Elden Ring Nightreign launched missing many, many features most of us expect in modern multiplayer games. The co-op action RPG is designed for three players, and that’s about the only optimal way to play it.
IO Interactive has officially dropped the first real news on its in-development James Bond game since it was initially announced back in 2020. The game is called 007 First Light, and IO revealed it with nothing but a single piece of art on Twitter.
Elden Ring Nightreign servers are back online following brief maintenance earlier today. During that downtime, FromSoftware rolled out the first major-ish post-launch patch for the game, which does come with a welcome addition for solo players.
Elden Ring Nightreign is here, and after selling 2 million copies in its first day and becoming developer FromSoftware’s second-biggest launch on Steam, the dust is starting to settle, giving rise to thousands of player impressions.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's free Switch 2 update has arrived. The games' 4.0.0 patch is now live a few days ahead of the Switch 2's launch, optimizing the titles for the upcoming console.
As detailed on Nintendo's support website, the new update makes a suite of graphical and performance improvements when the games are played on Switch 2. Visuals have been "optimized for the Nintendo Switch 2 display," while the frame rate has been "improved for smoother movement on the Nintendo Switch 2." You can read the full patch notes below.
Nintendo had been offering glimpses at Scarlet and Violet's Switch 2 update in the days leading up to the system's launch. Last week, the company shared a pair of screenshots showing off the games' improved draw distance, and a brief video released recently on the Nintendo Today app provided a better look at their increased frame rate and smoother performance.
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Alien is one of the most iconic sci-fi horror franchises of all time. But the director who started it all is not only done with the franchise, but is a bit disappointed in how its legacy turned out. In an interview with ScreenRant, Ridley Scott explained how he’s done with the franchise, and reveals his true feelings…
Just days ahead of the Switch 2's launch, Nintendo has rolled out another system update for the original Switch. The new ver. 20.1.1 update is fairly minor by usual standards, primarily resolving an issue that cropped up following last week's 20.1.0 update.
According to the patch notes on Nintendo's support website, the new system update "Fixed an issue where some software would not start after updating to system version 20.1.0." No other details were provided beyond that.
The aforementioned 20.1.0 update arrived May 27 and made some notable audio and visual changes to the Switch's interface to bring it more in line with its successor. In particular, Nintendo tweaked the look and color of the Parental Control settings button on the Home screen, as well as changed the sound that plays when launching the Nintendo Switch Online menu.
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Pow! Bam! Boom! Zam! And so on. You get it. There’s a big DC video game sale happening on Steam, and a ton of great (and not so great) Batman games are discounted right now. Hence that very funny opening gag at the start of this paragraph.
Boss Monster is a retro-inspired card game that’s been around for more than a decade. It received a game-changing update this April with the release of Super Boss Monster, which introduces a new mode designed for solo play. Featuring SNES-style artwork, an arsenal of unique cards, and heaps of replayability, it looks like an excellent starting point for newcomers while also giving veterans plenty of new content to enjoy. It also works with all previous Boss Monster sets, though it’s perfectly fine to play the game on its own with no prior experience.
Super Boss Monster is the next iteration of the Boss Monser card game, which tasks 1-4 players with building a dungeon, enticing adventurers inside, and then defeating them with a litany of traps and monsters lurking within.
This new version features SNES-style artwork (a big change from the NES-inspired artwork of the original), and an all-new Solo Mode that's perfect if none of your board-game buddies can make it to game night. Veteran players, meanwhile, can play the new Challenge Mode, which ramps up the difficulty. Super Boss Monster is also fully compatible with all existing Boss Monster base games and expansions.
Looking to check out the original Boss Monster game? A few different versions are available. Boss Monster: 10th Anniversary Edition gets you the classic card game plus 15 new cards, making it the most up-to-date way to enjoy the original version of the game.
Boss Monster 2: The Next Level Card Game follows up on the original and features an all-new 160 card deck. Best of all, it can be played on its own or combined with the original Boss Monster for a massive campaign.
Then there's Boss Monster: Rise of the Mini-Bosses, which offers a slightly different take on the game. The 160-card deck is both an expansion and standalone game, introducing promotable mini-bosses that modify how rooms in your dungeon behave and grant the player additional perks. It’s currently the cheapest of the trio at $20.70, so give it a look if you’re shopping on a budget.
There's also an abundance of expansions available for Boss Monster. Some of these are designed for specific base games, while others can be used across the board. Regardless of which you choose, they’ve all earned high marks from players and are bound to bring added replayability to your sessions.
Boss Monster Expansions:
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June is officially here which means Geoff Keighley-palooza 2025 is just around the corner. E3 might be dead, but Summer Game Fest will be kicking off its fifth year running this week with a crowded field of other gaming showcases riding its coattails. Below you’ll find the schedule for each of them, including when…
Actor Jonathan Joss, who voiced John Redcorn on King of the Hill, was killed in a shooting over the weekend in San Antonio, Texas. Joss was 59 years old.
Earlier this year, the Los Angeles Chargers unveiled the team's upcoming 2025-2026 schedule directly on Minecraft. Now, Minecraft is turning from football to America's pastime with a new partnership with Major League Baseball. Minecraft and MLB are collaborating on the MLB Fan Cave, a new official add-on for the game that lets players decorate their Minecraft homes with paraphernalia from all 30 teams in the league.
Minecraft is launching MLB Fan Cave! ⚾️
— MLB (@MLB) June 2, 2025
Add your favorite team to your Minecraft home with jerseys, banners, trophies and more with the official MLB Fan Cave Add-on pic.twitter.com/Qm1CgYyV8W
As noted above, some of the MLB-themed items include team jerseys and banners, as well as trophies and other in-game items. The MLB Fan Cave was created by Pathway Studios, which released a short teaser video for the add-on.
It's been a banner year for the Minecraft franchise, including 2025's highest-grossing film, A Minecraft Movie, which made just over $800 million worldwide. Jack Black's Steve's Lava Chicken song from the film also became the shortest song to ever chart on Billboard's Hot 100.
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After the massacre at the end of Gen V’s first season, and the governmental coup at the end of The Boys’ fourth, sophomore year at Godolkin University will be nothing like the one before. By the looks of the newly released trailer, the new season will be focused on seeing the superhero students turn into soldiers.
Marvel Rivals, a free-to-play 6v6 hero shooter, features a pretty wide roster of Marvel characters to play as. While the selection of Strategists, the support heroes focused on healing and buffing teammates, is fairly slight at only seven heroes now, Marvel Rivals will be getting lots of new heroes in the future. These heroes are ranked based on the range of usability for their abilities, potential healing output, and general benefits they bring to the game when used. The best supports can manage keeping their Duelists and Vanguard alive, while still finding time to deal a little damage. While our Marvel Rivals support heroes tier list is ranked, there really aren't any characters on the roster that are completely unplayable due to balancing in the game's current state.
Rocket Raccoon has a few positive aspects to him, but fairly low healing and damage output keeps him at the bottom of the list. His respawn machine can be pretty clutch, bringing back a teammate who dies in range, but the shields it produces feel odd, since you want to hide it out of sight so it doesn't get destroyed. Rocket having a small hit box also lets him escape danger easier than other supports.
