Latest articles by Scott McCrae
Minecraft devs explain "players have a different appetite for challenge and difficulty" which is why the Ender Dragon isn't allowed on the overworld: "That's not a great game experience"
News "We have this guiding principle that bad things happen, but they're technically the player's fault"
Dead Cells 2 isn't happening right now because the studio behind the legendary OG roguelike is driven by "what we want to make" and not pressure from fans
News Fans of the roguelike disagree: "No one asked for Dead Cells 2. We just didn't want Dead Cells to be unceremoniously discontinued"
Xbox ditching hardware and exclusive games "makes sense," former Microsoft exec and Blizzard boss says, as "only a moron would continue" making consoles as games go third party
News Mike Ybarra also took aim at the "this is an Xbox" campaign: "Whoever came up with this clearly doesn’t play games"
GTA 6 theory crafting reaches the next level as one fan thinks the next trailer's release date has been under our noses for months
News One to watch
Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto says Nintendo's new fascination with movies is because "Ultimately what people remember are the IPs"
News "Games become obsolete when new versions come out. But that's incredibly sad."
I've been covering games for years and I think this is the first time I've seen a developer add an "Embarrassing" section to patch notes to call themselves out
News "I READ EVERY SINGLE FEEDBACK SPREAD ON THE INTERNET."
Pokemon Legends: Z-A can keep 10 ultra-rare shiny Pokemon spawned on the map at any time, and it's impossible to lose them unless you knock them out or are silly like me and scare them away
News And even then you can reload a save
"Every game has a parry now," but Shovel Knight dev wants to keep things simple for upcoming Game Boy Zelda-like Mina the Hollower: "I played that new Doom, and even Doom has Dark Souls stuff in it"
News "We try to take something old and rejig it, do something interesting with it."
Sales exec who helped launch the NES says Donkey Kong Jr. Math is "the worst game we released" and Nintendo "thought it'd be great for kids' education, but we couldn't give it away"
News "I think that was one game that slipped through"
Pokemon Legends Z-A includes music from a super fan who's posted excellent covers to YouTube for 13 years, earning a nod from Undertale beats master and fellow Poke-musician Toby Fox
News "I’m incredibly grateful to have been given this opportunity to contribute music"
Dead Space creator and ex Call of Duty boss Glen Schofield says AI is "the right investment" and downplays theft concerns: "Picasso said 'good artists always borrow, great artists steal'"
News "Use it. Let the lawyers figure it out. It’s going to be figured out someday."
Nintendo reportedly ramps up Switch 2 production to meet new target of 25 million consoles made by March 2026, with analysts forecasting they'll sell 20 million by then
News Pokemon is sure to help that number along significantly
Team Ico pitched Shadow of the Colossus to Sony with placeholder music from Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man: "Later on, we found out that was actually the theme music"
News "We probably violated some usage rights"
Pokemon Legends Z-A delivers deep lore, but maybe not the lore we wanted: Pokemon do poop, and Lumiose City is overflowing with it
News Clear proof that Game Freak fears Digimon
Team Ninja, Smash Bros' Masahiro Sakurai, and "rival" Tekken boss Katsuhiro Harada pay tribute to iconic Dead or Alive creator Tomonobu Itagaki
News The Team Ninja founder has passed away at the age of 58
Hideo Kojima thinks "of AI as more of a friend," but one he'd only let "handle the tedious tasks" of development "that would lower cost and cut down on time"
News The mind behind Metal Gear Solid and Death Stranding "would lead the creative part and use AI to boost efficiency."
Kings of infuriating brutal games now heading Ninja Gaiden 4 say fairness is the secret ingredient to difficulty: "Enemies are on equal footing with the player"
News "That’s something we talk about a lot at Team Ninja, and it’s something we’ve always valued throughout the series"
Ghost of Yotei and Tsushima actor says the time leap from the original open-world game "certainly was surprising" even to him, but was "also the right move," even if it disappointed fans
News "With any beloved franchise, you're going to disappoint somebody."
If you weren't already convinced a new Halo game is being announced this month, Master Chief's voice actor has teased "BIG NEWS A’COMIN!"
News John Halo speaks
Ghost of Yotei is Sony's best-selling PlayStation release in Europe since Marvel's Spider-Man 2 in 2023, beating Death Stranding 2 and Helldivers 2
News But it can't quite conquer the most heinous monster of all – EA Sports FC
Megabonk creator faces a moral dilemma as the roguelike heads to the moon: Robinette is a broken character, but "I don't really wanna nerf her because it's fun af"
News "That leaves us with (probably) an undisputed character and a character that will always dominate the leaderboards."
Assassin's Creed Shadows leaks keep pointing to a Switch 2 release in early December, but Ubisoft doesn't have the best timing as Metroid Prime 4 releases a mere one day earlier
News Spoiled for choice
Pokemon Legends Z-A Metacritic score marks it as the second-best Pokemon game of the Nintendo Switch era, only behind Legends: Arceus
News Still better than gen 8 and 9, though
