Game design

There’s no shortage of stuff to purchase with real money in Honkai: Star Rail. As a gacha game, much of the best gear is hidden behind a paywall, meaning you’ll need to crack open your wallet to get your hands on today’s most powerful items. That holds true for Light Cones, Honkai: Star Rail‘s form of weapons, but there are at least a few Light Cones you can access for free. Of course, “free” isn’t really free — you’ll still need to put in the hours and grind away to unlock these Light Cones. But at least you won’t…

CRPGs are notorious for being very lengthy investments, and Baldur's Gate 3 is no exception. Even in its early access days, players were spending hundreds of hours on just the first act of the game, though just doing the main story would be significantly less. Some people may spend hours just in the character creator choosing their race and speccing out their class, while others may dive in and only do the main quests. In a game this large, your playtime will vary quite a bit, but no matter how much, or little, of a…

Nintendo When I reviewed Splatoon 3 in 2022, I found myself impressed by what a robust suite of content it offered at launch. It had a solid single-player campaign, great competitive multiplayer, a killer PVE mode in Salmon Run, and even a fun card minigame. All of those disparate modes meshed together perfectly to make Splatoon 3 the kind of game you could pick away at for hundreds of hours. And with its latest DLC, called Side Order, that’s more true than ever. The narrative-focused roguelite brings an entirely new…

After so many years, we’ve all just about given up hope for a sequel to Starcraft 2, so we might as well have as much fun with this entry as possible. While there is significant depth on the multiplayer and even some great expansions, dedicated players have no doubt hit a wall in terms of how much fun they can have through normal means. That’s when triggering some handy cheats can breathe some new life into this master class of an RTS. We’ve gathered all the necessary resources to build you the definitive list of…

Penny's Big Breakaway MSRP $30.00 “Penny's Big Breakaway isn't one of the genre's greats, but it's a very unique and fun 3D platformer.” Pros Unique control scheme works Clever yo-yo mechanics Encourages gameplay mastery Cons Unmemorable characters Bad boss fights…

Cheat codes have somewhat become a thing of the past in modern gaming, with mods coming in to take their place. Most Bethesda games, such as Starfield and Fallout 4, enjoy plenty of mod support, but also have plenty of ways you can tweak the game using some old-fashioned cheats and console commands. Even as big as Fallout 4 is, it has shown its age at this point, so why not try out a few cheats to keep things exciting in the wasteland? Here are all the cheats and console commands you can use, and how to activate…

Arrowhead Games Helldivers 2 is a PlayStation console exclusive, so it’s not available on Xbox Series X or S. Not only has Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer voiced his disappointment in this, but so have many Helldivers 2 players, who are asking for more backup in the fight against the Terminids and Automatons. If you don’t own a PS5 or a good enough gaming PC to run Helldivers 2, you might be feeling a bit left out. But if you’re in the mood for a sci-fi or co-op game, there are plenty of entertaining alternate…

Gearbox Entertainment When video game developers and publishers constantly hunt for their own live service white whale, many of them fail. Even fewer of those get second chances like Gigantic is about to. Originally developed by Motiga and published by Perfect World Entertainment, Gigantic was a hero-based multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game that was heavily marketed in the mid-2010s. Unfortunately, it failed to garner enough attention or make enough money for its developer and publisher for a variety of…

“Helldivers 2 is one of the most entertaining co-op games you can get on PS5.” Pros Intense combat Stratagem system It's a blast with friends Solid live-service progression systems Cons Lack of story content Matchmaking issues Failing to extract and losing 40 minutes…

Things have changed a lot between our universe and the one in Helldivers 2 where Super Earth rules the galaxy. Chief among them, aside from the militaristic society you find yourself in, are all the new forms of currency. You may not enjoy making money in real life, but at least in Helldivers 2, you can have a blast running missions with your friends to fill your pockets and start unlocking new cosmetics, weapons, and Boosters. The two main forms of income you will be dealing with are Warbonds and Super Credits, but…