For the first time ever, tonight’s Grammy awards featured a category just for video game soundtracks. And the first ever winner in this new category was Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed. Congratulations! A momentous occasion for everyone involved, but for the rest of us, also a very funny moment of live television.
The nominees were veteran games composer Austin Wintory (hilariously given his previous body of work, for Aliens: Fireteam Elite), Bear McCreary (Call of Duty: Vanguard), Richard Jacques (Guardians of the Galaxy), Christopher Tin again (for the Civ-like Old World) and Stephanie Economou for Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla’s expansion Dawn of Ragnarok.
Composer and violinist Economou—who at time of publishing had a Twitter bio simply saying “Non-award-winning composer”—is now an award-winning composer. Congratulations Stephanie! Making the occasion even more memorable for everyone watching at home, though, was presenter and comedian Randy Rainbow (also nominated tonight, for best comedy album) being given an envelope that had “Assassin’s Creed Valhalla” written inside it then reading it like this:
G/O Media may get a commission
It’s a camera. For your car. The Ring Car Cam’s dual-facing HD cameras capture activity in and around your car in HD detail.
It must be nerve-wracking at the best of times being up there and announcing awards knowing that so many people (even if this was the earlier “premiere” ceremony) are watching you. Then imagine being asked to read, not “Beyonce”, but “Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarok” when you’re not someone who has been exposed to those words non-stop for three years, and has somehow internalised them and made them seem even remotely normal. It is not a normal collection of words. It would be hard!
You can watch Economou’s full acceptance speech, in which she thanks everyone who “fought tirelessly” for this category to be included in the awards, here.
STEPHANIE ECONOMOU Wins Best Score Soundtrack For Video Games & Other Interactive Media
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla – The ConvertsImage: Ubisoft / Kotaku
This year the Assassin’s Creed franchise turns 15 years old. In that time, the franchise has expanded into multiple games, mobile spin-offs, books, movies, shorts, and more. It’s a big, complicated universe that involves historical conspiracies, shadowy cults, and ancient aliens. And those ancient aliens, the Isu, have a complex language, and it’s that language that seems to have frustrated an artist working on a newly released Assassin’s Creed comic.
Since 2007’s original Assassin’s Creed adventure, each installment in the franchise has added more and more lore. At this point, it’s a batshit-wild universe and one key part of the madness are ancient beings, later named the Isu, who were technologically advanced, lived on Earth like gods long ago, and were wiped out 77,000 years ago following a war with ancient humans who they’d enslaved. Anyway, the Isu created all sorts of gizmos and trinkets that, thousands of years later, are still being sought after by humans obsessed with power. And many of these items are covered in the Isu language, which was largely untranslated until 2021, when fans finally cracked it.
But apparently working with this language is a pain in the ass, as seemingly revealed by a bit of text in the recently released comic book, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla – The Converts. At one point, we see a close-up of an ancient Isu tablet of some kind which is covered in the ancient aliens’ language. And translated, part of the text reads says:
“If somese as esplasi how to write this shit it would be muc appreiated”
It’s pretty easy to see what this person was likely trying to say using the Isu language, even if it has a few mistakes. The message was likely meant to say:
“If someone can explain how to write this shit it would be much appreciated.”
This funny little message was first spotted by the Assassin’s Creed super fans over at Access The Animus—the same people who first cracked the Isu language a few years back. They also spotted “multiple bits of incorrect Isu language” in the comic, suggesting the artists or writers involved weren’t given enough information or direction about the Isu language, hence the mistakes and frustration.
Kotaku has reached out to Ubisoft, the comic book writer, and the artists.
While some fans had a good laugh at this angry Easter egg, others were upset that the creators behind the comic book didn’t consult fan guides and translation tools before working on the book. However, it should be noted that it would be very weird for an official Ubisoft-approved Assassin’s Creed comic to rely on fan translations, assuming the people behind the comic even knew of that work. (Which would explain why they included this Isu Easter egg at all: Maybe they didn’t expect anyone else to read it!)
Vivid colors and deep blacks It’s Oscar season which means it’s time to binge all the nominations before the big day. Why not enjoy these pieces of art on a new TV from our friends at Samsung?
Personally, as a big fan of Assassin’s Creed and its wild lore, I totally get how frustrating it must be to try and tell stories within that universe. It’s fun to experience the mess from the outside looking in, but working on it is likely a pain in the ass at times and I don’t begrudge an artist for sneaking in a little jab at how annoying and absurd it must be.
