The early access version of Dreams has been out for nearly a week now. You can read my continuing thoughts on the game's systems and creation suite here, but I wanted to take some time outside of that piece to talk about why, after spending a lot of hours with Dreams, I think it's a significant game, one that could have a real-world impact on people and in the industry - if all the pieces fall into place.

Dreams is not the first of its ilk, a suite of tools packaged as a game dedicated to letting players create. The Movies, Project Spark, Little Big Planet and a host of other games serve as Dreams' predecessors. However, Media Molecule's latest has over seven years of development invested in it, Sony's funding, and a unique structure that gameifies the social media subscriber structure of Twitter and YouTube.

That social structure, called DreamSurfing, lets players search for content that creators in Dreams have made (video games, levels, movies, and so on) to enjoy. Creators build followings based on their creations (already users like Brantore, X_Disarmed_Pro, and Lidas are gaining attention from the community), and consumers have a wild world of content available to them at the press of a button. Indeed, Dreams' strongest feature is the sense of discovery. 

Back in 2000, I used to lose hours of my time to finding and installing total conversion mods for the original Half-Life. There was a sense of exhilaration as I scoured page after page of Geocities fan sites, downloading the likes of Neil Manke's USS Darkstar and They Hunger, Scientist Slaughterhouse, and (of course) Counterstrike. There was a universal sense of creation and celebration of creation in that community. These modifications were the design of people in their free-time, often done for no other purpose than to create things that people would enjoy and the pride that goes along with that.

In Dreams, I feel that same sense of joy, both as a consumer and creator. I don't mean that in a nostalgic sense, either, but instead as a living-in-the-moment reaction. In its current state, Dreams feels like a Wild West. There are fascinating (sometimes broken) snippets of games in there, including Doom-inspired first-person shooters, haunting exploration games, and goofy platformers. All of these are creations that took weeks. Some of them are rough in terms of how they handle or look, but they function as great proofs of concept from people who are still learning the toolset. I get excited just thinking about what a seasoned and coordinated team of people could make with Dreams a few months from now. Fully-functional games? Gripping movies? The tools are there and people have demonstrated they're able and willing to use them to create impressive works. Now all Dreams' community needs is some time to grow as creators, which his also part of discovery.

Learning how to create in Dreams isn't a laborious task. Creating levels or actions in other engines can be a dull exercise in trial and error, often a matter of tweaking code until the action you want performed is in the right language. Trial and error is still a part of creation in Dreams, but the ability to walk around your world, flipping through gameplay and development seamlessly, as well as the visualization of the tools at your disposal makes everything feel like a puzzle. Instead of reading lines upon lines of code in search for an error or a formula that needs tweaking, Dreams encourages its aspiring developers to think about what gadgets to use and how to organize them. Do you need a non-playable character to go from point A to B? You can animate them and record the animation to play at will during a gameplay session so they go to the point, or you can make a teleporter for them. There are some minor hiccups with glitches and such, but that's to be expected in early access for something as ambitious as this. The options at your disposal are many, and many of them intersect. Finding the necessary elements to make the thing you want to happen in your game isn't a chore but instead the slow-but-sure discovery that you are capable of creating the things that you have always wanted to make; that game design isn't some magic language understood only by those who have spent years learning it.

Dreams' underlying philosophy is that game design is for everyone. For years, the pathway to working as a game designer has been advertised as such: You go to school to earn a degree, move to an expensive city  to work a stressful job and participate in a rat race that probably doesn't speak to your talents, just to live out what people say is a dream job. However, what I like about Dreams is that its existence shouts that there is another way – Dreams is a manifesto as much as it is a toolset. During our cover story trip, creative director Mark Healey said, "It’s easier now to get into the games industry with universities and such, but not everyone has the opportunity to go to university for whatever reasons. So I just really like that someone who’s managed to get their hands on a PlayStation 4 and a copy of Dreams has the potential make the next massive triple-A game or really exciting film."

Having seen Dreams' success as a toolset and content-sharing platform in the past week, I've come to believe that the toolset is indeed powerful enough to live up to Healey's dreams. However, as with most live-services and creation tools, the success of Dreams depends almost solely upon the community of creators and consumers. Will people stick with Dreams long enough for the toolset to produce engaging and incredible games? Will they lose interest? Will they be intimidated by the tools and give up? A lot can happen in the next six months, a time that Dreams' place in the current landscape of games will be largely determined.

Despite my habitual cynicism, I find myself hopeful about Dreams' future. I believe that if you give people a toolset such as this and make it as accessible as possible (as Media Molecule has), that creators will be drawn to it and will find ways to make incredible things. Media Molecule has also expressed interest in finding some way to put Dreams' creations on the store, so that could possibly give developers some monetary compensation as well eventually. Admittedly perhaps I cling to hopes about Dreams' future given the recent rampage of bleak news about industry ethics, where development studios abruptly close their doors without even offering employees severance, where profitable companies fire literally hundreds of people while their CEOs rake in millions of dollars. In the pursuit of the bottom line, the giants of the gaming industry continue to mistreat the talented creative minds who make their business possible. A detailed toolset like Dreams puts more development power in the hands of creators at all skill levels, hopefully engendering a passion in budding designers while also making detailed creation possible for people who are talented with such tools.

For more on Dreams, check out our cover story on the game here.

Go to exotic locations. Embrace the countryside. Behold the beautiful wildlife. Kill a lot of people. These are the pillars of Ubisoft's beloved open-world shooter series Far Cry, and now that our editors have had enough time to play through the latest game, we've put these murderous tourism simulators through their paces to figure out which one is the top dog.

Here are all the Far Cry games, from worst to best.

10. Far Cry Vengeance (Wii – 2006)

The only critically reviled game of the bunch, Vengeance was a Wii-exclusive remake of Far Cry: Instincts, and it just wasn't good at all. Like a number of Wii ports of other console games, Vengeance had interesting controls, but ugly visuals and dumb A.I. resulted in what's far and away the worst way to play Far Cry.

9. Far Cry: Instincts (Xbox – 2005)

An Xbox-exclusive remake of the original Far Cry, Instincts had to make a number of compromises to get the classic sandbox shooter to run on the console. Chief among them was trimming down the sandbox elements, making the game much more linear than the PC version. The result was a game that feels like its most notable element has been compromised.

8. Far Cry (PC – 2004)

The original Far Cry game, developed by Crytek and published by Ubisoft, is radically different than what the series is today. The first game focused on a soldier named Jack Carver as he searches for a journalist on a mysterious island filled with mercenaries and bloodthirsty mutants born from evil experiments. Essentially a sandbox version of Half-Life, Far Cry blew everyone's minds back in the day. Not only was the non-scripted, unpredictable enemy A.I. stunning but the openness of every level gave you plenty of tactical room to work with when you squared off against them.  Want to go into a mercenary camp quietly, hacking soldiers apart with your machete? That's viable, as is sniping enemies from afar, or rolling into the camp with a jeep, running over as many enemies as possible before the bullets fly. This all might sound ho-hum now, but back in 2004 it brought a new dimension to first-person shooters.

It's a shame that the original is so hard to go back to now, especially given just how well the series has evolved under Ubisoft's guidance.

7. Far Cry 2 (PS3, Xbox 360, PC – 2008)

The black sheep of the family, beloved by just as many as those who hate it. Nearly 10 years later there are still loud pockets of fans (like me) who rally around the game's divisive malaria and weapons-jamming systems as making the player feel powerless in a genre that isn't renowned for doing so. However, muddy graphics, so-so gunplay, and infinitely respawning enemies make Ubisoft's first developmental outing with one of its biggest franchises difficult to return to given just how enjoyable later entries are. Still, Far Cry 2's narrative is bold and daring, and will likely stand the test of time even if other elements don't.

For more on Far Cry 2, here's our review.

6. Far Cry 5 (PS4, Xbox One, PC – 2018)

The latest isn't exactly the greatest, but it's still a grand old time if you're willing to look past a toothless story and questionable co-op progression mechanics. Joseph Seed and his weirdo family are rather forgettable, especially when held up next to Vaas or Pagan Min, but the emergent adventures that you can make during your own explorations are among the best Far Cry has to offer. Also, nailing a dude in the face with a flying shovel never gets old.

You can read our review of Far Cry 5 here.

5. Far Cry New Dawn (PS4, Xbox One, PC – 2019)

Much more than a color palate swap, New Dawn continued Far Cry 5's story and managed to turn lemons into some pretty solid lemonade! By focusing on Far Cry's core mechanics (overtaking camps, earning powerful weapons) and emphasizing the series' fantastic progression system while also adding a dash of Mad Max, New Dawn emerged as one of the most enjoyable entries in the series even if it lacked the provocative elements of other games. 

4. Far Cry Primal (PS4, Xbox One, PC – 2016)

Primal was an important game for the series. After more than a decade of running and gunning around the world, Far Cry was starting to feel a bit samey. Primal, which went back in time and cast you as a caveman fighting for survival, was just the dose of adrenaline it needed. The combat, which traded firearms for spears and stone axes, was meaty and fun, as were the fanged companions you could call to your aid when raiding enemy camps.

If you want to read our review of Far Cry Primal, click here.
 

3. Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon (PS3, Xbox 360, PC – 2013)

For all its bluster about telling gripping narratives, Far Cry is often very, very, very stupid – but in a good way. Blood Dragon is the height of Far Cry's zaniness. More a neon assemblage of '80s movie references than a story, Blood Dragon throws Terminator, RoboCop, Tron, and Predator in a blender to create something utterly ridiculous and fun.

For our review of Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon, head here.

2. Far Cry 4 (PS4, Xbox One, PC – 2014)

The India/Nepal-inspired setting of Kryat is probably the prettiest setting of the series and rampaging through massive gates while riding an elephant and firing an assault rifle is amazing. For those who like Far Cry's attempts to tell a gripping story, 4 (our review here) is probably the strongest entry in that regard, too. Ajay Ghale's pilgrimage to bury his mother's ashes makes him a particularly sympathetic protagonist, and the story the game crafts is messy but always engaging, as Ghale gets caught up in a divided revolution against Pagan Min, Ghale's would-be father figure and the most memorable villain in the series except for, well, you know who....

1. Far Cry 3 (PS3, Xbox 360, PC – 2013)

Did I ever tell you what the definition of "insanity" is? With that simple question, demented pirate Vaas became one of the most memorable villains in video games due to his psychotic unpredictability as well as his eloquence. His question is also a pretty good summation of Far Cry as a series, too, with each game upping the ante to try and give you an incredible, adrenaline-pumping experience while also attempting (with mixed success) to make you hold your virtual protagonist accountable for all the terrible things he does. It's a strange narrative structure, one with built-in foundational flaws, but it's also engaging in a way that other series aren't.

Even if 4 and 5 have improved minor gameplay elements since, 3 is the game that ironed out the issues that 2 had to create engaging firefights as well as fantastic open-world survival systems. From setting marijuana fields on fire to torturing your friends to save their lives, Far Cry 3 goes all out in its attempt to balance zany action-packed combat with subversive storytelling. There is no other Far Cry game that captures the successes and inherent flaws in the series as well as 3 does, making the third game the best in this bloody brawl.

You can read our review of Far Cry 3 here.

We updated this article to include New Dawn in the ranking (4/24)

Days Gone's open world can be harsh. Ammo and supplies are scarce, your favorite melee weapon might break at an inopportune time, and your trusty bike only has so much gas in it. But a little planning can make the difference between being torn to shreds by a horde of Freakers and getting out alive.

Read on for our tips on how to survive in Days Gone with our handy guide, and check out our review.

SKILLS & CAMPS

NERO Sites Are Invaluable
When you get the chance to clear a NERO research site or checkpoint, make it a priority because these sites have a special white crate containing a serum injector that lets you permanently upgrade a stat of your choice: health, stamina, or focus.

Stamina is important because it's used in dodging and when you run away from encounters, and focus slows down time during combat after you unlock the focus skill (more on that later). The value of extra health is self-explanatory.

Before you grab a site's serum, be sure to cut the loudspeakers at the top of the NERO trailers and the guard outposts. To open the trailer with the serum, the site's power must first be restored with some gasoline, which you can always find nearby. Once the power's on, a pre-recorded emergency message will start playing that attracts every zombie in the area. Therefore, it's imperative to disable the loudspeakers by cutting their cords before you enter the trailers. Follow the power lines to make sure you get them all – you don't need to create a disturbance that attracts a Freaker horde. If you miss one, your best bet to shut it up quickly is shooting it from afar.

Spend Skill Points Wisely
Deacon levels up by his actions in the world (killing, hunting, completing missions, etc.), which grants him skill points. These can be put in three categories: Melee, Ranged, and Survival. Each of these has five tiers, with three skills in each tier. 

Where do you start? First, you should get Melee/Tier 1/Field Repairs and Ranged/Tier 1/Focused Shot. The former lets you repair your melee weapon with scrap you find, and the latter lets you slow down time to line up your shots. We didn't put many skill points in the Survival category at first because we didn't find these skills immediately necessary, but the third Survival tier has the Catch Your Breath skill, which reduces cooldown on stamina recovery. You're going to use stamina because it's useful in getting distance from you and the fast Freakers, so you will eventually want this upgrade.

The rub is that to unlock the next tier of skills, you have to buy at least two skills of the tier you're on. At some point, you're going to have to spend points on skills you might not be in love with just to unlock the higher tiers and more desirable skills.

In the meantime, to help your stamina, we recommend Melee/Tier 2/Busted Lip, which regenerates stamina for every melee kill. 

