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GameSpot •

Actually, The Legend Of Zelda Movie Shouldn't Include Link At All

As soon as the news of a movie adaptation of The Legend of Zelda broke, there was one question that swept the discourse: Should series protagonist Link speak? A lot of people are very passionate about the possibility of the movie putting a voice in the head of the perennially near-silent protagonist, with many claiming that he should not, in fact, say anything.

And one can't help but think of the "Well excuuuuse me, Princess!" cartoon adaptation from 1989 that filled the Link void with "attitud
GameSpot •

Alan Wake 2 Is About The Pain Of Realizing You Might Not Be Good Enough

Captivating as Alan Wake 2 often is, it can occasionally get a bit ... cringey. But not in the wild, over-the-top moments where cheese and kitsch meet murderous intent (you know the scene I mean); Alan Wake 2's funny, weird moments channel the best of stories such as Twin Peaks, leveraging an absurdity and surrealism that actually makes the story more human. It's when Alan Wake 2 takes itself seriously that it starts to become a little hard to stomach.
GameSpot •

Remedy Uses Alan Wake 2 To Let Us Know It Still Cares About Quantum Break

Warning: This article contains some vague spoilers for Alan Wake 2, but you might consider them spoilers nonetheless. There are also a bunch of spoilers for Quantum Break.

I admit to being a Quantum Break Enjoyer, despite Remedy's time travel-slash-TV show action game receiving a mixed reaction from just about everyone else on its release (GameSpot awarded it a 6 at the time). Flawed though it might be, Quantum Break still delivers on the things I like about Remedy in general. It's a game with
GameSpot •

In Alan Wake 2, Remedy Refreshes The Multiverse Idea By Making It A Villain

Remedy's approach to the multiverse manages to stand apart from that of other media, because for Remedy, the multiverse isn't just a way to cash in on well-liked characters or to draw fanbases together. In the RCU, the multiverse is an oppressive force that now looms over all these stories. It spawns dark forces and corrupts and twists people, or pulls them out of their lives and traps them in nightmarish new realities. For Remedy, the multiverse isn't a setting or a gimmick--it's a villain.
GameSpot •

Alan Wake 2 Ending Explained - Everything You Need To Know And Where Things Might Go From Here

Alan Wake 2 presents a twisting story, one that's both a nebulous mystery and actively altered by the otherworldly power of the supernatural Dark Place and the writings of Alan Wake himself. Especially in the final moments, things can get a bit confusing, as Saga Anderson's and Alan's tales intersect and the two execute a plan to stop the villainous Mr. Scratch.

Here's what happened in the ending, what it implies about the future, and everything you might have missed in the disjointed plot of A
GameSpot •

Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandora Could Be A New Spin On Ubisoft Open-World Games

Open-world games often benefit from putting players in the middle of wars and revolutions, fought across lush and fascinating worlds, where an evil force has taken control of nearly everything and must be pushed back inch by inch. Ubisoft often utilizes this formula for its open-world games, which usually feature huge and gorgeous worlds where you're fighting a powerful, entrenched military enemy. The harsh but beautiful alien moon of Pandora, the setting of the Avatar films, is a near-perfect f
GameSpot •

10 Outlandish Lies Of P 2 Sequel Ideas That You Wouldn't Expect But, Admit It, They're Great

In hindsight, it's so obvious. Ebenezer Scrooge is assaulted by ghosts for his past sins and hauled away to the spirit world to account for them. Put a Threaded Cane in that guy's hand and the Souls-like basically makes itself. Imagine searching the world for the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future in order to murder them. Imagine a horrific and huge Tiny Tim waiting for a boss fight at Bob Cratchit's house, mutated by the vicious disease that afflicts him as he succumbs to a fate he c
GameSpot •

Reality Check: What Is The Real State Of Blockchain And NFTs In Video Games?

When developer Bungie added the Forsaken expansion to Destiny 2, it also brought several new guns to its live-service experience. One of those weapons, a grenade launcher called The Mountaintop, upended Destiny 2's competitive landscape. It was devastating in fights and became a mainstay of many players' arsenals--and it was incredibly tough to earn, which made it feel like a significant power boost as well as a badge of honor to wield.

Two years later, Bungie "sunset" a number of older weapons
GameSpot •

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty Is A Faster, More Aggressive Souls-Like

With Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, developer Team Ninja feels like it's riffing on a riff. The action game studio has already given its spin to the Souls-like genre with the Nioh games. In Wo Long, Team Ninja once again borrows some of the underpinnings of From Software's lauded series, but takes a faster, more Ninja Gaiden-like approach. It's some of the same ideas but with a different feel, which will challenge action game fans in a lot of different ways.

GameSpot got an early look at Wo Long's pl
GameSpot •

Crisis Core Reunion Is A More Faithful Remake Than You Might Expect--For Better And Worse

Final Fantasy VII is an enduring classic, and the success of Square Enix's 1997 RPG also led to several spin-offs. Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII was the best of them, but if you didn't buy Sony's first handheld gaming console, the PlayStation Portable, you missed it. Some 15 years after its release, you'll get another chance to experience Crisis Core with its remade version, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion, and it appears that it'll be very similar to the PSP original--only better.

Game
GameSpot •

Forspoken's Speed And Simplicity Make You A Spidey-Like Sorcerer

If you imagine Spider-Man slinging a variety of deadly magic spells rather than webs, you have a good idea of what it's like to play Forspoken. Square Enix's upcoming open-world action game puts equal emphasis on quick movement and all manner of magical bombardments to create an experience that encourages you to think on your feet and defeat enemies with overwhelming force.