Today Microsoft held its Developer Direct presentation, focusing on a number of new games coming to Xbox, PC, and Game Pass. We got a fresh look at some anticipated titles, as well as a neat little rhythmic surprise from the developers of The Evil Within. But enough chatter, let’s get into what Microsoft showed off today.
Minecraft Legends
We first learned of Minecraft Legends last year. A spin-off of the ultra-popular sandbox survival game, Legends is, perhaps unexpectedly, a multiplayer action-strategy game. Legends will have both a narrative co-op mode, as well as a PvP mode with procedurally generated environments, which is much of what we saw today. Check it out here:
Microsoft
Forza Motorsport
The folks over at Turn 10 showed off some wildly pretty footage of the upcoming Forza Motorsport, which is expected to arrive this year. This presentation focused on the finer details of Motorsport’s visual flair, including highly detailed dirt, damage, and “battle scars” that’ll build up on your digital cars, as well as extra detail added to the game’s dynamic time of day and trackside vegetation. Cars are also expected to get more realistic physical behaviors, with improvements to the suspension and exhaust.
Surely we’ve all thought “why can’t we take down corporate overlords in a brightly colored action game with rhythmic action cues? Oh, and made by the folks who did The Evil Within.” Well think no more: Hi-Fi Rush was today’s biggest surprise, putting players in the role of an aspiring rock star with a rhythmic robot arm who kicks butt on the beat with a flying V guitar…which makes sense as that’s about all a flying V is good for. It looks like good fun, and by the way, it’s coming out today! On Game Pass, even.
Arkane, the studio that brought us Dishonored, Prey 2017, and Deathloop is currently working on Redfall, an open-world, sandbox FPS with four-player co-op. With some friends, you’ll wield appropriately gothic firearms to take down oodles of blood-sucking vampires. Arkane describes the setting as its largest world yet. While it does look very much like Left 4 Dead with vampires, today’s gameplay dive showed off Arkane’s immersive sim strengths, meaning there are a variety of ways to take on foes and objectives, with some uncertain outcomes. Redfall is expected on May 2 of this year.
Microsoft / Bethesda
The Elder Scrolls Online: Necrom
ESO continues on with a new expansion: Necrom. Expect a brand new class, the Arcanist, and some terrestrial and extraplanar adventures as there’s a new peninsula to explore in the mushroom kingdom of Morrowind. You’ll also get to go for a jog in Apocrypha, one of the Elder Scrolls’ lovely hellish realms. Coming on June 5 and June 20 for PC and consoles, respectively.
Microsoft / Bethesda
While last year was a little lacking in terms of exclusives for Xbox and Game Pass, with High On Life being perhaps the most notable, 2023 is certainly looking a bit more action packed. Bethesda’s much-hyped, much-delayed Starfield is also supposed out, in June no less. Think they’re gonna stick it this time?
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City – 2002 Screenshot: Rockstar Games
Last year, footage of the next Grand Theft Auto—assumed to be GTA 6—leaked online. While Rockstar quickly tried to erase the videos from the internet and plug the holes in the ship, it was impossible to completely contain such a massive, unprecedented leak. So fans around the world got a very good look at the future of Grand Theft Auto. And now myself and others find it hard to go back to the aging GTA Online.
Late on September 19, 2022, 90 short videos of early gameplay of what would later be confirmed by Rockstar as the next GTA entry leaked online via a hacker. The footage revealed a lot about the next game in the massively popular open-world franchise, including that the series would be returning to Vice City, Florida, a fan-favorite location last seen in GTA: Vice City Stories, the prequel to the beloved PS2 classic, GTA: Vice City. It also gave us a good look at the new protagonists of this next criminal adventure and some of the missions we might experience when GTA 6 is eventually released. Fans even began mapping out the game’s virtual world using the leaks.
Rockstar undoubtedly hates the leak and likely wishes it could rewind time and prevent it from ever happening at all, but it did end up revitalizing the playerbase. For the first time in a long time, there was excitement and energy in the GTA community, which after years of GTA Online updates and poorly received remasters was in a pretty bad place prior to the leak. Even an early, unfinished or unpolished leak of GTA 6 was better than radio silence and glitchy remasters. People were pumped and hyped about the future of Grand Theft Auto in a way I hadn’t seen in years.