That said, Rocket's healing orbs move pretty slowly and can also bounce unpredictably, making healing with them at range harder than it needs to be. His machine gun damage is pretty low too, making it hard to defend yourself, something that most other supports are better at. Rocket Raccoon's ultimate provides a nice damage buff, but the stationary aspect makes it a bit more situational than other support ultimates.
Jeff the Land Shark is the cutest Strategist on the roster, but his simple abilities hold him back from being higher on the list. The water spray healing has far better accuracy at a distance than it should, but the healing rate is a little low, resulting in you spending a lot of time spraying down a single teammate. The healing bubbles are great and offer a nice movement buff, but a long cooldown on the charges means you are constantly at risk of dropping them somewhere, having the fight move, and being caught waiting on cooldown timers.
Jeff has three things going in his favor though: His water splash shots deal pretty good damage, making it possible to defend yourself from any overachieving Duelists. Jeff's submerge ability allows for a speedy escape, self-healing, and a smaller hitbox without a cooldown. Finally, Jeff's ultimate, even if you can't get to a ledge for the insta-kill, still lets you remove enemy players--potentially even a full team--from the fight temporarily, which is a huge advantage.
There is a lot to like about Loki, but the ability management aspect requires a lot of knowledge and skill to successfully pull off without a big enough payoff. Loki can heal by shooting teammates with his staff, and he can also place decoys around, which will also shoot. His other healing ability creates a field around him and his decoys, offering a ton of healing temporarily. Loki can switch places with his decoys, letting him get out of danger and he can even make a decoy while going invisible.
The management here is a bit of a pain, as it involves regularly placing new decoys and keeping track of which ones have been taken out. This is time not spent doing damage or healing, and is pretty overwhelming for new players. In terms of healing, he doesn't offer as much as the upper half of this list and certainly requires more skill than those heroes. HIs ultimate is pretty great, letting him switch into another hero in the lobby and immediately use their ultimate, but you need to see that hero to make the swap, making it a bit more situational than it could've been.
Cloak and Dagger are a ton of fun to play and offer a wide range of abilities, making them an excellent support to use. Dagger handles healing, throwing auto-tracking daggers that can heal or do damage, depending on who you hit. The healing and damage is fairly low, but you can use her Veil of Lightforce to grant bonus healing effects and her AoE healing ability creates a nice bubble that heals a ton.
Cloak is focused on dealing damage and applying debuffs to enemies. His Terror Cape limits enemy vision and makes them take more damage. His main attack is a beam that deals quick tick damage, offering slightly more damage than Cloak's main attack. His dark teleportation makes him and nearby teammates invisible, but it's pretty short and really only gives you a brief moment of safety. Their ultimate places darkness on the map that heals teammates and damages enemies, making it great for contesting an objective. Cloak and Dagger's main shortcoming is that you have to swap between them to either heal or deal damage, when some of the best Strategists can do both at all times.
Adam Warlock has pretty good healing capabilities, deals a surprising amount of damage, and can revive the whole team with his ultimate. To start, his main attack deals 55 damage and can crit, which is pretty good for a Strategist, even if it has a short damage fall off range. For healing, he does have to rely on his abilities, but he has two and both do a ton of healing. The big one is the Soul Bond, which connects Adam Warlock and all nearby teammates, providing healing over time and splitting damage taken.
His other healing ability is a link to a single teammate, but it provides healing for both Adam Warlock and his ally. It has two charges on a six-second cooldown, so it can be used pretty regularly. Adam's passive cocoon ability lets him revive after death, which is a great setup for his ultimate ability, which resurrects all dead teammates in range. It also lasts an additional 10 seconds, letting any teammates who weren't dead but die after activation to also get resurrected.
Invisible Woman has a pretty impressive range of abilities, but her ability to block damage with shields is unique among Strategists. On top of that, Invisible Woman has a high ceiling for healing thanks to her primary fire providing a good amount of healing that passes through teammates and her shield providing area healing. Her ultimate is another large healing field and while the invisibility aspect of it has some tactical use, it doesn't quite live up to a Luna Snow or Cloak and Dagger ultimate.
She does have great offensive capabilities and being able to go invisible with the double jump lets you escape danger more often than not. Her primary fire deals good damage, plus her push/pull ability does a bit of damage as well. Overall, she isn't the most powerful Strategist on the list, but she is in the upper tier.
Luna Snow has a powerful primary attack that heals and does damage depending on who you hit. The three round-burst heals 60 total health or deals 60 total damage, and that's without hitting a headshot. Her Ice Arts buff increases the amount of healing or damage those shots do while providing some self-healing on each shot, giving her some nice sustainability. She can freeze enemies temporarily, great for any diving enemies, and her skating passive gives her an advantageous--dare we say Lucio-like--movement speed and jump height boost.
Luna Snow's greatest asset is her ultimate ability, which has her dance, creating an AoE around her that can either heal or provide a damage buff, letting you swap freely. The healing output is ridiculous, making both Luna and her teammates invulnerable to anything except the most powerful attacks in the game, and the damage buff is nothing to sneeze at either.
Mantis takes the top spot due to her incredibly high skill ceiling. She can give either a healing-over-time or damage buff to a teammate at the cost of one of her four orbs. She can also give a self-boost at the cost of a single orb, and using an orb applies self-healing. This might sound limiting, but the orbs are on a short cooldown and you can instantly refill a charge by hitting a headshot with her primary fire, which deals 50 base damage and has no fall-off range.
This means you will always have orbs if you consistently hit headshots. Always having orbs means you can constantly have your self-buff active and apply buffs to your teammates consistently, making Mantis very powerful in the right hands. Her ultimate is a slightly weaker version of Luna Snow's, applying healing over time and a movement speed boost, with extra healing converted into bonus health. As if all that wasn't enough, she also moves faster at full health, making the walk back from spawn a little quicker, so you can get back to healing.
I almost didn't put Ultron in the top slot. Not because he isn't incredibly powerful, he certainly is, but while the skill ceiling is quite high, the skill floor required to succeed here is also pretty high. Ultron is a Strategist who wields a powerful primary fire, a healing drone, and decent survivability. His primary fire is a laser that emits a weaker beam, culminating in a powerful burst. It has 75% falloff damage at 30 meters, but the shot appears to have unlimited range, allowing you to land hits, albeit weaker ones, from far away.
Ultron's primary healing comes from his drone, which he can attach to a teammate. It provides high healing for the attached teammate and regular healing for anyone else in range. You can also grant bonus heal with the Firewall ability, which works in an area around Ultron and his mech-attached teammate. His ultimate grants a boost to his primary fire, turning into an explosive shot that deals damage and heals people in range. Ultron is also a flying Strategist, and the first of his kind. This makes him a clear target for the enemy team, although your dash and speed boost apply bonus health, allowing you a chance to escape. His overall healing output is high, and he can do pretty good damage too, although this requires you to be very aware of your teammates' health so you can move your drone, and if you aren't a good shot, Ultron probably isn't for you.
