Guides

Unlocking all the secrets in video games

I have extensive experience writing various guides, ranging from technical how-tos to in-depth explainers to story analyses and plot breakdowns. 

The Talos Principle 2 Ending Guide

Though The Talos Principle 2 is an excellent puzzle game, it also has a pretty extensive and branching story. As you explore its world, you'll have plenty of opportunities to interact with other characters, offer them your opinions, and even post on social media. The whole game concerns some philosophical debates about the future of humanity and its place in the world, and your conversation choices about those debates will shape parts of the narrative as you advance.

There are three main ending

The Talos Principle 2 Sphinx Statue Guide - All Sphinx Puzzles And Stars

The Talos Principle 2 has its fair share of secrets, and chief among them are the special extra puzzles hiding in each of the game's 12 main areas. Snoop around a big and you'll find large statues, or monuments, to each of the game's three spectral characters: Pandora, Prometheus, or the Sphinx. Figuring out how to solve these riddles rewards you with stars, which are essential to unlocking some of the game's most interesting secrets.

The Sphinx's puzzles aren't quite as tough as those tied to

The Talos Principle 2 Pandora Statue Guide - All Pandora Puzzles And Stars

There are a whole lot of puzzles in The Talos Principle 2, and some of them aren't obvious. Hidden in each of the game's 12 main areas are two statues that carry puzzles of their own, each depicting either Pandora, Prometheus, or the Sphinx. Solving these side puzzles unlock additional secrets in the game, but they can be tough to master--some are among the most difficult The Talos Principle 2 has to offer.

Of all the secret puzzles, the Pandora statues tend to be the most vexing. They require

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

What Happens In Elden Ring? The Game's Story, Part 1: Limgrave

The story of Elden Ring is expansive and often confusing. There's a lot of history and backstory to uncover as you journey through the Lands Between, and just getting a sense of the local politics and religion is an important aspect of figuring out what the hell you're trying to do. It's also easy to miss what's going on around you, especially because so much of the game is optional. If you're not inspecting every corner, reading every item description, or talking to every character you meet sev

Control Is Filled With Details About Alan Wake's Fate

The Federal Bureau of Control specializes in investigating, containing, and covering up the existence of Altered World Events, or AWEs. These are basically moments when other dimensions creep into our own, with varying supernatural results. The document "Bright Falls AWE" found in Control show that the Bureau responded to the events of Alan Wake, but arrived after the events of the game. During Alan Wake, Sheriff Sarah Breaker tells Wake's literary agent, Barry Wheeler, to make some calls and gi

Elden Ring Story Guide: Here's The Lore Of The Lands Between

The story of Elden Ring is a broad, confusing one--like the Elden Ring itself, it's fractured, made up of tiny pieces as its different characters serve a variety of masters and enact their own plans. Even as you play it, you might find yourself lost as you interact with other Tarnished and hunt down demigods in an attempt to become Elden Lord. Heck, it's not even especially clear most of the time what terms like "Elden Lord" and "Elden Ring" even mean.

We've been poring through Elden Ring's lor

FF7 Remake Chapter 9 Dress Guide: How To Unlock Every Dress In Wall Market

Note: This post contains light spoilers for Chapter 9 of Final Fantasy 7 Remake. We recommend you play through the chapter first before reading this guide.

When Cloud and Aerith venture to Wall Market, they spend a lot of time getting to know the folks who live and work there, all in an effort to get close to Don Corneo and rescue Tifa. That requires getting through Corneo's audition by earning different dresses. While you'll unlock your first three dresses through the course of the story, ther

Destiny 2 Duality Dungeon Guide - How To Beat Every Encounter And Find All Collectibles

Duality brings a new set of mechanics to Destiny 2, taking players into the mind of Calus deep within the Leviathan. The exiled emperor has a whole lot of psychological baggage, and in order to understand what he's trying to accomplish in Season of the Haunted, you and your fireteam are going to need to execute a "mind heist" and unlock his inner secrets.

The dungeon is not only tough, with three boss fight encounters along the way that drop rewards, but it's also riddled with secrets. Containe

Nightmare Containment Lockdown Protocol Guide: How To Find Extra Loot In Destiny 2's Leviathan

The new Nightmare Containment activity is just one of the things to find on the newly arrived Derelict Leviathan in Destiny 2. Calus's ship is full of secrets, one of which being the hidden treasure chests that are only accessible when you complete a Tier 3 Nightmare Containment. You might have noticed a message about "lockdown protocols lifted" at the close of the event--that's your cue to try to find some secrets that'll reward you with extra loot.

The lockdown protocol refers to locked doors

Destiny 2: How To Get Austringer, Beloved, And Calus Minitool - Opulent Weapons Guide

With the Season of the Haunted, Destiny 2 is bringing back a few excellent guns from the past: weapons from the Season of Opulence released way back in 2019. You can find weapons like the Austringer hand cannon and the Beloved sniper rifle aboard the Derelict Leviathan--guns that were first made available in the Menagerie activity, and are even better now. But it's not entirely clear how you can earn them.

