Tukoni, the creatures build things together; they huddle in masses around their teachers to learn something new, and they cook, and paint, and play — all of it done in service of community, sharing and caring for one another along the way. In such a small shared space like the forest of Tukoni: Forest Keepers, spending time together like this, even quietly, makes me yearn for a world where we could come together in such a way as people. Why is it that so few are willing to go out of their way to uplift their communities in the real world? With all of the pain and struggle that comes from living, would it not be better to share in our joy? To bring those we love together just to partake in a moment of calm; to see those small children of the forest seated and listening to their teachers attentively — so much of what is shown in Tukoni is charming, to be sure, but it also makes me a bit envious. And maybe that’s something I, even as an adult, can take away from Tukoni: Forest Keepers. Rather than lament the state of the world as it is, I could be doing more to bring people together. I could be a traveller who convenes those disparate souls, at least in small ways. And while we may never be able to sit down for tea with everyone we meet, building that trust and community with the souls around us, supporting them, and showing kindness may just help us prepare for the coming winter. Verdict Image Credits: Dream Operator Disclaimer: We received a free copy of this game from the publisher.

We reached the shore without any fanfare or direction. In front of the crew sat a large, dark building, which all signs pointed us toward exploring. Behind the four of us, a massive kraken sat guarding the waters. Of course, my first impulse was not to ransack that aforementioned edifice, but to take a swim. After only a few steps, I was grabbed and tossed back ashore by the massive beast lying in wait, leaving me wallowing limply on the sand. Luckily, there was no harm done, and looting could begin in earnest. Publisher: RetroStyle Games Developer: RetroStyle Games, Judatone Studios, Phoenix Game Platform: Played on PC (Steam) Availability: Released on August 18, 2026 on PC (Steam) As my team ran toward the doorway, I felt a tinge of excitement. We did the barebones tutorial, but what does this game actually play like? None of us had run a game yet, and all were unfamiliar with the exact requirements or purpose of playing. So we went forward and opened cabinets, drawers, and chests in the opening room, laughing at the stupidity of the flailing arms and flopping dashes of our character models. Suddenly, a scream. “Ah, what is that?” Before we could answer, a giant floating head swept through the room, chomping through our squad one by one until only one player, the only one smart enough to hide under a table, remained wedged under a coffee table with their character’s buttocks proudly exposed to the now-spectating pirate crew. As the floating head drifted away, each player was put back together. Clearly, the experience of Last Pirates: Die Together is more tense and threatening than I was immediately prepared for, with stealth and attentiveness playing a larger part in the moment-to-moment gameplay than the tutorial let on. As we rifled through every last shelf or coffer we could find, all of us became a bit more adept at recognizing how much to carry, when to hide, and when to make a trip back to offload our spoils, but those lessons were hard-earned. At one point, we brought our cart into a room to store our goods, but when the floating head appeared, the cart was blocking the doorway, leaving us with no way to escape cleanly. As such, I ran to push the cart forward when, suddenly, it shot up into the air, latching itself to the ceiling, rumbling around rapidly in defiance of the natural order of physics. Our escape was simultaneously assisted by and made more confusing by random chance. After the threat had passed once more, I went to reclaim our prizes, only to find everything we had collected had completely disappeared. Unfortunately, this type of event was not an isolated incident. Little physics glitches or troubles would sprout up from time to time, though usually in less offensive ways. Such may be par for the course in many similar indie co-op experiences, but those glitches did sour the feeling in the moment, negating our hard-earned progress or producing undesired outcomes more than I would have liked. Still, we persevered and made it back to our boat with our loot in tow, setting us up for the next day. In between each new day, players are able to gather around a table and spend that cash on upgrades or gear that help make each new day more manageable. While some of these boosts are passive modifiers, others require deliberate action or circumstances to make use of. A gun can’t be used while carrying gold, extra butts (which function as a player’s lives) only matter if someone dies, and so on. Those modifiers and items freshened each level up a bit — I certainly had a blast serving as the resident monster hunter of the group by seeking out the threats and gunning them down — but the core loop of the game did get a bit stale quite fast. Despite new levels and enemies coming to life on each new day, the actual play experience felt near homogeneous, with the same actions and tricks working in all scenarios. When we made it to our fourth day, a pattern of efficiency had emerged, blending the entire experience together as if it were one continuous level. Still, with a good crew, the fun levels could be maintained over short bursts by simple virtue of placing players in dangerous-but-silly scenarios over and over. The game’s current shortcomings are certainly resolvable, and with the developers invested in polishing the experience, I have high hopes for where it lands. There is a spectacularly fun foundation at play, with mechanics that naturally facilitate thrilling and hilarious scenarios in equal measure. More than simply being a backdrop to gather with friends, it actively creates memorable beats for players to react to — a quality often lacking in similar titles. Should those technical hiccups get ironed out, this will be a game worth keeping an eye on. Image Credits: RetroStyle Games Disclaimer: We received a free copy of this game from the publisher.

