Fantasy News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

Mark Hamill will return to voice The Joker in Multiversus.

Back in 2007, alert fans of fantasy grand master Peter Beagle had a very short window of time to get excited about the announcement of his latest novel, I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons. The book was abruptly pulled from the release schedule, reportedly because of Beagle’s conflict with publisher Penguin USA over a new edition of his best-known book, The Last Unicorn.

A new strategy game by BoomBit Games has hit Android globally. It’s Dawn of Ages: Medieval Games which has no magic, but has plenty of fighting, building and crafting. A free-to-play game, its publisher is known for other hit titles like Bowling Club: Realistic 3D PvP, Zombie Survival Apocalypse, Boxing Ring and Idle Boutique (Role-Playing).

The enchanting world of The Enchanted World has now expanded its horizons beyond Apple Arcade. It has officially launched for global players on Android. The Enchanted World opened for pre-registrations on Android in early April. If you love games that have magic, mystery and mind-bending puzzles, then keep reading to learn more about this one!

Dragon's Dogma 2 performance issues may be caused by a baffling design decision, judging from some recent discoveries by modders.

Bandai Namco US is running a competition that will see one player receiving a 10-foot statue as a prize.

Whether you’re a new Game Pass subscriber or just looking to renew your membership, you’ll want to check out this deal at Woot. Through May 10, the Amazon subsidiary is offering three-month Game Pass Ultimate subscriptions for just $36.99 (was $49.99), saving you a grand total of $56 if you purchase a whole year. With three-month subscriptions of Game Pass Ultimate regularly discounted to around $45 at places like Target and Amazon, this deal is the best price we’ve seen in some time.

During the first few minutes of playing as Hades 2’s Melinoë, players encounter sights like a bubbling cauldron, the silhouette of a pointed witch’s hat, and the glowing lines of a summoning circle. Between the new gameplay and the story, Hades 2 goes all in on the dark magic — and that’s one of the biggest differences between it and its predecessor, Hades.

does a lot of work to set up a climactic conclusion to the remake trilogy, but there's one key regard in which it's making the next game's job harder. Splitting one classic into three games is a tall order, even if the original packed more story into its relatively efficient runtime than many RPGs twice the length manage to tell. 's approach to expanding the story tries a lot of different things, some of which prove significantly more successful than others.

Four months into 2024 and there have already been a lot of big games we'll continue to talk about and play throughout the rest of the year and beyond. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is unquestionably one of those games, not only because its story and side content comfortably provide players with more than 100 hours of things to do, but because its characters are some of the most beloved in all of gaming. Bring Arts models of some of those characters have now found their way onto Amazon, and the wait you'll have for them to arrive further demonstrates we'll be talking about Rebirth for a while yet.

A trio of Destiny 2 expansions have been made free to play in the run-up to The Final Shape’s release next month.

Final Fantasy Brave Exvius: War of the Visions will soon drop a new update and it looks kind of grim for global players. It’s not a biggie (or is it?) but the devs are taking a new turn with the Final Fantasy BE: WOTV English voice-over. They’re ending all English VOs for the global version of Final Fantasy BE: WOTV.

CD Projekt will release its official mod editor for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt this month.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth used all of the additional power offered by the PlayStation 5 to improve the game's frame rate.

Strands is a brand new daily puzzle from the New York Times. A trickier take on the classic word search, you’ll need a keen eye to solve this puzzle.

Gaming is filled with jargon that sounds like complete nonsense to anyone not totally plugged into the space. Terms like Metroidvania and rouguelike/roguelite are rough enough, but when we abbreviate terms, it can be impossible to figure out what they mean, even when said in context. DPS is a term first used mainly in MMORPGs, but it has found its way into other genres like hero shooters and single-player RPGs, among others. It can, and is, applied to just about every game involving combat of some sort. If you’ve heard people complaining about their DPS, or see it listed as part of a weapon’s stats, here’s what it all means.

Blizzard revealed nearly all the Hero Talent Trees including 6 new ones with the launch of the War Within Alpha. Our Arcane Mage guide writer, Porom, offers an early review of the Sunfury Hero Talents that offer an incredible aesthetic making the mage feel like a general in Kael'thas' army but also complements the recent Arcane rework.

Final Fantasy 14’s servers are currently under a worldwide DDoS attack that’s preventing players from logging into Square Enix’s MMORPG.

After a bit of a bumpy landing on PC, it looks like No Rest for the Wicked is finally finding its feet. The early access action-RPG launched with notable performance problems that developers Moon Studios promised they’d address, starting with several hotfixes over the last few weeks that managed to claw back some frames. The game’s first big patch goes a step further, seemingly boosting the game’s performance to a degree that its minimum and recommended hardware specs have been lowered as a result.

