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With Halloween looming, it’s the perfect time to play horror and suspense games. If you don’t have anything spooky in your backlog to play, you’re in luck. Observer and Alan Wake’s American Nightmare are the latest free games at the Epic Games Store. Both games are available to claim now and will be free until October 24. Make sure to grab them before Layers of Fear: Masterpiece Edition and Q.U.B.E. 2 take their place next week.
All you need is a free Epic account to get each week’s free offerings at the Epic Games Store. After claiming a game, you’ll have it in your library forever.
Observer
Created by Polish developer Bloober Team, psychological horror game Observer released in 2017. Set in the studio’s native Poland in 2084, Observer’s protagonist is a detective that solves cases by hacking into the minds of others to augment his vision. In our Observer review, critic David Rayfield praised the storytelling, sound design, and cyberpunk world, calling it “a haunting and remarkable achievement.” Rayfield gave Observer a superb 9/10 score.
If you’ve been playing Control and want to check out more of Remedy’s games, Alan Wake’s American Nightmare is well worth playing. A spin-off set in the same universe as the original Alan Wake, American Nightmare is set up as an episode of the fictional TV show Night Springs that Alan watches in the first game. In American Nightmare, Alan goes on a journey that’s full of twists and turns to defeat his evil doppelgänger Mr. Scratch. Though not exactly frightening, the spin-off has great, suspenseful writing that carried it to a 7/10 in our Alan Wake’s American Nightmare review.
While you should definitely grab these two great games (for free!), you should also check out Fanatical’s large sale on Steam games that is currently live.
There’s no lack of options when it comes to headsets for the PlayStation 4, but the official PlayStation Gold Wireless headphones are an easy choice for a whole bunch of reasons, one of which is because they happen to be on sale right now.
This is the color based on the limited edition 500 Million Edition PS4 line that sold out in the blink of an eye. This is, in my opinion, the best-looking PS4 headset out there. Since it’s designed for PlayStation, they make the perfect headset for use with PSVR. Plus there’s an option for wired use, too, so they aren’t single-use.
The wait time on these is 1-3 weeks, because they’re obviously a pretty popular item (especially at this price).
Leon, the champion of the Galar region, stands before a cheering crowd and Charizard appears in all its Gen 1 glory before panning up to the title screen. Pokemon Sword and Shield have a grand opening with enough excitement and electricity to make me want to cheer too. After all, this is the first mainline Pokemon title to ever appear on a console. Expectations are high and its unique introduction sets the stage for what’s to come.
Of course, you’re no champion yet. Cut to the lavish garden outside your quaint house and it’s clear you have a long way to go before anyone’s cheering your name. I played the first 90 minutes of Pokemon Shield. Even though my adventure was barely beginning, I already felt like I had an interesting number of ways to spend my time and each option was as enticing as the last. From challenging and rewarding Max Raid Battles to new ways to train and bond with my Pokemon, Pokemon Sword and Shield are set up to be the most ambitious game in the series.
As you may know by now, Pokemon Sword and Shield take place in a new region called Galar, which is clearly inspired by the United Kingdom. There is a Big Ben-like clock tower, charming countryside and cottages, trains and old-looking brick buildings in the cities, and soccer/football-inspired stadiums for battling Pokemon. We recently played a 90-minute demo of Sword and Shield, and we can confirm that on top of all the other similarities, the characters have British accents.
Well, to be precise, they use British slang, since dialogue in Sword and Shield is text-only. But it is very clearly British. Your mom, a mainstay of every Pokemon game ever? She’s called Mum. Your rival describes someone as being “pants with directions.” Another character refers to a Pokemon as a “little chap.” The list goes on. And, at least from an American perspective, it’s pretty on-point. It remains to be seen whether my British colleagues will agree.
The demo showcased the first few areas of Sword and Shield, including the Wild Area. As we’ve seen in trailers thus far, the countryside is as idyllic as a British postcard, with wild Wooloo–a lovely little sheep-like Pokemon–roaming around causing all sorts of trouble. Compared to previous Pokemon games, the vistas are especially lovely, and the recent 3D art style of the series makes the transition to Switch beautifully from what we played.
During the demo, we also learned that the Pokemon-catching tutorial is skippable for the first time in almost 20 years. On top of that, choosing your starter is more emotional than we’re used to. We’ll know more once Pokemon Sword and Shield come to Nintendo Switch on November 15.
At the beginning of every Pokemon game, you can expect two things: a man who loves the power of science and technology, and a person who teaches you the basics of catching Pokemon. The science guy is definitely present in Pokemon Sword and Shield, but the Pokemon-catching tutorial is, for the first time since Pokemon Crystal in 2000, not mandatory.
During a demo of Sword and Shield, I managed to skip the tutorial on accident. After choosing your starter Pokemon (Grookey, Scorbunny, or Sobble), you naturally have to stop by your house to talk to your mum. She gives you some pocket money to start you off, but what she doesn’t tell you is that she slipped five Poke Balls in, too. I caught some Pokemon on my way to meet my rival, Hop, and his brother Leon, the Galar Champion and the person I was told would teach me how to catch Pokemon. But that didn’t happen when I caught up to them, and Leon instead made a comment about how I’d already captured some Pokemon before moving on to the next topic of conversation.