Another year at Gen Con is in the books, and 2026 proved to be another exciting showcase for tabletop gaming. Between high-profile announcements from major publishers, surprise indie gems, and long-awaited remasters of all-time classics, the convention floor was brimming with creative games, great artwork, and stunning cosplay. While no single weekend offers enough hours to play through the entirety of the hall’s massive catalog, we spent our time walking the floor and meeting with developers and publishers to seek out unique and engaging experiences for a wide variety of audiences. While there were a huge number of titles that caught our eye, these are our top standouts and previews from Gen Con 2026. Featured Standouts Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation Publisher: Ghost Galaxy Price: $54.99 Release Window: Late 2026 Players: 2 Reiner Knizia’s classic two-player game of hidden movement, bluffing, and tactical combat in Middle-earth makes a return two decades after its initial release. In this asymmetrical game, one player controls the Fellowship trying to guide Frodo to Mount Doom, while the other commands the forces of Sauron attempting to hunt them down. This updated version now includes new special cards and special characters as compared to the original release. The cards all feature some lovely artwork, and the pieces themselves give the game quite a striking table presence. The Gang: Deluxe Edition Publisher: THAMES & KOSMOS Price: $39.95 Release Window: Late 2026 Players: 3-10 A cooperative twist on Texas Hold 'em. Without communicating explicitly, players secretly evaluate their hands and bet on how their cards compare to those of the other players. The Deluxe Edition includes multiple additions to the base game, including the More Players expansion, as well as 3 mini expansions (Jokers & More, Tools of the Trade, and the Deluxe version exclusive The Dealer). This version comes with ceramic poker chips and a playmat, as well. Temple Twist Publisher: THAMES & KOSMOS Price: $29.95 Release Window: Late 2026 Players: 1-4 This cooperative game sits on the lighter side, with an adventure suitable for ages 8 and up. In Temple Twist, players use action cards to manipulate the three-dimensional temple and move through its myriad rooms. One of the cooler things about the game is its malleable difficulty. By introducing challenge cards, players can add new rooms and obstacles to overcome. Given the short playtime of 30 minutes, the ability to tailor the experience to its players makes it an enticing prospect. Oh My Word Publisher: THAMES & KOSMOS Price: $19.95 Release Window: Late 2026 Players: 2-6 In Oh My Word, players draw random letter tiles and race to name words matching active table categories before an unpredictable timer expires and hands out "bad luck" tokens. Like much of THAMES & KOSMOS’s offerings, it looks like it will make for a great party game, as the easy-to-learn mechanics and variable categories make it a fresh experience across multiple playthroughs. Kittens in Space Publisher: Dead Alive Games Price: $16.99 Release Window: Late 2026 Players: 1-6 Kittens in Space is a fast-paced card game for 1–6 players. Players must rescue and rehome space-faring cats by playing cards onto shifting stacks of cards. The player who is able to play all of their hand first gets a point, and the first player to three points wins the game. The game only takes about 15 minutes to play in total, and is accessible to younger audiences with a suggested age range of 7+. The simplistic ruleset and clean card art make it seem like a good option for families and younger groups, but we’ll have a full review out soon enough on our end. Lunar Rush: Innovations Publisher: Dead Alive Games Price: $16.99 Release Window: Late 2026 Players: 1-5 This expansion for the Euro-style Lunar Rush will serve as a hefty addition to the original game’s offerings and options. New asymmetric corporations alter how players interact with the game, and none are exactly alike. Additionally, the new expansion allows for one additional player at the table, complicating the rush for resources even more. Perhaps the biggest changes are the newly introduced random events, awards, and milestones. All of these new mechanics and layers to an already solid game will surely serve to spice things up for new and old players alike. Not Alone (10th Anniversary Remaster) Publisher: Luma Imports Price: $29.99 Release Date: October 16, 2026 Players: 3-10 The classic asymmetric sci-fi survival game returns for its 10th anniversary in a fresh remastered edition. This new edition combines the base game with both the Sanctuary and Exploration expansions in a single box, featuring upgraded components, revised art, and streamlined rules. The gameplay pits one player as the alien Creature, who hunts up to 6 human survivors trying to escape the planet Artemia. Aw Ducks! Publisher: Asmadi Games Price: N/A Release Window: Late 2026 Players: 2-4 While we haven't had the chance to play a full match yet, we scored a print test-run copy for a future review. Here is a preview of what this lighthearted card-shedding game has to offer: The core mechanics of Aw Ducks! have players build tableaus, manage matching number sets, and try to score ducks in the central "Duck Pond" before the deck runs out and ducks start clearing out tableaus. The game ends when a player reaches an agreed-upon score target, with the game offering different suggested targets for specific numbers of players. Mystic Curling Club Publisher: Asmadi Games Price: $41.99 Release Window: Late 2026 Players: 2-5 Taking on the role of a witch, players participate in a tabletop version of curling. Utilizing their familiars and magic spells, each playable character has ways to affect the board and, ultimately, their score. Much like in curling, score is assigned based upon proximity to the center of the ring, and the player with the most points at the end wins. Cyberpunk TCG Publisher: WeirdCo / CD Projekt Red Price: N/A Release Date: October 30, 2026 (Prerelease Weekend) / Full Retail Launch November 6, 2026 Players: 2 After getting hands-on time with a floor demo, this upcoming trading card game delivers some unique tactical considerations for a TCG, working just as much as a resource management game as it does a more traditional TCG. The first thing you’ll notice when holding these cards is just how immaculate the artwork is. Featuring stunning portraits of iconic characters and technology from the broader Cyberpunk universe, players must contend for control over available Gigs, leveraging Night City Legends and eddies to bring them closer to victory. Perhaps this is simply because we’re only working with starter decks, but Cyberpunk TCG seems to fall on the easier end of TCGs. That said, there’s a lot of room for complexity, with multiple avenues of strategy to consider for every player, and numerous ways to interact with your rivals on the other side of the field. The demo got us really excited for the full release, and it lands safely as the most anticipated game we saw at Gen Con. Thank you for sticking around to check out our initial showcase! We’re just getting started with our coverage, so keep an eye out in the coming weeks as we publish full, detailed reviews for many of these titles directly from our Gen Con haul. Which of these games are you most excited to get to the table?

I stand outside of the fog gate, knowing that a powerful enemy awaits me on the other side. But today, I am prepared. I cast a spell to increase my damage. Next, I use my equipment’s abilities to push it further. Then comes another spell, and finally a potion — all before stepping through that gate. As my player character places their hand against the fog, I know I have already won — all that is left is to execute. Stepping through the gate, I see a distant foe drawing near. I wind up my spell, and a flash of blue begins to build at the tip of my scepter, which then releases as a beam of concentrated magic. When the beam dissipates, all that remains of the enemy are tiny particles that drift slowly toward the sky as a notification appears on screen to commend my victory. Who is this fun for? Me. This is fun for me. An endless number of videos and forum posts are dedicated to the use of "cheese" strategies in games. But why is this fun? After all, this type of play is often considered “low skill”. There was no intricate dance between combatants; there were no parries or close calls dodged at the last second. I did not get to feel the rhythm of the music as my foe wound up their ultimate attack, and I did not experience the tension of scrambling at low health to eke out a drink of Estus. Despite missing these moments, I have found something else to latch on to: the process of a plan coming together. There is something so rewarding about the act of preparation as an expression of power, where familiarity with a game’s systems and optimization of abilities allow players to express themselves in their own way. If a character is leveled just right, the equipment used is carefully chosen, and the plan of action has already been decided, the player can come out ahead, and they can know it before the battle ever begins. There is value in that planning and dedication. So when Nate Shearer asked me (as part of his “Encritification” project) whether the act of “cheesing” is a failure of the game or the player, I had to wonder what constitutes cheesing something, and if these moments are failures at all. In most instances, a “cheese strat” is simply a strategy deployed by a player that produces results