But then, once the leaks were scrubbed from the web and it became clear Rockstar wasn’t going to release any official teaser or trailer to capitalize on the moment, all I and other GTA fans could do was go back to GTA Online. And that’s harder to do now that I’ve seen the future.
Rockstar Games
The latest big and free expansion to GTA Online,Los SantosDrug Wars, was released late last year at a really bad time for me to play and cover it for the site. So I just…didn’t play it. For the first time ever in the history of GTA Online, I skipped a new update completely. I’ve still not played it. At first, I blamed my skipping of the latest update on bad timing and a busy schedule due to holidays and end-of-the-year content. But now, weeks removed from all that, with more free time to play stuff, I’ve still not fired up the new update. And I think it’s time to admit to myself that my growing burnout around GTA Online was increased greatly by that small taste of what’s to come. That look at the future of GTA in Florida ruined me.
I could go back and drive around the same highways and streets of Los Santos I’ve been cruising around since 2013. I could fire up the game and check out the newest business and missions connected to it. I could, sure. The thing is, I don’t know if I want to. I mean, eventually, I will play more GTA Online. I sort of have to as it’s part of my job here at Kotaku. Yet, if it wasn’t part of my career there’s a real chance that I might just never play GTA Online again.
To be clear: It’s not because GTA Online is worse today than it was a decade ago—it’s actually much better to play in 2023 than in 2013—but because getting a glimpse of a fresh new world has killed my desire to boot up the same old Los Santos after a decade of GTA Online and GTA V. I mean, just having new songs on the radio will be amazing. I love Queen’s “Radio Ga-Ga” but you can only hear it so many times in 10 years before you’re ready for new tunes, too.
At this point, I’m hoping the wait for Grand Theft Auto 6 and its sunny beaches, palm trees, and new characters isn’t too much longer, because I’m ready to leave Los Santos behind for a tropical vacation to Vice City.
I was warned of how heated Kotaku’s GOTY arguments traditionally get when I first started here in November, so I was a little nervous when I was put in charge of organizing and tabulating our list of the best games of the year.
Would everyone vote? Would they get mad at me for ranking Destiny 2: The Witch Queen too high? Would Ethan Gach actually do what he was threatening and “hobgoblin” the voting process by adding negative points to the equation?
Turns out, however, that even though organizing this entire process was a pain in the ass, the team at Kotaku is exactly as opinionated, intelligent, and professional as you might expect, offering great insight and honest takes on the top games of 2022. Though we voted on over 20 titles (including ones that narrowly missed this list like Rollerdrome and Sifu) we narrowed it down to a top 10, and have ranked them in order below.
How does Kotaku’s top 10 games of 2022 stack up with your personal GOTY lists?
10. Xenoblade Chronicles 3
Image: Monolith Soft / Nintendo
Reductively, Xenoblade Chronicles 3’s story is an amalgamation of Japanese RPGs whose emotional climax rests on the age-old theme of “war is bad.” Nevertheless, the fact that the trope has become a well-trodden cliché doesn’t dismiss how well developer Monolith Soft executes its anti-war theme throughout Xenoblade Chronicles 3’s 150 hours of playtime.
In Xenoblade Chronicles 3, you play as a troupe of child soldiers from warring nations locked in an endless battle where their limited lifespans fuel a giant mechanical clock once they meet their untimely demise. The kids are not alright. But despite the painful emotional journey its child soldiers must go on, which is portrayed with the emotional maturity and complexity it deserves, the game is not without some great moments of levity as well, courtesy of some lighthearted and silly sidequests. Meanwhile, Xenoblade’s more serious sidequests drip-feed players with rich character studies that flesh out each member of the party, along with the game’s expansive world and its deep cast of supporting characters.
Although Xenoblade Chronicles 3 was snubbed for the best roleplaying game and best soundtrack at Geoff Keighley’s Game Awards, it did give us an impassioned flutist performance from Pedro “Flute Guy” Eustache. This shows that even if Xenoblade loses at gaming’s glorified popularity contest, it still provides some of the best moments in gaming this year.
Isaiah Colbert, Staff Writer
9. Signalis
Image: rose-engine
Much like how I use Devil May Cry 5 as the measuring stick for how good a hack-and-slash game is, whenever I brave playing a survivor horror game I do so with the hope that its story measures up to Silent Hill 2. Big shoes to fill, I know. Signalis not only manages to fill those shoes, it damn near tore the seams off of them joints with how bloody good it was. I’d even argue that it’s better than Silent Hill 2.