Square Enix recently gave GameSpot a chance to play about an hour of Forspoken in a curated demo. We didn't play the actua
GameSpot •

Five Years Of Destiny 2's Dramatic, Transformational Changes

This promo image, circa 1973, is somehow for the same Destiny game we're playing today Destiny 2 is now five years old, having been released on September 6, 2017. As players who have been with Destiny since its original beta, that's both difficult and easy to fathom. So much has happened both narratively and gameplay-wise, and yet you can still hop into the Cosmodrome and take in the sights of those satellite dishes and beautiful skybox that tantalized us at the launch of the original game. And
GameSpot •

How Event Horizon And Other Horror Films Inspired Destiny 2's Season Of The Haunted

Destiny 2's Season of the Haunted lives up to its name. Set largely in a new location, the Derelict Leviathan, the season has given the game a distinctive, sci-fi-horror atmosphere as part of both its gameplay and its story. What players experienced aboard the Leviathan is a bigger, more involved version of what Bungie first created in one of its very best levels. The Exotic mission Presage sent players to a ghost ship and told a story of madness and murder--and now we've seen what it prophesied
GameSpot •

Rollerdrome Is Like Slapping Roller Skates On Max Payne

Coming off the critical acclaim of skateboarding side-scroller OlliOlli World, you might ask, where could Roll7 go from here? The developer has a solid mastery of "flow state" games that are all about hitting jumps, performing tricks, and chaining sick moves together to log massive scores. What do you bring to that kind of game to create something new?

In the case of Rollerdrome, you make what might be the most video game decision possible: take the mix of skating, tricks, and high scores, and
GameSpot •

Saints Row's Open World Is Chaotically Messy, And I Dig It

A lot has changed in the open-world genre since the Saints Row series came to its ridiculous conclusion amid an alien invasion almost 10 years ago. And with the reboot of the franchise, Deep Silver Volition seems to be looking back to that time, before open-world games were flooded with RPG elements and crafting systems. The new Saints Row feels a lot like a game from a different era, but with a bunch of additions that make it more than just a nostalgic return to the past.

I played about four h
GameSpot •

The Best (And Most Ridiculously Fun) Destiny 2 Exotics

One of the new Exotics to come with the Witch Queen expansion is Parasite, possibly the funniest and goofiest gun in the game. It comes at the end of a long quest in which you hang out with one of the sentient worm parasites that live inside Hive enemies and give them their power. The gun you eventually make out of the worm is a grenade launcher that shoots other worms, which flop through the air and then explode in a shower of goo. A worm cannon is great on its own--not only is it visually goof
GameSpot •

Exoprimal Hands-On Preview

We played about three hours of Exoprimal during its recent closed network test, which gave a sense of some of its multiplayer modes and the mech suit character classes you can use within them. While matches involve fighting off waves of prehistoric creatures, your actual goal is to beat another team of exosuit-wearing dino hunters.

Though we only played for a few hours and saw only a small portion of what Exoprimal has to offer, overall, the game offered a lot of goofy, over-the-top fun in this
GameSpot •

In Metal: Hellsinger, Death Is Your Instrument

First-person shooter combat can often be said to have a sort of "rhythm," with the explosive bassy blasts of rounds leaving firearms and the weighty ka-chunk of reloading adding its own percussion to action movie-like experiences. Metal: Hellsinger makes that idea its central tenet, specifically building a fast-paced arena shooter around rhythm game sensibilities. But while it might seem like shooters naturally lend themselves to a rhythm game concept, making Metal: Hellsinger work as one, while
GameSpot •

All The Story You Need To Know To Understand Destiny 2 Season Of The Haunted

Destiny 2's Season of the Haunted is working through a compelling, character-driven story, one that dives into the personal traumas of some of the game's major characters as they try to deal with the new threat presented by Calus and the Derelict Leviathan. Like the best of Destiny 2's recent stories, it relies heavily on player knowledge from past seasons and expansions.

Generally, this is great, because with Bungie building on events of the recent past, Destiny 2 feels like a world that is ch
GameSpot •

Here's Everything You Can Play Right Now From Nintendo's Direct Mini

June's Nintendo Direct Mini showcase highlighted a bunch of games coming to the Switch in the near future. As is often the case, though, the Big N also had a few surprises for viewers, with lots of stuff announced during the showcase that you can play with no waiting. Those things included both full game releases and demos that will pop up today following the short presentation.

Here's a rundown of everything from the Nintendo Direct Mini you can play right now.

The massive upcoming expansion
GameSpot •

Lego Brawls' Delightful Chaotic Sets It Apart From Smash Bros.

Lego Brawls looks like it belongs among the resurgence of side-scrolling, cartoonish fighting games that have recently cropped up to join the ranks of Nintendo's beloved Super Smash Bros. series. But expecting it to be much of a fighting game, with all the complexity that entails, would be a mistake. Lego Brawls is more accurately described as the items side of a Smash Bros. fight--a whole lot of unpredictable, intense chaos, with a fairly low skill ceiling and a high degree of approachability.
GameSpot •

Elden Ring Story Explained: A Complete Guide To What You're Doing In The Game

Elden Ring is a vast game that takes you through an enormous world brimming with history and lore, as well as tiny stories playing out all around you. But then there's your story: the things you actually do in the game. You're something called a Tarnished, and you're told you have to get something called the Elden Ring, and that you want to become something called Elden Lord. There are people you have to kill to do that. Have fun.

The reasons you're doing the things you're doing are opaque, the
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Iron Banter Column

A weekly column covering all aspects of Destiny 2, published at GameSpot.

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