On top of a table, Princess Zelda magically binds herself to a green machine pouring gusts of wind. She goes zooming across the screen instantly as the air blasts the table forward as well as any jet engine. “Table go vroom-vroom” reads the caption—just a small taste of what an inventive player can do in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, the latest in the series from Nintendo.
Echoes of Wisdom is all about finding new ways to use the world’s items. It relies on Zelda’s ability to copy enemies and objects and repurpose them as needed. In the early days of its creation, developers explored different ways the game could be played. That included the ability to edit dungeons by copying and pasting objects like doors or candles, allowing players to essentially create their own gameplay—and their own cheats.
When series producer Eiji Aonuma had the chance to test it, however, he had a different take. “While it’s fun to create your own dungeon and let other people play it,” he said in a recent Ask the Developer post on Nintendo’s site, “it’s also not so bad to place items that can be copied and pasted in the game field, and create gameplay where they can be used to fight enemies.”
So no, Echoes of Wisdom is no dungeon-builder. Like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, however, its ability to create makeshift solutions and items means players are quickly finding unusual ways to traverse the world and conquer its many levels. In some cases, by using items in ways so outlandish it seems like they shouldn’t exist.
One of Echoes of Wisdom’s most useful items is also its plainest: a simple, brown-framed bed. Players have quickly latched onto beds as a go-to for getting around—stack a couple and they make a great bridge or a ladder. Dispense one in a fight and Zelda can nap to recover health while summoned monsters fight on her behalf. In one particularly inspired example, a player put Zelda on top of a bed and summoned an enemy to create wind gusts that made the bed fly. Tables are just as useful, especially when you want to barricade a couple of guards into their own prison.
On Reddit, players are sharing creations that have allowed them to bypass both gated-off areas and the laws of gravity. One worked out how to create different variations of flying machines, no bed needed, by binding together a crow, a rock, and an enemy that creates wind gusts. In the game’s water temple, which requires players to slowly raise the water level to reach the top, one enterprising adventurer figured out how to skip that whole mess by carefully stacking water blocks—echoes that create a contained cube of water Zelda can swim through—to head straight up.
As creative as these workarounds are, they also play directly into Nintendo’s hands. While echoes may feel like a nerfing of the Tears mechanics that let gamers build flame-throwing phalluses, Nintendo still wanted to empower them to be “mischievous.” As director Tomomi Sano has said, the point is for players to find ways to use echoes that “are so ingenious it almost feels like cheating.”
Princess Zelda wields an enormous toolkit in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. With the flick of a wand, she can summon perfect copies of anything from a household pot to a a living, moving monster that fights for her. These objects, called Echoes, help her navigate the terrain and fight baddies. And while it’s no Master Sword, the Tri Wand has something Link never did: The ability to wield a nice plush bed. And now as I play, I’m convinced the bed is the main solution to all my problems in Echoes of Wisdom.
Echoes of Wisdom embraces a more open and less restrictive design approach when compared to previous top-down Zelda games. A puzzle in a dungeon might have multiple solutions instead of a single one. Because the game has been designed in this way, players are encouraged to think for themselves and tinker freely with all kinds of potential solutions rather than finding a specific path. In an interview, long-term Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma said that “having the excitement of solving puzzles in your own unique way makes the game ‘Legend of Zelda-like,’” so the team increased the degree of freedom to achieve that goal.
Generally speaking, this allows players to flex their creative muscles and find unique ways to get around the world, but for me, I’ve just defaulted to bed. It gives you a bit of additional height, extends out the length of roughly two blocks or so, and only costs one little triangle — so beginners can stack as many as three beds across a gap. I’ve used it to scale cliffs, cross gaps, and solve puzzles in dungeons. Before I get discouraged, I ask myself: Can this be solved with bed? And more often than not, it can be.
When you don’t want to use bed, you don’t have to. The furniture can make a lot of the puzzles easier, but it is about your own creative solutions at the end of the day. Forcing your way through a dungeon with a bed might be more simplistic, but not as exciting. A lot of times, it can be more fun to take advantage of newly learned Echoes, and that’s great! But if you find yourself hitting a wall and not knowing what to do, maybe see if it’s time for Zelda to take a little snooze.
Image: Firewalk Studios, Sony / Firewalk Studios / Kotaku, Blizzard, Boss Key / PlayStation / Epic / Kotaku, Nintendo / Kotaku, Sony / Kotaku, Capcom / Kotaku, Screenshot: Nintendo / Kotaku, Microsoft, Photo: Michael Tullberg (Getty Images)
FThe biggest story of the week was probably the announcement that Sony was shutting down Concord, its big, expensive, long-in-development hero shooter, just two weeks after its disappointing launch. We’ve got the details on the original announcement, as well as reactions from across the internet.
In other news, rumors about Nintendo’s successor to the Switch are swirling, Sony sorta confirms leaked design images for a PS5 Pro, and disgraced streamer Dr Disrespect touts his return. All these stories and more are yours for the reading.
Princess Zelda has to escape from jail. She was tossed into prison over her alleged involvement in the appearance of mysterious “rifts” all over the land of Hyrule. Under normal circumstances, she’d be stuck down there until longtime hero Link could come rescue her.
Echoes of Wisdom, launching September 26 for the Switch, is Zelda’s first game in the leading role. When Nintendo announced the game in June, Legend of Zelda stalwart Eiji Aonuma said that the goal was to “create a new gameplay style that breaks conventions seen in the past.” In other words, a new way for Zelda to step out of the damsel role and into her own power.
Although it may look like the 2019 remake of Link’s Awakening—brightly animated environments and characters with adorably big heads—it’s closer to the inventive spirit of Nintendo’s last game in the franchise, Tears of the Kingdom. After more than an hour in the game during a recent demo, we found Echoes of Wisdom to be a playground of puzzles where everyone is in charge of their own adventure.
Zelda is no experienced swordsman, so her powers are different by design. By using the Tri Rod, with a little help from a new character called Tri, she can create object replicas called “echoes” to help her navigate the world. There’s a lot for her to copy and create, from tables, beds, and fire pits to enemies of all varieties. Need to make a bridge? Stack together a few crates. Or tables. Or beds, just after you’ve taken a little nap in one. Boss-fight? Try siccing a fleet of bat-like Keese on it, or maybe an armed Moblin.
The first part of the demo included Zelda’s escape from prison, where she’s just beginning to learn how to make echoes, and spilled over into a small portion of the game’s overworld. In a small village, I learned how to make a trampoline echo and used it to bounce onto rooftops. Out in the field, I unleashed a spiky ball enemy to use as a battering ram on other foes. It was the second half of the demo, however—a small dungeon complete with boss-fight—that felt the most satisfying.
Echoes of Wisdom isn’t nearly as expansive as recent games like Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom, but the exploratory formula is there. Zelda has a few other abilities she’ll unlock later in the game, like the power to grab onto an item and pull or push it. Combining echoes—it’s unclear how many there are in total, but the demo had over a dozen—with Zelda’s grabby power has a lot of potential for goofy solutions, like the flame-throwing penises people made in Tears. I was especially fond of trampolining over everything I could and throwing whatever I found, whether that was a rock or an enemy echo. Another player, according to a Nintendo rep, unleashed an echo to fight for him while he took a nap in bed.
Nintendo released a new trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Widom this morning—its first Zelda game in generations to feature the titular Princess as the primary playable protagonist. It confirms two pretty wonderful things: first, that the publisher is trying to marry the franchise’s oldest sensibilities with its newest influences. Secondly? Zelda’s a horse girlie.
The new five-minute gameplay overview gives us a brief look at what to expect when Zelda finds herself off on an adventure to save Hyrule, after Link is consumed by a mysterious dark void emerging over the Kingdom in his own attempts to rescue the Princess from nefarious clutches.
Despite Echoes‘ traditional aesthetic trappings, borrowing its perspective from the earliest games in the Zelda franchise and its chibi-leanings from 2019 remake of Link’s Awakening, there’s a lot here that feels much more reminiscent of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom‘s mechanical ideas than traditional Zelda games. There’s crafting elements like the smoothie shops (seemingly replacing Link’s cooking as a way to get various buffs), various outfits for fashion and functionality, and Zelda’s ability to summon a horse to get around (or even find and unlock fast travel points). But the biggest is another new ability Zelda will have to solve puzzles and engage with the world around her.