Signalis has all the bells and whistles that make for a good sci-fi survival horror game. It’s got a brutal-but-fair limited inventory system, brain-teasing puzzles, and breadcrumb storytelling conveyed through codex entries scattered about its levels. However, where Signalis sings is with its gripping story about two lesbian androids desperately trying to find each other in a space hellscape.
Throughout the game, you play as an android named Elster who’s stranded on an alien planet rife with horrific monsters and derelict spaceships. Elster’s sole mission is to reunite with Anne, a fellow android unit she both literally and figuratively can’t live without. Signalis sticks its landing with the emotional climax of Elster’s perilous journey, regardless of which of the game’s multiple endings you arrive at. This feat is even more impressive considering Signalis is the first video game made by its two-person development team, rose-engine. Ay yo, 2023, can we get some more of those sapphic survivor horror vidya games, plz?
Isaiah Colbert, Staff Writer
8. Norco
Image: Raw Fury
Norco emerged this year and joined Kentucky Route Zero and a few others on the shortlist of games that speak deeply to the experience of living under late-stage capitalism in America at this precise moment in time. Like Cardboard Computer’s masterpiece, Norco also takes its cues from point-and-click adventures, using stunning pixel art to pull us into its industrialized Louisiana landscapes. And where KR0 lent its midwestern road trip a heaping helping of magical realism, Norco uses near-future sci-fi elements to cast the forces its poor, marginalized characters face in sharper relief.
But don’t let my easy comparison make you think Norco is a pale imitator of another game. It’s very much its own remarkable experience, one with its own visual identity, its own poetic voice, and its own noir-ish mystery. Everything about Norco rings painfully true, from its observant little environmental details like the electrified hum of a street light, to the much larger way that religion, cryptocurrency, and the oil industry all become woven together in the haunting texture of your character’s search for her missing brother. Norco, Louisiana is a real place. The Norco of this game is not quite that place, but it’s nevertheless one that feels very real in its own way, and that will leave you reeling from the piercing gaze it levels at the world we’ve made for ourselves.
Carolyn Petit, Managing Editor
7. Horizon Forbidden West
Image: Sony
Poor Aloy. Twice now, her adventures have been somewhat overshadowed at the time of release by other games that more dramatically captured the world’s attention. Her first outing, Horizon Zero Dawn, launched just a few days before Breath of the Wild. This year, her second quest was followed a week later by Elden Ring.
But despite repeatedly serving as the opening act for games that go on to sweep the GOTYs of a hundred gaming sites, Guerrilla Games and Aloy can be proud of what they’ve accomplished. Arguably the most visually stunning game of the year, Guerrilla’s latest takes Aloy into the ruined American west for more of the thrilling, spectacular battles with hulking metallic beasts that helped make the first game an original in a sea of samey open-world blockbusters. And although the larger narrative may fly a bit off the rails in this outing, Forbidden West wisely stays focused on Aloy’s personal journey as someone who feels the weight of the world on her shoulders and doesn’t know how to let her guard down and allow her friends to carry that burden with her. It complicates her character and trusts us as players not to turn on her the moment she behaves in ways that are arrogant, cruel, or misguided. Oh, and you get a really sweet new travel option near the end of the game, too.
Yes, when all is said and done, Aloy and her escapades can stand tall alongside the Links and the myriad Tarnished of the world.
Carolyn Petit, Managing Editor
6. Neon White
Image: Annapurna Interactive
It was about 3 in the morning. I had plans the next day. I really needed to go to bed. Yet, here I was hunched over my computer focused on shaving just one more second off a level in Neon White so I could beat a friend on my leaderboard. That’s the power of fast-paced, FPS platformer Neon White. It’s the kind of game that feels so good that you just can’t stop playing it. Once you get skilled enough to start finding shortcuts in levels, it’s over–the game has you at that point. You’ll end up going back to old levels you thought you mastered to shave off more time. And if you enjoy anime nonsense, angels, demons, and sick-ass music, too, then Neon White will dig its angelic claws deeply into you and never let go. “One more run…and then I’ll go to bed.” I didn’t get to sleep that night until nearly 4:30 am.
