You can't talk about the best JRPGs without bringing up Dragon Quest. The series stands alongside the likes of Final Fantasy as a central pillar of the genre. It's even a major inspiration for the recent, turn-based Like A Dragon games, acting as a key touchstone for protagonist Ichiban Kasuga. But have you ever been back to where it all began? It's now easier than ever, as two of the most important and influential JPRGs of all time return in stunning new glory with the arrival of the Dragon Quest 1 and 2 HD-2D Remake on Steam. Read the rest of the story... View the full article
When I load up Europa Universalis 5, Paradox's latest and most ambitious grand strategy game, I am reminded of a news report I once saw about a man who grew up in a tribal village seeing an airplane for the first time. This can't possibly be real, right? This giant piece of metal can't fly through the sky at hundreds of miles an hour? Attempting to conquer the 500-year ******* from 1337 to 1837 CE while modeling every single individual person in the world – yes, you heard that right – at a level of detail that's completely unprecedented, seems unbelievable. But it really does all of that. And it's generally quite engaging and enjoyable for a genre veteran like me. As for whether it can soar? Only just. There is a lot of turbulence, and I wouldn't stake my life on it getting me to my destination without crashing. First, let me say that this review is mostly based on a version I received on October 16th, and to a lesser extent on a medium-sized patch that came out on the 22nd and fixed a lot of bugs that were bothering me. There was an even larger patch on the 29th, but I was not able to do more than kick the tires on that before I locked in this review. And there's even one more big patch scheduled before launch. Overall, I think these patches have been improving the balance situation I'm going to talk about later, but there's no way I can say if they will have cleaned up all of the annoyances by the time you get your hands on it. I can only speak to what I played. From a systems perspective, EU5 is an unambiguous wonder. Paradox keeps pushing the envelope on how much they can simulate in fine-grain detail, and I could even accuse this absurdly huge historical epic of taking things too far. It's certainly unwieldy in its bulk, and I fear especially that this will make it very difficult to balance. Fix one small thing and the ripples it sends out through the various interlocking mechanisms for economics, geography, demographics, and politics could possibly create 300 more. There's a certain hubris to it, if I might be so dramatic, and I've already seen some evidence of the problems it can cause. But damn. DAMN! It is incredible to have the entire world depicted in this level of detail in a video game. For every one province in its predecessor, Europa Universalis 4, there are roughly seven individual locations in Europa Universalis 5. And while each space on the map could only have a single, monolithic religion and culture in EU4, EU5's population mechanics represent the culture, religion, and social class of every living human individually. Having to think about population creates a rich relationship with each location in my country, and acts to balance so many things in a naturalistic way, without abstract currencies like "Administration Points." In EU4, terrain type was a single modifier. In EU5, topography, climate, and vegetation are all separate factors that can affect everything from agricultural output to combat. EU5 is for certified (or aspiring) grand strategy sickos only. It is history nerd nirvana to simply scroll around the map and marvel at the amount of work that went into this. It's pretty slick-looking, too. I don't think it's necessarily Paradox's prettiest map. You will see some weird artifacts around areas of rough terrain and intricate coastlines that are a bit unsightly. For my money, Crusader Kings 3 and Victoria 3 are a bit nicer to look at. But it is certainly the most detailed. And especially with the ability to render units moving around with varying cultures, social strata, tech levels, and even degrees of professionalism modeled in their uniforms – up to 30 in one formation depending on the number of troops – it's never boring to zoom in on. This does all mean that EU5 is for certified grand strategy sickos – and aspiring grand strategy sickos – only. Not for lack of providing a tutorial. That's here, and it's actually surprisingly good at getting you off to at least a walking start. Automation lets you hand off certain things to the AI until you're ready to micromanage them. The nested tooltips are very helpful, too, at least until you discover one of the many edge cases where they aren't. But I have over 2000 hours in EU4. It's my most-played game on Steam of all time. And even then, it took about an hour before I even felt comfortable unpausing EU5 – and dozens before I thought I knew what I was doing. And for me, that's not a bad thing! I think that trial-and-error learning ******* is part of the fun of this type of grand strategy game, and part of developing a relationship with it. But it takes a lot of patience, and I don't think Paradox is going to