With its blend of the soulslike and roguelike genres, Elden Ring Nightreign can be an overwhelming game to adjust to. It takes time to figure out how everything works and where to spend your time most wisely on the map.
The latest entry in the Karate Kid series, Karate Kid: Legends, hit theaters last week. The new movie stars Ben Wang as Li Fong, a martial arts protege trained by senseis Daniel Laruso (Ralph Macchio)--star of the original Karate kids films and the recent Cobra Kai TV series--and Mr. Han (Jackie Chan), who appeared in the 2010 Karate Kid reboot starring Jaden Smith. Legends bridges the original films and the 2010 reboot into a single continuity--and soon, you'll be able to grab all six movies, plus a bunch of collectibles, in the upcoming The Karate Kid Ultimate 6-Movie Collection. While no release date has been announced, preorders for the $220 collection are available now exclusively at Amazon.
As the name implies, the The Karate Kid Ultimate 6-Movie Collection bundles all six Karate Kid films into a premium box along with a selection of exclusive merchandise. The six movies in the collection are:
Each movie in the collection comes in its own case, featuring both 4K UHD and Blu-ray versions on disc, as well as digital download codes. The set also includes a Miyagi-Do headband replica, three dojo patches, 11 trading cards featuring various characters from throughout the franchise, and a special collector's box that folds out into a pop-up diorama of the final showdown between Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence in The Karate Kid.
We also expect to see bonus content, such as commentaries and behind-the-scenes interviews, but these are not yet listed on the Amazon store page.
If you're more interested in just securing a copy of Karate Kid: Legends, multiple Blu-ray editions are already up for preorder, despite the movie just recently premiering in theaters, including a 4K Steelbook Collector's Edition. Like the 6-Movie Collector's Edition, there's no release date for the Karate Kid: Legends Blu-rays, but both are planned to release on the same day--whenever that is.
Nevertheless, multiple 4K UHD, standard Blu-ray, and even DVD versions are available to preorder at Amazon. It's also worth noting that the store pages do not list details such as included bonus features or even the final cover art. We also expect the prices to drop closer to the release date. Luckily, thanks to Amazon's preorder price guarantee, you can reserve a copy now and won't have to pay until the order ships, and you will only be charged the lowest price if it changes between now and release.
Karate Kid: Legends Preorders
The Karate Kid series kicked off in 1984 with the original The Karate Kid, in which bullied high school kid Daniel LaRusso befriends karate master Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita), who trains Daniel in the philosophy and martial arts style, Miyagi-do, and ultimately faces down his rival Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka). The first movie was followed up by two direct sequels starring Macchio. Then, in 1994, The Next Karate Kid sees Mr. Miyagi take on a new pupil, Julie Pierce (Hilary Swank).
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The Nintendo Switch 2 is launching later this week. Many people have pre-ordered the console and are eagerly checking to see if their new machine is beginning its journey from a warehouse to their home. But unfortunately, many people are seemingly discovering that their Switch 2 order has been canceled just days…
Among Elden Ring Nightreign’s eight character classes to choose from, there’s one class that’s arguably best-suited for beginners: Wylder. This is a jack of all trades class that’s perfect if you’re trying to learn the basic mechanics of the game. If you’ve played previous soulslike games before, Wylder will feel the…
Fortnite's Star Wars season is almost over, but there's still one more big thing left on the schedule before we dive into a more traditional summer season of battle royale: the Death Star Sabotage live event! Unlike past Star Wars incursions into Fortnite, which ended with the Empire or First Order just kinda bailing, we're getting a proper wrap-up here that will involve players teaming up to invade the Death Star, which has been looming over the island all season, and presumably blow it up.
While Fortnite has frequently held ambient live events that took place during battle royale matches, Death Star Sabotage will be the sort of event that's usually reserved for the end of a chapter. We haven't had a live event like this one in the middle of a chapter since the Collision event at the end of Chapter 3 Season 2, almost exactly three years ago. Fittingly, it was what happened during that event that drew Darth Vader to the island in Fortnite's story.
It won't be long now until we get to take on Emperor Palpatine. Here's what we know.
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Elden Ring Nightreign has eight character classes to choose from, with both close up melee and long-ranged options. The dedicated archer, Ironeye, is a great pick for players who like to play the game safely; he can provide constant pressure on opponents while maintaining a safe distance. However, he does have his…
When the Nintendo Switch 2 launches this Thursday, it will be joined by a lineup of about 10 first-party accessories. While a few of those accessories, namely the Joy-Con 2 and Switch 2 Pro Controllers, have features you won't find in other gear, most of Nintendo's optional accessories have comparable, cheaper alternatives from third-party manufacturers. And there are categories of accessories, such as ergonomic grip cases, that are only available from third-party manufacturers. There's an almost overwhelming number of Nintendo Switch 2 carrying cases, screen protectors, grips, and more accessories up for grabs already. To help make shopping for Switch 2 gear easier, we dug through Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, Target, GameStop, and more stores to collect all of the notable products we found in one place.
Keep in mind that current Switch owners likely already own at least a few compatible accessories, as the Switch 2 is backward compatible with first-party and many third-party controllers, headsets, and more. If your accessory connects via Bluetooth or USB, it should work with Switch 2. That said, form-fitting carrying cases, screen protectors, grips--basically any accessory that touches the console besides thumbstick caps--will need to be replaced.
While this guide focuses on third-party Switch 2 accessories, we also have a Switch 2 launch week restock guide for those in the market for the console and sold-out first-party accessories.
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There are multiple ways to get talismans while exploring Nightreign’s large, ever-changing map. However, there’s one way you can get a guaranteed choice between three talismans on every run, giving you a really great chance to snag something that is useful to you. You’ll just have to visit the map’s big castle and…
The entire Twin Peaks saga is available on Blu-ray for only $53 at Amazon. Twin Peaks: From Z to A, a repackaged edition of a popular and previously sold-out box set, launched in February with a $70 list price. Amazon's $53 deal is the best we've seen since preorders for this comprehensive Twin Peaks box set opened last December.
Twin Peaks is one of the most memorable TV series of all time. Created by the late David Lynch, who died earlier this year, Twin Peaks was a hit in both the early '90s and in 2017 when Showtime revived the groundbreaking series for a third season.
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Hitman and Kane & Lynch developers IO Interactive have shared some more information about the studio’s long-awaited James Bond project. On June 2, IOI revealed that its upcoming James Bond game is going to be titled 007 First Light, and if you think that’s because this is a new origin story for the famous British…
The Simpsons fans can now build the Krusty Burger fast-food restaurant out of Lego bricks. The 1,635-piece display model is available now for Lego Insiders, which is a free rewards program, ahead of its June 4 release date. Lego is incentivizing adding the $210 Krusty Burger to your collection early by offering a free 123-piece diorama of The Simpsons Living Room to Lego Insiders who purchase the set by June 7.
The first Simpsons Lego set since 2018, Krusty Burger features 1,635 pieces and seven minifigures. The main building features Easter eggs like the drive-thru menu and window, and inside you'll find the kitchen, dining area, and a bathroom.