I have a Dungeons & Dragons curse. You won’t find it in the Player’s Handbook or on any list of spells, and yet it’s demonstrably real. Gather round, listeners, and hear my woeful tale. (I have a lute now. I’m plucking it. It’s too late; the tavern door is locked behind you.)

I have some scoop about a new RPG that you’ll love if you’re into urban fantasy tales, and have a penchant for prose. Or if you love werewolves for that matter. Kyle Marquis’s latest interactive novel, Werewolf: The Apocalypse – The Book of Hungry Names, is out on Android.

Dragon's Dogma 2 is about to get some impressive modded new Vocations, including a new take on one of the Vocations that did not return from the first entry in the series.

The upcoming 2024 revision to the will feature multiple psionic-powered subclasses, but these largely strip away the unique feeling of having psychics in a heroic fantasy game. Including both psychic powers and magical spells may seem like an odd break from genre convention, but this pairing has been present since the very earliest editions of the game. In worlds full of gods and wizards, psionics still felt strange, and this was by design. Funneling the entire concept of psychic powers into a select few subclasses robs psionics of its weirdness, making less interesting overall.

"Nosophobia" is the fear of disease, "bathophobia" is the fear of depths, and "devlogphobia" is a mixture of nosophobia and bathophobia produced by reading Steam posts about Norland, a systems-rich and plague-ridden medieval colony sim from developers Long Jaunt and Hooded Horse, publisher of Manor Lords. Norland is sort of The Sims meets Dwarf Fortress meets RimWorld. It gives you charge of several new kingdoms that have sprouted from the corpse of a fallen Empire and are now feuding for supremacy.

From Software boss Hidetaka Miyazaki has ruled out making a second Elden Ring expansion, but left the door open for a potential sequel.

Carceri is a fizzy and kaleidoscopic, first-person "chaotic Art-toy" in which you explore/hallucinate an island resort that's also a concentration camp ("carceri" is Italian for prison) for sentient computer programs. Out sometime in May, it's the work of James Beech - who describes himself as "an on-again, off-again AAA veteran" with credits on Metroid Prime 4, Remnant: From the Ashes, and Crysis 3. The environments take hefty influence from Carceri d'invenzione, a series of prints created in the 18th century by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, whose name has become a byword for impossible spaces.

FF7 Rebirth sales in the US on PlayStation 5 are lower than those of Final Fantasy XVI in the same time period.

Blizzard has posted a substantial breakdown of the Demonology Warlock changes in today's War Within Alpha build going over Demonic Cores, Resources, and Cooldowns!

You might assume that Indika will be dour, given that it's a story-driven game about a nun in a grey, cold, alternative Russia. Then you watch its trailers and find surrealist imagery, genre-hopping, and a bleak sense of humour are part of its arsenal, and suddenly it seems, to me, irresistible.

Final Fantasy 16 released on the 22nd June 2023, offering up an action-heavy RPG that greatly deviates from the more traditional blueprints of past Final Fantasy titles. Initially, Square Enix had no plans to expand the game with DLC, but several months after its launch, in September 2023, the publisher confirmed that it was working on not one, but two expansions, both of which would be part of an upcoming 'Expansion Pass'. What a twist!

A new Dragon's Dogma 2 mod that is now available for download for free brings significant image quality improvements for all textures without actually altering any of them.

Delicious in Dungeon, one of our favorite anime of the year so far, is based on an acclaimed manga created by Ryōko Kui in 2014 — but as the mangaka tells it, the origins of the concept date back even further.

Square Enix appears to have cancelled or at least rescoped the size of multiple unannounced games as a result of an internal review into its development process, with a «content disposal» loss totalling 22.1 billion yen, or $141 million. As a result of the investigation, the publisher shall «revise the Group’s approach to the development of high-definition (HD) games with the intention of being more selective and focused in the allocation of development resources».

Square Enix has revealed the bugs stopping Final Fantasy XVI players from starting New Game+ and unlocking specific Trophies will be fixed in a PS5 patch slated to arrive at the end of next week. When beginning a second playthrough and deciding to skip the prologue, some users are not seeing essential party members spawn, making it impossible to push the main quest forward. The publisher came up with a workaround, but the PS5 update landing on 9th May 2024 should fix it for good.

There's been a lot of discussion surrounding the commercial success of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. The PS5 exclusive launched on the 29th February, but despite garnering near universal acclaim from critics, questions were quickly raised regarding sales numbers, with Square Enix yet to provide any official statistics (which usually isn't a great sign).

Sony is removing Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition from the PlayStation Plus Game Catalogue this month.