beyond what one would expect for the level of mechanical skill or effort shown. Beating a boss easily through preparation rather than mechanical execution is one way in which the phrase is often deployed, but it can be used in other contexts as well, such as circumventing intended puzzles or pathways through unexpected means. If a character is leveled just right, the equipment used is carefully chosen, and the plan of action has already been decided, the player can come out ahead, and they can know it before the battle ever begins. There is value in that planning and dedication. This phrase is commonly deployed as an argument by one party to persuade the other party (or parties) that the technique in question ought not be used on some moral grounds. This is a direct result of many people having tied their own personal worth and personality up into the games they have played and how they play them. They wear the act of beating a game the “right” way as a badge of honor, as a means to distinguish themselves as a true gamer, above the rabble. But who gets to decide the “correct” ways of playing a game? Developers set the parameters, and players engage with the material through them. Playing the game in a non-competitive environment in a way that values mechanical skill over in-game function is valid, but not something that can or should be extrapolated to all players. Parry builds in Elden Ring are no more valid than sorcery builds, and the only limitation on their value is a personal determination of what feels most fun to each individual player. Posting aura-farming clip compilations of parries and slow walks toward a foe is engaging content, but it is not a prescription for the correct method of play. So, when is deployment of a cheesy strategy a failure? On the developer side, it may be considered a design failure if the interaction is entirely unintended, but it must also undermine the core gameplay or design ethos. Players using all available tools as intended is not a design failure, even if it trivializes encounters. For players, I generally hold that the only way cheesing a fight or game could be considered a failure is if they have diminished their own joy or experience through the use of such strategies, and such a determination can only be made by the player themselves. Outside parties don’t really have a voice here, even if they object to the strategies utilized (within the bounds of the game). What one player does in their game should not diminish what another feels or accomplishes on their end. An example of a Gamer™ using "cheese" as an excuse for their loss. Multiplayer games have their own concerns regarding balance and player retention when confronted with “cheap” or “cheesy” strategies. There will always be predominant strategies, but allowing for multiple avenues for success is key. “Cheese” strategies that are comparatively too effective or exploit the game in unintended ways must be quickly patched out. Their inclusion is a developer failure, and not the fault of the player. The point of competitive games is to win, and unless pre-established rules are being broken by a “cheese” strategy, a player’s adoption of those strategies is not on the player themselves. Outside of unintended exploitations, the phrase is generally levied by the types of people you’d see featured on Scrub Quotes. Unable to cope with losing in a way they could not foresee, they cast aspersions on the opposing party to diminish the opponent’s victory. In such cases, the only failure is on the part of the loser who was unable to comprehend the strategy or adapt to it. Rather than finding ways to counter these so-called “cheese strats”, the player makes a plea for their elimination. But not all communities react in this way. In fact, many embrace these strategies as a core component of the game itself, given proper context. The speedrunning community is perhaps the most prominent of these adopters. Making use of glitches, broken strategies, or exploiting a game’s systems to the fullest effect are all part and parcel of speedruns, and discovery of those strategies and exploits over time is a big part of the fun for those communities. Take a game like Mario Kart, for instance. Racers are always looking for ways to decrease their time on any given track, and players scour every corner of a map looking for new ways to shave off a second on their time trial, including bypassing track barriers or skipping sections. Finding these is a labor of love — the people engaging in the practice are doing so because they love the game and they love to compete in their mastery of the mechanics. In doing so, these players construct a whole new layer of narrative over the game — one born not from the script, but from the act of play itself. Story is quite often pigeonholed as the written, explicit narrative of a game as dictated by cutscenes or text boxes. But in video games, we shape our own stories through our play. What abilities you use, how you build out your characters, the strategies that you employ — or don’t employ — all tell a story. They shape our experiences as players. More than that, they can shape the perception or thought processes of the character we play. Having your RPG character lean into taking the path of least resistance at all times can become a defining trait, something you can embody through play as much as selecting choices on a screen. Conversely, maybe your character (or yourself) likes to do things the hard way, getting up close and personal with a foe and whittling them down over time. Opening up these avenues for expression ultimately allows players to craft their own story and form attachments to the game, its characters, and its systems. This is true even if one approach is ultimately more powerful or less mechanically intensive than the alternatives. What abilities you use, how you build out your characters, the strategies that you employ — or don’t employ — all tell a story. They shape our experiences as players. More than that, they can shape the perception or thought processes of the character we play. I’ve come to understand that players engaging with the systems at hand and trivializing them does not necessarily constitute a failure on anyone’s part, so long as the interactions utilized are intended. In many cases, I don't see the unintended interactions as a big failure either, unless the game is in such an egregious state that bugs are easily triggered or the game is fundamentally broken in some way. The developers have made a work of art and asked players to abide by specific parameters of play. There is a level of buy-in that must be accepted as a baseline, but ultimately, how those players then engage with the games is up to them. It is a conversation between the creator and the interpreter. As long as the player is having fun — multiplayer caveats aside — nobody has been failed by the execution of a plan.

Final Fantasy VII Revelation If you’re looking for a list of games releasing in the calendar year 2027, look no further. Rather than constantly scouring the web for each release date, we at JetsonPlaysGames wanted to give our readers a handy listing of known release dates for games across the spectrum. We’ll track and update this list regularly with every confirmed release date across all major platforms, saving you the hassle of searching the web. While the list has a dedicated option in the site menus, you can bookmark this page for quick access to the calendar. If you'd like to recommend another game be added to the list, you can email us at jetsonplaysgames@gmail.com. Without further ado, here are the dates for upcoming titles. Jump To Section January February March April May June July August September October November December TBD Release Calendar January Final Fantasy XIV: Evercold Game Title Release Date Systems Stranger Than Heaven January 15 PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC Cogito: Requiem January 18 PC Wandering Sword January 21 Switch, Switch 2 Final Fantasy XIV: Evercold PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, PC February Persona 4 Revival Game Title Release Date Systems Sagas of Lumin February 5 PC Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis February 12 PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, PC Persona 4 Revival February 18 PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC Fable February 23 PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC Metro 2039 February PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC Demi and the Fractured Dream PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, Switch 2, PC March Game Title Release Date Systems Join Us PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC April Game Title Release Date Systems May Game Title Release Date Systems June Game Title Release Date Systems July Game Title Release Date Systems College Football 27 July 16th, 2026 PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC August Game Title Release Date Systems September Game Title Release Date Systems October Game Title Release Date Systems November Game Title Release Date Systems December Game Title Release Date Systems TBD Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Songs of the Past Game Title Release Date Systems Agni: Village of Calamity Xbox Series X/S, PC Alien Deathstorm PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC Anima: Song from the Abyss PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC Arma 4 Artificial Detective PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC Atelier Karia: The Night Kingdom & the Guide of