Bryan Lawver

The second time I died during Outward’s tutorial, around section 32, I started to wonder if volunteering to review this game was a mistake. I was learning how to sleep and somehow did it poorly enough to die of either dehydration, cold exposure, or both. About an hour later,

One of the most high-profile PS VR games in recent memory is set to launch April 9. First announced last summer, Outer Loop’s Falcon Age casts you as Ara, a woman imprisoned by a colonial government. With the help of a falcon she befriends from inside her cell, Ara

Heaven’s Vault, the upcoming archaeological adventure from Inkle Studios is set to launch April 16 on PC and PS4. The game casts you as Aliya Elasra, an archaeologist exploring the ruins of a lost alien civilization and trying to decipher its language. Decipher an entire hieroglyphic language in a

One of the best parts of both crafting survival games and action RPGs is how they start small (forging an axe, helping a merchant) and grow to epic proportions. Windscape combines these two genres, but never explores either the complexity of a survival game or the grandeur of an RPG.

Ever since it was announced, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice has been the subject of rampant speculation. Some people were worried that it would be too much like Dark Souls and Bloodborne, others that it would be too different. Seemingly every scant detail was analyzed, picked apart, and held up as

It must be difficult to make a roguelike that stays feeling fresh when the whole concept is based around repetition. It’s not enough to design a fun combat system, tactically interesting enemies, and varied environments. Those things also have to be as enjoyable the 50th time players face them

A new Dungeons and Dragons 5e supplement on Kickstarter aims to infuse some magic into crafting. Witch + Craft, from Astrolago Press, introduces a system called “domestic magic,” which, according to the project’s Kickstarter page, emphasizes the joy and power of making things, rather than making crafting stressful. This content,

The curse of having made one of the best games of all time is that your future work will always be compared to it. And the curse of writing about From Software games is that comparing them to Dark Souls is nearly unavoidable. It’s useful as a reference point,