You can pull the building apart thanks to the hinges built into the walls, for an expanded look inside, and on the outside, there's a buildable Krusty Burger sign. As a final touch, you can also build the Simpsons' family car, albeit with a Krusty makeover that references the episode "Homie the Clown" from season six.
For the minifigures, you'll get Homer, Bart, and Lisa Simpson, as well as the Squeaky Voiced Teen, Officer Lou, Krusty in his farmer's clothing, and Sideshow Bob. If you were lucky enough to get them while they were retired in 2017, this kit looks like it'll complement the Simpsons House and Kwik-E Mart sets that were released in 2014 and 2015, respectively.
If you're interested in adding more Lego sets based on popular TV shows to your collection, you can still pick up the brick-built display model based on The Office before it's gone for good. The Lego Ideas: The Office set was officially discontinued in 2024, and while Walmart is still selling it for $120, there's a good chance that this might sell out quickly once the follow-up to The Office, The Paper, premieres in September.
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The goth princess of death has returned. After more than 2 1/2 years since Wednesday’s first season released on Netflix, we finally get a look at what’s been keeping Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) busy. In many ways, she’s up to her old devious tricks. But, by the looks of the first six minutes of the new season,…
One of the features distinguishing the Switch 2 from its less powerful predecessor is GameChat. Much was made of this new feature on the device’s announcement, a way for people to communicate with friends while playing games, even having their live faces appear as avatars within games. It’s such a Nintendo-ey idea,…
People Can Fly, best known for Bulletstorm and Outriders, has abandoned two of its in-development projects and blames Square Enix for at least one of them falling through. A triple-A blockbuster codenamed Gemini has been “suspended” due to a “lack of communication” from the Final Fantasy publisher.
There has yet to be an official announcement for an Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag remake, but the biggest hint of its existence may have been leaked on a Pure Arts livestream.
As reported by Insider Gaming, the stream happened back in March when the merchandising company revealed new ⅛ scale statues of characters from the Assassin's Creed series, though fans soon pointed out the absence of Edward Kenway from Black Flag.
At this, there appeared to be confusion as one of the hosts replied, "Assassin’s Creed fans out there, you should be aware that there is something going on with Edward [Keyway],” only for the other host to interrupt and ask, "Wait, has that been announced?"
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Elden Ring Nightreign turns FromSoftware’s best-in-class boss fights into multiplayer affairs, so now your shame and frustration can be shared with others. But while lots of players have been going hours without beating the roguelite RPG’s first major encounter, others are in a race to be the sweatiest solo player out…
Grand Theft Auto 5 is still going strong in 2025, and so is its modding community, which has added hundreds of mods to download that alter the experience of the game. You can download mods that add completely new game modes or ways to play GTA 5, and there are also smaller mods that make a huge difference when you're on your fourth or eighth playthrough of the story mode.
So, whether you're experiencing GTA 5 for the first time or simply waiting it out for Grand Theft Auto 6's 2026 release date, there are some terrific mods to download in 2025. Of course, you'll have to play on PC to experience them, and some of the mods have compatibility issues with certain versions of the game. Make sure to check the description of each mod before downloading it to ensure you meet its requirements.
These mods are in no particular order and mostly derive from the website GTA 5 Mods, as Nexus Mods only supports legacy mods for the game now. Legacy mods refer to mods that only work with versions of GTA 5 before the Enhanced Edition was released.
While Los Santos is an absolutely iconic map with so much to see and do, it hasn't been changed too much in the 10+ years since GTA 5 was released. With the Map Editor mod, you have the freedom to completely alter how the map looks by adding your own premade objects. You can spawn in vehicles, NPCs, and even buildings. The mod allows you to freely fly around the map so you can easily place the objects where you want in a timely manner.
One of the more frustrating parts about the open world of Los Santos is that it technically isn't a completely open world. You can't enter hardly any of the buildings or other interiors that are scattered across the map, but that changes with the Enable All Interiors mod. Now, you can enter through any door to access previously unseen interiors. The mod also allows you to customize certain interiors if they're not particularly built out, including those in arcades, nightclubs, hangars, garages, and more locations.
If you've ever wondered what it would be like to be on the other side of the law in GTA 5, then the Chaos Response mod is what you're looking for. This mod allows you to become a police officer where crime and havoc are around every corner on the mean streets of Los Santos. Your experience with the mod won't consist of arresting law-breakers; instead, you'll simply try to control the chaos across three different game modes. The modes offered are Survival, Gang Activity, and Hold the Line. You're mostly alone for this mod, but you can call in six-star backup if things get too overwhelming.
While several graphical overhauls have come to GTA 5 over the years, such as the latest Enhanced Edition, none of them quite hit the spot like the VisualV mod does. This mod drastically changes the graphics in Los Santos, adding new weather effects, fresh interior designs, better lighting, and improved colors across the board. Moreover, the weather effects and other visual changes are based on actual photos of real-life Los Angeles, adding to the mod's realism.
This mod is actually two additions rolled into one. The big change in the mod is the new 4K map that offers a stunningly detailed look at Los Santos from the view of a satellite. You can now see elevation on the map and a much more in-depth look at the roads, landscapes, and buildings that make up Los Santos. The mod also comes with the ability to zoom in on the map to get a better look at the detailed satellite view.
The Just Cause series was clearly inspired by Grand Theft Auto, but those games have taken things up to a whole different level when it comes to action. One of the most iconic parts about Just Cause is the parachute you can pull as you dive out of a vehicle. This mod brings that mechanic to GTA 5, allowing you to quickly bail from a car, pull a parachute, and then watch the car explode violently. The parachute you pull has infinite thrusters as well, meaning you can stay afloat forever and go whichever way your heart desires.
Acquiring five stars in GTA 5 and surviving for any duration is a feat in and of itself, but what if the fun didn't have to stop there? The Army at SixStars mod allows you to attain a sixth star if you commit enough crimes in Los Santos. While the sixth star is difficult to get, you certainly get your money's worth out of it. When you get a sixth star, you'll start to see full-on armies surround you, complete with special vehicles, weapons, and new NPCs. The entire mod is customizable as well, so you can choose what you see at six stars.
Sometimes, you just need an easy way to restore your health in GTA 5. While this can come by way of sleeping or simply switching characters, the Openable Fridges mod offers a simple solution. The mod allows you to access fridges and eat the contents of them in both Michael's and Trevor's houses. The fridges are full of consumable items that you can eat to restore health when playing as either Michael or Trevor. To make the mod as detailed as possible, both fridges have different foods, with Trevor's fridge housing the type of food and drink items you expect him to have.
GTA Online has been continually updated for over a decade, and during that time, thousands of unique vehicles have been added to the game. However, a majority of these vehicles have never seen the light of day in the story mode of GTA 5. Well, the online vehicles in singleplayer mod allow those vehicles to be driven on the offline roads of Los Santos. You can drive any vehicle in GTA Online in the story mode, and you'll even see NPCs driving these vehicles as well.