Zack Zwiezen, Staff Writer
5. Citizen Sleeper
Image: Jump Over The Age
The profane and sacred mingle with delicate grace in Jump Over The Age’s minimalist cyberpunk RPG about trying to earn your humanity from a world that can’t pay its debts. Every detail from the writing and art to the branching choices and tabletop-inspired dice rolls connect, overlap, and reinforce each other with precision and care so that no piece is weaker than the rest and no rough edge is left exposed. Few games manage to evoke universal feelings or personal truths, but Citizen Sleeper does both at the same time. The future never felt so hopeless and yet so comforting.
Ethan Gach, Senior Reporter
4. Marvel Snap
Image: Second Dinner / Kotaku
Going into 2022, I don’t know how many people expected a free-to-play Marvel card game designed for phones to end up being one of the best and most popular games of the year, yet, here we are. Second Dinner’s fantastic bite-sized card battler, Marvel Snap, really is one of the best digital card games out there right now thanks to its small decks, fast rounds, and random nature. Matches always feel different and even a loss doesn’t sting too bad because it’s over so fast. Sure, it’s still a free-to-play mobile game, so you can expect stuff like iffy over-priced bundles and having to grind for currency. But luckily Marvel Snap is so fun to play that it’s pretty easy to overlook those bits and enjoy one of 2022’s best games.
Zack Zwiezen, Staff Writer
3. Vampire Survivors
Image: poncle
One more run. A sentence I’ve repeated countless times in 2022 either in my head or quietly aloud to justify playing Vampire Survivors for just a little while longer. The gothic roguelike shoot ‘em up became a surprise smash hit while spawning worthy spiritual siblings like 20 Minutes Till Dawn.
Since Valve started releasing the data in August, Vampire Survivors has been tops in total hours played on Steam Deckmonth in and month out. This is the same Steam Deck that can run frickin’ Elden Ring! But people want to play Vampire Survivors instead!
All those players are onto something, Vampire Survivors has a simple yet satisfying gameplay loop: your character (I’m partial to Peppino) must survive an ever-growing horde of ghoulies while choosing between randomly generated weapons. If you make it to 30 minutes, the reaper will come calling, which lets you spend coins on power-ups for future runs. You can be strategic in choosing weapons that complement each other or you can just try shit out! These elements of discovery, relentless isometric top down action, and Vampire’s lax attitude towards player death (it has zero impact) remind me a lot of Hades, another regular on that Steam Deck most-played list, and another GOTY contender from years past.
Vampire Survivors’ developer Luca Galante/poncle has regularly been updating the game since it left early access, adding modes, quality of life improvements, and settings to tweak for extra replayability. What’s more, the game recently got its first full-fledged DLC the other week with Legacy of the Moonspell. With the base game retailing at five dollars ($4 under the current Steam sale), Vampire Survivors makes for one of the better bang-for-your-buck propositions in gaming. Go ahead and treat yourself to some floor chicken.
Eric Schulkin, Video Lead
2. God of War Ragnarök
Image: Sony
Sony Santa Monica’s God of War Ragnarök is more of everything. More abilities and weapons. More enemies and locations. More characters and plot details. Hell, even more loot. Though you could interpret this as a knock against the game, especially since more isn’t always better, Ragnarök takes the “more” and deftly applies it in tasteful ways while making room for a compelling narrative and gameplay experience that’s enjoyable and immersive. Combat is crunchy, exploration is intriguing, dialogue is captivating, and the themes are deep and engaging. But what stands out as the glisten on the diamond is the character development between daddy Kratos and adolescent Atreus, an element that sees the co-protagonists finding common understanding in the face of the end of the world. Sometimes, it takes things falling apart for empathy to be reached, and God of War Ragnarök is a glowing example of just that. It’s good shit.
Levi Winslow, Staff Writer
1. Elden Ring
Screenshot: FromSoftware / Kotaku
Are you surprised? Elden Ring easily and inevitably took the top spot during our voting process, further proving that 2022 was the year of Elden Ring. Many Kotaku staff members ranked it as their number one game of the year, and for good reason. FromSoftware’s open-world epic feels like a giant leap forward for the Souls-like franchise, offering us a beautifully deformed and dangerous Lands Between to explore, rife with opportunities to discover oddities, collect goodies, and die over and over again.
