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7 months ago
Feature: Something fishy going on
It’s impossible not to be struck by the sheer aesthetic splendour of Fountainhead Palace. The combination of the vivid red of its temple architecture, the turquoise of its lake, and the pale pink of its swirling cherry blossoms. It’s perhaps the most memorable location in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice for this reason alone, but if we dive below the surface, we find more subtle arguments…
11 months ago
Feature: The silent cartographers
We don’t expect much of a typical video game map. As long as it guides us to our destination (and perhaps looks pretty while doing so) most of us won’t waste a second thought on it. And yet, maps can be much more than tools that make our way from A to B a little more convenient. Some games reject the notion of maps as…
1 year ago
Feature: Taking the puzzle game by storm
How Return of the Obra Dinn refreshes the nautical disaster tale
Warning: contains spoilers. When Ernest Shackleton’s ship, the Endurance, was trapped in unyielding ice, it was clear the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition had taken a bad turn. In late 1915, after months of anxious waiting, the sheer pressure of the ice crushed the most advanced ship of its time “like a nutshell”, according to captain Frank Worsley. Stranded on the ice for ten months, the entire…
Feature: Norse of a different colour
The allure of Viking fantasies, and the games that cherry-pick them
The Vikings have long ago invaded the coasts of pop culture on their dragon-headed longships and carved out their own Danelaw in the realm of video games. In recent years, they’ve grown even bolder, taking over most genres from RTS to RPG, classic point and click adventure to action, with an utter disregard towards distinctions between AAA and indie. They’ve settled in Hellblade and Frostrune,…
2 years ago
Feature: Reality is not what it seems
Kingdom Come Deliverance’s quest for historical accuracy is a fool’s errand
Authenticity. Accuracy. Realism. If you’ve been following the debates around Kingdom Come: Deliverance, you'll have seen these words a lot, as well as others, like representation, racism and diversity. In the wake its release, there’s been a lot of talk about whether or not Warhorse Studios had been able to make good on their ambitions to deliver an RPG grounded in historical reality. It’s a…
Feature: Scroll for more
Imagine you’re on a quest for a powerful artefact in Divinity: Original Sin 2. Perhaps you conversed with a ghost who pointed you in the right direction. Now you see demons close by. You cast Chameleon Cloak to try to sneak by, but alas! you are spotted. The fight begins. You draw your weapons, inscribed with runes. You weave protective spells. You summon your cat…
Feature: Holy foreskins and medicinal balls
Bizarre bestiaries and weird relics: what fantasy can learn from history
Swords. Castles. Peasants, knights, shieldmaidens, queens, kings, princes, bandits and men at arms. Games often draw on certain aspects of medieval history, whether they're using it to add colour and flavour to a limb-lopping action game, swords 'n' sorcery platformer or fantasy RPG. But there's more to the period than grim warriors, noble (and cruel) kings, and dank dungeons. A few games, including The Witcher…