Let's face it, GTA 5 has been out for years, and chances are, you've beaten the story mode at least once by now. If you have but still want to jump back in before GTA 6 arrives, then why not start as far ahead as possible? You can download the 100 Percent Save File mod to ensure your next trip in Los Santos includes millions of dollars and a plethora of weapons. Also, you won't have any missions to complete, so you can spend your time freely exploring the map and getting into all kinds of trouble.
Diving under the water in the ocean surrounding Los Santos reveals a slew of aquatic life, but there's really nothing to interact with aside from the random shark that can gobble you up. Fortunately, the Fishing Mod gives you the chance to reel in some of the underwater creatures. You can purchase a fishing rod, approach any one of the 15 fishing locations, and press a button to start fishing. After some time, you'll get to reel in a unique fish and add it to your collection. There are 21 fish and 54 items to catch in the mod.
The story mode in GTA 5 does come with its fair share of robbery heists, but those need to be set up and planned. The ATM Robberies and Bank Heists mod allows you to rob an ATM or bank at any time to seriously increase your net worth and wanted level. There are 47 ATMs around the map to rob and 10 banks to hold up. Naturally, cops will immediately converge on your location during the robbery, and you need to lose them if you want to get away with all your stolen cash.
Truly being a criminal means breaking into any home you want, stealing what the owners have, and maybe dealing with the occupants inside. GTA 5 doesn't allow you to enter a random house, but the Home Invasion mod gives you that ability. With the mod, you can carefully plan out how to rob a particular home, and then decide how the heist goes down once you're inside. Going in stealthy means you might be able to get away unscathed, but going in full force gives you free run of the house once the homeowners are out of the way.
GTA 5's story mode is certainly not short of content, but you are able to add hours of additional missions with The Red House mod. It comes with over 20 new missions of all kinds, including heists, stealth missions, protection jobs, assassination contracts, and others. You can even spawn in some bodyguards that can help you through some missions if you're having a tough go at them solo. While the missions add hours of new content to GTA 5, they're also great ways to make some extra money.
While the FIB and Los Santos police departments can cause some trouble for you, they're hardly difficult to lose when you have a fast enough vehicle. If you're looking for more challenging police encounters, download the Better Chases+ mod. This adds an entirely different element of police chases in GTA 5, starting with sending more cops and quickly escalating to a massive fleet of vehicles all hunting you down. However, even if you manage to elude the cops, you'll be issued an Arrest Warrant, which makes cops chase you all over again if they catch you or your vehicle on the street.
There are hundreds of vehicle mods to download for GTA 5, and while you can choose which ones you like, the Funny Vehicles mod comes with an assortment of classics to pick from. You'll be able to drive, and even fly, vehicles such as the DeLorean from Back to the Future, the Batmobile, Luke Skywalker's Landspeeder, and even a TIE Fighter from Star Wars, among plenty of others. Basically, if you want any kind of vehicle in GTA 5, the Funny Vehicles mod likely has it.
Franklin is the car enthusiast out of the three main characters in GTA 5. However, the luxury mansion in the Vinewood Hills that you eventually acquire for Franklin severely lacks garage space for your cars. The Franklin Mega Garage mod solves that issue, transforming the back side of Franklin's hillside estate into something right out of Iron Man. The garage in the mod is a two-story glass enclosure that can house dozens of vehicles. The mod also makes several major alterations to Franklin's mansion as a whole, changing up the architecture, features, and amenities.
Few mods on this list completely change the core foundation of GTA 5 like the No Water + Tsunami + Atlantis mod does. This mod has a few different capabilities, and they all involve water. One part of the mod allows you to completely remove all water from the map, making Los Santos look like something from The Maze Runner or Mad Max. Conversely, you can also make the map completely flooded with water so that the seas reach the tops of skyscrapers. By diving underneath, you're able to explore Los Santos as an underwater utopia. The mod can also add massive waves to the drowned city.
Be honest with yourself, have you ever been driving through downtown Los Santos and thought, "Wouldn't it be cool to swing from those skyscrapers like Spider-Man?" Well, thankfully, there's a mod that allows you to become the red-suit Marvel hero. You can take possession of all of Spider-Man's abilities, including web-shooting, swinging from surfaces, web-pulling enemies, and taking advantage of the slow-motion Spider Sense.
The opening of GTA 5's story mode is set in a town called North Yankton, which you also briefly visit near the end of the game. However, beyond those two points, you never go back to North Yankton, and it's impossible to visit there otherwise. Of course, that's without the Travel to North Yankton mod. The mod allows you to freely visit the snowy town, giving you the chance to explore its streets, which are even populated with cars and NPCs. North Yankton comes with a bank you can enter and allows you to throw snowballs.
For most of us, the words “Pokémon Cafe” mean that free-to-play video game, Pokémon Cafe Remix. But if you’re lucky enough to live in Osaka or Tokyo, it’s a real-life restaurant, that serves food that looks even more extraordinary than the fantasy concoctions in the game. That picture above? That’s a curry.
Fallout 4 continues to be a well-regarded and popular RPG in 2025, but there are plenty of games like it that offer a similar experience or combine some of its best elements. At its core, Fallout 4 is an RPG with that classic Bethesda feel to it. However, it's also a game with several layers that have been separated and expanded upon in other titles.
So whether it's the RPG systems, world design, gunplay, or base-building of Fallout 4 that you enjoy, there's a game out there for you to play after you roll credits. Below you'll find the best games that are most like Fallout 4 in one way or the other. If you're more interested in RPGs as a whole, you can check out our list of the best RPGs to play in 2025, or refresh your Fallout experience with the best Fallout 4 mods.
If you're looking for a game similar to Fallout 4, why not play the RPG by the same developer that preceded it by three years? Skyrim is one of the best-selling RPGs of all time and features plenty of the same gameplay elements and mechanics as the Fallout franchise does. You're given a massive map to explore right from the start, there are several factions to join and complete quests for, and the story can take several twists and turns depending on your choices. Skyrim might be a fantasy game without any guns or grenades, but it still has that classic Bethesda RPG feel to it that's so prevalent in Fallout 4.
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While Fallout 4 isn't necessarily considered a scary game, there are some parts that can make you jump in your seat a smidge. If you're looking for more of that feeling, then Metro Exodus is the next post-apocalyptic world you want to dive into. Metro Exodus is a first-person shooter that's set in 2023's Russia after a series of devastating nuclear attacks all across the planet. You play as Artyom, a survivor who's trying to establish contact with other survivors, while also trying not to get killed by the newly formed creatures and harsh environment of the Russian wilderness. Metro Exodus features large, open zones, a story that spans one year through different events, and superb, realistic gunplay. The game can be seen as more of a survival/horror experience, but it still has the FPS and open-world elements that all Fallout fans know and love.
Atomfall is a game that takes clear inspiration from the Fallout franchise. It's a first-person shooter set in a post-apocalyptic world where certain technologies have advanced far beyond what we have today. While the start of the game feels like Fallout, as you continue to play through Atomfall, it becomes clear that it has put several different spins on the experience.
For starters, Atomfall is a survival game that forces you to manage your hunger, thirst, stamina, and health at all times across a map with several large, open zones. Where Atomfall really shines is in its quest design and storytelling. The game offers you several different quest lines to reach the end credits, and you need to decide which quests to complete to achieve the ending that you think is the best.