Once you unlock Ranged/Tier 3 you should get On the Move, which lets you reload a ranged weapon while sprinting. It's a great and useful skill when a horde is chasing you.

Upgrade Your Guns Immediately 
The guns are awful when you start out in Days Gone. When you uncover Ada Tucker’s camp, this is your first chance to acquire better weaponry. Run missions for the camp as much as you can so you gain enough trust to unlock the higher tiers of weaponry. Not only do most of these guns let you carry more ammo, they improve accuracy a great deal. 

Always Help Strangers 
Strangers are an invaluable resource for earning camp trust or straight up hard cash for upgrades. If you see someone on the side of the road surrounded by Freakers, help them out and direct them to the survivor camp where more resources will do you the biggest favor.

YOUR RIDE

Nitrous For NERO
To reach certain NERO Research sites and get their important serum injectors, you may have to jump over chasms. This can only be done if your bike's engine is upgraded and you have nitrous.

Position Your Bike For A Quick Getaway
You never know when s--- is going to hit the fan, so it’s best to be prepared for a quick getaway, especially when you take on a horde. Having your bike ready by pointing it in the right direction to speed up your escape can be the difference between life and death.

Always Fuel Up Before Leaving
Days Gone doesn’t have an overwhelming amount of side activities, but it has enough that you don’t want to be low on gas and get stranded if you decide to take a detour. You especially don't want to run out if there are zombies on your tail. Before leaving camps or mission locations, either gas up at the bike mechanic or find a red gasoline canister. If you end up stranded, look for abandoned tow trucks – they often have gasoline canisters.

To save on gas and avoid making noise that could attract unwanted guests, we recommend coasting down hills when you can.

Burn Nests By Day
Freakers are nocturnal, so when you want to destroy their nests, do so during the day so it's easier to get close enough to them for lobbing a Molotov. When you do, more zombies pour out of the enflamed nest than at night, but that's when you just hop on your bike for a quick getaway.

CRAFTING

Make The Most Of Your Inventory 
If you come across objects like scrap or kerosene to scavenge, but you can't pick them up because you're already full up, craft items for your inventory so you can then collect the objects in the world.

Don’t Sweat Harvesting 
Days Gone has a limited amount of resources, and most of the time scavenging doesn’t really move the meter. You are almost always flush with crafting materials given the low inventory caps. Harvesting meat, Freaker ears, or plants only earn you a small amount of trust and money from the camps.

COMBAT

Prepare For Horde Showdowns
Days Gone has several large hordes of Freakers that can immediately overwhelm you if you carelessly attract their attention. Before engaging these dangerous groups, make sure you have upgraded your weaponry/health/stamina and charted the environment. Do you see explosive barrels? Try to guide the horde that direction so you can take out a large chunk at once with well timed bullets. Also utilize choke points in the environment to bunch them up, slow them down, and make the vanguard an easier target.

Don’t Be Afraid To Run
Sometimes things don’t go as planned and the Freakers start to appear in numbers. If you are low on ammo, health, or supplies, don’t be afraid to run! You can always come back better equipped to clean up the mess. 

Mark Enemies Before Attacking Camps
Like Far Cry, using binoculars to mark enemies in hostile camps is a smart move, especially if you prefer using stealth as your primary method of attack. When characters are marked you can see their alert states, which helps you know when you are about to draw the attention of the entire camp.

Keep Melee Weapons In Good Condition
Melee weapons are very fragile in Days Gone, and being caught without one can spell disaster, since shooting enemies up close with assault rifles or pistols can be tricky when they are coming en masse. Don’t be afraid to sacrifice some scrap to keep these weapons in good condition, because once they hit zero percent they cannot be put back together again.

Dodge & Attack
A good first move in a melee attack is a defensive one. Hit R1 to dodge, which not only lets you avoid your enemy's attack, but also closes the distance to them to set you up your combo attack. Dodging is even a viable move for large enemies like bears or Breakers, and it will also dampen the flames you if you catch fire.

Turn On Your Flashlight 
It's not much, but in the darkness your flashlight will momentarily stun Freakers, giving you an extra second to strike.

Don't Forget Your Attractors
It's easy to reach for your guns or grenades when a fight is imminent, but your attractors – sound-emitting throwables that attract zombies – are also valuable. They can lead zombies elsewhere as well as congregate them so you can molotov them in a group. There's even an attractor bomb you can craft that does it all for you. Similarly, it can also be useful to kill lone zombies who've wandered from the pack and use them as bait. Other zombies may feed on their remains if they come across them, allowing you to pick them off from afar with a bow or a gun with a silencer.

Down In The Dumpster
Zombies aren't very smart, so they can easily be outwitted. If you see a dumpster you can get in it and the zombies will eventually lose interest and wander off – even if they're chasing you.

Since its inception, Mortal Kombat has carried with it a sense of brutality. Seeing its share of controversy and censorship, the franchise has always been associated with video game violence, but one segment of its formula stands out as the most bombastic and iconic: the fatality.

Serving as the way to put an exclamation point on a victory, fatalities take Mortal Kombat’s trademark blood and gore and crank it to the next level: seeing the defeated character executed as if a gladiator in the arena. The “Finish Him!” command given to players prior to the window to perform a fatality has become synonymous with the series itself.

As series co-creator Ed Boon tells us, however, the franchise’s signature finishing moves were inspired by another series. “We didn’t have fatalities in mind when we started the first Mortal Kombat game,” he says. “Oddly, the idea for fatalities came from the dizzy feature that was in another popular fighting game. [Boon wouldn’t specify, but likely means Capcom’s pioneering Street Fighter series – Ed.] I personally loved getting my opponent dizzy because it was really fun getting a free hit that you knew they couldn’t block.”

It may seem tame by today's standards, but sequences such as this shocked players, parents, and politicians in the early 1990s.

Though Boon loved being able to land an unblockable attack, he was less fond of it happening in the middle of a match. “I hated it when someone would get me dizzy, because I knew there was nothing I could do and I had to just sit there and take my punishment,” he says. “So, we decided to move that portion of the game to the end of the match, where the winner was already determined. That’s why the loser goes into a ‘dizzy’ animation and the winner gets a free hit at the end. We had that in the game for quite some time when we just thought, ‘Wouldn't it be cool if you could do something really devastating to the other guy as the final blow?’ That's how fatalities were born.”

Originally, the idea was only going to be applied to Shang Tsung. The final boss was set to decapitate those who fell to him, but series co-creators Ed Boon and John Tobias decided that it would be better if players could perform these life-ending actions themselves.

Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon

Despite the cool factor of the fatalities, the team decided to keep their existence more of a secret than other parts of the game. “We purposefully didn't document how to execute the move, which would add another layer of mystery and intrigue to it,” Boon says. “People would have to discover and share how to perform them. This was part of the magic of fatalities. They were exciting, cool, over-the-top, and most people didn't know how to execute them.”

As the series has added more characters, the team has had to push the boundaries and get more creative.

The decision not to document the moves seemed to worry Tobias. “At the time, we thought these button and joystick combinations were going to be so hard that nobody would ever figure them out,” he said in Steven L. Kent’s The Ultimate History Video Games.

Once the idea for fatalities was in place, the team needed to design these punishing finishing moves for each character. Through much of the series’ history, character fatalities were drawn out by Boon as stick figures using pen and paper. Though that creative process has remained similar at its heart – now Boon uses a tablet that allows him to drag and reposition his drawn stick figures – the rest of the process has matured alongside the series.

“The first Mortal Kombat game only had seven characters, so it only had seven fatalities,” Boon explains. “We weren't sure exactly what we had, so there was no official process of making them at the time. It was pretty much somebody coming up with an idea and then, if we liked it, we started putting it into the game. A very unofficial process.”

Fatalities have continued to one-up those that came before them. With each successive entry, Boon and his team work to make the fatalities more involved and creative. This is evident in the newer entries of the franchise like Mortal Kombat X and 11.

“They are much more elaborate now, last longer, and involve a much bigger production to create,” Boon says. “Because there are so many, the ideas come from numerous people on the team. You never know what crazy sequence some random team member might come up with. We don't care where the idea comes from as long as it’s unique, entertaining, and will get a big reaction out of players.”

Sometimes, in the search to get that big reaction, members of the development team get a bit carried away. Even though the series has obtained some of its fame through the blood its warriors spill, fatality pitch meetings can go too far.

“We have fatality meetings and people come in with sketches or ideas and they’ll stand up and act it out,” Boon told us in 2010. “Somebody will say something dealing with parts of the body that you just don’t want to mutilate, and we’ll say, ‘Come on, you guys! We can’t do better than this?’ We want to be creative with it instead of just blatantly shocking.”

“For the most part, all of us try to come up with the most ridiculous things that we can,” designer Derek Kirtzic says. “In the board room, if one of us seems to cringe at another person’s idea, that’s usually where we figure the line is. Also, we want to make sure things work in beats. We could have a great idea, but we need to have like three beats to each one of the fatalities to help sell it.”

This transition to having a more rhythmic approach wasn’t anything the Mortal Kombat team consciously gravitated toward, but looking at how the moves have evolved since the first game, it’s become an obvious design motif. The “three beat” formula to creating a fatality is now used by some as a loose guide when thinking up new ways for characters to dismember their foes.

"A good example" of the the three beat formula now commonly used in designing fatalities according to Kirtzic.

“Cassie Cage’s bubble gum fatality [in Mortal Kombat X] is a good example,” Kirtzic says. “The first beat is her shooting them in the leg, the second beat is shooting them in the head, and the third beat is putting the bubble gum into the head. It’s just making sure we follow a good sequence and there’s always a good laugh or two that follows with them.”

“Now that we have so many characters with multiple fatalities, the process of creating them is a much bigger task,” Boon explains. “Now, they are put together by combining two or three big moments into one action that seems to flow or make sense. The main ingredient is that those events are something that are over-the-top and provide some amount of entertainment or shock.”

Reptile's ability to spit acid comes in handy with his Mortal Kombat X finisher.

In the early ’90s, blood flying from a freshly punched fighter was enough to shock some and, when combined with the over-the-top nature of the fatalities, Mortal Kombat became a controversial title in the young video game industry. Though games like Mortal Kombat and Night Trap are tame by today’s standards, these titles resulted in congressional hearings that eventually led to the founding of the video game ratings board, the ESRB.

Despite knowing that this could negatively impact violent games like his, Boon was glad the industry was taking action. “Part of us kind of realized that it was something that was becoming necessary because graphics were becoming a little bit more realistic,” he told us in 2010. “All of a sudden you could depict violence and blood and all that. I remember when people were playing the game in the arcades, I was thinking, ‘Wow, this is really a violent game, and young kids can just walk into the arcade and play it.’ There was something that seemed kind of wrong about that.”

Though they are rarer than normal fatalities, stage fatalities have been a part of the series since The Pit stage appeared.

Though the rating system spawned from fatalities had a serious impact on the industry, Boon insists the moves were not meant to be taken as such. “Fatalities were never intended to have a serious tone,” he explains. “We just wanted to show a big spectacle that would shock and entertain the player.”

Other Ways To Finish Them

The fatality has grown and changed over the course of the series’ run, but the core concept remains the same: delivering a satisfying end to a hard-fought battle.

The popularity of fatalities in the first game drove the team to expand the concept in subsequent entries. In 2011, Boon told us that he felt the different kinds of “-alities” got out of control. “It became this expectation of ‘what kind of -alities are we gonna add to every single one?’ That just became such a distraction from the normal fighting that we figured that we obviously can’t add an -ality to every single fight.”

Check out the different kinds of finishing moves the team has experimented with over the years.

Animality

The idea of animalities came from fans that spread false rumors about different kinds of finishing moves in the Mortal Kombat games. The team liked the idea of the winning character turning into an animal to kill their opponent and decided to put animalities in Mortal Kombat 3. Animalities were removed from the series due to the difficulty of animating the transformations using the 3D models that started in Mortal Kombat 4.

Babality

Babalities’ inspiration came from sound programmer Dan “Toasty” Forden, who thought it would be a funny addition. The move sees the victor turning his or her opponent into an infant decked out in miniature versions of their normal clothes. Babalities disappeared after 1996’s Mortal Kombat Trilogy, but returned in 2011’s Mortal Kombat reboot.

Brutality

Brutalities, which first appeared in console versions of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, gave players the option of performing an extra-long button combination instead of a traditional fatality. Though the high difficulty and low payoff made the moveset largely disappear from the franchise shortly after its debut, a revamped version of the brutality returned in Mortal Kombat X and Mortal Kombat 11.

Friendship

In response to the controversy surrounding the fatalities in the first Mortal Kombat, Midway gave players the ability to perform acts of kindness and humorous movements instead of the normal killing blow in Mortal Kombat II. For instance, Kung Lao pulls a bunny out of his hat, Shang Tsung presents a rainbow, and Liu Kang dances.

Hara-Kiri

In Mortal Kombat: Deception, Hara-Kiri moves allowed defeated characters to take their own lives rather than suffering at the hands of their opponents. The moves were implemented to create a race-like mechanic to see which player could perform their finishing move first.

This article originally appeared in the May 2015 issue of Game Informer. It has been updated with minimal timely references to reflect new entries of the series.

Funko pumps out Pop! figures at an alarming rate, and even had one ready for Ashe when she was announced as a new Overwatch character at last year's Blizz Con. In addition to creating a figure for almost every Overwatch hero, Funko has created a variety of retailer exclusive versions that show off different skins. You'll even find some that are themed to Halloween and Christmas.