be expanding its audience much with this one. EU5 knows exactly who it's for, and it caters specifically to those people – people like me – very unapologetically. Getting into the groove of managing a nation can be incredibly engrossing. Planning out the site of a new market town, how it's going to connect up to my road network, and how I'm going to exploit the local resources in my workshops to turn a huge trade profit, is better than drugs. Control and proximity are brilliant new mechanics that model how you can’t necessarily govern something just because you painted it your color. And combined with a reworked estates system, there is an almost endless number of projects to do and challenges to face without ever leaving your borders. The geographic granularity here adds so much to nation management and warfare, which has evolved excellently with the new terrain modifiers and logistics systems. That is, when everything is working correctly. Major bugs were infrequent and generally not game-ruining for me. Most of EU5's current problems are in what I'd call tuning. The numbers, the balance, and the AI simply aren't quite dialed in yet to provide a satisfying or historical-feeling experience. I saw weird stuff like Bohemia with one port on the Baltic colonizing half of Canada. The Holy Roman Empire entirely failed to consolidate. There was no clear victor in Turkey. Bordergore is everywhere. China is… horrifying. And weirdest of all, the Europeans colonized most of Australia, but never even discovered India for some reason. It's hard to say how much of this is typical, but I didn't have thousands of hours to play a statistically significant number of campaigns. Most of EU5's current problems are in what I'd call tuning. This is kind of the vibe across the board. Nations will behave very strangely compared to what you'd expect. Borders become way too static after about 1500, even with the Protestant Reformation trying to mix things up. Historical countries don't often form. There are a lot of interesting situations and flavor events, but they don't result in a globe that reads as authentic. Also, despite efforts to slow down colonization, I still saw stuff like all of South America filled in with formal states by 1700, and the entire Kongo Basin speaking Italian. Either they invented Duolingo way early or cured malaria. Not sure which. And that stuff really bothers me. I don't need history to play out exactly as it did in our world, but some of this is just silly. I want it to look kind of plausible by the end. Historical-ish. I did also run into inconsistent crashes on one of my two full playthroughs. I had only four crashes across the entire 500 years I played as the mighty Norse colony of Greenland in my first run. My second run, as Portugal, I would sometimes get more than that in a single decade. I was able to find some workarounds after consulting Paradox about the issue, so it was playable, but very annoying. (Pro tip: turn off the buildings tab in the outliner if this is happening to you a lot. Worked wonders.) Paradox has a history of supporting their grand strategy games for many years after launch, with one recent exception (the tragic Imperator: Rome), so I do have a pretty good amount of faith that this stuff will get worked out. But I wouldn't blame anyone for waiting six months for a little more polish before diving in. And the sheer complexity of EU5's simulation does stoke some fears in me about if it's even possible to get it to behave nicely at all. What I didn't really have to worry about was performance, thankfully. For such a CPU-intensive game, I was apprehensive about that. But I tried it out on three different processors: A Ryzen 7 3700X, a Ryzen 7 5800XT, and a Core i7 13620H laptop. Most of my playtime was on the 3700X, because that's my main desktop, and I didn't find slowdown to be much of an issue, despite being below Paradox's recommended specs. It was measurably slower than the i7 especially, but I still found the speed to be very playable, only seeing significant sluggishness if there was a massive war going on in the last 100 years or so. Days at the start of a run took less than a second to tick by on the 3700X, and it only got up to maybe around two seconds at worst by the 1800s, with a bit of extra lag at the start of each month when there are more things to calculate. An entire playthrough took me about 60 hours while playing at the fastest speed, including slowing down on purpose for most wars. It never ground to a halt or turned into a slideshow like Victoria 3 or Hearts of Iron 4 sometimes can in the late game, and the interface remains sharply responsive even when the simulation is chugging a little, which makes such a massive difference to me psychologically. Overall, I found the optimization to be almost astounding for the number of things going on. View the full article