Gifted to her by her new ally, the fairy Tri, Bind is akin to the magnesis and ultrahand abilities from Breath and Tears. In one form, Zelda can manipulate objects regardless of size to move with her, and in its reverse-bond form, she can connect herself to an object and move along with it. Combined with the new echo power Zelda has, these abilities let players approach combat, puzzle-solving, and traversal in ways that feel much more like Breath and Tears‘ experimental leanings, rather than Zelda‘s traditional style of finding very specific ways to solve specific things.
Cliff too high to scale? Summon an echo of a spider and reverse-bond it to yourself to follow it as it climbs up. Need a quick defense in combat? Echo up a sea urchin, bind it to yourself, and simply dash into enemies. The variety of applications in this format of Zelda games is unlike anything we’ve really seen in the post-Breath of the Wild world, and it’ll be very interesting to see just how much Echoes manages to bring that kind of open-ended gameplay to something playing more directly with classic Zelda‘s gameplay legacy.
We’ll find out more when Echoes of Wisdom hits Nintendo Switch next month, on September 26.
Classic titles may get a lot of flack, but their designs were second to none, so we’ve decided to rank them! These posters highlight some of the best classic titles out there – along with some beautifully recreated and original illustrations.
For the sake of transparency, ‘retro’ has been defined here as anything that was released before the eighth console generation. So, before the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch’s release.
It might sound scary, but some of your favorite titles might be just considered ‘old-school’!
Image Source: 2K
Image Source: 2K
Image Source: 2K
The success of the Borderlands series is reason enough to pick up a copy of any of its titles. However, the consistently awe-inspiring key art used in its box cover and promotional marketing is a very close second.
Borderlands‘ success has rested on the amazing gunplay, witty dialogue, and excellent character designs of its cast of heroes (and villains!)
As such, it makes sense that if posters were to be made to symbolize the whole series, then who better to place front and center than a Psycho. The Psycho enemy has become the face of the series in some respects – having appeared on almost all the games’ cover art in one way or another.
Using the iconic, provocative imagery from the games’ cover art for the title, marketing for all of 2K’s Borderlands has received heavy backlash. However, the visually striking use of color and instantly recognizable design of the series has since become synonymous with the franchise.
Image Source: Sega
Image Source: Sega
Image Source: Sega
Releasing in arcades in 1994, and being ported to Sega’s own Saturn system in 1995, Virtua Fighter and its much-beloved sequel were a graphical tour de force.
Hailing from a time when titles couldn’t hide with flashy, pre-rendered cinematics, these titles laid everything bare. Sega was sure that the visuals it had to deliver were of that high a standard.
Posters like this one by AudricDemers project that same self-confidence, consisting of minimal background design and characters in action poses. Simple, effective, and impressive.
As one Reddit user fondly remembers;
‘The graphics were god-tier at the time that I could just sit there at the arcade and watch the demo for hours on end’
The Metal Slug series is renowned for crazy arcade action, and sleek and beautiful pixel-art sprite work. Wow, that’s a lot to fit onto a poster!
As such, the best posters of the Metal Slug franchise choose to encapsulate all of these aspects in a single image. For example, this one which uses the cover art for Metal Slug X.
The series’ hyper-stylized designs, along with the eponymous tank, are depicted in loving detail. Redbubble designer Mysteriosshop has arranged the game’s artwork and produced a highly collectible poster.
Image Source: SEGA
Image Source: SEGA
Image Source: SEGA
Sonic the Hedgehog is a beloved video game character; running beyond his games to television shows, highly-successful movies, and merchandising since his original title. However, he has gone through many design alterations since his 1991 game debut.
Sega landed on a classic look recently that has pleased old and new fans alike. While the lanky-legged, smart-talking design of ‘modern’ Sonic still exists, this ‘classic’ design has curried favor with many long-time fans.
Referencing Sonic the Hedgehog’s blazing speed and classic 90s design, posters like this minimal yet explosive artwork will surely please Sonic fans from any stage of the blue blur’s gaming career.
Image Source: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Image Source: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Image Source: Sony Interactive Entertainment
While it seems like we were waiting for years for a return to form for Crash Bandicoot, the recent resurgence in Crash Bandicoot’s popularity can be seen with the release of Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time.
Regardless if it’s playing the original titles or the newest in the series, it feels good to be back in control of everyone’s favorite orange video game mammal (sorry, Daxter!)
This modern interpretation of the classic cover art for the PS1 title Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back showcases the classic title, while embracing the aesthetic of the newer art style. As such, you can enjoy it on posters and other themed merchandise.
Perhaps that is why it’s so endearing. The seamless blending of the original title with one which a new generation of fans has become familiar with. This is especially potent considering the continued success of the series’ recent remasters.
After the success of the North American box art for Grand Theft Auto III after an impromptu last-minute change, Rockstar consolidated their key art under one style. They proceeded to use Bliss’ stylings as cover art, loading scenes, and promotional work for the title from that point on.
Posters like this stylish one from mattilynn succeeds on the merit that it places Bliss’ artwork front and center.
Image Source: Nintendo
Image Source: Nintendo
Image Source: Nintendo
If there’s one thing The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask is, it’s unusual. Its dark tone and unnerving visuals confounded gamers at the time, alongside Nintendo’s macabre twist of the Zelda formula.
This poster by orioto continues this trend by emphasizing the darkness of the setting along with the scale of the game’s moon. The starlight and falling meteors in the background of the poster also highlight the shadows of the clock tower and surrounding mountains.
As such, the scale of the task given to you in Majora’s Mask is made apparent. Beyond that, the repercussions if you don’t succeed are put into perspective.
The title has been included on the company’s Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pass service. As a result, more people are playing classic Zelda titles than ever. Whether you’re new to the perils of Termina or have saved the world time and time again, this illustrated poster is sure to delight you.
Image Source: Atari
Image Source: Atari
Image Source: Atari
Centipede is a game that needs no introduction. Published by Atari in 1981, the arcade title is one of the formative titles for the entire video game industry.
Even 40 years ago, the appeal for this title was obvious. Many marketing and promotional works were commissioned to broadcast this latest Atari title. As a result, many gamers were inducted into spending as much as they could in the arcades.
Posters like this retro metal decoration highlight the original arcade cabinet’s aesthetic through its presentation of the illustrated centipede design.
It could be argued that George Opperman alone could be credited with the centipede design. However, as stated in Video Games magazine, June of 1983: ‘It is his responsibility, along with a 12-person staff, to create and produce all artwork for Atari’s arcade games’.
The poster design has had such a lasting impact that American rock band The Strokes incorporated it well beyond its 1981 release. In 2003, they released their hit song ‘Reptilia’ – which has a familiar insect emblazoned on its single artwork.
Image Source: Nintendo
Image Source: Nintendo
Image Source: Nintendo
When decorating a room with videogame paraphernalia, you only want to represent the best of the best.
As such, it’s no surprise that a stylish poster of Super Mario Bros. 3 is no doubt high on your list. One of the best Mario games of all time, even 36 years after its original release, Super Mario Bros. 3 revolutionized the series in the eighties.
From all-new power-ups, a connected series of levels on a world map, and incredible graphical power for the Nintendo Entertainment System – Super Mario Bros. 3 amazed.
In 1988 players all around the world thought that game developers had maximized the potential of what the NES hardware. Then Super Mario Bros. 3 released.
Matthew Carmosino & Nicholas Limon, ‘The Best Super Mario Bros. Games: All 20 Ranked’
Who wouldn’t want a poster of the platforming plumber after all that? Luckily, the cover art for Super Mario Bros. is as simple and stylish as it was back in 1988.
With that in mind, many still hold a special Pokemon-shaped place in their heart for the original titles and Nintendo is very aware of this.
The original Pokemon creature designs are referenced and revered in almost every aspect of Pokemon media – ensuring that every Pokemon fan knows them all by name!
As such, this Pokemon poster is an excellent decision for those who love the original 151 pocket monsters or are just fans of the series overall. Featuring artwork from the series’ original artist Ken Sugimori, this Kanto-based poster is a league above the rest.