Given the unrelenting thirst inspired by Stellar Blade's Eve, you might not be surprised to learn that director Hyung-Tae Kim is a big fan of some of gaming's most notable sex symbols, including Final Fantasy 7's Tifa and Nier: Automata's 2B. But you might not have expected Eve to have been inspired by the lead of a 21-year-old GameCube cult classic.

It's natural that everyone's been a little antsy about Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth lately. For weeks, analysts and fans have been discussing the game's potential underperformance compared to its predecessor, Remake, amid worries this might impact the future of the 7 Remake trilogy. Today, we got a little more data on what's really going on here - though the jury is still out on how publisher Square Enix is looking at the numbers.

The former NPD Group (now named “Circana”) has released its full North American sales data for March, and it seems like it was an up-and-down month for the industry. Players spent $4.9 billion on games, additional content, and hardware in March, up 4 percent year-on-year. This increase came from mobile and software spending, as hardware sales were down 31 percent year-on-year with PS5 #1 in terms of unit and dollar sales, Switch #2 in terms of unit sales, and Xbox Series X/S #2 in terms of dollar sales.

Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda movie won’t be as heavy on the motion capture as director Wes Ball once envisioned.

The latest update for Tower Of Fantasy April update has arrived! After a brief maintenance period, servers are back online, and you can access a wealth of new content.

Square Enix has announced that it “expects to recognize extraordinary losses” for the fiscal year that ended on March 31, attributing them as “content abandonment losses”. The Japanese company has, in other words, cancelled undisclosed projects, owing to which it will incur losses amounting to ¥22.1 billion (roughly $140.4 million).

Trailered last night, Centum is "an unreliable narrative-driven adventure where everything may be a lie", according to the Steam page. Does the suggestion that everything may be a lie also apply to the suggestion itself? Is this an unreliable Steam page? Perhaps the game is secretly a cheerful Playmobile platformer with plentiful ledge-assist, rather than a horrible point-and-clicker that starts you off in a dark cell with a bunch of obviously cursed artefacts, and gets steadily worse.

Square Enix has revised its approach to PC and console game development, and absorbed ¥22.1 billion (approx $140.9 million) in what it calls “content abandonment losses.”

Classic RPGs Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VII have been referenced as inspirations behind a new galaxy-spanning RPG set for release on PS5, PS4 later this year. Beyond Galaxyland, from individual developer Sam Enright, is «an all-new take on the beloved RPG adventures of old» with an active turn-based combat system, platforming, and puzzle solving from the 2.5D perspective. Check out the announcement trailer above.

Beyond Galaxyland has been revealed by developer Sam Enright, and it is due to come out later this year. In Beyond Galaxyland, the main character is Doug, a high schooler, who is transported away from Earth moments before the planet is mysteriously destroyed, and arrives in a galactic zoo called Galaxyland.

Dungeons of Hinterberg’s alpine mix of dungeon-crawling and relationship-tending will be upon us this summer, with the fetching cel-shaded blend of Zelda and Persona now having a fresh release date announcement for July. Before then, though, we’ll all be able to spend a couple of days socialising and monster-slaying in the Alps next month thanks to a public playtest.

If you’re holding out hope for another Ori and the Blind Forest sequel after Will of the Wisps, bad news: it’s probably going to be a while. Developers Moon Studios have said they’re all-in on Soulslike action-RPG No Rest for the Wicked, suggesting that their “magnum opus” will be their focus for up to a decade.

A long time ago, an MMORPG called Game of Thrones: Seven Kingdoms was in development at Bigpoint and Artplant, who previously made Battlestar Galactica Online. Announced in 2012, it would have been a browser game focused mostly on Player versus Player combat, where players could form their own small houses (guilds, essentially) and align themselves with the Stark, Baratheon, or Lannister great houses. However, the game never saw the light of day.

Square Enix has warned Final Fantasy XVI players that it's aware of a potentially progress-impeding bug, specifically affecting players trying to boot up a New Game+ run. The good news is that the developer is prioritising a fix and will push out a patch once a resolution is found.

The scarecrow-inspired transmog from The War Within has received some enhancements--a claw and back piece. Previously the set looked a bit autumnal, if benign, but with these additions the set takes on a darker fantasy vibe.

Final Fantasy 14's Yo-Kai Watch event has returned for a second time, allowing players to pick up some unique weapons, mounts, and one of the world's ugliest dogs. It's a great time to start farming FATEs with your fellow players, earn some medals, and get yourself some cool swag - or it would be if Blue Mages weren't making things ten times harder than they have to be.