ARC Raiders has barely been out for over a day, but the game's devs at Embark Studios have already shown what to expect out of the next two months of content drops. The living, expanding world of the game will get new content over time like other live-service games before it, including new maps, new map conditions, new cosmetics, and quality of life updates that players may come to expect from a game-as-a-service. Image via Embark Studios It starts in November with the North Line update that includes the new map Stella Montis, and continues into December to close out 2025 with Cold Snap, both of which will add new gameplay elements and different updates to the game as it evolves and heads into the new year. Here's a peek at what's coming to the game over the next few months, revealed by Embark Studios today: North Line (November)New map: Stella MontisCommunity Unlock EventNew ARC: Matriarch and ShredderNew gameplay itemsNew questsCold Snap (December)Snowfall map conditionFlickering Flames eventExpedition Departure WindowNew Raider DeckNew quests There's already a solid amount of content that most players have barely scratched the surface of in the game, which rewards exploration and cooperation while also incentivizing players to grief others and steal their loot to enrich themselves on their own journey. Stella Montis is the first substantial content drop, offering a new location on top of the four already-playable available at launch. Each map offers different loot, enemy types, and quest-specific gear for players to seek out on their expeditions. And then in December, the game's first "optional wipe" takes place as part of the Expedition Project feature, allowing players to opt in and reset their inventories for new items. ARC Raiders 2025 roadmap Image via Embark Studios After the holiday season brings in the new year, Embark Studios will get back to work and continue working on future updates that will keep players coming back over time. The post ARC Raiders just revealed its roadmap through the end of the year, and this game really is just getting started appeared first on Destructoid. View the full article
Shiny hunting in Pokémon Legends: Z-A is fun. The grind to unlock the Shiny Charm is long, but the sound effects and sparkles that come out of wild Shiny Pokémon make the process feel extremely rewarding... until someone ruins it. Taille, an NPC who gives you Side Mission 098 in front of Wild Zone 15, asks you to capture a Pumpkaboo of the Jumbo Variety, the largest one there is. When you accept her quest, she explicitly says, "I need you to catch a Jumbo Variety Pumpkaboo for me!" Apparently, that wasn't clear enough for some players. One of them shared on Reddit that they had a Shiny Pumpkaboo of that variety, which is rare both for its base 1 in 4096 odds of spawning a Shiny and being a Jumbo. They offered it to Tallie, thinking she only wanted to see it. What happened instead was that the NPC kept the Shiny for herself, making the player lose a rare variety of Pumpkaboo forever. Others made that same mistake. [Hidden Content] What makes this an irreversible mistake is Legends: Z-A's autosave. This feature is always on and triggers at specific moments in the game, one of them being when you finish a side mission like Taille's. So, by the time you realize Taille is keeping your Pumpkaboo, the game has already saved your progress and made that a final decision. Your precious Shiny really is hers now. This Side Mission only shows up late in the game, after you unlock Main Mission 35. Up until this point, every requester who asks to see a Pokémon will, at most, borrow it and return it to you, such as the lady who wants to make perfume out of Skiddo leaves and Vannilite snow. That's why it's natural to expect Taille will not keep your Pokémon as well if you ignore her dialogue. When playing Legends: Z-A, remember one of the most important life lessons you were probably taught as a kid: don't let people borrow your valuable things—even if they're a video game character. You never know what they'll do with it. The post Pokémon fans are having their Shinies stolen by an NPC in Legends: Z-A appeared first on Destructoid. View the full article
The Disney Afternoon Rewind is a board game that took me by surprise when I saw its crowdfunding campaign launch on Kickstarter. At first, I was overwhelmed by the vibrant nostalgia of its theme. Based on several hit Disney cartoons of yesteryear, and packaged to look like VHS cassette boxes, this is a board game laser targeted at people with a '19' in their birth year, increasing levels of lower back pain, and a tendency to laugh at 'Only 90s Babies Remember' memes. I was expecting a fairly shallow, saccharine family board game. I was not expecting a rules set that sounds more like a skirmish wargame. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Exclusive reveal - mob football miniature wargame Guild Ball is back in play after five years on the bench, with the brand new Lumberjacks team leading the charge I can't decide if this $500 board game console is the worst idea ever, or the best The 15 best board games in 2025 - reviewed by our experts View the full article
As part of Fortnite's upcoming crossover with The Simpsons, the iconic Fox animated series will be receiving a special television episode centered around the collaboration. The Epic Games battle royale has not been shy about teasing its next big collaboration, with a mini-season centered around The Simpsons set to launch following the conclusion of Chapter 6 Season 4. Fortnite has already begun to tease the crossover with The Simpsons in the conclusion of Fortnitemares, with fans able to find Bart's treehouse within the in-game map. Now, the TV series is set to feature its own special collaboration. View the full article