Memories PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, PC Bad Magpie Xbox Series X/S, PC Barbie: Horse Ride & Rescue Switch 2, PC Beastieball PC Bub PC Chrono Odyssey PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC City of None PC Clutch PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC Danganronpa 2x2 PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, Switch 2, PC DCKO iOS, Android Death the Guitar PC Dracula: The Disciple PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3 PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC El Paso, Elsewhere 2 Xbox Series X/S, PC Erosion PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC Everbloom Switch 2, PC Everything is Gun! PC Evilbane PC, Xbox Series X/S Exodus PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC Final Fantasy VII Revelation PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, PC Forge of the Fae PC Frostpunk 1886 Gravity Circuit 2 PlayStation 5, Switch, PC Graytail PC Gundam Rogue Orbit PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC Haex (Early Access) PC Hatsune Miku Starry Party Nintendo Switch 2, PC Hello Again PC Hitman Classic Trilogy Remastered PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC Hunter: The Reckoning – Deathwish PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC I Have No Change PC Ill PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC Impermanence PC Into the Unwell PC Into the Void PC Inzoi (Early Access) PlayStation 5 Ithaca PC Kemuri PlayStation 5, PC Lazy River (Early Access) PC Long Gone PC Lords of the Fallen II PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, PC Magicians: The Devil's Deal PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC Mega Man: Dual Override PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, Switch 2, PC Metro 2039 PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC Moosa: Dirty Fate PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC Muramasa: Revenant Blades PlayStation 5, Switch, Switch 2, PC My Arms Are Longer Now PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, Switch 2, PC My Cannibal Family PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC N Plus Infinity Times Two PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, PC Nekome: Nazi Hunter PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC Ninjala 2: The Uncharted Planet Switch 2 Nirvana Noir Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PC Ontos PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC Out of Words PlayStation 5, Switch 2, Xbox Series X/S, PC Outward 2 (Early Access) PC Phasmophobia PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, PlayStation VR2, PC Pikuniku 2 Switch 2, PC Pokémon Winds and Waves Switch 2 Project TAL PlayStation 5, PC Resident Evil Veronica PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, PC Senua PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC Shantae Title Silent Planet - Elegy of a Dying World PC Slap Out of It! PC Spyro: A Realm Beyond PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, PC Star Trek: Shadow Frontier PlayStation 5, Switch 2, Xbox Series X/S, PC State of Decay 3 PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC The Expanse: Osiris Reborn PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC The Free Shepherd PlayStation 5, PC The Lift PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC The Lost Wild PlayStation 5, PC The Pines PC The Talos Principle 3 PlayStation 5, PC The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Songs of the Past PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC The Wolf Among Us 2 PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC Thief: The Dark Project Remastered PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, PC Tiny Metal 2 PC Tomb Raider: Catalyst PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC Tsarevna: Age of Tales PC Until Dawn 2 PlayStation 5 Virtua Fighter Crossroads Vivarium Xbox Series X/S, PC Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Deathmaster PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, PC Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC Waterful PC Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Rageborn PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, PC Westlanders (Early Access) PC Wo Long 2: Wings of Ember PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, PC Xenoblade Genesis Switch 2 Yakoh Shinobi Ops PlayStation 5, PC Zoopunk PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC

On September 13, 1996, musician, poet, actor, and activist Tupac Shakur was murdered in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada. As one of the most prominent figures in American pop culture at the time of his death, the impact of Shakur’s passing was widespread, and the fact that his murderer was never confirmed or found added mystery surrounding the events before and after the shooting — a mystery that was immediately capitalized upon by thousands in an effort to make money for themselves. In the wake of this tragedy, hundreds (if not thousands) of songs, albums, poems, books, and films have been released that prominently feature details about Shakur or contain references to him and his death. Posthumous albums featuring his work and voice, as well as collections of his private poems, were quickly disseminated, and untold numbers of memorabilia remain in circulation to this day. Tupac Shakur was never given the courtesy of peace, even after death — a fact that remains just as true now as it was in the 1990’s. Tupac Shakur's likeness as it appears in Stranger Than Heaven On June 5, 2026, Summer Games Fest held its keynote presentation showcasing a large number of upcoming video game titles to be released in the coming months and years. Among those titles was Stranger Than Heaven, an action-adventure title about gangs in Japan developed by RGG Studio — the famed makers of the Like a Dragon (Yakuza) series. In their presentation, RGG revealed that Tupac Shakur’s likeness would be prominently featured in the game, despite being deceased for 30 years. Of course, this is not the first time an actor or famous person has been posthumously puppeteered in this way. Actors like Carrie Fisher and Peter Cushing saw their visage portrayed in Star Wars films after their demise, and even Bruce Lee was imagined as an advocate for Johnny Walker, despite abstaining from alcohol himself. Shakur’s likeness is not even the only one to be featured in a major video game this year, with legendary actor Toshiro Mifune’s likeness being used as the main character in Onimusha: Way of the Sword. So why does Shakur’s inclusion in Stranger Than Heaven feel so much worse? I argue that it lies in several key areas: the nature of Shakur’s death and its relation to the subject matter of the game, legal battles over rights to Shakur’s estate, the fact that Shakur had no say in the matter, and the long history of the commodification of the black body post-death. In Resurrecting the Black Body: Race and the Digital Afterlife, author Tonia Sutherland states, “The use of digital technologies to reanimate the dead, understood here as a 'resurrection practice,' raises a complex set of sociocultural and ethical concerns, particularly around issues of spectacle, commodification, carcerality, and the Black body as souvenir and memory object. Closely related to notions of symbolic immortality and digital immortality practices (addressed in depth in chapter 5), digital resurrection is a modern phenomenon that uses a combination of innovative technologies, digital manipulations, and marketing appeal to construct a domain in which the deceased appear wholesale in new contexts as though alive today—and, in some cases, as though consciously aware of their own demise.” As noted earlier, Stranger Than Heaven is about gang violence in Japan, but more than that, it is about how the protagonist goes on to found the Tojo Clan, the largest and most powerful gang within the Like a Dragon games. The fact that Shakur was himself a victim of the type of violence the Tojo clan goes on to perpetuate makes his inclusion in the Tojo’s founding chapter astonishingly distasteful. RGG Studio’s explanation of his inclusion and depiction is lacking as well, with them telling Game Informer, “Well, if Snoop Dogg and Tupac have this relationship in the game together, you'd probably cry about that because it's so cool!'” Positioning Shakur’s specter as a mere tool to elicit emotion is one thing, but RGG Studio is aiming to go beyond a simple depiction of who Shakur was in life, stating within that same interview, “We wanted to try to envision who Tupac might be now, and we did this with the full approval step by step. Going through the family to make sure that everything met it. We wanted to say, 'Okay, if he was still alive now, thirty years later, how would he act? How would he express himself in that way? That's what we're trying to not going into his past, but rather his potential future.’” One problem with this approach comes in assuming to know how Shakur’s ideals or politics would present themselves today. He died 30 full years ago; it is impossible to know how his positions, demeanor, or appearance would have evolved. It is arrogant to assume such things, and RGG’s insistence on doing so is baffling. By utilizing Shakur’s likeness to voice their own ideas, they commodify him and reduce his inclusion to mere spectacle—a critique that echoes Sutherland’s observations. But this isn't the first time Shakur’s countenance has been paraded in public, either. At Coachella in 