Elden Ring opened up Hidetaka Miyazaki ’s sick, twisted world for the normies who haven’t enjoyed FromSoft games before it, while also making sure to still cater to the hardened vets looking to prove their worth in incredibly tough battles. It found a perfect balance between that punishing gameplay so many long for in a game from this studio and a newfound sense of agency, of a chance toget gud without having to run into the same noxious swamp over and over again.
Elden Ring is technically impressive, visually stunning, and satisfyingly challenging. It has humor, it has sadness, it has turtle popes. It dashes your hopes up against a jagged rock only to hand you hope back bit-by-bit as you strengthen your character and your resolve. It is everything that we hope for in a video game, and then some.
2022 was truly the year of Elden Ring, with FromSoftware’s latest game exploding into the mainstream unlike anything it had previously created. As such, a lot of people played and finished Elden Ring. In fact, according to one set of data, Elden Ring was the most completed game of 2022. But funnily enough, the same source also pegs it as the game players were most likely to abandon before reaching the end.
If you’ve read Kotaku (or any other gaming website) in 2022, you are likely already familiar with Elden Ring, the latest game from Dark Souls creators FromSoftware. And like Dark Souls and Bloodborne, Elden Ring is a tough-as-nails action-RPG with a heavy focus on mystery, world-building, and boss fights. However, this time around FromSoftware added a true open world to its popular “Soulslike” formula. The end result? One of 2022’s most acclaimed, best-selling games. The open world in particular helped sway many to try Elden Ring for the first time, letting players avoid harder areas until later and ostensibly making it easier to finish than past FromSoftware adventures. And it seems that design choice paid off.
According to data on HowLongToBeat.com, Elden Ring is 2022’s most completed game, with nearly 6,000 users of the site reporting they have played and finished the massive open-world RPG. That’s an impressive number when you look at the runner-up games on the list. Stray, that adorable futuristic cat game, was completed by nearly 4,000 users. Meanwhile, in third with 2,500 completions, was Game Freak and Nintendo’s Switch hit, Pokemon Legends: Arceus. To see such a big and difficult game top the list is both a sign that Elden Ring is very good and also a hint at the kind of audience that is primarily using HowLongToBeat.com.
Screenshot: Howlongtobeat.com / Kotaku
But perhaps more interesting is that Elden Ring is also the most “retired” game. When users “retire” from a game on Howlongtobeat.com it means they have given up on it, either permanently or temporarily. Now, even though only 261 players officially retired from Elden Ring on the site, that’s still more than double any other game in 2022. Even if the dataset is a bit small and weird (how many people are logging into this site to admit defeat?) it’s still an interesting data point.
This all makes sense to me. Elden Ring was the most talked-about game of 2022, and with that many people playing, it makes sense that a good chunk of them might give up on it. Other data seems to suggest around half the people playing Elden Ring never reached the end. So I buy that Elden Ring could be the most completed game of 2022 while also being the game more people gave up on than anything else.
Some other interesting 2022 data from the site: Turns out Elden Ring is also on the most backlogs, has the most reviews, and is the longest game of 2022. However, Naughty Dog’s The Last Of Us Part 1 is the most positively reviewed game, and Diablo Immortal is the worst-reviewed.
After over a decade of FromSoftware games holding court as the quintessential ‘git gud’ franchise, locking those of us without a masochist bent out of the discourse, Elden Ring’s open world opened up the gates for an entirely new player base. As such, it catapulted the work of Hidetaka Miyezaki to entirely new heights: Elden Ring is by far the best-selling FromSoftware title, it’s snatching up GOTY awards like Rowa Fruit, and it’s still generating passionate conversations 10 months after its release.
By subtly divesting from the tried and true FromSoftware formula and giving us a game unshackled by a single, punishing, linear path, EldenRing offered up the Lands Between on a beautifully ornate (but slightly Tarnished) silver platter. And we gobbled that shit up.
Feeding The Difficulty Discourse Machine
These guys are called Abductor Virgins, and they suck. Image: FromSoftware
The Souls game discourse has almost solely revolved around difficulty. Before Elden Ring was released, FromSoftware’s Yasuhiro Kitao told Eurogamer that the game was “made for all sorts of players,” not just “hardened veterans.” This sent the fanboys into a tailspin, but it piqued the interest of those who have never been able to enjoy the punishing gameplay of FromSoft’s oeuvre.