Ana

Ana (Amazon Exclusive)

Ashe

Bastion

Brigitte

Doomfist

D.Va

D.Va (Blizzard Exclusive)

D.Va (Walmart Exclusive)

D.VA (Second Sculpt)

D.Va (Funko Insider Club/GameStop Exclusive)

Genji

Genji (Target Exclusive)

Hanzo

Junkrat

Junkrat (Box Lunch Exclusive)

Junkrat (Blizzard Exclusive)

Lucio

McCree

McCree (GameStop Exclusive)

Mei

Mei (Hot Topic Exclusive)

Mei (GameStop Exclusive)

Mercy

Mercy (GameStop Exclusive)

Mercy (Blizzard Exclusive)

Moira

Orisa

Orisa (GameStop Exclusive)

Pharah (Blizzard Exclusive)

Pharah (Blizzard Exclusive 2)

Pharah (Emerald City Comic Con Exclusive)

Pharah: Second Sculpt

Pharah: Second Sculpt (Amazon Exclusive)

Reaper

Reaper (Box Lunch Exclusive)

Reaper (Blizzard Exclusive)

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On this page you’ll find a celebration of the best fighting games of all time. Our picks include classics that have stood the test of time as well as recent juggernauts that have earned their place among the elite. We’ve weighted our list towards gameplay and lasting impact more than anything else, putting feature lists and single-player content on the backburner. We’ve included competitors from several different disciplines, but all of them capture that wonderful mix of dedication, competition, and all-out fun that have made the genre so invigorating for decades. 

For this list, we focused mostly on traditional fighting, which means you won’t find wrestling, boxing, mixed martial arts, or any games that are based on real-world sports. With that out of the way, let’s get to the fight.

30. Injustice 2  

Platform: PS4 • Xbox One • PC • iOS • Android / Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment / Developer: NetherRealm Studios / Release: 2017
You might not think NetherRealm’s ultra-violent sensibilities would mix well with DC Comics’ all-ages brands, but the studio behind Mortal Kombat knocked it out of the park with the Injustice series. NetherRealm’s gory finishers morphed into over-the-top superhero slapstick in Injustice 2, but the tone works surprisingly well. While the single-player story wasn’t as strong as the first game, NetherRealm’s combat was more polished, earning Injustice 2 a devoted following on the competitive circuit. Even after hours of knockout superhero brawls, we still giggle with glee when The Flash travels through time to smash Superman’s head against a T. rex. 

29. Persona 4 Arena Ultimax

Platform: PS3 • 360 / Publisher: Atlus / Developer: Arc System Works, Atlus / Release: 2014
Appealing to two different audiences is no easy feat, but Atlus managed to please Persona fans and fighting game enthusiasts with Persona 4 Arena. As a sequel, Ultimax continued the RPG-influenced story and refined the original fighting concepts, resulting in a fascinating fusion. It provided new characters based on a variety of novel gameplay mechanics, and it didn’t skimp on the cutscenes. It sat in an odd middle ground between genres, but Ultimax had something for every kind of fan.

28. Dead or Alive 4  

Platform: 360 / Publisher: Tecmo / Developer: Team Ninja / Release: 2005
In the early months of the Xbox 360’s lifespan, the console was desperate for quality games to show off what the new generation could pull off, and Dead or Alive 4 fit the bill perfectly. One of Dead or Alive’s most mechanically sound entries, the fourth entry featured an in-depth counter system and an impressive level of fluidity in animation. It was also the first in the series to feature online play (a novelty in 2005).

27. BlazBlue: Central Fiction   

Platform: PS4 • Switch • PS3 • PC / Publisher: Aksys Games / Developer: Arc System Works / Release: 2016
The stories in fighting games are frequently viewed as inconsequential, but the complicated tale in BlazBlue is a big part of its appeal. Central Fiction served as the satisfying conclusion to a long-running arc, but it also delivered on the combat front, with 35 playable characters competing in matches that encouraged offensive play. The highly technical bouts reveled in their complexity, making Central Fiction a rewarding entry for seasoned players.

26. The King of Fighters XIII  

Platform: PS3 • 360 • PC • Arcade / Publisher: Atlus / Developer: SNK / Release: 2011
As most fighting-game series were switching to 3D models and simplifying inputs, the King of Fighters series stuck to its retro guns, and for hardcore fans, the results spoke for themselves in XIII. A deluge of chained supers and drive cancels mixed with the series’ staples of multiple jump types and three-man teams to deliver one of the most complex, old-school fighters around. The gorgeous 2D sprites and backgrounds, meanwhile, have aged better than most of their polygonal contemporaries, giving King of Fighters XIII a character unlike anything else out there today.

25. Bushido Blade

Platform: PS1 / Publisher: Square / Developer: Light Weight / Release: 1997
Bushido Blade answered the question, “How long would you last in a real swordfight” with demoralizing clarity: “Probably not very.” The PlayStation game featured duos battling for supremacy, but its high-stakes combat was far removed from what the rest of the fighting-game genre was attempting. Here, battles could be over in a flash the moment combatants let their guard down. Skilled players could parry, roll, and use the terrain to their advantage, creating fights that felt as cinematic as they were brutal. 

24. Skullgirls  

Platform: PS4 • Xbox One • Switch • PS3 • 360 • Vita PC • Mac • Linux • iOS • Android • Arcade / Publisher: Marvelous / Developer: Reverge Labs / Release: 2012
A lot of fighting games are inspired by anime, but few look as much like a cartoon come to life as Skullgirls. Before Dragon Ball FighterZ was even a dream, Reverge Labs’ visually stunning fighter wowed us with chaotic team-based battles and a roster of monstrous hand-drawn fighters. Fortunately, Skullgirls’ complex but approachable combat proved its beauty was more than skin-deep. An extensive tutorial system eased newcomers into advanced tactics, and its fluid action made Skullgirls a hard fighter to put down.

23. Killer Instinct  

Platform: Xbox One •  SNES • Game Boy • Arcade / Publisher: Midway, Nintendo / Developer: Rare / Release: 1994
In an era where “Mortal Kombat versus Street Fighter” arguments still permeated the playground, Rare brought in a newcomer to challenge the status quo. Killer Instinct’s visuals and audio were mind-boggling at the time. Ticking up the combo meter to absurd heights while the boisterous announcer lost his mind over your accomplishments was always satisfying. The original may not hold up as well as its contemporaries, but its impact is undeniable. Plus, the current Killer Instinct is a well-regarded fighter that established a model for updates that many other fighters have followed.

22. Tekken 3  

Platform: PS1 • Arcade / Publisher: Namco / Developer: Namco / Release: 1997
Tekken 3 was one of the most impressive sequels of its time, shaking up the foundation to the point that the roster offered more new faces than returning ones. Namco also refined the combat in a number of key ways, such as limiting jump heights and adding new evasive maneuvers (which include sidestepping). Executing 10-hit combos felt incredible, and mastering Lei Wulong’s numerous fighting stances required a great degree of skill and offered something we didn’t see much of in fighters at the time. The truest testament of its place in history: Tekken 3 still plays great today. 

21. Soulcalibur VI  

Platform: PS4 • Xbox One • PC / Publisher: Bandai Namco Entertainment / Developer: Project Soul, Dimps / Release: 2018
After a brief hiatus following the release of the solid-but-divergent Soulcalibur V, Project Soul delivered a powerful return to form in Soulcalibur VI. A reboot that brought back several fan favorites to make the title familiar to fans who’d lapsed from the series, it also improved combat by choosing components from every other entry. It wasn’t afraid to move forward, either, with a reversal edge technique that changed the pacing of each match and unique character traits that gave its classic characters newfound depth.

20. Mortal Kombat X  

Platform: PS4 • Xbox One • PC • iOS • Android / Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment / Developer: NetherRealm Studios / Release: 2015
We’re still big Mortal Kombat fans, and X shows why. NetherRealm simply never stops revitalizing its classic series, or the genre as a whole. While the gruesome X-ray attacks and absurd fatalities still delivered the gore MK was founded on, a wealth of modes and multiple fighting styles for each character gave fans more ways to compete than ever. The Living Towers mode also added massive doses of replayability, with constantly changing scenarios. Mortal Kombat X’s visceral matches left us wanting more, and with Mortal Kombat 11 out this week, we’re not complaining.

19. Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3  

Platform: PS4 • Xbox One • PS3 • 360 • Vita • PC / Publisher: Capcom / Developer: Capcom, Eighting / Release: 2011
Originally seen as a bit of an oversimplification of Marvel vs. Capcom 2’s freeform combo system, Marvel vs. Capcom 3 proved to be its own formidable beast. Armed with one of the most diverse rosters this side of Smash Bros., players eventually found infinites, glitches, and more ways to extend life-ending combos into the hundreds. With some ingenuity, you could combo practically anything into anything. The imbalance and chaos worked on some strange level, turning into a game that kept players tinkering and spectators riveted for years.

18. Street Fighter Alpha 3  

Platform: PS4 • Xbox One • Switch • PS2 • PS1 • Dreamcast • PSP • GBA • PC • Arcade / Publisher: Capcom / Developer: Capcom / Release: 1998
Arcade-goers expected more of the same from the third iteration in the series, but Street Fighter Alpha 3 shook up Capcom’s tried-and-true formula with the addition of three fighting styles called “isms.” Being able to harness the combat flow of Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors’ Dreams (A-ism), Street Fighter Alpha 2 (V-ism), and Super Street Fighter II Turbo (X-ism) completely shook up the speed, offense, and defense for each character. Alpha 3 also added more defensive strategies with perfect block timing. 

17. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate  

Platform: Switch / Publisher: Nintendo / Developer: Bandai Namco, Sora Ltd. / Release: 2018
Using Ultimate as the subtitle for an entry in a long-running series is dangerous, especially when the Smash Bros. purists already know their personal favorite (yes, you’ll see it later in this list), but the latest Smash Bros. earns the term. Featuring every character that has ever appeared in Smash Bros. and more on the way, Ultimate represents the pinnacle of the series in terms of content. It also nailed its moment-to-moment combat by hewing closer to the high-speed fighting of Melee.

16. Dragon Ball FighterZ  

Platform: PS4 • Xbox One • Switch • PC / Publisher: Bandai Namco Entertainment / Developer: Arc System Works / Release: 2018
FighterZ may be one of the more recently released games on this list, but we’re confident in its placement and honestly would not be surprised to see it place even higher if we revisit this list in the future. Plenty of Dragon Ball fighting games have come and gone, but FighterZ is easily the best. Along with being a fantastic fighting game on its own, it did an amazing job of emulating and improving on the visuals of the source material. It found a foothold in the competitive circuit right away, and Arc System Works has only improved the game post-release.

15. Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves  

Platform: PS4 • 360 • PS2 • Neo Geo • Vita • PC • iOS / Publisher: SNK / Developer: SNK / Release: 2001
As proper a send-off as any series can ask for, Mark of the Wolves ended Fatal Fury’s run before folding completely into the King of Fighters series on a simple-but-elegant, high note. It featured the Tactical Offense Position (T.O.P) system, which asks players to choose whether they want to be powered-up (and gain access to new super moves) when their health is high, medium, or low. This forces you to make a gambit before a match even starts: Do you want to establish an early lead, or save room for a clutch comeback? It doesn’t rely on too many elaborate gimmicks; this fighter isn’t afraid to stand strong on its fundamentals.

14. Virtua Fighter 5  

Platform: PS3 • 360 • Arcade / Publisher: Sega / Developer: Sega AM2 / Release: 2007
Virtua Fighter has always had a reputation for being one the most technically sound 3D fighters out there, and no entry proved that more than Virtua Fighter 5. The 17 combatants were balanced, rich in moves, and each required a different mindset to control. This is one of those fighters that rewarded you for taking time to understand the nuances of each character, and the timing of their move delivery and animation follow-throughs. You can’t button mash your way through this one.

13. Darkstalkers III  

Platform: PS1 • Saturn • Arcade / Publisher: Capcom / Developer: Capcom / Release: 1997
This horror-themed series owes as much to Capcom’s work with Marvel Super Heroes as it does to movies like Frankenstein and Dracula. Characters were constantly in motion, nearly filling the screen with high-quality (and often hilarious) animations. Thanks to the Dark Force System, players could spend a portion of their super to perform limited special movies, such as summoning Sasquatch’s army of penguin pals. While the series has gone stagnant, characters including Morrigan and B.B. Hood often join the rosters in Capcom’s other series. 

12. The King of Fighters 2002 Unlimited Match  

Platform: PS4 • Xbox One • Switch • PS3 • 360 • PS2 • Xbox • Neo Geo • PC • Arcade / Publisher: Playmore / Developer: Eolith / Release: 2005
For King of Fighters 2002, Eolith went back to the basics for a series of three-on-three battles that became the most-polished entry in the series. At the time, KOF 2002 included every character from all previous King of Fighters games, giving fans an unprecedented number of dream matchups. This impressive roster made KOF 2002 highly replayable, as players experimented with different teams and had to learn the various interactions between all fighters. Even a decade and a half later, Unlimited Match still lives up to its royal title.  

11. Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark Of The Millennium 2001  

Platform: PS2 • Xbox • GameCube • Dreamcast • Arcade / Publisher: Capcom / Developer: Capcom / Release: 2001
Capcom’s other, less-famous crossover series went for broke as a celebration of fighting games. Not only does its roster deliver a who’s-who of the two most revered developers in the genre at the time, but its very DNA is a love letter. Its six distinct “grooves,” each bearing one of the letters from the acronym “CAP SNK,” fundamentally altered how you played. Want to dish out Street Fighter Alpha’s custom combos? Choose A-Groove. Want Mark of the Wolves’ Just-Defends and Samurai Shodown’s rage meter? Go for K-Groove. A ratio system also let you power up your best character, making for a fighter with a staggering degree of customization.

10. Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition  

Platform: PS3 • 360 • PC • Arcade / Publisher: Capcom / Developer: Capcom, Dimps / Release: 2010
When it originally released, Street Fighter IV was largely responsible for the mainstream resurgence of fighting games. It garnered an audience beyond the usual genre devotees, and Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition’s 2012 patch represents the pinnacle of that original game’s evolution. With an excellent selection of cool characters, plus balance tweaks that polished combat to a mirror sheen, this is the definitive way to experience one of the most influential modern fighters. 

09. Samurai Shodown II  

Platform: PS4 • Xbox One • Switch • PS3 • 360 • Wii • PS1 • Neo Geo • Neo Geo CD • Neo Geo Pocket Color • PC • iOS • Android • Arcade / Publisher: SNK / Developer: SNK / Release: 1994
Weighing in at 202 MB on a Neo Geo cartridge, Samurai Shodown 2 was a sequel built independent of the original game, giving developer SNK more freedom to innovate. The changes included a more diverse move set consisting of the ability to break enemy weapons, dodge roll, and parry. These abilities combined to create unique strategies, with players looking for windows to disarm their opponent or deliver a powerful fatal strike. SNK continues to pump out fighting games, but none have delivered intensity on the same level as Samurai Shodown II. 

08. Guilty Gear Xrd  

Platform: PS4 • PS3 • PC / Publisher: Arc System Works / Developer: Arc System Works / Release: 2014
The Guilty Gear series has long been known for its deluge of arcane systems, cancels, and tricky combos, but Xrd found an incredible balance between stripping the chaff without losing the essence fans of its aggressively stylish and busy action had come to love. Boasting an immaculate anime art style in the Unreal Engine and a roster that constantly asks you to learn new mechanics and approaches without overwhelming you, Guilty Gear Xrd is a fighter’s fighting game, and even five years into its life cycle, it can still rock with the best of them as the crown jewel in developer Arc System Works’ diverse fighting-game catalog.

07. Tekken 7  

Platform: PS4 • Xbox One • PC • Arcade / Publisher: Bandai Namco Entertainment / Developer: Bandai Namco Studios / Release: 2017
The latest entry in the storied 3D fighting franchise is also its best. Bandai Namco continued to update and improve the series with a more dynamic and impactful camera, an expanded Rage system, and a massive roster full of new and fan-favorite characters. While the story mode offered an uneven conclusion of the decades-old rivalry between Heihachi and Kazuya Mishima, the core gameplay still had incredible depth for devoted fans, with 100-plus moves to learn and master for every fighter.

06. Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes  

Platform: PS3 • 360 • PS2 • Xbox • Dreamcast • iOS • Arcade / Publisher: Capcom / Developer: Capcom / Release: 2000
The fighting genre is no stranger to mashing up disparate franchises to create games with diverse casts, but Marvel vs. Capcom 2 was arguably one of the most ambitious attempts to pit superheroes against video game characters. Each of its 55 characters were meticulously animated with beautiful 2D sprites and you could play with three at a time to pull off screen-filling combos that are mind-blowing even by our modern, admittedly hardened standards. It also introduced us to the “I wanna take you for a ride” menu music, which is now stuck in your head. You’re welcome.

05. Soulcalibur  

Platform: 360 • Dreamcast • iOS • Android • Arcade / Publisher: Namco / Developer: Project Soul / Release: 1998
Like most classic fighting games, Soulcalibur originally released in arcades. However, Namco’s weapon-based fighter quickly became synonymous with the Dreamcast thanks to a stellar launch port that actually upped the visuals of its arcade predecessor. Fighting fans fell in love with the freedom of Soulcalibur’s eight-direction movement and lenient combo system, and the diverse, weapon-focused combat was accentuated by a cast of memorable characters. Even today, Soulcalibur still feels distinct, making it not only the best Dreamcast game of all time, but one of the best fighting games, as well.

04. Mortal Kombat II  

Platform: PS3 • 360 • PS1 • Saturn • Sega 32X • SNES • Genesis • Sega Master System • Game Gear • PC • Arcade / Publisher: Midway / Developer: Midway / Release: 1993
The first Mortal Kombat gained notoriety for its over-the-top violence, but the sequel gave it credibility as a fighter. There were still plenty of shocking moments and gruesome fatalities, but it was all supported by more engaging combat mechanics. It was also stuffed to the brim with secrets, including tongue-in-cheek alternatives to finishing your foes, such as babalities and friendships, that broke players’ brains in arcades. 

03. Super Street Fighter II Turbo  

Platform: PS4 • Xbox One • Switch • PS3 • 360 • Wii U • PS2 • Xbox • PS1 • GBA • Dreamcast • Saturn • 3DO • Amiga CD32 • Amiga • PC • Arcade / Publisher: Capcom / Developer: Capcom / Release: 1994
Super Street Fighter II Turbo was the culmination of a string of incremental updates to Capcom’s classic fighter, adding new combo types and introducing the world to a flame-haired fellow named Akuma. Street Fighter II was in many ways the primordial reference point for the genre, and this version is its most refined form. As a testament to its relevance, it’s still played competitively at Evo – not bad for a game that’s older than many of its players.

02. Super Smash Bros. Melee

Platform: GameCube / Publisher: Nintendo / Developer: HAL Laboratory / Release: 2001
Super Smash Bros. doesn’t use traditional fighting game mechanics, and it’s one of its greatest strengths. That, and it features some of the greatest video game characters of all time all mashed up into one fantastically fun brawler. We adore Smash Bros., with or without items, as there is just something supremely satisfying about taking control of Link and using him to send Mario flying off the side of a floating platform with a perfectly timed Smash attack. Melee stands tall as the fastest and most mechanically polished entry in the series to the point that even three console generations later, it is still a tournament staple.

01. Street Fighter III: Third Strike  

Platform: PS4 • Xbox One • PS3 • 360 • PS2 • Xbox • Dreamcast • PC • Arcade / Publisher: Capcom / Developer: Capcom / Release: 2000
How do you improve on a worldwide phenomenon and genre breakthrough like Street Fighter II? By implementing techniques the genre had birthed since that momentous game (such as throw-teching and enhanced specials) to create pitch-perfect pacing over three renditions, then throwing in a powerful new catalyst: parrying. If you dare to risk it all by pressing forward rather back when an attack is about to land, you can turn the momentum of a fight in your favor on a dime. Throw in some jaw-dropping sprite animations, a soundtrack that borrowed from a wealth of genres, and a cast that mixed old favorites and weirdos, and you have Street Fighter III: Third Strike, the best fighting game of all time. 

This article originally appeared in the May 2019 issue of Game Informer.

The NFL loves its superstars, from team-lifting QBs like Tom Brady to game-changing wide receivers like Antonio Brown, and QB-crunching monsters like Aaron Donald. But Madden hasn't always been able to highlight these kinds of players in ways that not only make them powerful but like they perform in real life.

This year's new Superstar X-Factor feature hopes to address this fact and not only make these players feel like the stars they are, but also influence Madden across its many modes.

"The NFL last year felt like a star-driven league," says creative director Mike Young, "appointment viewing-based TV because you had to see the Rams-Chiefs. You had to see Donald play. You had to see Khalil Mack play."

Young says there's another reason for the new feature: How can the game go beyond ratings? "I think ratings are really good at the measurables," he says, "the combine type stats like speed, but for instance, Tom Brady has never been a great quarterback in Madden. What we've done is try to differentiate the quarterbacks and give them very unique things based on their archetype."

Here's how it works: There are around 70 Superstar abilities in the game. Some players have none, some have multiple abilities. These abilities are shaped by real-life players' skills and in-game player archetypes. Thus, you aren't going to see a slower, bruising running back get abilities related to more nimble backs.

Here are just a few examples:

• The Slot Machine ability gives the receiver better separation at the line and catching ability versus contact for short routes from the slot position. Vikings receiver Adam Thielen has this ability.
• Pocket QBs like Tom Brady with the Protected ability get more time in the pocket from their offensive linemen engaged in blocks during dropback passes.
• Rams' defensive tackle Aaron Donald has The Fearmonger ability. This lets him apply pressure to QBs even when Donald is engaged in a block.
• Some are dependent on the time and the game and situation. For example, Brady's Clutch ability not only reduces the requirement for him to get in the zone (more on that below), but also makes it impossible for him to be knocked out of the zone halfway through the fourth quarter in a close game.

Most of these abilities have counter-abilities across the line of scrimmage, so that there are no automatic victories on the field, but you obviously want to pay extra attention to these players. To this end, players with superstar abilities will always be marked so everyone knows.

But Superstar abilities are just the start; there are plenty of great players in the league, but there are also those who are a cut above. These are called X-Factor players. X-Factor players have at least two superstar abilities, but they also a zone ability that lets them get into the zone – that state that athletes talk about where their skills are extra heightened. As of the time of this writing, there are about 28 offensive X-Factor players and 22 defensive ones, with no special teamers or offensive linemen among them.

X-Factor players have to play themselves into the zone for their zone ability to activate. For example, if JuJu Smith-Schuster catches four run-after-the-catch (RAC) passes of 20 yards or more, he's in the zone. When he's in the zone he'll usually win single-coverage RAC passes with an animation that gives him an advantage in that situation.

• When in the zone, Cam Newton's Tackle Breaker ability allows him to frequently break the first tackle attempt against him.
• Patrick Mahomes' Bazooka ability allows him to throw a maximum of 80 yards when he's in the zone.
• Tom Brady has a quick read zone ability that highlights the first open receiver with a bigger on-the-field icon.

These zone abilities are powerful, but they can also be "turned off." Brady's quick read zone ability deactivates when either he scores a touchdown or you sack him.

Abilities aren't just in Franchise mode or Play Now, they're usable throughout the game, including Ultimate Team and the new Face of the Franchise mode. This should shake up what players use in Ultimate Team as well as help you further define your QB in Face of the Franchise. In regular CFM, abilities for draft prospects are tied to their development trait. So you'll have to keep an eye on any players with abilities as you are scouting. Then you can draft them and watch them mature and unlock their abilities.

"What we're finding is it's made a lot more teams a lot more interesting to play," says Young. "Right now, people in the office love playing with the Browns... It's hard to say as a Steelers fan, but they are probably one of the cooler teams because they have superstar guys on both sides of the ball."

More Information on Superstar Abilities & X-Factors

• Additional X-Factor players can be added during the year. The team says it's still figuring out the "cadence" of when that might be. Young says perhaps five times during the year.
  Players may gain or lose X-Factors during the season, but overall EA Tiburon wants to keep around 50 X-Factors total.
   
• Currently, the most superstar abilities a non-X-Factor player can have is two. X-Factor players have at least two plus their single zone ability. In Face of the Franchise mode, you can have as many as seven abilities. These can be swapped around on your player. These still adhere to an overall archetype so you can't build an overpowered player.
   
• It might be harder for X-Factor players to get into the zone in the Competitive gameplay style versus arcade, for instance.
   
• X-Factors and superstar abilities are included in Madden Ultimate Team player items as designated by an additional tab on the player item. Details around these aren't fully known at this point, but Young says you will be able to respec abilities and get some points back. This sounds similar to last year's Power Up items/Training Points.
   
• Not all the abilities will be widely available. Ex. Roethslisberger has a pump fake ability. He might be one of just two QBs in the whole game with this ability.
   
• Some players with superstar abilities also have special animations like Aaron Rodgers' throwing on the run from his tiptoes.
   
• Abilities are highlighted on the field and in pre-play menus so that both sides of the ball can see them. This includes being able to chart how close a player is from getting into the zone.

Madden NFL 20 ships for PS4, Xbox One, and PC on August 2. To learn more about the game, read about what's new in Franchise mode, the new Face of the Franchise career mode, and how the developer is addressing last year's gameplay issues.

EA Sports and developer EA Tiburon have just announced Madden NFL 20 (out August 2nd), and while there are some sweet-sounding new features like superstar players and Face of the Franchise mode, fans want to know that the underlying gameplay is fixed. Last year's title was not only buggy at launch and beyond, but there were also plenty of complaints about key aspects like the running game, blocking, and catching.

Although the developer hasn't started talking about specific gameplay changes for Madden 20, creative director Mike Young said, "There is probably going to be a laundry list of things the community would get excited about... I think we did a lot with animations. It's a cleaner and a more bug-free game."

One of the structural things the team did to improve the game this time around was to address bugs and tune gameplay as they went along instead of trying to do it all at the end of development. Young says the game was playable earlier than ever and this has helped them fixed more bugs than previous years.

Young says the shifted development timeline has even resulted in a gameplay feature that is being internally playtested for possible inclusion. The under-wraps feature was first meant to fix a legacy issue, but "actually became a new way to maybe play." Hopefully, the feature makes the beta as planned.

Madden Gets Modern With The Run-Pass Option

Run-pass option (RPO) plays were conspicuously absent last year, especially on the back of the Eagles further popularizing them on the way to their Super Bowl victory in the 2017-2018 season. At first, RPOs were considered "too big" to include, but Young says it was prototyped, polished, and added to Madden 20.

