El Paso Elsewhere

Digital Trends This was a year of low lows and high highs for Xbox. On one hand, Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard acquisition faced a whole lot of scrutiny and Bethesda’s Redfall was a bust. On the other, Xbox Game Studios finally started to release first-party games more consistently in 2023, some long-awaited games finally released, and the Activision Blizzard deal eventually went through. Microsoft now looks to keep that momentum going into 2024 as it integrates the Call of Duty publisher into its organization…

Digital Trends You could have spent the entirety of 2023 keeping up with new games and you still wouldn’t have played a fraction of the excellent games released this year. That’s especially true for the independent scene, which produced some fantastic works of art in-between gargantuan releases like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. I can’t blame anyone for missing a few — I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface myself — but you shouldn’t leave 2023 without a handful of indies in your backlog. Some of…

After months of anticipation, The Game Awards 2023 nominees were all revealed on Monday. While there will always be debates over what should and shouldn’t have made the cut, there is one pretty glaring omission for me. This year’s show snubbed one of the best indie games of the year: Strange Scaffold’s El Paso, Elsewhere. Released for PC and Xbox on September 26, this indie is a narrative-focused action game inspired by games like Max Payne. While it looks like a thrilling shooter that’ll make you feel like a badass…

Ever since it was first announced, I’ve been completely entranced by El Paso, Elsewhere. Developed by Strange Scaffold, the indie shooter looks like the developers of Max Payne were asked to create a Constatine game, and then someone made a PS1 demake of the result. It’s a wild and weird action game that sees its trenchcoat-wearing hero gunning down monsters during slow-motion dives. It’s a premise that sells itself once you watch a trailer of it. Going into my first hands-on demo with it at this year’s Game…