I wrote about Kitao’s quotes back when I was at GamesRadar, suggesting that what would make Elden Ring great would be its approachability, and that that approachability was made possible by its open world. It’s a helluva lot easier to avoid difficult areas if you can run around them on horseback, but previous Souls games forced you to choose between the difficult path and the bang-your-head-against-the-wall-because-it’s-impossible path. The promise of ample choice made me think that maybe, just maybe, Elden Ring could be a game I’d enjoy.
Image: FromSoftware / Kotaku
Conversely, Forbes published a response to my piece, one that hoped Elden Ring’s open world wouldn’t ruin the FromSoftware vibes by focusing too much on “making these games approachable rather than tough and gritty.” This was months before the release date, but the discourse machine turned and turned and turned, smoke spewing from every inch, its cogs grinding and grating with each new take chucked into its gaping maw.
Until February came, and brought with it the Lands Between, wide open for exploration like a darker, deadlier Breath of the Wild. Players quickly learned that most of them were accidentally skipping the combat tutorial, and a bit more slowly learned that the first boss (that fucking Tree Sentinel) was avoidable. Many of us who could never latch onto a FromSoft game willingly clung to Elden Ring’s teat, as we learned we could, in fact, get on a horse and fuck off away from some horrifying eldritch beast.
As we collectively made our way through Elden Ring, we were given the gift that comes only with truly open-world games: seemingly endless discoveries by ourselves, our friends, and other players on the internet.
Braving Brutal Battles For A Glimpse Of Beauty
Need a hand?Image: FromSoftware
The beauty of Elden Ring lies in its world that teems, bubbles, and spews with both friendly and deadly life, that tantalizes and terrifies with its landscapes, that beckons and shuns you in a single breath. I find this beauty in so many moments during my time with the game, like when I accidentally descend down to the Siofra River, not too long into my playthrough.
In Limgrave, I step on a platform and am whisked down, down, down, until I emerge into an astounding space: a fully realized night sky in a variety of bruise colors, littered with pinholes of light. Crumbling classical architecture obfuscates my view of this impossible galaxy and tombstones line the path leading away from the platform, which glowed a bizarre green during my descent but now lies dormant.
I am, as the kids say, gagged, and stumble aimlessly away from the platform, paying little attention to what enemies may lie in my path for the first time since booting up Elden Ring. This is a mistake I quickly pay for, as I walk directly into a horde of Claymen. They move slowly, but they hurt, and I am severely underleveled for this area. One of the weaponless magic conjurers takes me out in seconds with his weird bubbles, sending me back to the Site of Grace right next to the platform that brought me here. When I go back to fetch my several hundred runes, the same guy takes me out again.
“Fuck that,” I mumble before stepping on the stone circle at the center of the lift. “I’ll come back later.”
And I do, just much, much later. After I’ve discovered I’m a battle mage with an affinity for gravity magic and summons, and long after I fell the Tree Sentinel with a single Rock Sling, I return to the Siofra River from a completely different direction, and lay waste to its inhabitants. Then, after I’ve collected every last item dropped by a fallen NPC and picked all the Ghost Glovewort my eyes can see, I allow myself a second to breathe. I glance up at that still-impossible night sky, and exhale. I earned this. Elden Ring, unlike other FromSoftware games, gave me ample chances to amass the tools and experience I’d need to earn a brief respite.
Elden Ring Eternal
I’m an Aries.Screenshot: FromSoftware / Kotaku
But Elden Ring isn’t just somber and serious, it’s not just hours of grueling gameplay with brief, meditative breaks. It’s goofy as hell, like all FromSoftware games inherently are. There are stupid, dirty messages littered all over the ground, dozens upon dozens of ways to die that will make you chuckle in disbelief, and the ever-popular but always somewhat broken online play that encourages players to fuck with one another.
It’s this combination of punishing play, engaging story (thanks, George R.R. Martin), and asinine antics that make FromSoftware games, especially this one, so special. Elden Ring gives you enemies like Starscourge Radahn, who will in one moment beat the brakes off of you with gigantic meteors flung from a blood-red sky and in another send you into a fit of hysterics when you realize that he is, in fact, sitting on top of a very tiny horse. Elden Ring plays with you, offering up prophecies and moral quandaries that will have you scratching your head, but undercutting it with both accidental and purposeful absurdism.
Screenshot: FromSoftware
Elden Ring gives you a gigantic turtle wearing a pope hat. It gives you strange, unsettling storylines about grapes that are actually eyeballs. It tucks a giant bat grandma away amongst a rocky outcropping and gives her a haunting song to sing ad infinitum—or until you slash at her leathery, gray skin. It deflates your hope in humankind at one juncture just to build it back up again at the next.
