Latest articles by Austin Wood
Soulslikes are getting easier, and I'm not complaining: The First Berserker Khazan renames "Easy" to "Normal," adds "Beginner" for good measure, and introduces "Hardcore" for sickos
News Some of the top Soulslikes are toning down their difficulty in some way
With over 6,600 hours on PS5 alone, Elden Ring player claims to have more Malenia and Consort Radahn kills than nearly anyone – and has quietly been uploading videos for years
News Meet ShoulderCoffin, a boss killer among boss killers
Hollow Knight: Silksong has its own GTA 6-like release date blast zone – "I hope Silksong will release this year coz we are avoiding them," says boss of lovely JRPG-flavored Metroidvania
News Fallen Tear: The Ascension looks to dodge Hollow Knight: Silksong
One day after launch, the top 30 "adult" Stellar Blade mods have over 350,000 downloads on Nexus Mods, which isn't far off what Nier Automata has after 8 years
News Act surprised, because Stellar Blade is getting a lot of NSFW mods
Turns out you can ruin some of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's most impactful moments and fights with a funny costume secret – or enhance them, depending who you ask
News Suited and booted
"Cowardly and disgusting": RuneScape veteran joins players laying into Jagex CEO for cancelling Pride events over reported fear of backlash, which has created backlash
News The plan has not worked out perfectly
"Basically everything in our store was way overpriced until 2 months ago," admits Splitgate 2 director, who says he "would never have allowed" unpopular $80 bundle to go live
News Props for saying it, I guess
"Games and studios are being cancelled because of content that is perceived to be 'woke' or representative," new RuneScape CEO reportedly said in internal meeting explaining decision to stop or shrink the MMO's Pride events
News Old School RuneScape's Pride event was also scaled down to a community event
Starving husband collectors declare victory as Zenless Zone Zero adds a buff furry guy with pecs so big they jiggle like pudding: "I’ll take 6 of them, thank you"
News Komano Manato has found his audience
Even after EA let Dragon Age: The Veilguard out of multiplayer hell, BioWare reportedly still had to rush to target "as wide a market as possible," which feels like the opposite approach of great RPGs
News EA doesn't seem to understand what makes a good RPG
Hollow Knight: Silksong appearance in ROG Xbox Ally reveal was "a good partnership," says Phil Spencer, who seems to know he's being watched by countless Skong devoted
News Please, Spencer, the Silksong fans are starving
Splitgate 2 CEO apologizes again, says "I'm not an idiot" and expected "some" controversy, but wasn't being political with his hat at Summer Game Fest: "We needed something to grab attention"
News "This is what we came up with," Ian Proulx says
Replaced Embracer CEO wins understatement of the year, says "the road has not always been straight" after billions burned, thousands of layoffs, dozens of games canceled, and multiple studios closed
News Assessing the straightness of Embracer's road
After handing out millions, Among Us dev says its indie fund has a signing rate roughly 8x higher than most publishers, most of its games are under $500k, just 6 are $1 million or more, and RPGs are king
News Outersloth has been "an immense success" for the Among Us devs
"We are going to do CRPGs that are going to be as serious as BG3," says Wizards of the Coast president, but Star Wars Jedi director's D&D action game is very different to Larian's RPG
News Baldur's Gate 3's strengths and success are not lost on Wizards, president says
Caves of Qud dev says they "made enough from launch" to work on this roguelike RPG for "a couple more years at minimum, so we're using the time to get up to some extreme bulls**t"
News Caves of Qud is still eyeing up your phone
The Outer Worlds 2 devs have already shown the background I'll be using in this RPG: the Roustabout, a talentless loser who is "not quite sure what happened" to get them here
News Not the hero we need, but the hero we have
15 years later, Super Meat Boy 3D gives one of the best platformers of all time a whole new dimension, and it's out early 2026
News There's a new Super Meat Boy game, and it's a big one
Ninja Gaiden 4 finally makes its 13-year overdue debut this October: "We often joke that 'we’ve made something that really doesn’t feel like a modern game—it’s just too hard'"
News The long-awaited action sequel finally has a release date
"It was not 'one guy', look at the dang in-game credits": Balatro's Localthunk joins team size discourse after Geoff Keighley fumbled it at Summer Game Fest by saying Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was made by "under 30" people
News For many reasons, no
"I got to shag his wife and kill him, so let's see what happens in the game": 26 years before becoming David Bateson's target in Hitman, Mads Mikkelsen worked with the Agent 47 actor on a Danish short film
News Call it even this time?
Splitgate 2 dev snatches defeat from the jaws of victory, channeling Borderlands 4's Randy Pitchford by upsetting fans even when his FPS is looking pretty good
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