The first-person feudal Japan horror game Labyrinth of the ****** King knocked my socks off when it released back in May, and it's only gotten better since launch and PCG *********** editor Shaun Prescott's 81% review. The game's latest update adds a hefty-sounding new game plus mode, while it's also on ***** for 25% off to celebrate Halloween until November 3... Read more.View the full article
Digital storefront GOG is giving away a free copy of The Brotherhood’s sci-fi horror game Stasis, just in time for Halloween. Eagle-eyed gamers on the lookout for a good deal can usually find one at any given moment, as Steam, GOG, and Epic Games Store all regularly discount titles to the tantalizing price of $0.00. These giveaways usually happen all year round, but during the holidays, they tend to be themed to the season. View the full article
Intel's next big CPU range is set to be the Intel Core Ultra 300 series, which is expected to arrive in early 2026 and bring with it the debut of the company's much-talked-about new manufacturing process: 18A. This new system promises even more densely-packed transistors and better power efficiency, but some early leaks of the new chips suggest their peak performance isn't going to be all that impressive. I wasn't expecting these particular Intel chips, based on a new Panther Lake architecture, to be earning spots on our best gaming CPU guide, as the whole series is only destined for laptops and other mobile devices. Instead, it's the company's upcoming Nova Lake chips that you'll want to keep an eye out for on the desktop front. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Meet the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, a new 24-core Arrow Lake refresh gaming CPU, according to this benchmark leak Best graphics card 2025 - top gaming GPUs Your Intel GPU could see a 4x frame rate boost soon, thanks to this new tech View the full article
Errors and bugs have become the norm in most games nowadays, especially those that launch to massive success, attracting countless players to their fun gameplay loops. ARC Raiders is no exception, with many players encountering some issues preventing them from getting into the game, even if the developers tried their hardest to mitigate all potential problems. One such error is the Outdated Game Client pop-up that appears to some players. So, here's everything you need to know about it. What is the Outdated Game Client message in ARC Raiders A new update seems to be causing issues for some players. Image via @ARCRaidersGame When trying to start up the game, some ARC Raiders players have been encountering the "Outdated Game Client" message that is preventing them from playing solo or with their friends. It started showing up following the announcement of a new patch that came out on Oct. 31, bringing a host of fixes and improvements to game stability. The update seems to be the culprit causing the message to show, though even those who've installed the patch are still seeing the issue. It should resolve itself as the patch rolls out to everyone, and the game's version is synced up with the servers. Sometimes updates and servers do not see eye to eye, leading to version mismatches. Additionally, another minor hotfix might have come out while you were in-game, further desynchronizing you from the server. Even if it's a few kilobytes' worth of data, it can and will disrupt your connection, causing the client version mismatch and the error above. Some platforms might receive updates later than others, preventing players on them from joining the game until the roll-out is complete. Ensure the game is fully updated and all files are verified to be 100 percent confident that your game is up to snuff. If all else fails, do a complete reinstall of the game and re-download the most recent version. It's frustrating, but should resolve the problem. The post ARC Raiders ‘outdated game client’ error, explained appeared first on Destructoid. View the full article
Progression is crucial to any extraction shooter, and ARC Raiders is no exception. Everything you do topside brings its own host of rewards, boosting your raider's capabilities for each subsequent run. But sometimes you might have chosen the wrong skill, went down the suboptimal path, or overall changed your mind about your playstyle. And, for some reason, ARC Raiders makes respecing obscure and, ultimately, quite punishing. So, here's all you need to know about skill tree resets in ARC Raiders. ARC Raiders skill tree reset, explained Expeditions are ARC Raiders' version of prestige. Screenshot by Destructoid Currently, there is no real way to do a partial skill reset or respec. You cannot click a button somewhere that lets you redistribute your skill points into different branches or skills. What you can do, however, is a complete wipe of your progression via the Expeditions that sets your character to level one and, as a result, takes away your hard-earned skills. It's a punishing system to