2012, a digital recreation was placed onstage alongside Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre to perform some of his songs. Sutherland describes it thusly: “So too was Tupac Shakur, resurrected in hologram form from the dead, expected to perform: he was set to dancing, set to singing, set to play the role of a shucking-and-jiving, oil-slicked, shiny, brawny, Black body—forever enslaved by the fetishism of the white gaze (just as Michael Jackson was) to the rhythm of his own music.” In the absence of Shakur himself, his estate controls the rights to his likeness. This is also true for every other person who has been brought back in this way, but there are key differences in how this has been handled among the various parties named earlier. For Fisher and Cushing, their inclusion was in a long-running series that they themselves had already been a part of in life. While they did not themselves agree to the appearances, there remains some level of continuity of point and purpose for the inclusion. For Shakur, the Like a Dragon series is entirely foreign. He did not know of it, and the extent of what Shakur could have envisioned as the use of his likeness in perpetuity is beyond our knowledge. Further still, the executors of Tupac Shakur’s estate are not actually members of his family; it is controlled by former Warner Brothers record executive Tom Whalley. Whalley was left the estate by Afeni Shakur, Tupac’s Mother, but ongoing legal battles with Tupac’s remaining family color Whalley’s handling as less than stellar. So while RGG Studio claims they received approval from the family, RGG Studios finds themselves between parties looking to control what remains of Tupac Shakur’s legacy. When all of this is considered, it becomes impossible to separate Shakur’s appearance in Stranger Than Heaven from the longstanding exploitation and commodification of black bodies throughout history. As noted in Resurrecting the Black Body: Race and the Digital Afterlife, Harvard restricted access to and profited from images of slaves in compromised positions (though they have since relinquished ownership), entire industries and subcultures were built upon photographs of lynchings, and more recent tragedies like the murder of George Floyd have been subject to continual public viewing, all while being used by corporations for marketing ends. Violence against black people is continually dredged up for some other purpose, removing the humanity of those involved from the equation. While I suspect few in the general populace understand or know about the history of this commodification, sentiment against Tupac Shakur’s inclusion has been comparatively large when stacked up against Toshiro Mifune’s likeness in Onimusha. There are likely a multitude of factors for this. First, RGG Studios' recent troubles should not be discounted when examining why backlash to Shakur’s incorporation has been met so loudly. Once considered a studio that could do no wrong, RGG has had several missteps in recent memory that have turned many against it, such as the removal of trans-related quests and including an actor in its game who has admitted to sexual misconduct because he seems like a “creep”. Second, the circumstances surrounding Mifune’s appearance are much less immediately recognizable as unsavory. His likeness is managed by the company he himself set up, Mifune Productions, and there are no ongoing concerns about its management. Additionally, the way he is used, as an actor portraying a role in a piece of media, does not aim to reveal some truth about Mifune as a person, past or present. Finally, while Tupac Shakur died from gang violence and is now set to appear in a game about it, Mifune’s passing was unrelated to the material at hand. No violence had been brought upon Mifune, and the exploitative aspects ring differently when put against the history of photographic and commercial exploitation of violence against black people. Mifune was not cut down with a katana in the streets of Tokyo, only to then have his digital clone puppeteered in a game about human murders via katana. Despite Mifune’s appearance being comparatively more agreeable, I argue against both. It is worth considering letting the dead rest; directing these dead bodies to express things to our liking feels ghoulish, especially when they deal with subjects so close to their own personal experiences. These methodologies are inherently exploitative, particularly when the deceased were never consulted in the first place. Toshiro Mifune's likeness as it appears in Onimusha: Way of the Sword. Such efforts to recreate the deceased in this way are distasteful in the same ways AI Companions wearing the skin of a dead loved ones are repugnant. There’s just something unnerving about taking the faces and histories of those who can no longer advocate for themselves and using them to our own perverse ends. It goes beyond simple memorialization. When companies like 2wai and the now-defunct Eternime compile replicas of our deceased loved ones, they are looking to monetize our pain, regurgitating their likeness to appeal to our longing for connection. In Laura Parker’s New Yorker article How to Become Virtually Immortal, she writes “For the time being, it seems that Eterni.me’s appeal is more philosophical than practical. 'A hundred years down the track you might not only be able to talk to your mom who died a year ago, but to your grandmother who died when you were sixteen, and your great-grandmother who died before you was born,' Susan Bluck, a psychology professor at the University of Florida, said. 'So it means that we could, in some way, forge relations with ancestors who lived and died well before our own lifetime.'” But these facsimiles are not the ones we cherish; they hold none of the hopes, dreams, skills, beliefs, or love in their hearts. The corporations that make these doppelgangers prey on and commodify those who cannot advocate for themselves, just as much as they prey on those who retain memory of the lost. They are simply replicas meant to extract capital from the living by donning the visage of the dead. And while Tupac Shakurs’s inclusion in Stranger Than Heaven is by no means the first or most prominent digital recreation of a deceased person, its connections to historical black exploitation and closeness to the circumstances surrounding his death carry their own weight in its reception.

I fire up Jenny the Witch, and for a brief moment, it is 2002 all over again. It arrives with the luster and bluster of a classic PS2-era action RPG — loud and unconcerned with hyper-realism. Positioned squarely as a hack-and-slash spectacle that attempts to marry character action combat with floaty platforming, my mind alights with possibility and nostalgia. However, despite design elements that show clear promise, uneven mechanical tuning and technical rough edges keep this witch from fully taking flight. Publisher: Catbird Soft Developer: Catbird Soft Platform: Played on PC (Steam) Availability: Released on July 22, 2026 on PC Visually, Jenny the Witch reaches for the nostalgic blocky aesthetic that has grown more popular over the last few years. For this game, that aesthetic manifests as bright colors and limited flashy effects during combat, while maintaining a bare-bones approach to environmental design. Between combat encounters, players will participate in some light platforming, a structure that, despite its “spectacle fighter” Steam tag, feels a bit more like Kingdom Hearts than a straight musou game like Dynasty Warriors. Yet, for all of its reverence for those aged classics, Jenny the Witch neglects to build up its story and characters in any meaningful way. You play as Jenny, a bounty hunter of sorts hired to investigate the mysterious disappearance of several miners at a remote dig site. Piloting a witch-themed mech, Jenny will need to fight through hordes of mechanical super soldiers in order to discover what happened to the missing people and uncover the group behind the events. There’s not much more to the setup than that, and the story remains minimal throughout, with brief dialogue exchanges appearing occasionally to establish basic context. With the plot pushed to the background, narrative tension rarely takes hold. Additionally, with a relatively small roster of enemy types and environment designs that can feel uniform over time, the progression across the campaign tends to blend together with few distinct thematic milestones. I never really got a sense of who Jenny is as a character. Her brief interactions with her hacker brother don't yield much characterization, and the gameplay gives few clues on its own. This isn’t a plea for more “story.” I don't think an explanation of the ins and outs of Jenny’s philosophy or reasoning is necessary for Jenny the Witch to be a compelling game, but she lands nearly devoid of personality — an empty husk, much like the mech suit she pilots. Character action games often live and die by their rich characters just as much as they do by their combat. They work in tandem to create memorable and exciting experiences. The characters inform the action, and the action informs us about the character — they become inseparable. For Jenny the Witch, so little of the action or characterization engrosses me, or drives the game forward. In some sense, you can get a taste of this by taunting when your hyper meter is empty, with Jenny launching insults toward her mechanical foes, but very little about Jenny can be gleaned from her actions or animations, and I think that’s a shame. Take a character like Bayonetta, the