Image Source: Microsoft
Image Source: Microsoft
Image Source: Microsoft
When excited gamers in 2007 picked up their copies of Microsoft’s latest installment in the Halo franchise, they were met with a beloved added extra.
The much-appreciated miniature poster, featuring artwork from artist Ashley Wood, was bundled into all early copies of the title – with the controller layout on the reverse side. Posting on his blog on September 25, the day of Halo 3’s release, he proclaimed: ‘I was lucky to be part of the legend in a very small way’.
This piece, while small, has continued to be adored by fans new and old. So much so that it was celebrated with a limited print-run of the artwork being recreated through Displate, last year.
Redbubble user pharaoh618, has elegantly formatted Wood’s original piece and has made it more readily available through this poster.
Image Source: Bethesda Softworks
Image Source: Bethesda Softworks
Image Source: Bethesda Softworks
Incorporated into the title’s promotional work and even used as the game’s box art, Doom is a classic retro poster design if there ever was one.
Designed by the prolific science fiction and contemporary artist Don Ivan Punchatz, his mastery of the craft is generally acknowledged even by those outside of the video game industry.
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty is the memorable sequel to the much-beloved original Metal Gear Solid title on the PlayStation 1. Where Sons of Liberty diverges from the original is in its controversial sidelining of the first game’s protagonist in place of the new character, Raiden.
Many fans have since come around to Raiden’s inclusion and the superb quality of Sons of Liberty as a sequel. As such, we have been able to appreciate posters like this one.
The minimalist poster – arranged by PFCpatrickC – features the original artwork for the title from series illustrator Yoji Shinkawa.
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Since the announcement of The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, fans of the series have been expressing their excitement over Zelda’s unique gameplay. Chiefly, they are overjoyed about her ability to copy (or echo) items in the environment and use them against her enemies in battle.
Tears Of The Kingdom’s Newspaper Questline And The State Of Hyrulean Journalism
Echoes of Wisdom finally drops players into a mainline entry of the series as the titular princess. When Link goes missing just as he rescues her from Ganon, dark rifts begin to tear apart Hyrule, and Zelda just barely escapes them. With Hyrule’s typical savior out of the picture, it falls on Zelda to save her land and people, and she accomplishes this with the help of Tri, a fairy she encounters as all is falling apart. Tri grants Zelda the Tri Rod, which allows her to copy objects and other creatures in the world in order to navigate environments, solve puzzles, and carry out battles, and it looks great, and indeed poised for numerous jokes and in-game hilarity.
It all started when a clip of the game’s debut trailer showed Zelda copying a boulder, lifting it and throwing it at an enemy. Many fans noted the fact that in most Zelda games, Link has needed a bracelet that allows him a similar ability, and claimed that Zelda had been quietly getting stronger than her stalwart protector and savior.
Eventually, the memes about Echoes of Wisdom’s new copy ability got progressively out of hand. Many of the ones I saw within a few hours of the announcement poked fun at how Zelda might use a table or a chair in battle, akin to a professional wrestler. By comparison, Link has largely used more typical weaponry like the Master Sword, as well as a bow and arrow or bombs. The emphasis on furniture has spawned its own series of posts about domesticity and interior decoration. From there, things spiraled out of control until we hit the natural conclusion that the internet always escalates to: giving Zelda a glock.
But if I had to pick favorites, these final three are the pinnacle of the posts I saw. Sometimes, the internet can be a really funny place.
It’s actually been really joyous to see communities getting excited for what appears, on its face, to be a novel take on the beloved series. I feel my own fervor for Echoes of Wisdom being stoked with every bit of fanart or memes that I see folks posting online, so please keep it coming. This is the kind of energy I can get behind any day of the week. And yes, you’re all right, we should absolutely give Zelda a gun.
After decades of serving as the named inspiration for the beloved franchise The Legend of Zelda, the series’ titular princess is finally getting her own game. The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, releasing September 26 for Nintendo Switch, gives Zelda her very own hero’s journey after Link goes missing. But it does not, sadly, give her her own sword.
Players have been clamoring for Hyrule’s favorite princess to take the lead in a Zelda game for years now, or at least to be playable in games like Tears of the Kingdom. Excitement around Zelda’s triumph was immediately evident on X after Nintendo announced the game Tuesday during one of its Direct presentations. (Sample post: “I make no excuses for the person I will become once I get to play as PRINCESS ZELDA.”)
In Echoes of Wisdom, she’s tasked with rescuing Hyrule’s residents, Link included, who are being swallowed up by mysterious rifts. To save them, Zelda teams up with a fairy named Tri; armed with the Tri Rod, Zelda can create imitations of environmental objects and enemies called echoes to solve puzzles and fight monsters.
In the game’s trailer, for example, Zelda learns how to replicate a table. She can then spawn echoes of that table anywhere she wants, which allows the player to create stairs and bridges made of tables. Similar to Tears of the Kingdom’s Ultrahand and Fuse abilities, the possibilities for echoes seem pretty open; the trailer shows her learning how to make boxes, beds, rocks, and water blocks to get around and circumvent would-be obstacles. Echoes of monsters become allies who fight alongside her.
Echoes of Wisdom has a visual style similar to the remake of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakeningfrom 2019 but seems more in line with the experimental nature of the series’ most recent release, Tears of the Kingdom. During the presentation, longtime producer Eiji Aonuma said that the team “wanted to create a new gameplay style that breaks conventions seen in the past” with other top-down games. As for how many echoes there are, Aonuma says he hasn’t counted them all yet.
Nintendo is also releasing a gold “Hyrule Edition” Nintendo Switch Lite along with the game.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom developers had a problem: The land of Hyrule kept falling apart.
Anyone who has played Tears of the Kingdom might be able to guess why. Some of the game’s big advances—Link’s Ultrahand and Fuse abilities, which allow players to create any tool they’re clever enough to stick together—required a lot of new and intricate development. Nintendo wanted to build something bigger and better with its Breath of the Wild sequel, but as the team worked on the game, the tools that would allow players to make all those shield skateboards and log bridges broke it. A lot. It was, programmer Takahiro Takayama says, “chaos.”
During development, Takayama would often hear devs exclaim, “It broke!” or “It went flying,” Takayama said Wednesday at the Game Developers Conference. “And I would respond, ‘I know. We’ll deal with it later.’”
The problem was the physics of it all. “We realized removing all non-physics-driven objects and making everything physics-driven will lead us to the solution we were looking at,” Takayama said.
The second fix was to create a system that allowed for unique interactions between objects, without any specific additional needs. That meant that players who wanted to make a vehicle, for example, could tinker with different tools instead of being restricted to something basic like a wheel and a board.
All that hardcore programming paid off. Ultrahand and Fuse are now fan-favorite tools, something players use to create flamethrowing penises and hacks used in speedruns. No matter how hard they tried, Hyrule never broke.
Those tools also meant players could solve puzzles in a variety of ways. “Regardless of what the player does, we had a world free from self-destruction,” Takayama said.
A new month is nearly here, as well as a new year, and that means updates to the PlayStation Plus catalog. January kicks off 2024 with three new games available for Premium, Extra, and Essential members to download starting on January 2, as well as some goodies if you happen to be a space ninja. – Claire Jackson Read More
I love the idea of annual top 10 lists until it comes time to actually make one. Then my perpetually indecisive brain freaks out about whether the game I spent 100 hours playing was actually any good, the tension between an interesting game and a fun one, and the cries of all the games I never finished or even got around to starting, still begging for my attention.
Tears Of The Kingdom’s Newspaper Questline And The State Of Hyrulean Journalism
I spent 2023 tracking some of the best new games that came out every month, attempting to at least try as many of them as I could while also measuring how my feelings changed about them as the year went on. And I ended up playing a bunch of them while still not getting around to what no doubt would have been strong personal GOTY contenders.
With a not-so-short short list assembled by early December, the task then becomes figuring out which games I actually thought were the best. I’ve worked hard to convince myself over the years that the process is more art than science. Inevitably I tally up the perceived merits and flaws of a game and then try to compare the vague calculations, an exercise that always ends in a mix of conflicted self-doubt and second-guessing.