Young thinks the result is going to be big for the teams that have RPOs in their playbooks. Along with Superstar and X-Factor abilities for the top players, Young believes RPOs are going to give teams multiple strategies to win games, whether that's in your franchise mode team or Ultimate Team.

Speaking of playbooks, Madden 20 won't have a play-creator feature, but they will be updated through the year, and overall Young says they have more variety this year, especially with the RPO.

Madden 20 has a lot on its plate, and fixing its lingering gameplay issues and adding RPOs will hopefully make the game feel and play differently.

Madden NFL 20 ships for PS4, Xbox One, and PC on August 2. To learn more about the game, read our in-depth breakdowns of the superstar skills, what's new in Franchise mode, and the new Face of the Franchise career mode.

Two years after debuting Longshot, a single-player story mode heavy on cinematics but light on player agency and true Madden gameplay, EA Tiburon went back to the drawing board with its career mode. It was the right call. While well-acted and well-directed, the Longshot story curiously veered too far from the superstar storylines that captivate football fans to instead focus on the trials and tribulations of simply cracking an NFL roster. While it makes for some interesting, honest moments about how hard it is to realize the dream of suiting up on Sunday, this isn’t the power fantasy most people want to experience in a career mode. With Madden NFL 20’s new career mode, Face of the Franchise: QB1, the focus shifts to a football dream fans can better relate with – becoming a dominant starting quarterback.

Face of the Franchise essentially plays out like the stories in NBA 2K’s popular career mode. Early on, the mode delivers story beats via cinematics in-between actual on-field games where your stick skills define the direction of your career. After the prologue of your NFL career plays out, the narrative focus shifts from a reliance on cinematics to a more dynamic story delivered mostly via branching dialogue. During this phase, the mode looks at your accomplishments (or failures) and builds a story around them. "Choice is so important, and that's probably the key differentiator between a Longshot and this,” says Madden NFL 20 creative director Mike Young. “This is about personalization."

Here’s a breakdown of how Face of the Franchise: QB1 plays out: 

Write Your College Legend

Unlike Longshot hero Devin Wade, your journey doesn’t start under the Friday Night Lights. Instead, you are the unheralded backup quarterback of a college powerhouse who gets thrust into a starting role during the College Football Playoff, a similar situation to the one Cardale Jones found himself in with Ohio State during the 2014 season. 

After customizing your face and choosing one of the three voices available for your character, you can pick one of 10 colleges in the game – Clemson, Florida, Florida St., LSU, Miami, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Texas Tech, or USC. Then the hard work of building up your draft grade begins.  

Before your high-pressure debut, reporters pepper you with questions. When they ask which NFL legend you look up to, your choice will lay the foundation for your quarterback archetype. When they ask you how your high-school teammates would describe you, it helps define your personality type.

If you flame out in the first playoff game, you can kiss your dreams of being a first-round pick behind. Lead your program to the national championship with a commanding performance, however, and your draft stock naturally rises. 

Participate In The Underwear Olympics

Once the playoff run is complete, your gunslinger heads to the NFL Combine, where you must perform a series of drills and answer some tough questions from NFL GMs. Combined with your on-field performance, your numbers in the Underwear Olympics and how you conduct yourself with league decision-makers will determine where in the draft you are likely to land. “It's about immersing you in the 2019 draft class, so we want to make it feel like you are competing right now next to Kyler Murray and Drew Lock,” Young says. “You'll get cameos from them throughout the story.” 

Your performance in college and the combine will land you anywhere from a high first-rounder, low first-rounder, mid-rounder, or late-round pick. Sorry Kurt Warner fans, you can’t go undrafted. Even if you chuck enough pick-sixes to set the college single-game record and post a Jared Lorenzen-esque 40-time, some wayward team will still see you as a diamond in the rough. Maybe John Elway has you circled on his cheat sheet...

Draft Day Drama

After the combine whirlwind wraps up, it’s time for the NFL draft. If you’re projected to be a high first-round pick, you don your most stylish outfit and head to the NFL Draft. Sorry, fashion aficionados, EA opted against giving you control over your off-field wardrobe à la FIFA's Alex Hunter, but the good news is you have more gear options than previous years. Sadly, tattoos are still noticeably absent.

During the draft, you will rub shoulders with other highly touted prospects like Joey Bosa on the red carpet. If you aren’t a highly touted pick, you miss the pageantry and watch the draft on TV with your agent by your side.

However your draft day experience plays out, don’t expect to end up on a team that already has an established young star on the roster – you won’t be unseating Patrick Mahomes in Kansas City. “We tried to make it really realistic and reflective of the teams that actually need quarterbacks that might draft you,” Young says.

If you don’t like the team that drafted you, EA said there's a way to strongarm your way to your ideal team. 

Crack The Starting Lineup

Once you crack an NFL roster, then the journey transitions from a heavy dose of cutscenes to a branching dialogue system similar to NBA Live 19’s The One mode. “Unlike a Longshot, this is meant to be about you getting into the league, and then handing it off to our new Scenario Engine where the story doesn't stop,” Young says.

Once you’re in the league, the Scenario Engine (which also powers connected franchise mode in Madden 20) takes over to deliver storylines that may be new each week or extend into the season. You interact with a wide assortment of people, from coaches and teammates to trainers and reporters. Not all of your conversations are peachy. If a stud receiver is being starved for touches, he’ll tell you to get him the damn ball next week. You get to decide the number of touches you promise for the next week, and if you don’t meet that threshold, his morale will take a hit. If it drops enough, depending on his personality he may request a trade. This is just one example of the types of storylines that can play out. 

“During the whole first season, it's going to feel like there is a storyline, and the hope is that everyone will feel like they had a different storyline, both by how they played in Face of the Franchise mode, or just the different decisions, and their record, and who is on their team will trigger different events throughout the season," Young says.

Other players may challenge you to rise to their level during the course of your career as well, which could allow you to earn one of their superstar abilities, a new feature in Madden NFL 20. Think of these like interchangeable skill powers you can swap in and out depending on the game scenario. Some give you straight up ability, like the Bazooka skill that lets you throw up to 80 yards in the air when you’re in the zone. Others are more about being a savvy field general, like the Hot Route Master skill that gives you four additional hot routes to choose while making pre-play adjustments. You can earn up to seven superstar abilities in Face of the Franchise, allowing you to experiment with the skills that best match your play style. 

“It's not about getting to 99 [OVR] anymore, it's about trying different loadouts,” Young says. “It's a lot more like an action/adventure game where you're unlocking different abilities and maybe this one suits the way you play more and it's what you like."

Occasionally during your career, you will be asked tough questions from reporters. Coming off a loss, an ink-stained wretch may ask, “who let you down tonight, your coach or offensive line?” If you take the Aaron Rodgers route and criticize your coach. your coach will lose confidence in you but your line will get a boost for the next game. If you take the Jay Cutler route and throw the line under the bus, they'll play worse the next game but your relationship with your coach may improve. 

Overcome these seasonal obstacles and put up strong numbers, and you may earn a spot in the Pro Bowl, which finally returns to Madden this year. Since the career mode runs on the Connected Franchise Mode system, you can play up to 15 seasons and write your NFL legacy, with new scenarios popping up throughout your career. 

If you aren’t interested in being a signal caller and would rather play another position, Madden NFL 20 makes that option available to you as well. You won’t have the college, combine, or draft day experience going that route, but the Scenario Engine will still sprinkle story threads throughout your career.

Madden NFL 20 ships for PS4, Xbox One, and PC on August 2. To learn more about the game, read our in-depth breakdown of the superstar abilities, proposed fixes to gameplay issues, and franchise mode changes.

This console generation hasn’t been a great one for fans of sports franchise modes. While the dominant NBA 2K series continues to explore meaningful innovations in the space with new concepts like a GM story mode, persistent injury systems, and deep customization tools for MyLeague, the rest of the sports games have largely sat idle with decaying, dated systems. Madden has been one of the guiltiest parties when it comes to stagnation. Outside of a few scouting and progression updates, EA Tiburon has been largely content to let this mode idle while committing more resources to the lucrative Ultimate Team mode and prestige Longshot story mode. For NFL fans longing for major leap forward in franchise play, if it executes on its concepts Madden NFL 20 could be the first step toward realizing that dream. 

“It's the most interesting year-round sport in my opinion,” says Madden NFL 20 creative director Mike Young. “We care about it all year long, and there are phases of it. [With Madden NFL 20] we want to bring to life the ability to have decisions that can impact your franchise based on how you handle personnel, morale, teammates, and employees. That just wasn't in Madden at all. It felt like a stats management game only.”

To dig Madden’s franchise mode out of its self-dug rut and realize this ambition, Tiburon has brought a group of franchise mode enthusiasts from the community on board, like Franchise Nation’s Andre Weingarten. This strike team works not only to freshen up pre-existing systems like trade logic, free agency, and scouting, but also to help develop the Scenario Engine, Madden 20’s instrument for recreating the dramatic storylines that drive headlines all year round in the NFL.

Introducing The Scenario Engine

Creating an impactful narrative experience in a franchise mode isn’t as easy as writing a linear story. Though you can use that format to great effect for a shorter experience, franchise modes are dynamic systems that deliver dramatically different results based on the decisions the user makes. You can’t predict what players are going to do, but if you identify the individual elements for a good story, you could conceivably develop a software underpinning that mix and match these elements to generate a series of moments that feel in line with the stories that emerge out of the NFL every week. 

“When we looked all year at storylines like Le'Veon Bell's holdout or Antonio Brown demanding a trade, we really didn't have anything in Madden right now to bring leadership and managing the locker room, and personalities, and cohesiveness that's needed on a football team either from a player perspective or a coaching perspective,” Young says. “The Scenario Engine is intended to create dynamic storylines week to week based on how you're playing, who you are, your record, your stats, and the personalities around you. It fires off stories that could be one-week stories, but there are also several storylines that are branching.”

To achieve this goal, EA Tiburon essentially reverse engineered major and minor storylines from the last seven years, finding compelling scenarios that could challenge players and looking at the inputs that would be necessary to trigger these circumstances in a franchise playthrough. If a star player found out he was placed on the trade block, how would he react? If you cut ties with a future Hall of Famer in favor of a hotshot rookie, what would that do to the locker room? 

Recreating these scenarios required the creation of a personality system that gives the players some degree of agency. Team players like Julian Edelman may be more likely to take roster disruptions and drops in their usage rate in stride, but more volatile personalities may trigger crises that coaches/general managers need to resolve. Some of these may be gameplay based. If a talented receiver like Martavis Bryant is frozen out for three games, he may demand you get him the damn ball. If you don’t, maybe he demands a trade. 

The offseason presents dynamic obstacles to overcome as well. “If you franchise tag a guy, there should be a risk that he'll just retire or demand a trade,” Young says. “You should feel that weight when you are making these choices instead of sorting a spreadsheet and going, 'eh, he's not that good.' There's got to be a risk/reward to this stuff to really make you feel the immersion of it.” If you’re the type of GM who doesn’t like surprises, this may affect how you approach drafting. Maybe you’ll pass on a temperamental player with more potential upside just for the peace of mind knowing that your pick won’t lead a revolt against your leadership.

Madden NFL 20 has several scenarios like that that can arise on the fly and give you player boosts or small goals with meaningful rewards. If your team is struggling, perhaps a locker room leader calls a player’s only meeting that gives a boost to the position group you think needs the most help. If your team has a short week, you can decide to push them to practice to earn some more XP, or give them time off to boost morale. If a young player has a good game, you may trigger a “breakout player scenario” that issues a specific goal for the next game. If you meet it, then the player could earn a dev trait increase mid-season, jumping his trait status from normal to star. 

The Scenario Engine is flexible enough to incorporate more variables as Tiburon sees fit. “One thing we're really excited about is planning to add content throughout the year,” Young says. “This will be the first time we've ever done updates to franchise throughout the season.”

Scheme Fit System Changes

Last year’s major new franchise mode feature was the scheme fit system, a crude and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to replicate the idea that certain players perform and develop better in certain offensive and defensive schemes. Aspiring to capture this dynamic in franchise mode was admirable, but the execution left a lot to be desired. Not all the schemes and their required archetypes were reflective of the real-life teams, and you couldn’t alter the archetypes for specific positions to better fit the scheme you wanted to employ. Making matters worse, star players who were dynamic enough to excel in several schemes wouldn’t receive the scheme fit XP boost if their top-rated skill wasn’t scheme-fit appropriate. This system isn’t going away in Madden NFL 20, but EA Tiburon hopes to smooth over the roughest patches. 

The development team revisited the archetypes associated with schemes from Madden 19 in hopes of providing more flexibility in how teams can be built, and the reduced the XP bonus associated with scheme fits. If a player is not a scheme fit, then their progression will be slightly slower but it will “no longer feel crippling.” I’m not sure this addresses the underlying issue with the system, but we won’t know for sure until we spend more time with it. 

Madden NFL 20 finally brings run-pass option to the game, which also necessitates the creation of some new scheme types. This year’s game introduces three new offensive schemes to the mix. The West Coast Spread is all about keeping defenses on their toes with quick-strike horizontal passes. This attack also opens up running lanes for quarterbacks. The Pistol is a shotgun-based formation that allows attackers to target the weak side of the field with runs or passes. Air Raid is a pass-heavy no-huddle system that requires the quarterback to make quick adjustments at the line of scrimmage. 

