CATEGORIES

“Thousands of people helped me and they never even knew it”

FINAL FANTASY XIV versus maternity

FUN WITH PORTALS

WORLD OF WARCRAFT: THE BURNING CRUSADE CLASSIC is still great, but the grind is real

POD: PLANET OF DEATH

Ubisoft’s racer faces a second apocalypse.

FOR THE ORDER

Go out without a limb in CHIVALRY II’s glorious medieval battles

SHOCK & AWE

COMPANY OF HEROES 3 is coming to wake up the RTS genre.

LEGO ISLANDS

LEGO BUILDER’S JOURNEY captures the joy of those little plastic bricks

CRUSADER KINKS PART 1

Spreading the love throughout Paradox’s medieval soap opera, Crusader Kings III

POWER SUPPLY UNITS

What’s the best PSU for PC gaming?

Unreliable Narrator

Exploring stories in games and the art of telling tales

ELDEN RING

When we heard, around the time of its announcement, that Elden Ring was going to be essentially “open-world Dark Souls”, we weren’t entirely confident in the summary. Because isn’t that precisely what Dark Souls fans would ask for? And when did get fans get what they want? (And, in the rare cases that it happens, when have the results stood up to close scrutiny?) And yet here we are looking forward to one of 2022’s biggest games delivering pretty much everything Dark Souls devotees yearn for: screen-filling bosses, endlessly rewarding character builds, secrets by the sackful – plus magic, multiplayer and a whole lot more besides.

STARFIELD

Perhaps the two most important words of Microsoft’s showcase came just a few minutes in, at the end of a teaser for Bethesda’s next open-world epic: ‘Xbox exclusive’. It wasn’t the only time we would see them, but this was the moment it became crystal clear that Microsoft would never have spent $7.5bn on the studio behind Skyrim and Fallout if it didn’t plan to keep at least some of its output to itself.

Trigger Happy

Shoot first, ask questions later

REDFALL

Which is fortunate, because learning that this team is working on an open-world co-op shooter with vampires is frankly disappointing. There was no shortage of Left-4-Dead-alike at this year’s show and, at first glance, it doesn’t seem like a structure that plays to Arkane’s strengths. But then we consider that the Austin team’s previous project was Mooncrash, a Prey expansion that pushed the immersive sim into Roguelike territory – not to mention Deathloop’s exciting experiments with multiplayer – and Redfall makes sense as an evolution of this lineage, rather than simply a comfortable repetition.

SECRET WEAPON

Could Naraka: Bladepoint be the surprise challenger to break the battle royale stalemate?

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: BREATH OF THE WILD 2

As Nintendo’s own press site calls it, Sequel To The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild cannot have its official title unveiled just yet, because it might give too much away – a clue to something significant about this much-anticipated successor.

COLLECTED WORKS GLEN SCHOFIELD

The artist-turned-producer reflects on 30 years with very little dead space

DISPATCHES Dialogue

Send your views, using ‘Dialogue’ as the subject line, to edge@futurenet.com. Our letter of the month wins a 12-month Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership

ARTISAN CRAFTS

Has wood ever been this good?

NetEase Connect 2021 Summary

Andrew tells us what happened at NetEase Connect 2021

The End of Four-Player Co-op?

Richard looks at the recent trend of three player co-op

Am I Done With Souls?: A Souls Retrospective

Gorzagorz looks back at his time with the Souls series

Resident Evil Series Ranked by Metascore Part 2

Adam finishes ranking the Resident Evil games

Halo Doesn't Need A Battle Royale

Dylan has some thoughts about the community's wishes

PDXCON 2021 Overview

James tells us what happened at PDXCon 2021

Metro Exodus Diaries Part One

Andrew begins the latest Metro game

A Story Not Worth Telling

Dylan discusses representation in videogames

Is Monster Hunter Becoming Too Easy?

Dylan believes hunting monsters has never been easier

The New Skate Series: What We Want to See Next

Danielle talks about her dreams for the Skate series

KENA: BRIDGE OF SPIRITS

A chat with Ember Lab will get you keen for Kena

HORIZON FORBIDDEN WEST

Aloy goes west