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2 weeks ago | 
80.lv | Brian Crecente
When it hit in 2023, The Lamplighters League was neither a triumph nor a failure. It was a novel turn-based tactical game set in an alternate 1930s and created by Harebrained Schemes, the team behind a series of popular Shadowrun and Battle Tech games.
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3 weeks ago | 
game.substack.com | Brian Crecente
Where famous blockbuster Nintendo creations like the Game Boy, DS, and Wii took the path less traveled to tremendous success, the Switch 2 is going a more familiar, less risky route. The Switch 2 was designed around the core principle of making a more powerful Switch rather than focusing on unconventional play ideas.
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1 month ago | 
game.substack.com | Brian Crecente
This is something new. Not necessarily a replacement of my typically written content, but a stab at trying my hand at another podcast as well. While I’m probably best known as a writer, I’ve actually done quite a bit of work in the realm of podcasts dating all of the way back to Kotaku. Back in those early heady days, before the big podcast boom, I experimented with a number of crazy concepts for audio and video podcasts.
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Nov 24, 2024 | 
store.epicgames.com | Brian Crecente
Ten new Fortnite Creator Islands are up for this year’s Island of the Year award at The Game Awards, and you get to help decide which among them is the best. The Game Awards Vote in Fortnite, which debuted last year, has been refreshed with a batch of new Islands to check out and vote for, an Arena in which to test your combat prowess, and a slick new host: the one and only MetaHuman Geoff Keighley. This year’s digital Keighley is clearly much improved over 2023’s version.
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Nov 12, 2024 | 
store.epicgames.com | Brian Crecente
11.13.2024By Brian Crecente, ContributorOff the Grid is a lot. Released in early access last month, the Gunzilla developed game is a high-fidelity shooter with a razor-sharp hook: The contestants trying to kill one another on the game’s constructed island have not only volunteered to participate in all the death, but also to have their limbs chopped off and replaced with interchangeable cybernetics.
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Oct 28, 2024 | 
game.substack.com | Brian Crecente
No, the gaming console isn't dying; it's just being redefined. Much like the gaming PC—which received more than a few obituaries in the early 2000s—consoles are currently grappling with a number of challenges, including dips in sales, a loss of exclusives, and, as one former PlayStation exec has suggested, a collapse in creativity.
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Oct 27, 2024 | 
store.epicgames.com | Brian Crecente
I love a good tale. The scarier, the better. And it seems I’m not alone. Horror—whether in video games, movies, television, or other media—seems to be having a moment. While tales of terror can delve into everything from the supernatural to folk tales to serial killers to the innocuous quiet neighbor, all of the best ones deliver hefty doses of escapism punctuated by jolts of fear that leave your brain absolutely soaking in dopamine.
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Oct 2, 2024 | 
padandpixel.com | Brian Crecente
Sharing is caring! Thank you. Thank you for listening to my pain and anger. Thank you for being there and sharing your outrage. It meant a lot to my family and to me. This is fucking disgusting: @character_ai is using my murdered niece as the face of a video game AI without her dad's permission. He is very upset right now. I can't imagine what he's going through. Please help us stop this sort of terrible practice.
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Sep 27, 2024 | 
game.substack.com | Brian Crecente
Sometimes, technology can offer us too much. Smartphones deliver cameras, games, music, video, communication, tracking, sorting, work, play, and, yes, phone calls, all in one sleek package that can slip into your pocket. Almost the same could be said of the smartwatch. They have become an essentially shrunken-down version of the smartphone. They forever tether us—for better or worse—to this technological age of constant information, alerts, tracking, and, yes, phone calls.
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Sep 2, 2024 | 
store.epicgames.com | Brian Crecente
9.2.2024By Brian Crecente, ContributorA year after hitting Early Access and six years after its spooky (and enticing) unveiling, Witchfire remains—in some ways—an enigma. Adrian Chmielarz, co-founder of developer The Astronauts, says Witchfire is both the game they’ve always wanted to make and one that evolved significantly in the making, a game that has settled in with a deeply passionate (and seemingly happy) player base and one that continues to change.