Eventually I silence the internal dissent and retreat into a more abstract sense of what feels right. Recently this has meant giving in more to my personal tastes and subjectivity, championing the games I love rather than the ones I feel I ought to like, and praising them for the one or two things they do very well instead of letting all the smaller things they don’t do so well hold them back. This doesn’t impose any more order on the chaos of comparing a roguelite loot shooter to a visual novel adventure, but it does give me fewer pangs of guilt when I eventually settle on rating one above the other.
Here, in alphabetical order, are the top 10 games that moved me the most in 2023.
Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon
Screenshot: FromSoftware / Kotaku
I’ve always understood and appreciated the Soulsborne formula and its many flavors on an intellectual level, but Armored Core VI was the game that finally made me feel and love the initial hopelessness and eventual satisfaction that comes from mastering a FromSoftware game. The mech shooter is razor sharp and ultra polished when it comes to zipping around environments and engaging in moment-to-moment combat. You actually feel yourself becoming more in-sync with the custom robot’s strengths and limitations the more you play, each successive boss fight pushing you to come to a deeper understanding of what’s important and what’s just noise. I spent several nights trying to beat Balteus. I don’t regret any of them. And I remain blown away by Armored Core VI’s vibes-based storytelling and branching new game plus mode. Its economical arcade design rewards you for every additional minute you put into it and doesn’t waste time on anything superfluous.
Baldur’s Gate 3
Screenshot: Larian Studios
Sometimes superfluous is good, though. In fact, sometimes it can be transcendent. The promise of a dozen roads not taken in a video game pays off in making the one you did walk feel unique, unlikely, and unmistakably yours. I love that Baldur’s Gate 3 contains entire games’ worth of conversations, interactions, and outcomes I will never experience. It makes the small journey I have been on feel that much more intimate and personal. None of this would matter, of course, if Baldur’s Gate 3 was not well written, painstakingly choreographed, and expertly voice acted. It’s a dense RPG full of gear and skills to manage alongside quests and boss fights to navigate, and all of it, no matter how it plays out, feels like it was meant to happen that way. It’s the new gold standard for role-playing video games.
Chants of Sennaar
Screenshot: Rundisc
I don’t normally like language-based games. (Ironic considering I’m a writer.) I despise crossword puzzles. The inherent fluidity and ambiguousness of language mashed up with the rigid constraints of a game almost always leave me feeling underwhelmed and frustrated. I was shocked, then, to find out just how much I enjoyed Chants of Sennaar, a puzzle adventure about deciphering unknown languages between various factions in a Tower of Babel that oozes highly saturated yellows, blues, and reds. What I appreciated most was how quickly context and intuition helped whittle down possible solutions to problems, making limited communication gratifyingly achievable even when there was no foundation to begin building on. Rather than punish you for the shifty and slippery nature of language, Chants of Sennaar allows those elements to color your overall experience and interpretation of the game without blocking your moment-to-moment progress.
Cocoon
Screenshot: Geometric Interactive
Cocoon feels like it was chiseled from a rock over thousands of years. Everything unessential has been methodically removed. All that’s left is a seamless sequence of puzzles gently nudging you toward new discoveries and brain-twisting realizations. Remnants of conventional game design like screen icons and boss fight deaths have been elegantly eradicated. Evocative musical queues punctuate each new milestone on your journey. And the rules governing its world are supremely simple but always manage to combine into solutions that feel just outside the realm of possibility. Cocoon is probably one of the best puzzle adventures ever made.
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty
Image: CD Projekt Red
I finished Cyberpunk 2077 for the first time last year. Despite some fantastic missions and an overwhelmingly intricate open world, it left little impression on me. That seemed a symptom of the underlying structure of the game rather than anything that could be patched out with new abilities or a more impressive sci-fi open world simulation. Night City felt fundamentally alienating to me, and none of the individual characters, story arcs, or RPG progressions managed to pull me out of that feeling of malaise. That is, until Phantom Liberty and the game’s 2.0 update in 2023. The culmination of every new addition, from takedown animations and parrying bullets with katanas to jacked-up car chases and an entire subway system, is an open-world RPG that passes some imaginary threshold from feeling static and paper-thin to one that’s lively and responsive. It helps that Phantom Liberty is a streamlined campaign in a specific part of the map that, dispensing with the MacGuffins of the main plot, can instead weave an interesting and nuanced tale of political intrigue, betrayal, and necessary consequences. Taken together, it’s the game I was hoping Cyberpunk 2077 could be ever since I finished The Witcher 3’s amazing Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine expansions.
Darkest Dungeon II
Image: Red Hook Studios
It only took one caravan ride in Red Hook Studios sequel to convince me it was something special. Darkest Dungeon II takes everything I loved about the first game and puts it in motion, propelling its brutal emergent storytelling and grim probability-based combat over all of the divots and ditches that occasionally ensnared its predecessor. Playing Darkest Dungeon II late at night with the lights turned off made me feel like I was racing through the gothic fall of humankind to save my soul. While it loses some of the managerial depth of the first game, it more than makes up for it with its more cinematic presentation and economical focus. I wish every game could create such an unmistakable sense of place, atmosphere, and engaging stakes with similar efficiency, and made failure feel so rewarding and profound.
Final Fantasy XVI
Screenshot: Square Enix / Kotaku
This is the problematic fave on this list. Final Fantasy XVI disappointed me in so many ways. From its shallow RPG systems to its dreary and cumbersome second half, the latest game in the Square Enix series felt like it left so much untapped potential on the table. It makes me dream of what the team might accomplish if given the time and resources to mount Cyberpunk 2077’s three-year turn around from Early Access to 2.0 victory lap. Instead of droning on about all the things I disliked about this game, I’ll simply say that it’s highs were higher than almost anything else I played this year and kept me coming back through a new game plus run which has reminded me why I love it, from the incredibly sleek and satisfying action to the magnificent cinematic boss fights. When the writing isn’t falling down flat on its face and the sky isn’t overcast with an impenetrable gloom, there is more than one flicker of the return to form Final Fantasy fans like me have been waiting more than a decade for.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder
Image: Nintendo
I almost left this one off the list. It feels like a cheating. Every stage in Super Mario Bros. Wonder is juiced to the max, carefully engineered to delight, entertain, and continually surprise you, all while maintaining the series’ tightly calibrated platforming feel and bespoke attention to detail. Super Mario Bros. Wonder doesn’t catapult the formula forward or feel as inventive as recent puzzle boxes like Super Mario 3D World and Bowser’s Fury. Its most remarkable moments don’t quite measure up to the peaks in Super Mario Bros. 3 or Super Mario World. But it’s exquisitely crafted, and every level is packed to the brim with new quirks and fun ideas. No game brought me more unburdened joy this year.
The Banished Vault
Screenshot: Lunar Division
Obtuse, slow, and occasionally clumsy, The Banished Vault nevertheless takes spreadsheet navigation and adds an irresistible sense of existential dread to the proceedings. You play religious outcasts scavenging solar systems for resources to survive until the next cryo-sleep-induced hyper-light jump. The greatest terrors I felt in any game this year came from the prospect of miscalculating fuel reserves and how long I have until the next supernova. The Banished Vault can feel straightforward once you unravel its economy, but that process of demystification is complex and enthralling, and richly infused with meaning thanks to the austere presentation and haunting soundtrack. It made contemplating certain doom not just thrilling but spiritually soothing.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Screenshot: Nintendo / Kotaku
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was a slam dunk. It surpassed my wildest expectations, taking what impressed me about Breath of the Wild and finding even more ways to surprise, delight, and gently lead me through its whimsical, dangerous, beautiful world. Game critics love to reward novelty, ambition, and bold experimentation. The nature of playing so many things and being exposed to so much naturally places a premium on the new and unexpected. Tears of the Kingdom has plenty of that, but more than anything it shows masters of their craft assessing, refining, and iterating on a formula they’ve spent decades on, like Chevy working on a new Corvette or Porsche making the latest 911. I’m still stunned that there’s a Zelda game where you can make your own rocket ship and somehow it doesn’t feel like a gimmick but rather like the most obvious and natural thing you could do in an open world fantasy adventure.
Honorable mentions:Season: A Letter to the Future, Humanity, Jusant, Planet of Lana, Saltsea Chronicles, Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew.