We have another Bethesda RPG, and this time it's the game that Bethesda director Todd Howard referred to as "Fallout in space." Starfield captures that Bethesda Fallout feeling across nearly all facets of the game. There's smooth gunplay, booming and interactive cities, several factions that offer complete questlines, and a story that forces you to explore all across a galaxy of planets.
Starfield also offers you the ability to build a base on any planet you want, which is one of the best parts about Fallout 4. In addition to the base building, Starfield also lets you customize your own spaceship. You can deck out your craft with all sorts of different parts that offer pros and cons for exploration, combat, and aesthetics.
The Outer Worlds should offer one of the most similar experiences to Fallout 4, as it was developed by the same studio behind Fallout: New Vegas--Obsidian Entertainment. Set in a distant future in another galaxy, The Outer Worlds is a grand space adventure that gives you the chance to visit several distinct planets in your own spaceship, recruit a few companions to your party, and grab as much loot as your inventory can carry.
The story in The Outer Worlds allows you to affect certain parts of how the game ends, telling you exactly how your choices affect specific characters and factions that you've encountered along your journey. The Outer Worlds offers excellent exploration, an in-depth skills menu that offers unique combat abilities, and charming characters with backstories that allow you to get invested in their well-being.
Mad Max is arguably one of the most underrated games of the last decade. It features an original story set in the post-apocalyptic world of the film franchise, and, as you might expect, places a large emphasis on vehicles and trying to survive the arid climate of the wasteland. You play as Max, who starts the game barely coming out alive after a conflict with the primary antagonist, Scabrous Scrotus. Scrotus takes Max's prized vehicle, the Magnum Opus, and you spend the entire game trying to retrieve the car from his clutches.
Mad Max features a huge open world that you'll traverse with different vehicles you acquire throughout your adventure. You can take down enemy camps, run dangerous quests for different characters, and participate in Death Run races to earn special rewards.
Dying Light 2 Stay Human is a game that can be seen as one of the closest experiences to Fallout 4 on this list. Of course, that's if Fallout 4 had parkour, slick movement abilities, and zombies instead of ghouls. The main gameplay element that Dying Light 2 focuses on is its parkour, which affects map traversal in almost every single way. You have access to a huge, post-apocalyptic city, and the entire map is set up for parkour moves and abilities. You also need these parkour elements to escape the hundreds of ravenous zombies that only come out during Dying Light 2's frightening nights.
Fallout 4 is set in a post-apocalyptic version of Boston, where nuclear war has ravaged the landscape. While Cyberpunk 2077 doesn't feature a post-apocalyptic world, it does feature an alternate version of San Diego that's set 50 years in the future.
While the setting of Cyberpunk 2077 is certainly fascinating, it's the backdrop to one of the best RPG experiences on the market. Cyberpunk 2077 offers a highly interactive and content-filled open world that's dazzling to look at, regardless of where you are. The game offers you multiple ways to engage in combat, and you can enhance your preferred playstyle with unlockable skills and craft technological mods to upgrade your character.
The Last of Us only shares one or two aspects with Fallout 4, but it's still a game that's absolutely worth playing. It begins with a zombie-style outbreak and fast-forwards several years to a post-apocalyptic future. While The Last of Us uses a third-person perspective and features linear gameplay, it also tells one of the most gripping tales in video game history, which has since been turned into a major TV series on HBO. It might not be an open-world RPG like Fallout 4, but the world and story are all the reasons you need to pick it up.
Horizon Zero Dawn takes the post-apocalypse theme and turns it upside down, as the game takes place more than 1,000 years into the future. During this 1,000-year period, man-made machines have taken over the planet after their AI went rogue during humanity's peak in the 21st century. Horizon Zero Dawn offers a huge open world to explore, hours and hours of lore to listen to and read, and engaging combat that mixes in archery, traps, and melee weapons. If you enjoyed Fallout 4 for the design of the Commonwealth or the mystery behind the story, Horizon Zero Dawn is a perfect game to play next.
The Division 2 is an online tactical shooter that takes place in the war-torn downtown district of Washington, D.C. after a viral outbreak has brought the nation to its knees. Your objective in The Division 2 is to fend off enemy factions trying to take control of the city. To do that, you and a group of real players need to work together to scavenge loot and supplies across an open map that's split up into zones. You can encounter both AI enemies and other players, but some areas are solely designated for PvP fights. The Division 2 features some elements of an RPG, but it's a multiplayer game at its core that requires you to improve your skills and gear, unless you want an enemy team to bulldoze through you.
BioShock might be one of the older titles on this list, but few games can match the overall immersion that it brings to the table. It's set in the underwater city of Rapture, which was created by a man named Andrew Ryan to escape the ever-changing world above the surface. Through the course of the game, you'll explore every inch of the now-ruined city. Along your way, you can attain new powers and abilities, discover secrets about Rapture and its downfall, and fight off some of the most iconic enemies in video game history. BioShock might not have the freedom of Fallout 4, but it has the exact kind of vibe that you want as a fan of the game.
We're back with another RPG from Obsidian Entertainment. This time it's the studio's most recent entry, Avowed, which is set in a fictional fantasy land that's engulfed in conflict and intrigue. Avowed features four different large open zones that are almost big enough to be their own open world maps. These zones hold dozens of quests to complete, collectibles to find, and hidden locations that could alter how the story plays out if you find them early enough. Perhaps the best part of Avowed is its combat system and skills menu, which allow you to fight enemies using smooth gunplay, crisp melee weapons, or long-range magic spells or guns. It's a fantastic game from top to bottom that feels like a blend of both Fallout and Skyrim.
Borderlands has become one of the most beloved franchises in video games. Borderlands 2 takes place on the warring planet of Pandora, where different factions are vying for control over vaults that contain untold treasures and power. You can play as one of several characters, all of whom have different abilities and strengths. Throughout the game, you'll explore large open zones to follow along with the main story, which features a top-five video game villain of all time in Handsome Jack. Borderlands 2 is a crisp first-person shooter with more loot than you'll know what to do with, charismatic characters that always have a funny one-liner, and terrific exploration that's aided by a fleet of vehicles you can obtain. It has all the charm of Fallout 4 while featuring a larger emphasis on gunplay and loot.
Project Zomboid is a survival sandbox game that's unlike many of the single-player experiences included on this list. What might make Project Zomboid enjoyable for a Fallout 4 fan is the open-world exploration and expansive base building elements. The game forces you to deal with swarms of zombies all across the open map, and to fend them off, you need to scrounge for resources that you can use to craft weapons, gear, and other items at your base. While the base-building in Project Zomboid is quite different from Fallout 4, you can make immensely large bases that allow you to sustain yourself in the post-apocalypse.
If the exploration and story are your favorite parts of Fallout 4, then Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden is a great addition to your game library. The game is set in a post-human version of Earth where different creatures have risen up to dominate the planet. You control a party of these creatures and can explore a slew of unique environments that all present different challenges. At the heart of Mutant Year Zero is turn-based combat, which is akin to something like XCOM. The combat might throw off FPS fans at first, but after you get used to it, you'll be engaged and start strategizing various ways to win fights by controlling your entire party of mutants.