The various worlds making up have both inspired and been inspired by a massive library of excellent book series, with the best of them leaving an inarguable legacy on the franchise. Part of the joy of the world's most popular tabletop roleplaying game is the ability to forge uniqueunofficial settings in , creating a new story from scratch. But for many, staying within the familiar territory of pre-established lore is a much more comfortable prospect, and plenty of book series delve into these fantasy worlds.

Tucked away in the corner of this year's Day Of The Devs at GDC I discovered a lavish, strangely unattended action-RPG, in which austerely beautiful young women in elaborate skirts kick the bejazus out of each other on fields of whirling flowers. That game was Aikode, the work of Spanish solo developer Ace.

The European Medieval period has always been an era of fascination, especially in games. This age has inspired some of the best low fantasy romps and strategy games that have endured as classics for generations. With that in mind, we’ve made a list of our own, with samplings throughout the ages that may inspire you to pick up a title or two if you’re in want of something truly, medieval-y, immersive.

Wowhead's The War Within Talent Calculator is now updated for the latest Alpha build including Fire Mage, Windwalker Monk, Warlock, Fel-Scarred DH and more! Plan, theorycraft, and share your talent builds including all Hero specs! Wowhead's The War Within Talent Calculator

Despite being a very good game, Granblue Fantasy: Relink got a bit lost in what was a chaotic release schedule earlier this year — but developer Cygames will be hoping that the action RPG's first big update will get people's attention. Launching on the 26th April (that's tomorrow at the time of writing), patch 1.2.0 adds a bunch of new stuff to the game.

Atlus' upcoming RPG, Metaphor: ReFantazio, seems built around systems that wouldn't feel out of place in the developer's Persona series. It's got turn-based battles that hinge on striking enemy weaknesses, it's got warrior spirits that you can summon in combat, and — most crucially to this article — it's got a bonding system where you can hang out with key characters, learning more about them in the process.

The Tribeca Festival returns this June, and it will once again feature official games selections and even a game-focused panel. This year, the selections are all promising indie games, including a successor to 2021’s excellent Before Your Eyes. The show will also feature a talk on the making of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.

Today the Tribeca Festival, which recognizes achievement across various entertainment mediums, announced their games lineup for 2024.

I watched the trailer for Tales of the Shire yesterday, and instantly decided it wasn’t going to be my thing. You know what it is? Exactly the kind of gaming adaptations we need.

A new Dragon's Dogma 2 patch is now live on PC and consoles, introducing some gameplay tweaks and fixes.

Okay, who remembers Project Awakening? First revealed way back in September 2018 — for PS4 — it's an action RPG from Granblue Fantasy developer Cygames. That initial trailer, which debuted during a PlayStation showcase, garnered a lot of attention because of how next-gen it looked. In fact, it looked so impressive that many people questioned its authenticity.

Blizzard is currently recruiting a dozen members of staff to work on an unannounced game.

Dark Souls, one of the most widely acclaimed video games of the last two decades - perhaps all time - and progenitor of one of modern video gaming’s most influential and oft-copied-rarely-bettered genres, the Soulslike, would’ve been a better game had it launched into early access. That’s the suggestion from the head of Ori and the Blind Forest developers Moon Studios in the wake of launching their own early access Soulslike, No Rest For The Wicked.

On paper, the PlayStation 5 Pro's 45% faster GPU should be enough to fix issues in GPU-limited scenarios, such as in games aggressively using dynamic resolution scaling.

Stellar Blade director Kim Hyung-tae was inspired to start making games by PS1 classics like Ridge Racer and Final Fantasy after being "too poor" to afford a gaming console as a child.

Final Fantasy 16 players are aghast as the action RPG's new chapter features what can only be described as 'dummy thicc Tonberries.'

League of Legends pro player Lu ‘Leyan’ Jue has been suspended for two matches and fined $6000 for his on-stream behavior.

Bungie has released a new trailer for Destiny 2: The Final Shape.

The promotion of the Tower of Fantasy and Spy x Family kicks off on April 30th. Here’s the intel: Watch the Spy x Family movie trailer (specific locations to be confirmed). Enter a social media giveaway to win movie tickets and Spy x Family merchandise.

Elden Ring’s story is often attributed to two people: FromSoftware president and creative director Hidetaka Miyazaki, and A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin. This is only partially true. While Miyazaki is credited as the creative mind behind its dense lore and high-fantasy setting, a game as big as Elden Ring had a huge team working on it, and a lot of its story was crafted through gameplay and environmental world-building rather than through a more traditional narrative. Plus, there’s the whole Martin thing.

No Rest for the Wicked launched into early access as a bit of a fixer-upper, even by the standards of its 'buy now, play finished game later' model. The good news is that the grim action-RPG’s wonky performance is already being straightened out, with two of its three hotfixes thus far delivering a noticeable improvements, even on older graphics cards.