Needed more time with:Alan Wake 2, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Remnant II, Lies of P, Laika: Aged Through Blood, Dredge.
Didn’t get to:Terra Nil, Against the Storm, Fading Afternoon, A Space for the Unbound, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, The Talos Principle 2, Slay the Princess, Void Stranger, and many more.
Liked but didn’t love:Spider-Man 2, Starfield, Diablo IV, Sea of Stars, Hi-Fi Rush, Moonring, Thirsty Suitors.
Until very recently, I’d thought that Alan Wake 2 would reside in the #2 slot here, while Tears of the Kingdom would remain my personal game of the year. However, a chance encounter recently with writer Cole Kronman (who wrote this great piece on Xenogears and the games of Tetsuya Takahashi for us) helped me clarify my own feelings. I realized that for me, these two games are in close conversation with each other, strange mirrors of each other’s greatness, and that together, they define the best that 2023’s games had to offer in my mind. I’m not going to spoil plot points for either game, but to engage with why and how this is the case, I need to mention a crucial line of dialogue from the end of Alan Wake 2, one that mirrors the first game’s climactic mic drop of “It’s not a lake, it’s an ocean.” If you haven’t yet finished Alan Wake 2 and want to discover this line for yourself, turn back now.
In the final moments of Alan Wake 2 (and potentially earlier, depending on how thorough you are in exploring and absorbing Remedy’s metaphysical horror odyssey), a character says, “It’s not a loop, it’s a spiral.” Alan Wake 2 explores the difficulty and anguish many artists find in the creative process, the way it can sometimes feel like you’re just banging your head against the wall and not making a damn bit of progress, seeing no way out whatsoever as that blank page continues to taunt you.
And yet, sometimes at least, a way out does eventually reveal itself. Sometimes, after we’ve been spinning our wheels for what feels like forever, something in our subconscious will finally crack, a bit of light will shine through, and we will see, at long last, a path forward, knowing that we had to go through all of that internal turmoil to find our way out. What felt like a pointless, exhausting, excruciating loop was in fact a spiral all along. Before spotlighting this at the end by having a character speak the line, Alan Wake 2 hides this idea in plain sight, repeatedly putting you in environments that feel like loops that you have no choice but to run through again and again. Eventually, your persistence pays off, something suddenly changes, and a way out reveals itself. You thought you were going in circles but you were actually moving forward all along; it just took a lot of energy and grit to see that.
I don’t have any particular insight into what the struggle to get Alan Wake 2 made was like for creative director Sam Lake and the other folks at Remedy, but it’s no secret that this is a game the studio had been hoping to make for a very long time. I have to imagine that at times, the setbacks and struggles were crushing, that they felt like defeat. And yet, it’s undeniable that if Remedy had been able to make a sequel to 2010’s Alan Wake some 10 or six years ago, it would not be the game that it is today. Alan Wake 2 is extraordinary in no small part because it is a game that took 13 years to get made, and because, in its creative energy, you can feel the restless struggle, the accumulation of ideas, the desperate search for a way out. Alan Wake 2 is about many things, but perhaps none of them is more crucial to its identity than being about the struggle to make Alan Wake 2.
At the start of the 1980s, video games were mostly relegated to coin-gobbling arcade machines, but their surging popularity prompted a Time Magazine cover story in January 1982 with a cringeworthy warning: “GRONK! FLASH! ZAP! Video Games are Blitzing the World!”
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If this sounds like Big Boomer Energy, that’s because Baby Boomers were between 20 and 40 years old at the time and represented the dominant group of consumers. Media panic about gaming addiction depicted arcades as depraved places for lowlifes. Meanwhile, an oversaturation of at-home consoles and a parade of middling games led the entire American game industry to crash in 1983.
Nintendo pretty much single-handedly saved gaming with the NES (see on Amazon) back in 1985, and pop culture has never the same. Originally released in Japan as the Famicom (“Family Computer”), the NES is a redesign specifically tailored to western markets. Instead of a video game console, it was branded as an “Entertainment System” with a “Control Deck” that used “Game Paks.”
A risky bet
“It started with a phone call in 1981,” NES creator Masayuki Uemura told author and reporter Matt Alt in 2019, “President Yamauchi told me to make a video game system, one that could play games on cartridges. He always liked to call me after he’d had a few drinks, so I didn’t think much of it. I just said, ‘Sure thing, boss,’ and hung up. It wasn’t until the next morning when he came up to me, sober, and said, ‘That thing we talked about—you’re on it?’ that it hit me: He was serious.”
Uemura, who had originally been poached from Sharp to develop light-gun technology for toys at Nintendo, then spent six months deconstructing and reverse-engineering rival consoles like the Atari 2600 and Magnavox to study the circuitry. The 8-bit Famicom he designed proved more powerful than its competitors, and the toy-like color scheme was hand-picked by a scarf that Nintendo President Yamauchi liked (the same red and white Mario wears on the cover of Super Mario Bros.). It helps that in 1984, Japanese legislators modified an act regulating entry to places like bars and casinos to include arcades out of concern that it impacted “public morals.” Younger Japanese had to resort to home consoles instead, so the Famicom came at the perfect time for it to boom.
Famicom games on display at Tokyo used game store Super Potato.Photo: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg (Getty Images)
To capitalize on the American market, however, required a totally different approach—one that would pay off big-time.
In a lecture at New York University in 2015, Uemura said the front-loading design of the NES was inspired by VCRs, a booming form of at-home entertainment in America at the time. The Game Pak cartridges are 5.25 x 4.75 x 0.75 inches, with a considerable amount of heft to them, and the simple, boxy grey design is nothing short of iconic. They slide into the front of the system, and then the user has to press the cartridge down so its brass-plated nickel connectors hit the cartridge slot’s connector pins. Frequent use actually wears down the pins, which can lead to a flawed connection.
For years, gamers propagated the myth that blowing in the Game Paks to clear out dust would solve this problem, which instead exacerbated it due to the moisture in their breath. Still, sliding the paks in, pressing them down, pressing them again, pulling them out, blowing in them, and repeating the process felt like a game unto itself.
The console’s most memorable and successful accessories was the NES Zapper, a light gun that launched alongside the console in America. “America loves guns,” Uemura said when talking about how Nintendo marketed the NES in the west. Most of us had the Super Mario Bros. / Duck Hunt dual cartridge and delighted in blasting ducks while that gleeful dog retrieved their bodies. For your typical millennial gamer, the Nintendo Entertainment System served as the primary gateway into a lifelong hobby that never let up. I have fond memories playing The Legend of Zelda with my grandmother. She would’ve loved Tears of the Kingdom.
The origin of the classics
Take one look at Nintendo’s biggest releases in the last couple years, and you can trace many of them all back to the NES: Super Mario, Zelda, Metroid, and Fire Emblem.
By 1990, Nintendo had seized more than 90 percent of the U.S. video game market, thanks in no small part to a rigid third-party licensing agreement that still serves as a major industry precedent. Game developers that wanted to publish games for the NES had to agree to an exclusive licensing deal that restricted them from porting games to other consoles. Nintendo also directly approved each game to ensure a certain standard of quality.
Konami, Capcom, Taito, and Namco all participated in this and remain prominent developers even today. Castlevania fan? Thank Nintendo and the NES for that. Even Square and Enix saw great success putting Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest on the NES. Now, 20 years after the companies merged into Square Enix, both franchises are still going strong.
Photo: Reddit
Despite all its success and rapid sales over a few short years, the NES doesn’t even break the top 10 best-selling video game consoles of all time at roughly 62 million units to date — even the widely panned PlayStation Portable sold more over time — but Nintendo’s breakthrough home console remains arguably one of the most important pieces of tech ever created.
“When console games were popularized and presented to everyone, it felt like we were all exploring a new frontier of dreams together,” Masayuki Uemura told Used Games magazine in 2000. “Although some people may occasionally have wasted their money on a bad game here or there, both creators and players were obsessed with games then. I believe there’s still wonder to be found in that older generation of games.”
He was right. The NES Classic Edition — a dedicated emulator featuring 30 NES classics — rolled out from late 2016 into 2017 with many of the 2.3 million units selling out immediately. The 2018 relaunch saw similar demand.