Madden 20 also tries to inject more variety into the defensive systems with four new schemes. Coaches who want to slow down attacking offenses can employ the 4-3 Cover 3, which is designed to only allow small gains. Teams who want to pressure the quarterback can try out the 3-4 Storm scheme provided they have speed up front and linebackers who can jump passing routes. Another counter to spread offenses is the 4-3 Quarters, better known as Cover-4. The last new scheme is 3-4 Disguise, which is predicated on confusing the quarterback with symmetrical lineups and disguised concepts. 

Superstar Abilities Embolden The CPU Competition

For too many years, there has been too little player differentiation when playing CPU opponents. Whether you were squaring off against a future hall-of-fame quarterback or a shell-shocked rookie, chances are they would complete a high percentage of short yardage passes and rarely do anything that mimicked the ability of their real-world counterparts. 

“I feel like with franchise, a lot of people just like to play against the CPU and try to crank out Super Bowls and get to the draft and they don't enjoy playing other people, but it felt like week-to-week there wasn't a difference between who you played,” Young admits. “You weren't really that scared about playing Tom Brady and the Patriots.”

This could change with the addition of superstar skills and X-Factor players, which we explore in great depth with this feature. This new pool of more than 70 new abilities isn’t meant to make Madden play like NFL Hitz, but rather accentuate the unique capabilities of the league’s star players. Patrick Mahomes now has unique animations that let him escape the pocket more quickly than his counterparts, as well as new abilities that raise his accuracy throwing on the run and across his body. Tom Brady can diagnose the defense quickly and find the first open target much faster than other quarterbacks. Ben Roethlisberger has a deadly pump-fake that can disrupt your coverages and spring his receivers open. 

The same goes for the other side of the ball. If EA Tiburon succeeds in its goals with this new system, you won’t be able to simply ignore studs like Khalil Mack or Aaron Donald anymore.

The Future of Franchise Mode

Though I still have questions about the scheme fit system, the Scenario Engine and superstar abilities sound like promising steps in the right direction. But will EA Sports continue down this path moving forward, or reverse course and chase a different feature set next year? That danger always exists with sports titles, but Young says he has no plans to neglect franchise mode next year.

“Franchise has come back to being a big focus on the game and it will continue to be,” Young says. “We just want to add this rich depth and immersion to it so we're starting to think about it more like a sports RPG.”

Madden NFL 20 ships for PS4, Xbox One, and PC on August 2. To learn more about the game, read our in-depth breakdowns of the superstar skills, our discussion about how EA plans to clean up the gameplay bugs from last year, and the new Face of the Franchise career mode.

Last week Dreams launched in early access, and as with Media Molecule’s previous games, the studio is aiming for a lofty goal: to make the creation of user content easy, accessible, and fun for everyone. Even if you consider yourself artistically challenged, you may want to give Dreams’ creation tools a shot – not only are the basic controls simple to learn and use, Media Molecule has crafted some remarkably powerful tools that will have you pumping out impressive effects in no time flat. Here are our favorites.

Looseness

By far the most important and powerful tool in Dreams, Looseness effects the “fuzziness” of objects that gives the game its distinct, sublime art style. As the name implies, the Looseness tool loosens or tightens the “material” objects are made out of, resulting in wispy strands, painterly strokes, or many other styles, called Flecks. Within seconds, you can turn a simple curved surface into a lush grassy meadow. Applying a large amount of Looseness to an object will degrade the actual shape, giving scenes a more evocative – and some might say dreamlike – feel to them. The first image above demonstrates several different Flecks applied to the same base cube. The second image applies an additional modifier called Impasto, which augments Looseness even further. As you can see, transforming simple shapes into something impressive takes virtually no effort or artistic talent, so don't be afraid to experiment yourself!

Effects

While you’re busy fuzzifying objects, you may as well throw an additional Effect or two on them. Effects are a category of, well, effects, which you can apply to the Flecks on your objects, adding subtle animations to them. Add the Flow effect to a blue stretch of the landscape and suddenly it looks like a river. Or throw the Evaporate effect on a white streak above a chimney to transform it into a rising plume of smoke. The Effects panel has several more options to choose from, all of which bring objects to life with very little effort. One of the first art tutorials tasks you with transforming the simple scene above, purely by adding some colors and effects to the objects. The second image is what I managed to accomplish in a matter of minutes – and it looks even better in motion!

Blend

Sculpting your own 3D models is an intimidating undertaking, but once again Dreams has another powerful option at your disposal. The Stamp tool allows you to place down basic shapes in 3D space. By combining these shapes, as with the first row of spheres above, you can make your own custom objects, but they can still look pretty primitive. That’s where the Blend option comes in – turning up this setting will cause the new shape you’re maneuvering to seamlessly morph into the other objects you’ve already stamped down – just like the second row of spheres. The higher the setting the more blended the shapes become, and you can also switch it to subtract mode to cut out sections of objects as well. Blending may not turn you into Michelangelo, but you may be surprised by the interesting shapes you can create, even if you don’t consider yourself an artiste.

Add Clones

So, you’re creating your own level and you want to add a bunch of stairs leading to a higher area. Sounds tedious, right? One of Dreams’ most surprising tools makes this action a breeze. After laying out an initial block, you can make an identical copy with the Clone ability. Before you place that second object down, however, you can insert as many more copies as you want with the Add Clones tool – simply press left on the D-pad to add a clone in-between the two objects, or press right on the D-pad to add more clones on the outside. What makes the Add Clones option truly impressive, however, is it automatically spaces out all of the clones, and takes into account any changes you’ve made to the size and rotation of the object, so you can easily create a perfect spiral of objects or a string of shrinking shapes. The M.C. Escher-like bridge in the second image above was done in a matter of minutes by using the Add Clones and Mirror abilities.

Finishes

Once you’ve got an object you're happy with – or even one you’re not happy with – you can add a Finish to it. Finishes apply an additional aesthetic effect to objects that make it seem like they’re made out of a different material – such as a shiny metal or a glossy wax. Depending on the lighting and color of your object, applying a Finish doesn’t always make a huge difference – but when it does, it can completely transform a simple shape into a much more convincing object. Like many of these tools, Dreams’ Finishes are also just fun to play around and experiment with, like this psychedelic lava lamp bridge I made for... well, no reason, really.

Kaleidoscope Guide

I didn’t hold a lot of hope in my artistic ability to “paint” in Dreams, but the Kaleidoscope guide is another foolproof tool for creating impressive content above your own perceived skill grade. One of the art tutorials tasks you with creating some flowers. Rather than just doodling a flower with the kind of brush you’d find in Photoshop, however, you first choose one of Dream’s artistic Flecks, all of which are visually interesting in their own right. After you’ve selected a Fleck – one that is appropriately petal-like in this case – you then stamp it into 3D space much like you would in sculpt mode. What the Kaleidoscope guide does is create exact copies of the Fleck evenly spaced out in a circular pattern. The result? Instant flower! The Kaleidoscope Guide also works if you want to draw more complicated shapes, which you do by simply holding in the trigger and moving the Fleck around instead of stamping it once. Even if your artistic talent begins and ends with stick figures, you may be surprised by what you can pull off with the added Fleck styles, Effects, and symmetrical guides while drawing in 3D.

Keyframes

Going into Dreams I knew just enough about animation to be afraid of Keyframes, which are typically found scattered across complex timelines. But by this point I should’ve known that Dreams would transform them into a quick and easy tool to set up your own animations and interactions. You can get a full rundown of Keyframes in Dreams’ excellent animation tutorial, but basically, you can simply drag a Keyframe gadget into a scene and then move around whatever you want to change. Those changes – a platform floating across a gap, a character blinking, or pretty much anything else you can think of – will be re-performed once the Keyframe is activated, whether by an in-level trigger, a button press, or once again pretty much anything else you can think of. Keyframes offer a bunch of different settings you can tweak to speed up, slow down, or repeat the animation, making them super versatile.

Blank Puppet Deluxe

Most video games have characters, and those characters need to be animated. While Dreams’ animation and programming tools let you create your own interactive character from scratch, the Blank Puppet Deluxe gadget probably already has most of the options you’re looking for. Selecting this gadget drops a blue art model into your scene, with physics, walking and jumping animations, and a host of other logic options already baked in. The puppet remains fully editable, however; not only can you add more animations and functionalities, you can also sculpt the body however you want. Using the Blend option and some basic spheres you can flesh out the puppet into your own surprisingly unique (and/or grotesque) character in less than an hour. Just don't blame Media Molecule if your subsequent creation gives you nightmares.

Dialogue Text Displayer

A lot of Dreams’ gadgets don’t have tutorials yet, and Dialogue Text Displayer is one of them. As you may guess from the title, however, this gadget lets you easily set up text boxes with branching paths the user can select via different button presses. The gadget also includes a ton of options for customizing the dialogue box and font, and you can even plug in a USB keyboard to type in your text prompts, so get a grip, Cuthbert!

Grab Cam

It may not seem like it, but I've saved the best tool for last. “Cool” is not an adjective often used to describe camera controls, but Dreams’ Grab Cam has earned the distinction. For the most part, navigating your viewpoint around the environment works just like you’d expect it to. However, pressing the R1 button will grab onto whatever object your imp (i.e. pointer) is currently on, allowing you to rotate around it with ease and quickly zoom in or out. If you’re actively holding the object, changing the viewpoint doesn’t affect the object’s orientation, which is great for judging a potential stamp placement from all angles. Even better, if you hover over an object and tap the L1 button, you’ll instantly warp over to it, which makes traveling to the far end of a level a snap. Grab Cam may not be the sexiest tool, but its ease of use is a big part of why sculpting, painting, and designing levels is fast and fun instead of being a tedious chore.

For more on Dreams, check out Javy’s weeklong dive into the game, our beta livestream, and our exclusive Dreams Hub.

Click image thumbnails to view larger version

Overwatch players can now dream up new hero powers and make changes to the base game using the Workshop, an in-game scripting system that opens up customization of the game's rules, conditions, and actions. The best part of the Workshop: All of the players' creations end up in the Game Browser. 

We've rounded up some of the coolest and most creative Workshop creations that we've seen, and will continue updating this article with new ones when we run across them. If you know of some that you think belong on this list, mention them in the comments and we'll check them out.

Group up!
Code: 61Y6P

Using the Workshop, I can finally get my team to group up from r/Overwatch

Switcheroo: you become the hero you kill while the dead one gets a random new hero
Code: 6PC67

I tested out the new Workshop feature and created a Switcheroo mode where you obtain the hero you kill while the dead one gets a random new one. from r/Overwatch

Bastion turret free for all
Code: 8E1CK

The Bastion Buff Everyone Has Been Fearing [Workshop] from r/Overwatch

Magnetic payload
Code: XS7AX

Everyone gets a grappling hook
Code: 7YXJ6

Silver Surfer Mei
Code: PT13F

Top down mode
Code: TJFS5

3rd-person mode
Code: NVFTS

You Can Now Have A 3rd Person Mode Thanks To The Workshop! from r/Overwatch

Widowmaker teleports to the hero she kills
Code: HPSHR

I made the "Advanced Widow HS" mode. Where you teleport to the place of the enemy you kill. It makes for some very awesome highlights. from r/Overwatch

Baptiste charge-up ground pound
Code: B7ECF

Hamster Ball Racing/Speedrun
Code: D9RND

Portal
Code: G9H9S

Lucio Movement Trial
Code: PRGR

Superhot
Code: EJ0XD

Torbs wall climbing
Code: 5NRPR

Wrecking Ball bumper balls
Code: VDEGF

I made a bumper cars (balls?) game mode in the workshop from r/Overwatch

Bounty tag -hunt down a specific target and become the hero of your next target
Code: 2NV42

Zenyatta has unlocked a new ability: kick stun
Code: J25WE

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was a good game when it released last fall, and it’s only gotten better through a variety of free updates adding things like new game+ and extra quests. However, not all of the expanded content is free. A season pass offers access to two DLC stories (each one has three episodes), and this week marks the beginning of the second arc, entitled Fate of Atlantis. The first arc (Legacy of the First Blade), left me with mixed feelings– but judging just from this first new episode, The Fate of Atlantis makes major improvements in almost every area.

1. A Weirdly Engaging Story
The Isu (a.k.a. the First Civilization) have always been an important underlying element of the Assassin’s Creed story, but they step up to play a bigger role here than ever before. I don’t want to spoil too much about how the events unfold, but you interact with Isu characters more often and more directly as you explore Elysium, the realm of Persephone. The larger premise is interesting, tasking you with winning Persephone’s favor while also working to stir up trouble for her. This works on a macro level, but the individual exploits of Kassandra/Alexios don’t always have big payoffs – the idea of liberating controlled soldiers to build a rebellion feels especially rushed and ambiguous. However, even if a particular quest falls flat, the general direction of the story has plenty of weird sci-fi mythology to keep you playing.

2. Gorgeous surroundings
In Legacy of the First Blade, players simply undertook new tasks in old areas. However, this first part of The Fate of Atlantis gives you an all-new playground in the form of Elysium. Ubisoft Quebec did a wonderful job bringing out the natural beauty of Greece before, but all restraints are gone now that players are in an otherworldly realm. High plateaus, colorful gardens, improbable waterfalls, advanced technology – the sights and sounds of Elysium provide something beautiful (and different) to observe as you move between your objectives. You have a surprisingly large amount of ground to cover, too; like the regions of the base game, Elysium is split up into different areas with assigned overseers, so you have lots of time and opportunities to wear down Persephone’s control in an area.