It’s a small thing, but this change–provided it’s not some weird fluke created in the demo environment–makes starting a new Pokemon game just a little bit smoother for those of us who’ve been playing the games for years and know the ropes. Compared to Sun and Moon, which have a notoriously long tutorial sequence, Sword and Shield get you into the action relatively quickly–before my 90 demo minutes were up, I’d already made it to the Wild Area, a large, open space that’s home to powerful Pokemon and the new Raid Battles. (I didn’t get to wander around the Wild Area much, though, so I’m still very curious about the secrets it holds.)
Pokemon Sword and Shield release for Nintendo Switch on November 15. Be sure to read our pre-order guide if you’re interested in getting the games on day one.
Almost every Pokemon game has given you a choice of one of three starter Pokemon with whom you’d set out on your adventure, and almost every Pokemon game gives one of the two Pokemon you didn’t choose to your predesignated rival. Choosing a starter Pokemon is always a big deal, but Pokemon Sword and Shield bring a lot more spectacle to it than previous games–so much so that the process of picking a starter, something I’ve always done based on a mix of aesthetic and mechanical preferences, actually made me kind of emotional (in a good way).
I recently played 90 minutes of Sword and Shield at a demo event. From the start, the newest Pokemon games have more flair than the previous ones; the opening sequence, which was once just the professor briefly talking about what Pokemon are, is now closer to a cinematic cutscene, befitting the mainline games’ transition to Switch. That same upgraded cutscene treatment extends to choosing your starter, and it gives Grookey, Scorbunny, and Sobble the chance to really show off their personalities before you make a decision.
Like in previous Sword and Shield trailers, the pick-your-starter cutscene shows a curious Grookey hitting things with its stick, an energetic Scorbunny hopping about, and a clearly anxious Sobble being adorably pathetic. I had already narrowed down my choice to either Grookey or Sobble (sorry, Scorbunny fans), and seeing them being cute didn’t really help me make a decision. The three Pokemon then stand around waiting to be chosen, and I felt like I had to pick Sobble, because the poor baby just needs a friend. When my rival, Hop, picked Scorbunny, I was surprised–older Pokemon games taught me that the rival always picks the Pokemon with the type advantage over yours, and while that hasn’t been true for a while, I still wasn’t expecting Hop to take the high road.
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So that was all fine, but it left Grookey standing alone, absolutely devastated, because it didn’t get picked. I was very upset. Older Pokemon games also taught me that the third starter just sits in its ball for all eternity, which, again, is no longer true–Professor Kukui in Sun and Moon will take the third starter, for example–but I was, again, not expecting anyone to actually take the third Pokemon. When the Galar Champion, who brought us the starters in the first place, took Grookey, I was incredibly relieved. It was an absolute emotional rollercoaster.
After all this, I remain undecided about my starter Pokemon in Sword and Shield. If I’m honest, I’ll need to see their final forms before I can really make the call. But I could barely stand to see Grookey briefly upset, and I’m afraid to see how Sobble reacts if it doesn’t get chosen–so maybe I’ll have to go with Sobble after all.
Pokemon Sword and Shield release for Nintendo Switch on November 15. During this demo session, we also learned that the characters have British “accents” and that you can skip a key part of the tutorial for the first time in almost 20 years. Be sure to check out our Sword and Shield pre-order guide if you’re looking to get the games at launch.
When Fortnite imploded and then rebirthed from the ashes this week with a new map, the world went crazy. But it turns out that same map leaked in September – and no one cared.
The fresh island introduced in Fortnite Chapter 2 was posted to the r/fortnitecompetitive Reddit by someone claiming to be friends with an Epic employee. According to Eurogamer, the post has since been deleted but contained location names, a Battle Bus route, and a clear picture of the map’s layout.
Unfortunately the internet believed it to be a hoax, and the post was downvoted into obscurity. Suspicious Redditors branded it “fake news” – why would Fortnite nuke the iconic map it had used for ten seasons? The “leaked” map could easily have been yet another drawing from an overactive fan’s imagination.
We all love our mouse and keyboard, but it’s not ideal for all situations. For those of you need a gamepad, so here’s our list of the best PC gaming controllers.
For decades, one of the major goals for many video game RPG studios has been to capture the freedom of tabletop role playing games. Without the walls of developer-created player spaces, pre-written dialogue, and inflexible rules, tabletop adventuring is so freeform that it’s practically expressive art. Within a tabletop RPG’s imaginary world, you can be whoever you want to be.
The latest milestone in this pursuit has been laid by the most unlikely of studios: a tiny team called ZA/UM. It has just released the critically acclaimed Disco Elysium, a murder mystery detective game that beautifully captures the freedom of roleplay by presenting a world that feels as if it has few rules.