It lets you explore this incredibly fucked-up world for hours upon hours, fall in love with some of its characters and revile the rest, taxing you physically and mentally with enemies plucked from the deepest depths of game design hell, and at the end, it presents you with a few options that don’t really fucking matter. It does all of this while making itself playable for us FromSoft plebeians, which therefore (brilliantly) means more of us will be talking about it than any game that came before.
When we inevitably look back at Elden Ring a decade from now, it will be difficult for us to remember exactly how much it defined the zeitgeist, just how far it permeated popular culture outside of gaming, and just how much we couldn’t stop talking about it. But now, ten months after its release, it’s hard to imagine we ever existed in a world without it.
Fantasy medieval game Blacktail, Krakow-based studio The Parasight’s debut, lets you play as folktale witch Baba Yaga in her bow-and-arrow-carrying youth. You command her fate, if she’s a good witch or a bad witch, depending on how you navigate the magical, dangerous forest she roams.
“When living memories of her past return as foul, walking spirits,” Blacktail’s website says. “Yaga is faced with no other option than to hunt them down in hopes of unraveling her own mystery.”
I’m excited by Blacktail’s premise—I’m a former little kid with vivid imagined memories of Baba Yaga’s gnarled hands and battered cabin in the woods. Though, I am a little annoyed that Yaga’s voice actress sounds British despite the character growing up isolated from everyone except, like, early Belarusians. I’m hoping the game’s story is so mythic and compelling that I’m distracted by the Anglo-Saxon intrusion.
Release date: December 15
Compatible with: PC, Xbox Series X/S, PS5
What 2022 game release are you most looking forward to? Or are you keeping your sights set squarely on next year?
Last week’s comprehensive update to No Man’s Sky brought with it a host of changes. Some made the game far more malleable and approachable, while others, like tweaks to inventory mechanics, have been the subject of controversy within the community. Seemingly in response to the backlash, Hello Games appears to be making some adjustments to how the inventory works in the game’s experimental PC build.
No Man’s Sky’s “Waypoint” update brought with it a sudden change to the game’s inventory system. Naturally, the term “inventorygate” has developed in response. The result has been the usual rush of memes, review bombs, since-locked Reddit threads with gamers arguing over whether the game is “ruined” or not. Those upset over the changes have a point, however: The updated inventory layout limits players to three tech upgrade slots, capping potential power levels below what they were pre-update. However, the game’s October 10 experimental build added additional upgrade slots, suggesting the devs are looking to address the playerbase’s fairly widespread outrage.
An experimental update, however, might not be enough to quell the frustration many have aired. Steam reviews alone have taken a recent trend toward a “Mixed” status, with many specifically calling out the inventory changes. “The most recent update essentially deleted dozens of hours of grinding,” reads one Steam review. “With the new 4.0 update my inventories are unrecognizable and after all the grind time I have spent it all seems useless,” reads another.
The backlash hasn’t been universal, though. While many are “complaining that they worked 100+ hours for upgrades that are now functionally useless,” as one Reddit thread puts it, others have found that the tweaks and restrictions bring more balance and challenge to the game. The negative responses do appear to be the loudest, however, and it’s uncertain if those have influenced Hello Games’ decision to expand the slots in the experimental build.
The experimental build patch notes on Steam note that Hello Games has added “additional free technology slots,” both for players newly updating their game to the Waypoint version and folks who already have existing saves. You can access No Man’s Sky’s experimental build by right-clicking on the game in your Steam library, selecting “Properties,” navigating to “Betas,” entering the password “3xperimental”, and choosing the “Experimental” build.
Pictured: Above is the more limited inventory of the current build. Below reveals the expanded slots in the experimental version.Image: Hello Games / Kotaku
The changes are clearly visible on a brand-new save I created to test with. As expected, the regular, stable, build of the game only provides three possible technology slots at the top. Updating to the experimental build, however, doubles the slots on the top row. Further updates to the beta branch since October 10 also fix other issues many had with unlocking inventory slots and navigating the menu overall.
Though these changes have yet to be merged into No Man’s Sky’s stable build, there is no indication yet as to when or if these will be made permanent. Kotaku has reached out to Hello Games for comment.