3. New Challenges
Patrolling guards are still your primary foes, but a few smart tweaks give encounters new intensity. If you’re playing this DLC at this point, your Kassandra/Alexios is probably already near godhood, dominating the battlefield with an array of powerful abilities. In Elysium, you encounter enemies who can drain and freeze your adrenaline bar, blocking your access to the skills you’ve been depending on. This increases the danger of engaging with large groups of enemies, and it also adds a layer of agility to fights, since you need to evade frequently to dodge these debilitating attacks. I also enjoyed the addition of kolossi – powerful statues that only wake up when fights happen nearby – because they make you assess your surroundings and pick advantageous spots to risk combat. Even if many of your objectives are still familiar (clear a fort, hunt an animal), the new surroundings and foes go a long way toward making them feel fresh.

4. Rewards Worth Getting
You have plenty of incentives to explore Elysium and discover its secrets. On the practical side, you find shrines that are home to marble statues of Persephone. Every time you destroy one these statues (usually after taking out a handful of guards), you get an ability point, and they add up quickly. You also get enhanced versions of four existing abilities (Battlecry of Ares, Bull Rush, Slow Time, and Rain of Destruction), which increases their power and utility. I especially liked the new Ares Madness, because it amps up your strength and range to make short work your foes, like Spartan Rage in God of War. Plus, the new epic gear set – apart from looking neat and futuristic – has an augment that extends the duration of Ares Madness. Though I still found a fair share of blue and purple junk to disassemble, I was impressed overall by the cool stuff I found in Elysium.

5. Forward Momentum
The modern-day narrative is a divisive element of Assassin’s Creed, but this episode does a great job moving it forward without getting too bogged down. You don’t spend much time controlling Layla or interacting with her fellow assassins, but that part of story serves as a compelling frame that adds weight to your actions as Kassandra/Alexios. I don’t want to reveal too much here, but the story taking place actually seems significant – for both the past and the future – in a way that the previous DLC never did.

While we won’t know the overall quality until all three episodes have released, playing the first part of this new arc is already more satisfying than Legacy of the First Blade. Last time, my reaction to the first episode was cautious skepticism. This time, I’m actively excited to see what’s coming next.

In 2011, EA published a game unlike anything it had before or since with Shadows of the Damned. It was born from the minds of Suda 51, known for games like Killer 7 and No More Heroes, and Shinji Mikami, the former Capcom staple behind games like Resident Evil and Resident Evil 4 among other classics.

Looking toward Resident Evil 4 for gameplay inspiration, Shadows of the Damned tells the story of Garcia Hotspur and his transforming gun sidekick, Johnson, as they explore the underworld in search of Hotspur's kidnapped girlfriend, Paula. The journey is bizarre and full of a surprising amount of interesting world-building and it holds up well almost eight years after release. Well... the gameplay does anyway.

For Game Informer's original review of Shadows of the Damned, head here.

After a festive holiday season, Game Informer's annual 12.31 Super Replay usually brings suffering. In years past, this day has kicked off complete playthroughs of stinkers like Overblood, Overblood 2, Blue Stinger, Illbleed, Raw Danger,Martian Gothic: Unification, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Vampire Hunter D.

Figuring out which game will be honored with this spot is a stressful decision that usually takes a full year to figure out. That wasn't the case this year. The community figured it out for us. We had the somewhat official I Watched the Entire Overblood Super Replay group vote for a Super Replay earlier this year. With hundreds of votes cast, the poll ended in a tie between Killer 7 and God Hand. Rather than just flipping a coin to see which one we would do, I decided to record both of them. We knocked out Killer 7 earlier this year, and almost rolled right into God Hand, but couldn't find a window to get it done in a productive way. I shelved the Super Replay until 12.31. It was one of the games I was considering years ago for this spot anyway.

Now it's here, and I think the community made the right choice. This game is absolutely bonkers and is a sheer delight to take in. God Hand was created by Clover Studio for Capcom and released in America on October 10, 2006 exclusively for PlayStation 2. Enjoy the Super Replay. I know it was a long time coming. We haven't produced as many as we have in the past, but it isn't because we are slacking off. The recording of the Game Informer Show takes up considerable studio and editor time, and we just haven't had the window to crank the out like we used to. I'd like to say we'll try to do more in the future, but I'm always thinking that, and the stars just haven't aligned.

You can watch the latest episode up above, or click the arrows along the side of the video to start from the beginning! To watch the full series, click here to find it on YouTube.

Rumors of a revision to Nintendo’s popular Switch hardware have swirled for months now. While some report and speculate a new model could lower the price by cutting nonessential features, others are convinced Nintendo will release an improved version that may be more expensive with new bells and whistles not found on the launch model.

While we could definitely envision a smaller, portable-only Switch model that costs less, it’s much more fun to talk about the improvements we’d like to see in a potential “Pro” or “New” model from Nintendo. Here are 11 things we’d love to see on a new and improved Switch.

Give Us A Bigger Hard Drive

One of the biggest problems with the Switch hardware is the built-in storage. At a meager 32GB, the Switch’s internal hard drive isn’t even big enough to store certain games on the platform (NBA 2K19 takes more than 30 GB to install, for example). You can expand the system’s capacity thanks to a Micro SDXC port, but that isn’t the point. Out of the box, it would be nice to have a bigger hard drive to house a decent collection before you’re forced to pick up a third-party storage card.

Ramp Up The Horsepower

New Sony and Microsoft consoles are on the horizon, and with that comes substantially more power. Nintendo hasn’t been one to try and compete in an arms race, but unless it adds a little extra oomph to its system, it runs the risk of any multiplatform releases looking and playing much worse than its PlayStation and Xbox counterparts. While a 4K-capable Switch is probably out of the question, something that allows for less discrepancy between Switch and PS4/Xbox One performance would do wonders for future multiplatform releases.

Give Us A Better Screen

Gamers are spending thousands of dollars to ensure they can play games in the highest resolution possible. While increased horsepower would deliver better graphics when docked, a better screen resolution on the Switch itself would allow for sharper graphics when in handheld mode as well.

Increase The Battery Life

The current Switch models give you a decent chunk of play time on a single charge, but longer flights and road trips still require you to plug in somewhere during the journey, particularly if you’re playing an intensive game like Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Regardless of the current Switch model’s competent battery life, a longer-lasting battery is always near the top of any portable device’s wish list.

Make The Joy-Cons Feel Like Actual Controllers

If Nintendo is taking a hard look at the Switch’s shortcomings, why does it have to stop with the console itself? By making tweaks to the Joy-Con controllers, Nintendo could vastly improve the player experience. Our vote for the first revision? Give us an actual d-pad on the left Joy-Con. So much of Nintendo’s history is best experienced on a d-pad, and the four face buttons just don’t do that experience justice. While we’re on the subject, giving the Joy-Cons actual triggers and better analog sticks would also go a long way to making players not feel like they’re getting the “bad controller” when they get stuck with the Joy-Cons during a Smash session where everyone else is using Pro or GameCube controllers. Also, a headphone port would not only let us more easily use headphones, but it would also potentially eliminate the need for the Nintendo Switch Online app for in-game voice chat.

Add An Ethernet Port To The Dock

While most players have wireless networks in their house, plugging directly into the modem is the way to go. Nintendo neglected this for each of its consoles, but there’s no reason to not include an ethernet port at this point. As Nintendo continues to invest heavier in its online service, and rumors circulate surrounding the possibility of Xbox’s Game Pass coming to the system, a hardwired connection will become all but necessary for the best experience. Right now, the only option is to buy an ethernet adapter to plug into one of the dock’s USB ports. It works, but it’s just another cost on top of the myriad other accessories for the Switch that should be base functionalities.

Put A USB Port On The Switch Itself

Speaking of ports the Switch could use, why not add a USB port or two on the unit itself? The dock comes equipped with multiple USB ports, but it would be great to be able to plug in a third-party controller when playing in tabletop mode, or even charge your Pro Controller on the go.

Make It More Durable

For a portable system, the Switch sure is a delicate device. In our office alone, we’ve experienced scratched and chipped screens, broken kickstands, snapped vents, and Joy-Cons that don’t lock in anymore. If Nintendo and its fans want the Switch to be the flagship portable device, it could use a boost in durability.

Relocate The Micro SD Slot

This is a relatively minor one, but housing the Micro SD card slot behind the kickstand means that it’s exposed when the kickstand is open or if it breaks off. By relocating it and placing it somewhere along the lines of where the game card slot is, situations like this could be avoided entirely.

Make The Joy-Cons Adult-Sized

While the Joy-Cons typically feel fine in handheld mode or the Joy-Con grip, any time you’re forced to turn it sideways and play with a single Joy-Con – we’re looking at you, Super Mario Party – it’s not a comfortable experience. If Nintendo truly wants to encourage players to use the two half-controller components individually, making them slightly bigger to accommodate a wider range of hand sizes would help significantly.

Give Us Better Tasting Cartridges

These current ones taste awful.

Madden usually shows up for the NFL draft festivities, but it's customarily restricted to a batch of screenshots of the first-round rookies in their new unis and a draft-themed program. This year was different, with EA Sports and developer EA Tiburon rolling out a bevy of details about this year's additions.

I'm excited for the possibilities within the Scenario Engine and Superstar/X-Factor abilities in particular, but I also have conflicted feelings about them at this time. They have lots of potential now and in the future, but given how difficult it is to implement them successfully – as well as the fact that the series has gameplay issues it needs to address – it feels like Madden 20 is at an important juncture for the franchise as a whole.

I love the idea of the Scenario Engine, how it could be used to supply both career modes and franchise modes drama points, from locker-room schisms to draft day dealings. The question is: Will it? Because in my opinion, to make these scenarios impactful you have to create an underlying structure to bolster them, otherwise they're paper-thin.

If the Scenario Engine introduces a situation where a star player holds out, for example, then the game will also have to make sure a player's motive for holding out is justified and that the financial terms on the table for ending the holdout make sense league-wide for that position, including comparable deals going on in the league at that moment. And in a player-focused mode like Face of the Franchise, you'd also expect more control over the terms you demand than the current franchise mode offers when it comes to contract negotiations.

Recent Maddens haven't supplied this level of depth, so will Madden 20 add it here and in other areas to support the different situations you'll have to deal with from the Scenario Engine? EA Tiburon says players have morale, so how rigid/flexible and logical/intelligent is it? There are also questions of the ripple effect events have throughout your team and the league, the frequency of the situations that pop up, and how intelligent the A.I. reacts to your choices. These are basic questions, but let's face it, Madden's A.I. logic could already stand for some improvements even before adding on the Scenario Engine's possibilities.

Similarly, lots of work is going to have to be done to ensure that Madden 20's Superstar and X-Factor abilities are balanced correctly while still allowing the players that have them feel different from the rest of the league.

Despite these challenges, this is absolutely a step that EA Tiburon should take with the series, crossing off multiple items on our wishlist and perhaps yours as well. But, due to where Madden is at currently and the overall difficulty of implementing these features, I'll be surprised if they're full-fledged and up to speed in this first year.

Asking for patience from fans when putting in big-idea features is understandable, but couldn't come at a worse time. With Madden needing to clean up its gameplay and old features from past games still missing, EA Tiburon has enough work to do apart from rolling out sweeping features threaded throughout the entire game. I envy and welcome the ambition, but realistically this might be a situation where everyone's going to have to bear with the state of the franchise until it comes out on the other side.

THE TICKER

FIFA Dev Blog Talks About Online Responsiveness

I like Labo VR. I think it’s one of the weirdest things from a company that is renowned for doing weird, creative, innovative things. I also love The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey. The pair elevate the Switch to be one of my favorite consoles, which is an especially impressive feat considering it’s only about two years old. I also love free updates that add new content to good games. Now, with all of that table setting done, I can’t in good conscience recommend you play Zelda or Mario with the aid of Labo VR.

In both instances, you play by placing the Switch, with its controllers attached, in the Labo headset and hold it up to your face, like you’re playing a game through a periscope. It’s not particularly comfortable and my arms got tired as I played, but that’s not a problem exclusive to Zelda and Mario. That’s just Labo VR.

Super Mario Odyssey

Between the two games, Mario’s VR integration is a little more interesting in that it sort of, technically, adds new content to the game. The three VR levels place a stationary camera in Cap, Seaside, and Luncheon Kingdoms and task you with running around to collect coins and find a trio of instruments for some wayward musicians. It contains no new assets or gameplay, but following Mario as you control him in VR works well enough. Once you complete the levels you can watch Pauline sing Jump up Superstar in a concert. If you’ve played Mario Odyssey then you’ve seen the concert already, but this time it’s in VR.

Odyssey’s opening and closing cutscenes can also be viewed using the headset in stereoscopic 3D, but you won’t be able to rotate or move around in the scene. You can also play the VR content without the Labo headset and just use the motion controls to look around, which I appreciate.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Zelda’s VR integration is a little more ambitious, which is admirable, but it doesn’t do the game any favors. Once you load your save, you can flip on VR mode, which basically gives camera control to your head as you play the game normally. Unfortunately, there is noticeable lag when moving your head as the framerate struggles. I have played VR to the point where I am more acclimated to that sometimes-nauseating sensation than most, but the low framerate coupled with the lag made me feel uncomfortable almost right away. And it only gets worse when you visit dense locations like the Lost Woods where the framerate dips a bit even outside of VR.