The lasting legacy of the NES, however, lies with the Nintendo Switch which has sold more than 129 million units to date. With patents for what could be the successor to the Nintendo Switch, now’s as good a time as any to remember and appreciate what the Nintendo Entertainment System did for gaming 38 years ago.
We love video games for their interactivity and immersion, and a big part of this is thanks to their settings. Whether it’s the opportunity they present for exploration or deep lore that surrounds how they came to be, these games offer some of the best worlds to get lost in. Strap in and explore our top 10 best settings and worlds in video games.
Night City (Cyberpunk 2077)
Image Source: CD Projekt Red
Cyberpunk 2077’s aesthetic is so rich and drenched in neon-soaked atmosphere that it’s nearly impossible not to add Night City to this list.
CD Projekt Red went overboard with their attention to detail and design when constructing Night City’s streets. Every building has unique patterning and architectural design suited for the particular district it’s cramped in.
Even within the confines of a single district are various themes and styles unique to each sub-district. Northside Watson has a spread-out gritty industrial aesthetic far removed from the absolutely cramped and colorful Kabuki district in Watson. You really do feel like a smushed sardine among the crowds of people and bunched-up apartments in Night City, and it’s glorious.
But it’s not just that each subdistrict differentiates itself; each block feels unique from the next in the way the terrain is diversified. You never feel like you’re walking around a map populated by Speedtree copy-paste techniques. Every single square inch feels hand-crafted to some extent, propelling the player to explore off the beaten rebel path.
Spira (Final Fantasy X)
Image Source: Square Enix
There’s no doubt that living in Spira would be nightmarish. From the constant Sin attacks and the ferocious monsters patrolling the highways, Spira is a literal spiral of death.
It’s a true achievement, then, that Square Soft could create such an absolutely enchanting dreamscape of a setting amid such devastating death. I’d argue that this dichotomy between horrific death and sublime beauty is what really makes Spira so magical, as Spira’s outward beauty contrasts the cycle of death that the whale-like Sin brings.
The simplistic nobility surrounding the almost-subsistence island village of Kilika is beautiful in the kind of hardworking and honest people it fosters. And yet, these people will only live a short time before being wiped out with the village having to restart its development again.
Final Fantasy X is drenched in themes and symbolism too. The religion of Yevon serves as an analogue of real-life cults. And of course, there’s absurdly detailed symbolism permeating through every facet of the game, such as the Al Bhed script and Yevon mandalas. There are many unique symbols on ornately carved temple walls and store signs in Spira; each has deep significance and meaning making the setting rich and immersive.
The Al-Bhed language goes the extra mile in immersing us in Spira’s unique world too. Without hyperbole, Final Fantasy X really does have some of the most unique storytelling elements in gaming.
The Lands Between (Elden Ring)
Image Source: FromSoftware
Elden Ring manages to represent FromSoftware’s entire philosophy in a single game, and it does this with great success.
FromSoft games are known for their rich environmental storytelling and obtuse lore. Like Dark Souls before it, Elden Ring’s main character is its setting.
FromSoft’s lead designer, Hidetaka Miyazaki, has stated that the philosophy behind his storytelling consists of scattered puzzle pieces left for inquisitive players to find and place together. The puzzle pieces themselves are represented by the various characters, landmarks, and item descriptions found throughout the dark fantasy setting. Characters, in particular, carry a mysterious aura begging to be further explored.
I’ve put over 100 hours into Elden Ring and own a hardcover lore book describing the game, and yet I still don’t feel I’ve put together most of the puzzle pieces it’s laid out for players. If you like unfettered exploration amid a profoundly dynamic fantasy world, Elden Ring offers all that and way more than you probably have time for.
Thedas (Dragon Age)
Image Source: EA Bioware
On the very tail-end of Bioware’s golden age was Dragon Age, and its setting of Thedas is sublime.
Heavily inspired by Baldur’s Gate, Dragon Age was Bioware’s attempt at a fresh homebrewed fantasy setting, and boy, did they succeed. Sure, Thedas is filled with your typical fantasy dwarves and elves, but even these tropes are spiced up with their own religions, factions, and sub-cultures. This gives rise to several memorable locales to explore ranging from bustling cities to vast ancient ruins colored by the people and cultures that once called them home.
What really makes Dragon Age’s world stand out, though, is the complex political intrigue between all the various races and cultures. For example: Mages enjoy remarkable power and ability, yet are abused by factions looking to use them and outright feared by society as a whole — which results in them remaining under strict control and surveillance. After all, it’s mages who are susceptible to the demons of the Fade, which is itself a kind of dream realm comprised of its own political rifts.
This is why Dragon Age fans continue to be vocally excited for Dragon Age 4, and for the changes it could bring to the world they’ve spent so much time in.
Taris (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic)
Image Source: Bioware via starwars.fandom
The Old Republic is an era developed by Bioware and set some 4,000 years before the time of the films. The series has tremendous worldbuilding for each planet you visit. Taris, in particular, gets ample treatment in the first Knights of the Old Republic.
The scale is so absolutely perfect during this initial Taris section that it almost feels like a game within a game. You feel like you’re on this alien planet, living among the locals. You don’t have a lightsaber or any force powers yet, and you’re pretty much a nobody to the citizenry of the occupied planet.
While dated by today’s standards, Knights of the Old Republic is filled with these immersive moments that reaffirm our love of the role-playing genre.
Hyrule (The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom)
Image Source: Nintendo via Twinfinite
The Zelda series has introduced us to many versions of Hyrule through the years. They all share many elements between them; from races to atmosphere, even shared timelines and characters. It’s difficult to choose any one version of Hyrule over the other, so we went with the largest: Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom.
Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom feature truly magnificent versions of Hyrule. Breath of the Wild in particular set a new standard across the entire industry in a similar way that the original Zelda did back in 1987. It finally realized Shigeru Miyamoto’s original vision for the series with its ability to immerse players and make them feel lost within its giant world.
Tears of the Kingdom shares a similar Hyrule as Breath of the Wild, but adds aerial zones and subterranean nooks and crannies. And trust me, players will want to explore every nook and cranny in these games due to the organic, lived-in environments and the rewards they offer.
Whether you’re a first-time traveler to Hyrule’s longstanding legacy or you’re looking for a fun world to get lost in, these Zelda settings offer some of the best sightseeing in video games.
Zemuria (The Legend of Heroes: Trails series)
Image Source: Nihon Falcom
Ah, the niche JPRG series that has more entries than I do brain cells. Where do I even start? First, the most obvious. Every game in the Trails is connected together with masterfully done internal continuity.
For those out of the loop regarding these lore-intensive JRPGs, The Legend of Heroes comprises a franchise of disconnected, though similar-styled games. The Trails series within broad The Legend of Heroes, however, has some of the best continuity in all of gaming.
What really makes the Trails series immersive is the interconnected socio-political machinations going on between each nation. Set during a time of political upheaval at the dawn of Zemuria’s industrial and technological boom, there’s a metric ton of really good internal continuity going on between each Trails game.
The plot twists are usually well-earned too. Since the games are 50 hours minimum each, there’s a ton of build-up leading to the inciting incident at the tail-end of each story. You really get to know the various characters and explore the world they live in; almost too well, considering the vast swaths of dialogue and heaps of side content present in these games.
Halo Universe (Halo Series)
Image Source Bungie
Halo is a blending of sci-fi space opera, militaristic fiction, and horror. Dealing with the alien threat to humanity sets the first Halo game in motion, which also gives players a glimpse into alien cultures and religions.
But because Halo is largely played from the perspective of a super-soldier, the player often finds themselves on the front lines of militaristic campaigns across the galaxy. Halo’s wonderful scene direction draws attention to its clever nods to classic films such as Apocalypse Now and its epic set piece moments reminiscent of 1997’s Starship Troopers.
And then, there’s the parasitic Flood, destroyer of worlds and species. The Flood permeates Halo’s setting in such a way to expound on the history behind the Forerunner precursor race. There’s always a history lesson when the Flood are involved, and Halo Rings and alien cultist Prophets are usually wrapped up somewhere in the mess too. Halo is great at using horror and military heroics to tell a grand saga that we just can’t get enough of.