lead from the series of the same name; her attacks and movements are fluid, almost dancer-like; her walk exudes confidence. We can learn so much about her just by watching her. In comparison, Jenny attacks with rigid movements, rather than with the flair of a heroine or confident hunter. By contrast, the game’s final boss gets more characterization than all other characters combined, with interstitial vignettes showcasing their thought process and feelings throughout the game. Unfortunately, the game, along with the characterization, ends just as abruptly as it begins, with the ending sequence feeling intensely rushed as a means of shuffling us out the door. When evaluating an action title, game feel — the tactile feedback and responsiveness of player controls — is paramount. Jenny the Witch delivers a mixed bag here, offering satisfying weight in some areas while feeling restrictive in others. That feel in combat has its positives, like the attacks carrying a noticeable weight, aided by subtle micro-pauses upon landing hits that make strikes feel impactful. Against smaller enemies, this system shines as hits stagger foes outright. However, because larger enemies do not react or stagger when hit, engaging them up close carries high risk, especially on elevated difficulty settings. Jenny possesses both close-range melee attacks and long-range shooting mechanics. While melee combat is inherently more dynamic, yielding higher damage, hitting multiple targets, and filling the hyper attack meter much faster, it operates under noticeable constraints. A key design challenge lies in how the game ties both basic weapon attacks and dodge maneuvers to the same extremely limited resource pool. Because melee attacks feature relatively long recovery animations on their final hits, players are forced to spend this limited resource just to dash out of harm's way. Switching to ranged attacks, which refills energy reserves for melee, presents its own rhythm, as there is a brief input delay between pressing the button and firing. This friction is further compounded by the game's monetary economy, where upgrades and new moves are purchased using funds earned through high combo chains. While melee attacks build the combo meter faster, ranged attacks allow players to build and maintain chains safely from a distance without breaking the combo or risking heavy damage. As a result, the safest and most efficient way to play often disincentivizes close-quarters melee, even though that melee system is arguably where the core combat shines brightest. Once completed, Jenny the Witch opens up the ability to replay the story using your unlocked abilities, or participate in an "Arena" mode to face off against waves of enemies. The cliché is that “familiarity breeds contempt,” but thankfully, I’ve not found this to be the case. Playing the story on the highest difficulty comes with new enemy encounters, which forces engagement in melee due to the high volume of foes — something that is not true on normal difficulty. The increased difficulty necessitates a more robust playstyle, which does make it much more interesting to engage with than simply firing away at robots, but all of the aforementioned quirks and issues of melee remain the same, which can lead to frustration. The Arena provides flat, dull stages to face waves of foes so that you can practice more thoroughly, but confers no additional benefit, as far as I can gather. Still, there is something soothing about learning the combat of a character action game like this, even if there is little to take hold of. Being able to manipulate the character just so, gracefully dashing from foe to foe, all of it does bring fulfillment. But here it also makes me yearn for more — more freedom in dashing and melee, and the ability to make each fight my own. A key design challenge lies in how the game ties both offensive special attacks and basic dodge maneuvers to the same extremely limited resource pool. Beyond the combat loop, Jenny the Witch encounters its most significant hurdles in its camera system and platforming responsiveness. Platforming segments are not exacting in their timing, but the camera often struggles to keep up with the action, occasionally clipping into geometry or swinging abruptly during tight maneuvers, making it difficult to gauge landing spots and positioning. As such, camera collision issues near walls end up being the direct cause of most falls and deaths. Players may also occasionally encounter minor animation hitches, such as getting momentarily stuck in a jump state during frantic sequences, leaving the player unable to perform their normal combat actions and stranding them in a vulnerable state. On the positive side, early technical hiccups have seen active developer attention already. An early bug that prevented enemies from exiting spawn points was promptly addressed in a pre-launch patch. For early adopters, such day-one friction is not uncommon, and active patching bodes well for the game's ongoing stability. Verdict Ultimately, Jenny the Witch is a throwback that channels the vibrant spirit of classic action titles, but never fully captures it. Its core combat carries a satisfying weight, and its blend of colorful visuals with arcade-style scoring provides a fun foundation, but camera inconsistencies, strict resource limitations, and a minimal story keep it from reaching true classic status. That said, players who appreciate retro game feel and simpler hack-and-slash action will find a title and developer worth keeping an eye on. Image Credits: Catbird Soft and Taylor Rioux Disclaimer: We received a copy of this title for free from the publisher.

Making Art in a Broken World Authoritarian systems work hard to break us down, and every screw put to the people takes constant effort by the state. Yet people persist, making art and finding joy in even the darkest of moments. And so, these authoritarians take on the work of erasure, eliminating or subjugating dissidents, while squashing undesirable art and ideas in an effort to sustain the bloated husk of a fascist regime. Celestial Return, a three-part, story-driven RPG heavily inspired by text-heavy classics like Planescape: Torment, Citizen Sleeper, and Disco Elysium, examines this erasure. Publisher: Shoreline Games Developer: Metaphor Games Platform: Played on PC (Steam) Availability: Released on July 14, 2026 on PC In Celestial Return, every persuasion attempt or desperate acrobatic maneuver relies entirely on a limited pool of physical dice. As more of a visual novel than a standard RPG, you never take full control of the protagonist, Detective Howard, or his companions during a fight or within a scene; you simply select an action, roll, and watch it all play out. These rolls are supposed to matter. As part of the game’s prologue, the writer addresses the player directly to set expectations, promising that your choices will shape Howard’s character and alter the narrative. To an extent, they do. But Celestial Return also has a habit of railroading you into specific outcomes, forcing the plot down a predetermined path even if you pass your skill checks. The writer openly admits this in the introduction, as well, warning the player that the world will grind forward regardless of their choices. This funneling stings because dice in this world function as a diegetic currency that characters use in furtherance of their goals, while also serving as the means by which players interact with the world. When an outcome is static, spending those limited resources may feel completely pointless, as if the choices do not matter beyond the roleplaying aspect. Of course, role-playing is the point of such a game, isn’t it? It’s not really about finding the optimal outcome in every given scenario. When you inhabit a character in an RPG like this, I’ve always found more joy in crafting a character and sticking to that persona consistently to shape a story. How does this person interact with this world, and how does the world mold around them? When you inhabit a character in an RPG like this, I’ve always found more joy in crafting a character and sticking to that persona consistently to shape a story. That said, it is a bit of a let-down when your choices lead you to dead ends, or when success is meaningless despite the high opportunity cost of using dice on a roll. Too often failure is not used as a jumping-off point to tell further interesting stories; instead, it simply bars the player from receiving anything of interest. The highest cost is not in dice, but in narrative advancement. By missing a roll, the player is locked out of any kind of story from forming — the interactions are cut short, rather than replaced. We can derive meaning from failures. Whether we learn something new, or our characters are altered in some way, failure in one action does not have to be an end-state for the events of our lives. For Celestial Return, it too often is. There is nothing to be gained by this loss. The game is also plagued by myriad technical problems in at least two key areas — text progression and saving. For the text, I have encountered several moments where the advancement of the story was meant to present me with a choice, but the options did not appear on the screen. In other moments, the choice options did appear, but clicking on them did not have an effect, forcing a reload in both types of scenarios. Unfortunately, the save system is just as broken as the people of Netherveil. Loading a save will sometimes cause dialogue options to disappear upon reload, and it has a habit of not placing players in the scene or