You can turn off motion controls entirely and basically play normally without the nauseating sensation and even just lay Labo on your face (like this!)…

Click image thumbnails to view larger version

…but the only advantage you gain is some light stereoscopic 3D effects, and it comes at the expense of being able to see every singular pixel on-screen making the visuals look muddy.

No One Is Making You Play This Way

I admire weird updates like this. Nintendo is trying something different with its VR efforts, and I appreciate that I was able to try it all for free. I like trying out the developers’ experiment, but Mario’s offerings are shallow, and playing Zelda VR just made me uncomfortable. I wanted to feel the scale of Hinoxes and Guardians as they chased me through Hyrule Field, but the technical limitations made it impossible to get absorbed into Hyrule’s world in a new way. If you have Labo VR, it’s worth seeing what Nintendo’s first-party superstars look like in VR, but this is not the preferred way to play their most recent games. Far from it.

For our thoughts on Labo VR, head here.

Oculus upgraded its release window for Oculus Quest and Rift S from a vague 'spring' window to May 21 this morning, which gave us the opportunity to chat with Oculus VP of content (and former Naughty Dog co-founder/co-president) Jason Rubin. We spoke about how Quest and Rift S could affect VR adoption, whether or not we're moving into the next generation of Oculus, and why external sensors are taking a long walk into the sunset (for the foreseeable future). You can find an abridged version of our chat below.

The big upgrades for Oculus Quest and Rift S are how they affect cable management, one of the biggest gripes levied against playing games in VR. Neither upcoming headset requires external sensors thanks to inside-out tracking that places all the sensors in the actual headset, and Quest has no cables at all. It is completely standalone. Rift S has one cable that forks into a USB and DVI cable and plugs into a compatible PC.

Oculus Rift S

Why focus on these specific upgrades for the new headsets?

We think it fixes the greatest issue that consumers have said keeps them from buying VR and going back into VR and that is all of the cables and everything else that is going on with the external sensors set up and keep it managed. And that’s true across any high-end six-degree of freedom headsets, whether it’s on PC or console. Certainly it has been possible in the past to not have the external cables and use three-degrees of freedom, like Oculus Go, but that doesn’t give the gaming experience that everyone seems to want with your hands and everything else you want visible, so we are basically moving forward from now on, exclusively with inside out tracking for these systems, and that we think will make a much better product for consumers going forward.

Rift S has a bunch of other upgrades. For example, it has a better screen, it has the better optics that we launched with Go, it gives you a better overall experience. There are some trade-offs that we made, as well, some things it doesn’t have that were in Rift, for example, it doesn’t have over-the-ear headphones, which helps bring the price down and allows you to have the very nice halo strap it now sits with. It does have a headphone jack that will allow you to plug in headphones. Together, we think these two devices really make the conversation, as you walk into a Best Buy and whatnot, much easier for the consumer and retailer to have.

Are Quest and Rift going to be treated separate platforms?

We want to make these ecosystems much closer together. So, if you have Beat Saber? Fine. Your high-scores will show up against PC players and it’s competitive. You can play between them. If you have a multiplayer game on PC you can play against Quest users, and Quest users can play against PC users with cross-play. That means that the first person who buys a Quest has the entire Rift audience to play against, and the first person to buy a Rift S has the entire Rift audience as well as the entire Quest audience to play against, which is great for developers.

Beat Saber

So Beat Saber, for example – is the Quest version and the Rift version considered the same game? Or are they two different games and you get both versions when you buy Beat Saber? How do you distinguish?

The answer to that question is, as much as we can, we’re going to try for cross-buy and cross-play in the same title. I think, in general, over time, that is going to be the situation. I would ask the Beat Saber team the question you just asked, because ultimately that is a developer answer, but I believe the answer would be… it’s the same game.

In that case, I would say it’s the same software. There will be other pieces of software where it’s not exactly the same, and that can happen for many reasons in both directions. Clearly, there are some things the PC can do with its GPUs and CPUs that can’t be done on Quest. But that doesn’t mean once you’ve built the game for PC that there isn’t a subset of what it does, or some sort of version you can’t put out on Quest. There very well may be developers that create a game on PC and a "game lite" on Quest, because it just can’t get the game to work, and they sell "game lite" at a different price and it’s a different game and there is no cross-buy or cross-play.

In the other direction, Quest is untethered, so you can make a huge room work, and it may be that there are titles made for Quest that require a huge room and the developer says, “We can port this to Quest relatively easily, but we do have to change it some way so it’s in a bigger room,” or whatever, and it won’t be the same title. It may not allow cross-buy. It is going to be up to the developer in every case, but in the case of Beat Saber, to answer your question directly, I think they would say it’s the same game.

What’s the main reason for removing the headphones?

There are a huge number of trade-offs when you’re designing these pieces of hardware. Everything either adds money or subtracts money, adds weight or subtracts weight, adds comfort subtracts comfort, etc, etc., etc..

In the case of the headphones, on both devices we realized it is extremely easy to get it in and out of the device if we do the in-strap audio with Go. People really liked that for the fact that they could put it on and go quickly. We could put the [Oculus] headphones on, that is relatively easy, but then there are people who say, "I really want to take those off because they’re good headphones, but they’re not as good as mine." They end up taking off those [Oculus] headphones, then they have to put on extra headphones. Sometimes they just want to get in, but then they don’t have their headphones on, and as we interviewed customers, it seemed like the right thing to do was to put the in-strap speakers in for ease of use – they’re there, they always work. If you’d rather use your own headphones, for whatever reason – you have big ears and you need big headphones, or you want in-ear headphones – whatever it is, we don’t care, it will plug in, work just fine, and be fully compatible. That seemed to cover the most people and make the most people as happy as possible.

Is Rift S now the premiere headset for Oculus? Or can we expect a higher tier, more expensive headset that uses more cables and sensors closer to the current version of Rift?

Right now there are three things in our product line. There is Go, which is three degrees of freedom. There is Quest, which is an all-in-one six-degrees of freedom. And there is Rift S, which is our PC tethered headset. None of them have external sensors. We’ve deprecated external sensors for now. There may be a time in the future – maybe, I am not suggesting this is going to happen – but there may be a time when we want to track your feet and we need an external sensor to do that, or whatever. I’m not saying external sensors have no… I don’t want you to come back and quote me five years from now if it turns out full-body tracking is necessary [laughs], but for the type of thing we’re doing now, which gamers have settled on as the quality experience, there is no need to deal with external sensors.

The three devices have similar, but not identical screen resolutions; similar, but not identical lenses in all cases; they’re all superior to Rift in those ways. We have not announced any additional products beyond that as of today. It’s also worth saying that Rift, I believe, has been taken off even out own internal website for sale. Rift has been sunsetted. There are probably still some available on some retailers somewhere. They are certainly available on eBay, but we’re done with the external sensor business and we’re moving on from Rift to the higher resolution.

Are Quest and Rift S a new generation for Oculus hardware? Would you compare this upgrade to something like moving from PlayStation 3 to PlayStation 4?

We believe that the Rift generation, the Rift ecosystem, is not changing. This is not a PlayStation 3 to 4 move. A PlayStation 3 to 4-like move would entail us adding some feature that would make software incompatible backwards, because you wouldn’t have that feature. There is nothing about a Rift that somebody owns that is obsoleted by this new technology. It will be less convenient to use, to be sure. I’m telling you, inside out tracking is a hell of a lot better than all the sensors and USBs and all that stuff. But once you have all that hooked up, you have roughly the same experience and the software is compatible. This is a refresh and improvement of the current generation, rather than switching generations.

Oculus Quest

This may be a question for developers, but there won’t ever be Rift S-exclusive games?

It doesn’t seem like there would be any good reason to do so. As with any piece of hardware, when there is a change there are things that are different. You can’t say they’re identical. For example, with the higher-resolution screens on Rift S, there is text on Rift that would be hard to read that wouldn’t be hard to read on Rift S, but I would imagine developers – to get the larger audience – will just make sure it is legible on both.

There are poses with inside-out tracking that are incompatible because everything is being seen from your headset. Putting your hands behind you is something inside-out tracking doesn't do well, where external sensors, especially if you put one behind you, deals with that fine. That being said, you also can’t see your arms when they’re behind you. We have software ways of dealing with what can’t be seen by the eyes. There may be some incompatible moments in a Rift title, because Rift S has different restrictions.

There are differences, but my assumption is developers will just figure out what stuff isn’t "perfect" for Rift S, and I know they’re already working on this, and just tweak it. Going forward they’ll have Rift in the corner, and Rift S on their desks and they will make sure everything is compatible across both because why wouldn’t you? The differences are not large enough that there should be any Rift S-only software.

Having said that, developers are primary for us. If a developer makes a decision and it’s rational and it’s not offensive to the consumer and they can explain it, we’ll do it. I can see no reason, from a business standpoint why anyone would cut off all the first Rift users for arbitrary reasons. If they come up with a valid reason, okay, we’ll listen and then maybe.

Oculus Quest and Rift S will be available each for $399.99 on May 21. For more on Oculus Quest and Rift S, follow the links.

Oculus Quest is the virtual-reality headset I’ve been waiting for. All of the hardware is built into the headset, meaning you don’t need a computer, phone, or console to run it. You also don’t have to worry about tripping over cables since it isn’t tethered to anything and is entirely wire free. Setup is easy and you can start playing games within just minutes of removing the headset and controllers from the box. It’s basically virtual reality’s equivalent of the console experience, and it comes packing a hefty library of games.

Virtual reality is still in its infancy, and while it’s great that companies like Oculus, Samsung, and Valve continue to make significant breakthroughs in hardware and games, a new headset is almost obsolete by the time it launches. Oculus just released the Go, and now here’s the Quest, which is releasing on the same day as the cable-connected Rift S (an option we have yet to get our hands on). The Rift S and Quest hit on May 21.

Even if you already have a nice VR setup, or want to adopt to the most powerful solution, which the Quest is not, its mobility makes it attractive. You can wear this thing almost anywhere, as long as you have roughly seven feet of clear space around you for the room-scale experience (or four feet if you want to sit).

When you boot up the Quest, the passthrough cameras give you a good look at your surroundings, and your first task is to create your play space, which Oculus calls the “Guardian” boundary. Using one of the controllers, you simply point at the floor and draw a ring or square around you. I started out making a relatively tight ring around me in my office, but was able to create a huge play space of roughly 20 feet in larger areas (and even in my backyard). Once a suitable area is determined, you’re ready to play games, watch movies, Chromecast stream, or do whatever it is you want to in VR. All of the games must be downloaded from Oculus' store.

If you are near the perimeter you established, you’ll see a blue wireframe alerting you of the safety zone. If you break the perimeter, the grid turns red, alerting you to back up a bit. If you spend too much time outside of the boundary, the passthrough cameras come to life to show you where you are, and a message will eventually appear telling you to remove the headset. Thanks to these safety parameters, I never once collided with anything I didn’t want to. Nothing was broken.

The Quest is launching with 50-plus games that offer six-degrees of freedom, and are powered by the Snapdragon 835 processor with 4GB of RAM. The headset, which features OLED lenses with 1440x1600 resolution for each eye, is joined by two Touch controllers that you can see visually when the headset is on. The controllers are similar in design to the Rift’s Touch controllers, but the tracking rings now face upward, a change that was made to improve the tracking made by the sensors on the headset. I ran the battery dry three times during my tests of various games. The average battery life appears to be about two and a half to three hours.

I found the headset to be comfortable, outside of the somewhat odd pull of the weight from the screen, which is a problem with every VR option out there. The padding around the lenses is a nice touch, and the strap placement is easy to find when adjusting the fit blindly with the headset on.

The Quest’s launch line-up of games plays out a little bit like a highlight reel of VR gaming, offering older experiences like Superhot, Beat Saber, Moss, and Angry Birds VR: Isle of the Pigs, but there are also some new experiences designed exclusively for the Quest such as the competitive shooter Dead and Buried II. Odds are, most games coming to the Rift in the future will also head to Quest, but nothing is guaranteed.

Superhot and Beat Saber are immediate standouts on the Quest, not just since they are great games, but in showing just how precise the motion tracking is. I felt like my motions were all landing perfectly. I did run into the occasional moment where the headset would lose tracking of a controller, but only for a split second and then it would rematerialize and I’d be back in the groove of playing. I used a combination of analog stick movement and room-scale movement in Journey of the Gods, and didn’t have any issues at all, and also used warping in Apex Construct to move around a sprawling 3D space and it worked well. I also found the built in speakers did the trick, although if you use them, everyone can hear what you are. You can always plug in headphones to isolate the sound, but that adds a wire to the equation.

Apex did have a little bit of chop to it during an elevator sequence, which brings into question the overall performance of the machine – not so much for the launch lineup, but for the games that come in the months and years ahead. Yes, it’s plenty powerful, but the hardware can’t be upgraded like a typical PC rig, again drawing a parallel to console gaming. How long will it be supported? That’s not an answer we’ll know any time soon, but I have a feeling Oculus will keep this great VR experience in its sights as long as people are playing it.

Along with the headset and controller, the box comes with a frame spacer for people who wear glasses (co-workers who wear glasses said that the experience was indeed comfortable), two double a batteries for the controllers (these didn’t even come close to losing juice), and a 15W USB-C power adapter for the headset. The $399 entry price point is a bit intimidating, but I think it’s a steal for what the Quest has to offer right out of the gates. You can also get a slightly beefier 128 GB model for $499. The mobility and ease of setup make it a game changer in the world of VR. This is the VR option made for the masses, and Oculus knocked it out of the park.