Tamriel (The Elder Scrolls)
Image Source: Bethesda
Whether it’s Morrowind, Oblivion, or Skyrim, the world of Tamriel is teeming with things to do and see. For this list, however, Morrowind still takes the crown as the most atmospheric and organic province we’ve ever seen of Tamriel.
One of my favorite aspects of Morrowind is the unique vibe you get exploring the cities and countryside. I still have dreams every now and then of Balmora, the first major hub town players call home in the game. The unique stone architecture holding up the numerous guild factions among a progressively cultish populace is still so wonderfully presented today. So was the water, which looks way, WAY too good for a 2001 game.
The bizarre species and fauna native to Morrowind are more inspiring and unique than anything Cyrodil or Skyrim have to offer. The way some of these creatures are incorporated into the infrastructure of Morrowind is cool too: Tall shelled creatures called Stilt Striders serve as the transit system between towns, and giant mushrooms house some of the more magically inclined residents.
The lore and world of The Elder Scrolls is vast, beautiful, and often violent in a very gritty way. Morrowind in particular highlights the most otherworldly aspects of the series, and stands among the best video game settings of all time as a result.
Azeroth (World of Warcraft)
Image Source: Activision Blizzard
The Warcraft setting easily takes the crown as having the most overwhelmingly vast lore on this list. Azeroth was first introduced in 1994 with Warcraft: Orcs and Humans. It’s a setting older than many gamers reading this and has enough history to fill several libraries. The lore in Warcraft isn’t just large, though, it’s also surprisingly well-thought-out and complex.
The scope of Warcraft’s cosmology has a quasi-biblical weight to it. With each planet and lifeform consisting of some greater history and purpose laid for it, there’s a cool deep-rooted mythological feel to the Warcraft setting that sets it apart as one of the very best in gaming.
Besides the lore and mythology, World of Warcraft also set itself apart with its boundary-breaking MMO mechanics. Players felt a freedom of exploration and camaraderie with others that was simply unheard of when it was released back in 2003, setting the standard for MMOs to come.
That’s our list of top 10 best settings and worlds in video games. For more interesting features and game guides, check out our other content here on Twinfinite!
About the author
Matthew Carmosino
Matthew Carmosino is a freelance writer for Twinfinite. He started gaming in the mid-90s where his love for SquareSoft RPGs like Chrono Trigger changed him forever. Matthew has been working in the game industry for two years covering everything from story-rich RPGs to puzzle-platformers.
Listening to piano music on a rainy day is his idea of a really good time, which probably explains his unnatural tolerance for level-grinding.
Once a distant star on the horizon, Starfield arrived on Xbox and PC on September 6, with a five-day early access period for those who shelled out for the deluxe edition. It’s now been in the hands of gamers worldwide for a little over a month, with folks pouring over its vast world and searching every nook and cranny for loot, side quests, and more.
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As expected, a game as massive as Starfield has a ton of stuff going on (there’s 1,000 planets, remember) so a month later, folks are still discovering all sorts of unique quirks, charms, and more than its fair share of weak points to point out, celebrate, and critique.
Whether or not Starfield will be as memorable as Skyrim or Fallout remains to be seen, but within its first month, here are some of the highlights.
Starfield earns praise, with some caveats
Following its announcement in 2018, the hype for Starfield was real. Promising a scale way beyond what Bethesda delivered with Skyrim and Fallout 4, Starfield would mark the first original franchise for the studio since the ‘90s and take the Bethesda RPG format to a place it’s never really been before: space.
Since the highly anticipated game launched, the reactions have been largely positive, but there are some fair criticisms of its structure and the meat of more than a few of its premiere questlines. In Kotaku’s review of Starfield, I praised its scale, scope, and capacity for gorgeous vistas, but criticized a pervasive shallowness in the game’s settings, narratives, and woefully repetitive environments.
Player reviews via Steam certainly have their knives out for this Bethesda entry though, often describing the game as “disappointingly average” and “wide as an ocean – shallow as a puddle.”
Starfield’s scale and scope finally in player hands
It was understood early on that Starfield would be enormous. Bethesda touted the impressiveness of the game’s scale and talked at length about how the survival mechanics wouldn’t bog down the fun of Starfield’s core experience. as they do in other space games like No Man’s Sky
Starfield’s reception amongst those not in the industry and casual players has also been mixed. While many of us have found a calm, contemplative beauty in the game’s endless planet simulation, others have tested just how traversable Starfield’s galaxy really is, and discovered that fast travel is technically not mandatory; you can fly across a solar system if you’ve got literal hours of real-world time on your hands to burn. And you can speed up space travel with a mod if you’re so inclined.
The scale of each individual planetary zone you can land on, however, has brought up criticism from players concerning the jarring lack of vehicles. Bethesda explained that while it did consider vehicles, it instead wanted to prioritize the on-foot exploration experience. Besides, if you did have a space rover, you’d be in for a bumpy ride with all of the dead animals everywhere.
And don’t forget, Starfield has some neat watering holes if you’re looking for a break from all the space-faring adventures and just want to sit in a weird space bar with a weird space bartender.
Wacky physics, fun mods, and other shenanigans
Starfield’s engine has a wildly impressive physics simulation. Granted, Bethesda games have always had pretty cool physics, but Starfield’s seems to be a bit more realistic and lively. This has allowed players to engage in some credit theft, but also has inspired some pseudo Rube Goldberg shenanigans. You can also just pack your ship full of junk and potatoes.
Like almost every Bethesda game before it, modders have taken to improving the rougher edges of Starfield’s experience. We’re still collecting a list of must-install mods for the PC version, but at a minimum you should consider installing StarUI as it profoundly improves the experience of a game that’s already encouraging bad habits for the digital hoarders among us.
In more interesting news, one Starfield modder has taken to putting their DLSS (Nvidia’s AI-powered super-sampling tech that was excluded from Starfield’s launch due to an exclusive deal with AMD) mod behind a paywall. Now, the debate over paid mods is worth having and is not within the scope of this piece, but when you slap DRM and threaten to sneak malware onto pirated copies of a mod…that’s kinda, well shitty.
And in case you’re wondering, yes, Starfield has its share of bugs. I’ve seen a number of quest-breaking errors in my time with the game, while others are finding entire cities transported along with their ships. If my own nearly 200-hour playthrough of the game is anything to go by, save often, don’t rely on auto- and quick-saves. Starfield likes to break more often than it should.
Starfield is just getting started: DLC and more
Even after spending nearly 200 hours in Starfield, I’m still coming across new things. My opinion of it holds strong, but it’s nice to see such a large game continue to offer new experiences the more you play it.
As Video Games Chroniclepointed out, director Todd Howard stated in a recent interview that experience with previous games like Skyrim and Fallout has taught the studio to design with long-term investment in mind:
“This is a game that’s intentionally made to be played for a long time. One of the things we’ve learned from our previous games, like Skyrim, like Fallout, is that people want to play them for a very long time. […] How do we build it such that it is allowing that in a way that feels natural, and if people have played the game and finished the main quest, you can see that.”
How the future of Starfield evolves beyond just repeat playthroughs remains to be seen. It’s hard to imagine the game will see the same kind of update support that No Man’s Sky has, but Howard has repeatedly stressed that this is a game that was designed to be played for a long time.
Hype and anticipation met reality when Starfield shipped universally on September 6. It’s more than capable of delivering a fun, can’t-put-it-down experience, though it has more than its fair share of problems and weaker points. The first month has seen a number of differing opinions flourish over Starfield and Bethesda-style games in general. But with promised new features, story expansions, and a growing mod community, Starfield’s story is far from over.
Nintendo is registering several new patents from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom that are extremely broad, to the point where they seem unreasonable for other developers to be beholden to.
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Automaton, a gaming website that focuses on Japanese games like Zelda, has a roundup of the 32 patents Nintendo put forth. Some of them are specific to Link’s latest adventure, including things like Riju’s lightning ability, which lets the player target enemies with a bow and bring down a lighting strike wherever the arrow lands. The weirder ones are related to baseline game design and coding that applies to plenty of other video games on the market. One of the hopeful patents relates to the physics of a character riding on top of a moving vehicle and reacting dynamically to it in a realistic manner.