environment that they are trying to load into, instead having the text scrawl over the environs and imagery that was being loaded from. In both scenarios, the only consistent way forward is to load another file and hope it works, so maintaining as many save slots as possible is paramount. These mechanical frustrations might be easier to endure if the world they broke into felt seamless. Unfortunately, the game's technical instability mirrors the inconsistency in its writing and artwork. There is something a bit “off” about Celestial Return. The language is mostly stiff and sometimes stilted, but it ventures into moments of lucidity. There are times when the wording feels poetic and fluid, where the text on the screen feels evocative and purposeful in describing a scene, only for it to collapse into terse, repetitive, or mechanical wording. There are whole conversations filled with short, fragmented sentences, littered with cliché, contrasted framing such as “it's not just X, it's Y”. In one conversation with a character, the text made note of her “almond-shaped eyes” three times within the span of a few minutes, as if the writers could not stand the possibility that players might miss the fact that this character looks Asian. So, to solidify their intent, they have leaned upon racialized shorthand to “other” her. This is all coupled with infrequent but noticeable spelling and grammar mistakes. The artwork is similarly inconsistent. Characters may look different from piece to piece, with someone like the protagonist, Howard, looking different across the menus, the main screen, and his UI portrait. While the American comic book-style artwork can explain or mask some of these inconsistencies, I feel a bit uncomfortable when I look too closely. When I see things like a misshapen flowerpot, an oddly warped book, or features and shadows on a character that don’t quite make sense, I am given pause. Why are certain elements of this scene in a different perspective than others? How much can be attributed to artist errors, and what is intended? The inconsistency muddies my appreciation. The artist behind the game's imagery once defended these anomalies on Reddit, stating “I’ve been in the industry for years, but I still make mistakes” as part of an explanation for why a character had six fingers in a demo build. Perhaps these other pieces can similarly be waved away, but more time to iron out these details would have served the game much better than shipping as-is, both in terms of quality and perception. Yet, despite the distracting irregularities, Celestial Return finds its footing when it shifts its focus to the political architecture of Netherveil. The narrative leans heavily into the weight of fascism, citizens' complicity in building it, and how the gears of those systems crush individual lives and the aspirations of its people. While all of this is relevant to the world of today, the game has little to say about these systems that remains intriguing aside from one throughline — the place and purpose of art within these societies. Art plays a large role in the events of the game, with major questlines focused on art showings, and minor explorable events giving the characters moments to inspect or appreciate the artworks of those living within the city. All of these moments have something to say on the point and purpose of that art, and perhaps most surprisingly, players are given opportunities to bounce off those works themselves. Much like many CRPGs of late, this game showcases the protagonist’s personality as different distinct aspects, with Howard’s Virtue manifesting as a righteous do-gooder, intelligence playing the part of the pragmatist, and so on. In these moments where Howard is reflecting on the artworks he encounters, each of these personality traits has something different to say on the subject. In the art showing during the main quest, Howard’s thoughts on the work itself range from viewing it as pretentious or useless to holding it as important work. Ultimately, the player can at least partly decide how the character feels about the pieces and the people who made them. At another point, Howard sits down and admires a piece of graffiti on a nearby wall while speaking to Rose, the Abstract abomination of a talking rose donning a human-esque face. Rose wonders what the artwork showing two robots getting married is meant to symbolize, and from there a conversation unfolds where Rose wonders, “I don't get it. Why would someone paint that?” As the player, you decide whether Howard focuses on the artist's intent (they were bored, took the blank wall personally), the purpose of the work (doesn't need our permission to exist, artist is trying to figure something out), or its legality (it’s just vandalism), and choosing one will help inform Rose’s perception of the piece. More importantly, it shapes our shared understanding of the world. By taking the position of a supporter of the arts, Howard is able to contextualize how the piece fits into the broader picture. As it currently stands, the ruling government of Netherveil is fascistic and overbearing, tightly controlling what people can say and do, making no space for true self-expression without the support of the state. Immediately after the explanation, a cleaning drone washes away the artwork, as if it never existed. Ultimately, the player can at least partly decide how the character feels about the pieces and the people who made them. This is heavily contrasted by the propaganda pieces littering the city as you play, which are akin to wartime propaganda posters advocating for the support of government programs. There is a clear line from the first posters, which showcase communal efforts to do something ostensibly positive, to the outright demands by the government for compliance on the later posters. These prepared messages are allowed to linger thanks to their service toward the ongoing fascist project enacted by the government. Comply, and you will live. Resist, and you will be erased, just like that mural on the wall. But I wonder if any answer we give to Rose’s question would ever be sufficient. Why would someone paint that? The direction the game takes us through its writing speaks to art as a broad concept, but what about here, in this moment? Why would someone paint this picture under these conditions? What is the point, and why does it matter? These are all questions artists are asked today — questions artists ask of themselves. So many who see the works will remain unaffected, unmoved, and uninspired. What good does a single piece of art do in a sea of sorrow? Can this singular work change the world? Probably not, but it can change you, if you let it. And you — the reader, the viewer, the physical being engaged in the world today — can change what you think, what you feel, and how you act. You can guide those around you, and make the world a better place. You can change your world, and that is enough. These conversations about the work of artists make interpreting Celestial Return difficult in its own right, but the fault doesn't lie entirely with the game, either. Living in the United States of America for my entire life, I have seen the noose of fascism slowly tighten around the necks of its people. Surveillance programs like the PATRIOT Act have been used to spy on Americans, government-sponsored pogroms in the form of ICE raids terrorize communities across the nation, and even the suffocation and removal of art that depicts anything the state deems untoward have all been enacted in the name of safety. All of it has, to some degree, been further facilitated by the burgeoning use of AI in everyday life. Kinda wish the game's most meaningful conversations didn't happen with...this thing. It is here that the explicit erasure of art by a machine cuts entirely too close to home. Propaganda produced by the state carries the stink of an inhuman nature, with computer-generated nonsense spewed out in furtherance of their goals. AI tools are used to identify and accuse people of crimes, regardless of the accuracy of the tool or veracity of the claims. So, when I see the wobbly lines and six-fingered portraits, or read the tired, repetitive language of the text within Celestial Return, my stomach drops. And maybe that is not fair. Despite my unease, the development team behind the game, Metaphor Games, has stated on multiple occasions that they have not used AI in the production of this title. They’ve gone on record to say that all of the writing and artwork is handmade by humans, and the PR team behind the game has assured me of the same. By all accounts, I should believe them. I should take their word for it. More disturbingly, I should not even have to question it. So why is there a nagging at the back of my mind? It is a terrifying time to look too closely at a video game. When a warped perspective or artistic variance no longer registers as a human mistake, the simple act of my interpretation becomes infected by paranoia. Just as the protagonist struggles with making sense of the world around him, I wrestled with an uneasy distrust of the material I was meant to open myself up to. The heightened presence of AI has done something insidious to the space. It has cast doubt on the humanity and purpose of the art form. AI has not only changed the works that use it, but it has also changed me. It has changed the way I examine art, changed the way I interpret and interact with it. It has ruined my sense of reality — or rather my belief in a shared reality with other humans — in more ways than I care to admit. I just wish it hadn’t.