be sure, but not one without merit. Instead of wiping the server and resetting everyone, ARC Raiders has a prestige system, not much unlike Hunt: Showdown, another extraction shooter where progress can be "reset" in exchange for some goodies. These are the Expeditions mentioned above. This is everything you'll gain or lose when completing an Expedition. Screenshot by Destructoid At level 20, you unlock these Expeditions, which are completed in five stages, with each stage requiring specific materials to be cleared. Once you've done all five, you can send your Raider beyond the Rust Belt, permanently losing them and resetting your progression to zero. Expeditions are eight weeks long, giving each player 60 days to do them in full and "prestige" their accounts. And, while your overall progress will be back at first base, you retain every unlockable, like your Tokens, Cred, Decks, and so on. Quests, Workshops, Inventories, Stash upgrades, Coins, and Levels are totally wiped. Expeditions grant bonus level ups, XP, and Stash slots after completion, ultimately boosting your subsequent leveling, making this total reset a bit less painful. The post How to respec your skill tree in ARC Raiders appeared first on Destructoid. View the full article
With a level cap of 75 and a skill point awarded at each level, Embark Studios' third-person extraction shooter Arc Raiders allows players to tailor their build according to their playstyle, but there is one skill they should prioritize unlocking before any other. The skill in question is none other than In-Round Crafting, and it only requires Arc Raiders players to invest a few skill points to unlock it. View the full article
The new arrangement album featuring music from Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and more is now available to stream. View the full article
2025 has delivered plenty of roleplaying hits, from breakouts like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 to two new RPGs from legendary studio Obsidian Entertainment. Per usual, some interesting options have also flown mostly under the radar, like Keep Driving and Artis Impact. If there's a single game that's most deserving of more fanfare, however, it's almost certainly Stray Children. View the full article
Microsoft and Meta have expanded their mixed-reality partnership with the full release of Windows 11's remote desktop for the Meta Quest 3 and Quest 3S headsets. The update introduces multi-monitor streaming, an ultrawide immersive mode, and new workspace customization tools. The integration allows users to mirror high-resolution desktop displays inside... Read Entire Article View the full article
The next Civilization 7 update is making some dramatic changes to create more rewarding, tactical gameplay, including a full naval combat overhaul. Firaxis' bold reimagining hasn't yet set the world on fire the way its best 4X games of years past have. But after the recent city menu reworks, Civ 7 update 1.3.0 brings major changes to ships and sea battles, and there are plans in the works to deliver the much-requested ability to play a full campaign as a single civ through the ages. Could momentum finally be turning to Civ 7? If it's going to happen, this next patch feels like a key inflection point. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Civilization 7 update takes strides towards restoring the struggling 4X to glory The next Civilization 7 update tackles "analysis paralysis" with menu reworks Civilization 7 is testing a "harsher" option for its divisive Age Transitions View the full article
Deus Ex is one of those series that would break the internet should a new entry ever get revealed. It sounds like we came close, but Embracer reportedly scrapped a new Deus Ex back in 2024 before it even entered full production. The original paved the way for so many of the brilliant immersive sims and stealthy shooters that followed, and there's a desire for more from that universe. Knowing this, a modernized version of the 2000 classic would seem a reliable money-spinner - enter the folks at Aspyr, who know a thing or two about remastering some of the best old games. However, when Deus Ex Remastered was revealed back in September, the reception wasn't as warm as it would've hoped - it's been largely slammed by fans. Now, Deus Ex's art director has had his say - and he's not that impressed either. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: The best old games to play 2025 Deus Ex just got a huge, unofficial remaster thanks to transformative new mod Deus Ex is free right now View the full article
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You can't talk about the best JRPGs without bringing up Dragon Quest. The series stands alongside the likes of Final Fantasy as a central pillar of the genre. It's even a major inspiration for the recent, turn-based Like A Dragon games, acting as a key touchstone for protagonist Ichiban Kasuga. But have you ever been back to where it all began? It's now easier than ever, as two of the most important and influential JPRGs of all time return in stunning new glory with the arrival of the Dragon Quest 1 and 2 HD-2D Remake on Steam. Read the rest of the story... View the full article