The distinction, according to Automaton’s translation of Japanese site Hatena Blog user nayoa2k’s post on the matter, is down to how Tears of the Kingdom codes these interactions. Link and the objects he rides on move together at the same speed, rather than Link being technically stationary on top of a moving object as is common in the physics of other games. The two are functionally the same, but given that plenty of video games displayed characters who can walk around on top of moving vehicles, it’s highly unlikely this kind of approach hasn’t been utilized before.
On top of trying to patent the tech, Nintendo seeks to patent the loading screen that shows up when the player is fast-traveling across Hyrule. This specifically refers to the screen that shows the map transition from the player’s starting point to their destination. Sure, that’s pretty specific and not something every game utilizes, but it’s still such a general concept that it feels almost petty to patent it when it’s hardly an iconic draw of Tears of the Kingdom.
It’s not uncommon for game developers to try to patent mechanics and features. One of the most famous examples is when Bandai Namco had a patent on loading screen mini-games, which finally ended in 2015.
Who knows if these patents actually go anywhere? But when game design concepts are gatekept like this, it only leads to a loss of innovation for other devs. Though these specific patents are small in the grand scheme of things, they can be a slippery slope for things like WB patenting Shadow of Mordor’s Nemesis System, which should be in more games.
Nintendo dropped its first quarter financial results on August 3, with the company revealing that it’s having a record-breaking year so far thanks to The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and The Super Marios Bros. Movie.
In the earnings report, the company detailed just how profitable its products have been as of late. Tears of the Kingdom, for example, the follow-up to 2017’s Breath of the Wild, sold 18.51 million units just between its May 12 launch and June 30, roughly a month and a half. That’s an impressive feat, and one Nintendo noted was largely driven by folks who had played Link’s 2017 outing. Tears of the Kingdom was so successful, in fact, that it not only propelled the company’s first-party sales to reach their “highest level ever” for a first quarter, but it also drove hardware sales. More on that in a bit, though.
“The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which was released on May 12, has made a major contribution to Q1 sales in the current environment, in which we see widespread adoption of Nintendo Switch hardware and continued play engagement by many consumers,” Nintendo said. “Sell-through of this one title constitutes approximately half of the first-party software sold this fiscal year. Consumers who played the previous entry, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, have been the primary driver, but as the weeks have passed, we have seen that a growing percentage of purchases are being made by consumers who have not yet played that title.”
Moving on to The Super Mario Bros. Movie, the company said 168.1 million people worldwide watched the animated film as of July 30 and its global box-office revenue raked in $1.349 billion. That’s wild. What’s wilder, however, is that the Universl Pictures-distributed film drove sales of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which added 1.67 million sales to the tens of millions it has already sold.
This brings us to hardware sales. The company noted that the entire Nintendo Switch family had an increased 13.9 percent sell-through rate year-on-year, with the OLED model carrying most of that weight, though the OG Switch and Switch Lite are still selling well despite a slight slowdown in recent months. In the end, the handheld-console hybrid sold 3.91 million units in this quarter alone. This is a mega-popular system, y’all, and its recent popularity is largely thanks to Tears of the Kingdom.
To cap all this off, the company said net sales for the first quarter of this fiscal year increased by 50 percent to 461.3 billion yen (or about $3.2 billion USD), increasing overall profits by 82.4 percent to 185.4 billion yen (or approximately $1.3 billion USD). So, yeah, Nintendo is absolutely killing it right now.
You know, I’ve gotta admire the bravery of Nintendo’s social teams to post even one single tweet about Yona, Sidon’s surprise fiance in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. However, I also doubt they were that shocked to see fans, slighted by her taking Link’s boyfriend away from him, rolled in with the good jokes.
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The post itself is innocuous enough. We’re two months removed from Tears of the Kingdom’s launch, so we can post about characters who are “spoilers” without anyone getting justifiably mad. The tweet talks about her concern with the sludge problem in Zora’s Domain during the game’s main quest. It also, of course, mentions that she’s planning a wedding with Sidon, the sexy shark man that fans have been shipping romantically with Link with since Breath of the Wild in 2017.
If you weren’t incredibly online and into the Zelda fandom, you wouldn’t think anything of this. If you’re that person, you would also be pretty confused scrolling down to the comments and seeing the good jokes people are making about the situation. But you could probably suss out that Nintendo just hard launched Sidon’s new bae, and the jealous Link and Sidon shippers are in the comments demanding blood. But even so, it feels like everyone is in on the joke, and knew that this was inevitably the reaction Yona gets from the community. Typically, hopefully, all in good fun.
Honestly, as much as it pains me to admit it, my Sidon/Link ship is mostly a gag at this point because after the ending of Tears of the Kingdom, I’m so, so, so on the Link and Zelda are together now train it’s not even funny. Perhaps one day, the rest of my Sidon/Link ship brethren will can find similar peace, and know that even if Sidon marries Yona, she will not outlive the statue of Link riding Sidon that sits in Zora’s Domain.
Recently, a couple of Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom players experienced an unexpected but funny jump scare. And no, the jumpscare had nothing to do with the game’s imposing villain, Ganon. It was apparently the jiggle physics of the hero of Hyrule’s crown jewels. Or at least what looks like it. Yeah, it’s gonna be one of those kinds of explainer blogs, so buckle up.
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Earlier his week, Twitter user Dahffodil uploaded TotK gameplay clip of Link falling to his knees with the Pulitzer Prize-worthy caption “link balls jumpscare.” Folks, the screenshot of what could seem like Link’s dangly bits can only be compared to the bulge attached below the waist of Clone High’s JFK. That thang is thanging. To make matters all the more cinematic, a fellow Twitter user named Kyra replied with a video of Link getting rag dolled to the ground, causing his balls (?) to sway in response, like two large burlap sacks full of shock fruit. You can see what I’m talking about below.
Link’s package has been myth busted (unfortunately)
The screenshot and clip of Link’s danglers quickly went viral collectively garnering over 50,000 likes and 9,802 bookmarks on Twitter, for research purposes of course. The attention led Dahffodil to mute their post so as to not have their phone vibrate its way to the center of the Earth and challenge Ganon to a boss battle itself. While many online have made their voices clear on the topic of Link’s “jiggle physics” being the only valid use-case of the feature in video games, it turns out that Link’s swingers aren’t what they appear to be.
Iconoclasts creator Joakim Sandberg revealed in a quote retweet that Link’s clackers aren’t nads at all but the results of a graphical hitch after Link’s got rag-dolled in Kyra’s video.
He throwing it back fr fr ◑﹏◐Gif: Nintendo / Kotaku / loonathemoon
“It’s funny looking, but y’all do realize this is the torso moving down and clipping through the blue cloth creating the illusion of jiggle, right? Nintendo didn’t put in ball physics,” Sandberg wrote. “If the blue cloth wasn’t there you’d see the whole torso bouncing while bent down.”
Personally, I choose to believe that producer Eiji Aonuma sat TotK developers down and stressed the importance of pushing the Nintendo Switch to its graphical limit by assuring that the Link’s sack had the physics of a wrecking ball. Life is what you make it, after all.
This New Item Completely BREAKS The Game.. Tears of The Kingdom New Railing Build Guide & How to Get
Bugs in Tears of the Kingdom are being zapped faster by Nintendo than a Rentokil employee on his first day, so you might want to take advantage of this freshly discovered oddity before the next update. A collection of players (all credited in the video above) have worked together to discover a peculiar railing found in one section of the Depths, that has mysterious and unique properties. Properties that allow it to be one of the most useful items in building flying machines.
Extraordinarily, it’s gathered by visiting the Great Abandoned Central Mine in the Depths, and attaching stabilizers to the sides of those elevator platforms that are found in each corner. Doing this breaks off a section of the railing, that you can then fuse something to in order to add it to your Autobuild.
Once done, you can reproduce it anywhere, and for reasons unknown, it’s the only Autobuild item that isn’t destroyed by separation. It’s also got all the wrong physics properties applied, meaning it moves around on the gentlest of breezes, but has the robustness of a metal sheet. Which means: build flying stuff!
In the video above, Link&Zelda Talks shows how it can be used for improved hoverbikes, incredibly floaty biplanes, and even has its own glitches that allow you to fly very high in the air. People are going to do a ton with this, and hopefully it’s a peculiarity Nintendo will let slide.