As with other seasons, you can get Opulent weapons either from seasonal reward drops or b

Destiny 2 Nightmare Containment Guide: How To Complete The Season Of The Haunted Activity

Destiny 2's Season of the Haunted sends players back to the Leviathan, a huge Cabal ship that's the home of exiled Emperor Calus and the former location of Destiny 2 vanilla's Leviathan raid. The Leviathan is the home to the new seasonal activity, Nightmare Containment, which tasks players with using a special device to capture the evil Nightmare creatures we first saw introduced in the Shadowkeep expansion. Containment has a lot of moving pieces and requirements you'll need to understand to max

Destiny 2 The Title SMG Guide: How To Get The Guardian Games Gun Fast

The Guardian Games are back in Destiny 2, pitting players against one another in a friendly competition to see which of the three character classes will reign supreme. Whether the bragging rights interest you or not, you'll want to pick up the Guardian Games' new submachine gun, The Title. This slick little gun carries some of the best perks in the class, along with a new Origin Trait just for the Guardian Games called Classy Contender.

If you lean into the Guardian Games, you'll likely get mul

Destiny 2: Vow Of The Disciple Raid Guide

The Vow of the Disciple raid brings a whole lot of new challenges and secrets to Destiny 2: The Witch Queen. The raid isn't the game's biggest, but it is substantial, putting you through your paces in puzzle-solving, team communication, and boss-fighting. There's a lot to uncover within this raid, though, and it's very easy to miss some of its best components--like the free Deepsight Resonance guns you can earn with every run, provided you know where to look for them.

We've scoured every inch o

Destiny 2: The Witch Queen Memory Alembic Guide: How To Find Qualichor And Finish The Secret Mission

Explore Savathun's throne world in Destiny 2: The Witch Queen for a while and you might stumble upon some special, glowing Hive enemies, or investigate the curious corpse of a dead Scorn chieftain. These interactions, if you complete them, will eventually lead you to a special secret mission called Memory Alembic. Completing it is necessary to unlock all the secrets in the throne world and complete the Witch Queen's Triumph seal, but you'll have to puzzle out how to go about it on your own.

Or,

Destiny 2 Osteo Striga Guide: How To Get The Witch Queen Deluxe Edition SMG

Paying for season passes and expansions in Destiny 2 has traditionally earned you a nice piece of gear right out of the gate: an Exotic weapon. These unique guns always have strange properties and usually mince up enemies without issue. Among the preorder bonuses for the new Witch Queen expansion was Osteo Striga, an Exotic submachine gun. However, unlike Grand Overture, the Exotic machine gun you get with the season pass for the Season of the Risen that unlocks as soon as you start playing, you

Horizon Forbidden West War Totem Guide: How To Find The God Of War Collectibles

The thing about big first-party PlayStation games is that they love to acknowledge each other, giving fans some fun callbacks and Easter eggs to hunt down within their games. Horizon Forbidden West follows in the footsteps of Ghost of Tsushima, which threw in a Horizon Forbidden West armor set to go with the big PlayStation Easter eggs in its Iki Island expansion. In Horizon, there are some extremely tough-to-find PlayStation collectibles, in this case referencing Sony Santa Monica's God of War

Horizon Forbidden West Metal Flowers Guide: How To Cut Vines And Access Hidden Areas

Early in Horizon Forbidden West, you'll find yourself closed off from reaching certain places by tangles of strange green vines. The vines always flow from a nearby machine--a boxy piece of metal that your Focus refers to as a "metal flower." You'll find yourself running into these metal flowers in a few places in the open world without the ability to deal with them, or to get the loot and secrets they consistently hide.

Fortunately, there's a solution to clearing the vines of Horizon Forbidden

Horizon Forbidden West Greenshine Guide: Where To Find It And How To Use It

Crafting weapons, ammo, and equipment upgrades requires you to gather a lot of materials in Horizon Forbidden West, but one of the rarer and more important ones is Greenshine. This glowing green mineral is required to upgrade some of the best weapons and armor you can get in the game, taking them from "pretty good" to "absolutely excellent." Trouble is, finding Greenshine isn't exactly easy, and you're going to want a lot of the rare mineral.

Finding Greenshine can be tough, but luckily, there

Horizon Forbidden West Mounts Guide - How To Unlock Them All

Fighting machines is cool in Horizon Forbidden West, but hacking them to make them your allies is cooler--and hacking them to make them your pets is the best, especially since the game is enormous. While you can eventually turn any machine into a teammate for a brief period with Aloy's Override ability, a handful of machines can be ridden as mounts, making it a lot easier to get around the game world.

Forbidden West adds more mounts than were available in the last game, Horizon Zero Dawn, and a

Horizon Forbidden West Cauldrons Guide: Locations And Machine Overrides

Some of the best side activities you can embark upon in Horizon Forbidden West are the Cauldrons. These techno-heavy, dungeon-like bases are the factories that create the deadly robot animals that populate the Horizon games. If you can get into one and find its core, however, you can unlock the opportunity to hack those machines, temporarily turning them into allies in battle, or even mounts you can ride around the game world to get to places more quickly.

There are a handful of Cauldrons in Fo