Latest articles by Catherine Lewis
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Verso actor thanks fan fic writers for "taking very specific license with this classic masterpiece" – "We see you, we hear you, we appreciate how detailed you can truly get"
News Ben Starr says "this community is truly incredible"
Octopath Traveler 1 and 2 are two of my favorite turn-based RPGs, but I'm not sure how I'm going to go back to them after falling in love with Octopath Traveler 0's town-building mode
Hands-on Gamescom 2025 | A 45-minute taste of Octopath Traveler 0 showcased satisfying, strategic combat, and the addition of cozy town decoration is the cherry on top
Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles director open to revisiting the series' Game Boy Advance sequels if the remaster does well, but thinks the strategy RPG playerbase is currently a "bit small"
News Kazutoyo Maehiro is also open to totally new tactics games
Battlefield 6 is set to be extra grisly compared to most of the previous entries in EA's FPS series, as it's only the third to mention "gore" in its ESRB rating
News We can also expect "intense violence"
Helldivers 2 players are down but not out – the new Hive Lords can apparently eat 15 Hellbombs before finally going down, but divers aren't giving up: "It can bleed, it can die"
News The Hive Lords are no joke
Helldivers 2 rivals Call of Duty's notoriously chunky file sizes as its latest update takes the shooter above 140GB on Steam: "This is getting beyond ridiculous"
News Players are begging Arrowhead to "do something" about the massive file size on PC
Losing Final Fantasy Tactics' source code meant The Ivalice Chronicles devs had to use any available resources to rebuild the remaster, "whether that be the retail copy of the game or the smartphone version"
News "It was a little bit of a different struggle than what you might expect if you're creating a game from absolutely nothing"
Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles devs "haven't made any changes to characters that were powerful," because they "didn't really want to disappoint" OG fans with nerfs
News Square Enix "didn't really want to break" anything in the strategy RPG
45 minutes of Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles has me certain that Square Enix "rebuilding" the remaster after losing the original source code was worth the effort
Hands-on Gamescom 2025 | After a hands-on session and a chat with the leads behind Final Fantasy Tactics' remaster, I'm already hungry for more tactical RPG action
Borderlands 4 could have looked very different – the OG RPG initially had realistic visuals that were too similar to Fallout 3, so Gearbox "rebuilt the whole game" after 2 weeks of experimenting led to its iconic comic style
News Gearbox was "already taking every risk," but decided to "do what our heart says is right"
"We tend to commit to the bit": Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford talks Borderlands 4, the evolution of looter-shooters, and $80 game discourse
Interview Gamescom 2025 | Randy Pitchford tells us how Gearbox went from seeing the industry predict that Borderlands "would find no audience, to being one of the leading video game franchises in the world"
Helldivers 2 studio CEO says the "vast majority" of people "silently play" the shooter, which means the devs can't just look at Reddit and what streamers are saying for feedback: "This is a challenge for all games"
News Admittedly, "we screw up all the time," says Shams Jorjani
007 First Light is getting its own dedicated PlayStation State of Play this week, with "over 30 minutes of gameplay" including James Bond's "first mission as an MI6 recruit"
News It'll be taking place on September 3
Final Fantasy 16 Clive actor Ben Starr was "quite nervous" about voicing a villain in Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles because he didn't want to "soil" his contribution to the series
News "I didn't want to come back in and do something badly"
Hollow Knight: Silksong price is $20, Team Cherry confirms, laughing in the face of $80 games as it cements one of the most anticipated indies of all time as just $5 more than its predecessor
News No huge price hike here
Borderlands 4 boss Randy Pitchford says "Nintendo just had the most successful new console launch in the history of video game consoles" with the Switch 2, so of course he wants to "bring more games to it"
News "The Nintendo Switch 2 is an awesome, awesome machine"
Hell Let Loose: Vietnam devs say their new shooter isn't a replacement for the OG World War 2 game, and don't want fans to "feel like we've abandoned them in any way"
Preview Gamescom 2025 | Hell Let Loose: Vietnam is all about giving players what they've been asking for when it launches in 2026
I can't get enough of the cute cat-like companion in this puzzle platformer, even if some block pushing is a little business as usual
Hands-on Gamescom 2025 | 45 minutes with Planet of Lana 2 was an atmospheric delight, with puzzles that really made me think
Pokemon Legends: Z-A buffs up one of X and Y's best 'mons as it introduces Mega Hawlucha, which might have the RPG's coolest new form yet
News It's still Fighting/Flying-type, but now has an even flashier look
Todd Howard apparently "rolled his eyes" at the thought of Troy Baker playing Indiana Jones and the Great Circle's protagonist, but the game's lead says it "wouldn't have been what it is" without the Last of Us star
News Troy Baker is "always fantastic to work with," says Axel Torvenius
Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford feels like "we're just getting started" with Borderlands spin-off Tiny Tina's Wonderlands: "I would bet that we are going to spend more time on that"
News Gearbox has "a whole team of people that love fantasy"
I button-mashed my way through 30 minutes of Scott Pilgrim EX, but I'm already longing to dive back in and learn each character's "very complex combos"
Hands-on Gamescom 2025 | Scott Pilgrim EX's beat-em-up action is easy to pick up, but I want to be a pro
The Outer Worlds 2 leads say RPGs like Baldur's Gate 3 helped prove "people really, actually want these kinds of games" at a time where even Obsidian "had to prove ourselves all over again"
News "It's good to kind of bring that stuff to the forefront again"
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 lead says the hit French JRPG is just "one of the stories that we want to tell in this franchise," but thinks "the only way" to succeed "is to ignore the first game completely"
News "We have to find this place of sincerity and authenticity again," says Guillaume Broche