The Warhammer 40000 franchise is known for its narrative-driven gameplay and engaging RPGs. Rogue Trader is another RPG that centers around turn-based combat and assembling a party of different characters for you to control. You can recruit a plethora of characters to join you, and each of them have various attacking styles, weapons, and abilities. When you're not in combat, you can explore a large world where the story plays a major role in everything you do. The choices you make throughout the story affect what happens later in the game and your eventual ending. It's an excellent RPG that blends the exploration and narrative parts of Fallout 4 with strategic, turn-based combat.
After Five Nights At Freddy's proved to be a hit in 2023, it didn't take Universal and Blumhouse long to put together Five Nights At Freddy's 2. The upcoming sequel is still half a year away, but a new teaser pic for the film is both creepy and unsettling.
In an image shared across FNAF's social media accounts, a close-up of Faztalker, asks a simple question: "You there?" What it doesn't answer is who's sending the message and why.
Anyone out there? #FNAF2Movie only in theaters December 5. pic.twitter.com/08AhLMeHST
— Five Nights at Freddy's (@FNAFMovie) June 2, 2025
The Faztalker hasn't appeared in any of the previous games yet, so we can only speculate who's on the other side of the child's toy.
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Not since the release of Myst way back in 1993 has a game felt as consequential to the puzzle genre as Blue Prince. And while it's tough to compare the two--Myst's enormous impact turned it into a monument of what PC gaming could be to the burgeoning market of personal computers--Blue Prince does feel like a watershed moment in a similar vein. It's a game so dense with ideas, so captivating in its construction, and so smart in its execution that it feels likely to influence the genre for years to come.
At its heart is the mixing of the rogue-like elements, which continue to seep into every genre, with classic first-person puzzle construction. Your goal in Blue Prince is to explore the mysterious Mount Holly Manor to reach its hidden 46th room.
The caveat is that the mansion's floorplan is constantly shifting; every time you open a door, you aren't greeted with a new room, but given the choice between three different ones. You pick which room appears, and use its layout and orientation to plot your way north from the entrance hall to the Antechamber just outside of the fabled 46th room. Getting to the goal is a constantly rearranging puzzle unto itself, and that's before you realize that you'll need to discover the means to unlock the Antechamber.
But that's just what's visible on the surface of Blue Prince. It drives players to obsession by providing hours and hours and hours of riddles and puzzles, loose threads to pull on and fascinating developments to uncover. Those most dedicated Blue Prince sickos (like me) have pumped hundreds of hours into the game trying to unravel all its mysteries, and as of this writing, many remain unsolved--by anyone.
Blue Prince is something of a singular puzzle experience at the moment, but there are giants that have come before it, and many similar and fascinating executions on parallel ideas that serve as its contemporaries. Below, you'll find a list of 18 games and franchises that can scratch your riddle-solving itch once you've decided to step away from Mount Holly Manor, many of which will burrow into your brain in the exact same way.
In a lot of ways, Myst is still a shining light of the first-person puzzle genre. It revolutionized the idea of puzzle games in 1993, both with graphics that raised the bar for PC gaming, and with its imaginative and inventive world. Myst grabbed people, even if they weren't already fans of video games in 1993, and helped popularize a whole genre of games, while leading to a great many imitators. Even today, though, the game is a subtle and brilliantly constructed experience, with smart puzzles and a fascinating narrative you'll have to uncover on your own. Developer Cyan recently remade the game with modern graphics and sensibilities, including a virtual reality mode, and while it's sad to lose some of the original's FMV charm, it's absolutely worth experiencing if you never have before.
Oh, and there are four more Myst games that followed, along with comics and novels. We'll talk about the Sequel to Myst in a second, but Mysts 3-5 aren't bad either--even if they never quite reach the heights of the first two games.
I only played Riven for the first time in 2025 and it has quickly become one of my favorite games ever. I've never felt smarter playing a video game than I did making my way through Riven. Like Myst before it, Cyan recently released a remake version of the game, but the original still holds up. Its gorgeous visuals make it feel like it's set in a real, if fantastical, place, but it's the incredibly smart puzzle design that makes this game a masterpiece. What makes Riven stand apart is that many of its puzzles don't necessarily feel like puzzles at all, in the usual video game sense--they instead serve to introduce you to different aspects of the world, and are utilized by its people to guard their secrets, lock their doors, and turn people away from hidden mysteries in a way that often feels realistic as well as revealing. Seriously, if you like games like Blue Prince and you haven't played Riven, do yourself a favor. Play Riven.
In the years following the massive success of Myst, things got tumultuous for Cyan, but it has rebounded recently with new games as well as remakes of its classics. Even more than a modernization of Myst and Riven, Obduction captures what made those games great and brings them into the modern era of gaming. Cyan's approach to puzzles remains excellent throughout, but it's the narrative that gets a bigger focus here. The game starts with the player character being abducted by aliens, awakening in a small western town that's been scooped up from Earth and deposited on an alien world. Finding what happened to the town's missing inhabitants and trying to make your way home becomes your focus. Obduction has the same sense of wonder as Myst does, taking you to beautiful, colossal new worlds as you try to piece together what has happened here, and what will happen if you don't intervene.
As you make your way through Mount Holly Manor over and over again in Blue Prince, the mysteries you uncover soon become as much about the people who used to occupy the house and what became of them as about opening the next locked door. A similar detective-style story is at the heart of The Roottrees are Dead, where your goal is to make your way through the family tree of the eponymous clan to determine whether certain people are legitimate heirs to its massive fortune. It's effectively a game about googling, making your way through the internet of 1998 to discover websites and documents, make connections, and uncover the truth. But Roottrees is deceptively simple and intelligently designed to push you to develop a narrative as you uncover each new piece of information, and the story becomes deep and intriguing as you slowly uncover more sordid details. The Roottrees are Dead is a game that you'll be thinking about and making connections in long after you've shut it off.
Imagine a game like the NES classic The Legend of Zelda, but made up only of top-down 8-bit puzzles, and you have a sense of Isles of Sea and Sky. Don't let its simple presentation fool you, however--this is a smart, expansive open-world puzzle game with a whole lot of depth. Waking up on one of the isles in question, you have to make your way by pushing blocks, gathering keys and upgrades, and visiting ancient gods to slowly uncover what's happening in this mystical place. Sea and Sky's Sokoban-style challenges are great about constantly testing you with new ideas and recontextualizations of its mechanics, so that a game that at first appears to be just about pushing blocks quickly becomes a whole lot more. Its nonlinear gameplay approach will also scratch an itch to what you might feel as you play Blue Prince, as will uncovering its enigmatic story.