Twin-stick shooters are rarely my cup of tea. That isn’t to say I haven’t enjoyed my fair share of them — games like Enter the Gungeon, Hotline Miami, and Resogun are all titles I’ve happily run through. But a deep familiarity with the genre is not something I possess. Roguelites, however, have made up the bulk of my gaming diet over the last five years. Hyperwired aims to marry these two genres, taking the semi-randomized, choice-driven progression of a roguelite to spice up an otherwise sparse twin-stick shooting experience. Not content to leave things there, developer SIDRALGAMES also introduces its primary gameplay and level progression mechanic: plugging in. Publisher: SelectaPlay, Beep Japan Inc. Developer: SIDRALGAMES Platform: Played on Nintendo Switch Availability: Released July 2, 2026, for PC (Steam), Nintendo Switch and Switch 2, Playstation 4/5, and Xbox Series X/S While most twin-stick shooters are denoted by fluid, free-flowing movement and frantic bullet-dodging, Hyperwired grounds you. Plugging into an outlet tethers your ship to a small radius, restricting your mobility in exchange for energy, health, or stage progression. The Nintendo Switch version also notes this action with a nice little rumble in your hand, as if the power were now running through you, the player. On paper, this adds a compelling tactical dimension to the combat; in practice, the execution leaves much to be desired. Mechanically speaking, the tether system functions perfectly well. Snapping onto an outlet is proximity-based and intuitive, theoretically forcing you to make risk-reward decisions about when and where to anchor yourself. Unfortunately, the surrounding systems quickly homogenize the experience. Because normal levels feature sparse enemy numbers, your sole objective is to rush toward four specific stations, plug in to revive them, and unlock the exit. This loop severely trivializes the combat. The most optimal strategy is always to ignore the small drones and mechanical turrets that inhabit a level, sprint to an outlet, and only fire your weapons to temporarily clear encroaching foes while you charge up. While a scoring system exists, there is no mechanical incentive to chase a high score beyond self-satisfaction. Even if you get the urge to hunt down the mostly-harmless fliers drifting around the map, a stifling energy economy prevents you from venturing away from your power sources for long. This energy restriction is where Hyperwired ultimately short-circuits. Because your reserves deplete so rapidly, the most viable strategy during the much more punishing boss fights is to hover near a charging station. Take the giant helmet-like boss, for instance. It sits back and fires spreading shots at the player before slowly lumbering around to initiate contact damage. Getting in close poses a much greater risk of damage with little to no upside. By contrast, staying out of range tethered to a station means your energy, laser charge, or ammo reserves remain high, allowing you to deal much more damage over time with some room for safety, and this is even before upgrades for being plugged in are considered. The game does feature a roguelite upgrade tree to expand your energy capacity, but because upgrade drafts are randomized, prioritizing damage and movement speed is always the safer bet. On top of the randomization aspect, few of the upgrades feel noteworthy or exciting to receive. Sure, having a more powerful laser or more bullet damage is nice and valuable, but it doesn't alter how you play in any meaningful way. They’re not the types of upgrades you see offered and say “wow, I really want to try this out!” Roguelite genre titans like Hades make each run feel meaningful with not only the number of choices provided, but the ways in which those boons alter the play experience, crafting a run that feels like it is uniquely yours. By contrast, Hyperwired's incremental numbers-based approach feels totally unremarkable. While there is a certain element of “you control the buttons you press” to all of this, the severe lack of reserve resources sans multiple upgrades necessitates that players plug in frequently. There is an “overcharge” mechanic that is meant to mitigate staying plugged in eternally, forcibly unplugging the player from the socket, but it is slow to take hold. Plugging into a station with full energy will begin to build up overcharge (denoted by a red bar above your ship) only after several seconds of being plugged in, and will take an additional seven or so seconds to fully “overcharge” your ship. Unplugging from the station quickly lowers the overcharge bar, meaning only a few seconds off the power source are needed at any given time. While the tether should create tense, tactical trade-offs, its sheer necessity makes every run feel identical. This monotony is doubly felt when you realize the bosses appear in the exact same order every time. If you’ve made it to the end once, you have seen it all. Thankfully, power-ups aren’t the only means of differentiating runs, as players can unlock new ships to fly after rescuing them during the course of a level. When saved, these ships assist you in combat as automated minions, taking out the chaff while you focus on unlocking objectives. After a run is completed, these ships become selectable by the player and have their own unique abilities, such as more bombs. Despite the mechanical diversity of ships, the core structure remains the same — plug and move until you reach a boss. This mechanical monotony is unfortunately mirrored in the game's presentation. On a purely technical level, Hyperwired sounds great. A pulsing, techno-inspired soundtrack permeates the soundscape, and clear auditory feedback when firing your weapons or locking into a socket lends weight to the actions (especially when accompanied by the rumble). However, the soundscape ultimately suffers from the lack of action on screen; because the level is so routinely starved of enemies and urgent threats, the music feels like a rave playing to an empty club. Instead of escalating the tension during an intense firefight, the booming beats merely highlight how quiet and empty the levels actually are. Space that could be filled out by ships firing on you or explosions in the distance is simply left hollow. The same could be said of the visuals. While the ship designs are clean and the pixelated artstyle is clear and beautiful in motion, the dearth of onscreen action leaves mostly empty space to fill the view. When enemies do show up, there is little variety in their design. You face the same handful of enemies across the entire run, making it easy to lose track of how just how long you've been playing or how far you've progressed. Verdict I must admit I am a bit perplexed by the lack of excitement in Hyperwired. Twin-stick shooters can so rarely be considered boring, but this one manages to land with a dull thud. Without meaningful threats or interesting upgrade paths, the game just thoughtlessly advances, each room feeling just like the last. The plug mechanic, which should have been its saving grace, ultimately acts as the anchor weighing it down. Despite this, the game can be fun in short doses, making it a good fit for the portable modes on Switch or for a Steam Deck. Image Credits: SIDRALGAMES, SelectaPlay, Beep Japan Inc.