The Talos Principle and its sequel are two brilliant puzzlers, but more than that, they're games that may well stick with you forever. They're beautiful and emotional, using the medium of games to tell the kinds of stories that wouldn't quite work in any other form. In the original game, you find yourself in a strange garden riddled with Roman statues and architecture, a booming, godly voice pushing you forward to complete its brain-twisting trials. Similar to games such as The Stanley Parable, you soon find The Talos Principle exploring ideas of agency and free will as you make your way through its cascading series of mind-bending challenges. But while the puzzles themselves are fun, it's the story that helps the game transcend.
Ten years later, developer Croteam released a sequel that's even better in The Talos Principle 2--bigger, deeper, with more involved puzzles, and a story that expands on the big, fascinating philosophical ideas of the original in all the best ways. These are two of my favorite games ever and I can't recommend them enough. What's more, Croteam just released a remastered version of The Talos Principle that adds even more riddles to solve and story to discover.
Blue Prince is littered with puzzles that require you to change how you think about something you're familiar with to solve them; a change in perspective, so to speak. Changing perspective is the much more literal focus of Superliminal, in which you explore a dreamlike world and solve its many puzzles by making use of optical illusions and forced perspective. If you need to get over something high, for instance, you might pluck an exit sign off the wall, then stand back and hold it up so the sign looks like it forms a ramp. Let it go, and suddenly the sign is the ramp, expanding to the same size you saw it when you held it up in front of your face. Superliminal is filled with mind-bending moments where you size up or size down its many elements by how you position them, and it constantly requires you to change your thinking to make it through its imaginative challenges.
Much like Superliminal, Manifold Garden is also a game that'll test you to change how you think about the world around you. Instead of puzzles relying on forced perspective, however, Manifold Garden draws its inspiration from works like those of M.C. Escher. You're tasked with making your way through twisting, often impossible landscapes, where gravity can sometimes work in unexpected ways. Growing a garden of fractal patterns requires you to change your approach to physics as well as physical space, taking you through some incredible places as you bring life to infinity.
Scratches is a bit more of a classic point-and-click adventure game than a first-person puzzler, but it has a lot in common with early games like Myst, and with Blue Prince's exploration-driven storytelling. Taking center stage here is an atmospheric horror tale, in which you play a writer who has rented an old, abandoned house to let him get some time alone for his work. Soon, though, exploring the eerie house and unearthing what happened to its inhabitants takes over his focus. There are plenty of puzzles to solve in Scratches, but the frightening tale it weaves is arguably the more interesting part, especially as it immerses you in its atmosphere. If Blue Prince leaves you looking for something spooky, Scratches is a good next stop.
Bending and remixing genres allows Inscryption to hit you with something wholly unexpected, much in the same way Blue Prince does. The top level of the game is a deck-building card game with an excellently disturbing, atmospheric setting. But that's just scratching the surface. Much like with Blue Prince, to say too much about Inscryption is to ruin it, so it's best you experience it for yourself. Know that you can expect a winding path beset with excellent gameplay, some solid puzzles, and a story that will stick with you as you fall down its rabbit hole.
Quern - Undying Thoughts is a first-person puzzle game very much in the vein of Myst and the games that came after it. You start on a mysterious island with no idea how you got there and start uncovering the island's story as you solve puzzles to access more and more of it. Quern has a solid series of brain-teasers to test yourself against, as well as some fascinating mysteries to uncover. It sits squarely in the "Myst-like" genre of puzzle titles, and while it doesn't throw in any unexpected twists in terms of gameplay, it's very good at doing exactly what it means to in building on the games that have inspired it.
Horror games have always had a close relationship with puzzles, and the Amanda the Adventurer games pull in some of the best elements of adventure games and first-person puzzlers to create a fun and often frightening experience. In the first game, you find yourself in the attic of the protagonist's late Aunt Kate, where you find some mysterious video tapes. They all contain episodes of a children's show called Amanda the Adventurer, and you quickly realize there's something strange about these tapes--especially as what you see in the cartoons seems to influence the items in the attic. Amanda the Adventurer has some inventive puzzles to solve as you work through its ever-darkening story and discover the secrets surrounding the tapes, and it does a great job of being exceedingly creepy. The story continues in Amanda the Adventurer 2, which is just as smart and just as spooky. The conclusion to the trilogy is on its way, making this a great time to complete the first two chapters.
Blue Prince is very much a game where the setting becomes a character in the game. That's also the case in The Mortuary Assistant, but its setting is less a character than an antagonist. Working the night shift at a mortuary, your job is to process bodies through the evening--sewing them up, embalming them, and otherwise getting them ready for their funerals. It's a great combination of unsettling and mundane work, but things start to get weird as the night goes on, requiring you to search the mortuary for items and information, all while trying to figure out if that thing you spotted out of the corner of your eye was really there. The Mortuary Assistant mixes the horror and puzzle genres together in ways that aren't always expected, but it has the same kind of haunting immersion that Blue Prince trades in.
Getting their start as mobile games, The Room series is more a series of puzzle boxes and escape rooms than the Blue Prince. It's the intricacy of Fireproof Games' titles, however, that make it worthy of consideration for Blue Prince fans. Each game is packed with excellently devised puzzles, pushing you to unlock layer after layer. There's also a subtle but unsettling Lovecraftian narrative underpinning all the games that add an excellent element of creepiness to all the extremely involved boxes you have to open and rooms you have to explore. The final entry in the series includes a VR edition for an even more immersive experience.
Set in the 1930s, Call of the Sea is a first-person adventure game in which you play a woman whose husband embarked on an expedition to discover a cure for her mysterious illness. Following him to the island, you find yourself trying to track down the expedition and find out what befell them, as you start to discover the strange secrets of the place and its inhabitants. Call of the Sea is more up-front about its story than Blue Prince, but delivers the same brand of unfolding story pieced together through detective work, coupled with a lot of puzzles to solve in order to figure out exactly what happened to the missing expedition.
At first, Animal Well is an easily understood metroidvania, where your goal is to explore ever further, accruing various new abilities that will allow you to open new doors and venture to new places. Rather than emphasizing combat, though, Animal Well pushes you to use your items and abilities in inventive ways. Like with Blue Prince, what's most engaging here is discovering just how deep the Animal Well goes--and it's much, much deeper than you think. A surprising number of inventive puzzles await in the darkness, making Animal Well the kind of game that it's easy to become obsessed with as you continue to search its shadows.
Each level of The Case of the Golden Idol is a scene in which you're witnessing the aftermath of some strange, often tragic event--more often than not, a murder. You play detective in each of these scenes, clicking on characters and objects to gain information about them to piece together what happened. You do that by arranging the info you find into a block of text, literally filling in the gaps of the narrative. Blue Prince tests you to play detective and uncover the fates of characters you'll never meet, and the Golden Idol games will push you in the same ways, stories that are just as intricate and fascinating.
After being lost at sea for years, the merchant ship Obra Dinn mysteriously drifts into port. With its crew dead or missing, it's up to you as an insurance investigator to figure out what happened aboard the ship. Return of the Obra Dinn has a lot of similarities to the Golden Idol games, emphasizing detective work as you venture through frozen scenes and gather information to piece together what happened. Your main tools are your ability to gather information and your powers of deduction, and you'll be put through your paces to make the connections necessary to discover the Obra Dinn's secrets.
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