I’ve long since been a Persona 4 stan. Out of the three modern Persona games, P4 has always stood out to me as the best of the bunch. You’ve got a killer cast, a great story, and a timeless soundtrack through and through. And while, yes, Persona 5 may look a lot prettier and flashier than its slightly outdated-looking predecessor, I’d play P4 over P5 any day of the week.

Which is why I think it’s an absolute crime that with the release of Persona 3 Reload, Persona 4 is now officially the ugliest new-school game in the series.

Persona 3 Reload on Xbox

“This may be coming a little late for most of you, but welcome to the dorm.”

Persona 3 is a very special game to me for a variety of reasons. For starters, like many other casual fans, this was my introduction to Atlus and Shin Megami Tensei. It also marked the release of the new-school Persona games with dating sim elements and a visual novel-style story JRPG that would lay the groundwork for Persona 4 and Persona 5. In addition to all of that, Persona 3 also happens to have the darkest story out of the three modern entries, and it hits hard even today.

It’s been less than a week since Palworld‘s early access release on Steam and Xbox Game Pass, and it’s already sold millions of copies. Not only that, it’s also surpassed two million concurrent players, which is no small feat.

Palworld has also been the center of controversy, being billed as “Pokemon with guns”. It’s also caught the attention of a few AAA developers, and players wondering if Nintendo or the Pokemon Company have anything to say about it. Well, turns out they do.

Jumping into the world of Enshrouded reminds me a lot of the first time I played Valheim back in 2021. Innovative building mechanics! A seemingly endless well of gear and items to craft! Exciting biomes to explore! Unique bosses that require hours of preparation to beat! The world was your oyster.

Since its early access release, though, Valheim’s slew of post-launch updates have slowed to a crawl, and I find myself looking for the next big survival/crafting RPG to jump to. Enter Enshrouded, which seems to promise everything I’ve ever wanted in a game like this. And for the most part, it delivers.

The Xbox Game Pass version of Palworld might be a little slower to receive updates than the Steam version, but they’re coming. The Jan. 23, 2024 update for Palworld on Xbox is now out, and here’s what you need to know.

All Fixes in Palworld Xbox Jan. 23 Update

This latest update for Palworld on Xbox is a pretty minor one, but it fixes some key issues. Here are all of the fixes in the Jan. 23 update:

Every couple of weeks, Second Dinner pushes out an over-the-air update for Marvel Snap. These are usually just numerical changes rather than full card text changes like we usually get in the full patches. However, they can also shake up the meta significantly. Here’s everything you need to know about Marvel Snap’s Jan. 19 OTA update.

All Changes in Marvel Snap’s Jan. 19 OTA Update

The headline here is, Blob has been nerfed! I know I just said OTA updates don’t usually include card text changes, but this is an exception.

January’s looking to be a bit of a quieter month, but there’s one game releasing in the next few weeks that might very well keep us occupied for a while. Here’s why you should be excited for Palworld.

It’s a Multiplayer Pokemon Game

I mean, need I say more? Pokemon fans have been clamoring for a Pokemon MMO game for years, or at the very least, improved multiplayer functionality. While Nintendo has lagged behind in that regard, Pocketpair seems primed to deliver just that with Palworld.

Every month, Second Dinner pushes out a proper patch for Marvel Snap. These usually come with updated card text for a handful of cards, which are meant to help balance the meta and shift things in a different direction to keep the game from feeling stale. Here’s everything you need to know about the Jan. 9, 2024 patch in Marvel Snap.

For starters, Loki will no longer buff Collector, Quake and Kingpin are getting significant reworks that may actually make them playable, while Ms. Marvel has been knocked down a peg. Still no changes to Professor X since the last OTA update, and more prominently, no changes to Blob, who has quickly become the biggest menace of the Marvel Snap meta.

HBO’s The Last of Us season 2 is probably still at least a year away, but that won’t stop us from getting hyped up about every little bit of news that comes by. According to a new report from Variety, new character Abby has been cast, and actress Kaitlyn Dever will officially be joining the roster alongside Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal.

Kaitlyn Dever is best know for her appearances in movies like Booksmart and Rosaline, as well as TV roles for Unbelievable and Dopesick.

Now that both the Attack on Titan anime and manga series have concluded, it’s finally time to look back at all off the iconic anime openings and determine the best of the bunch. Here are all of the Attack on Titan openings, ranked from worst to best.

8. My War by Shinsei Kamattechan (Final Season)

I want to make it absolutely clear that this is not a bad opening by any stretch of the imagination; it’s just so completely different to what fans have become accustomed to with Attack on Titan that opening the final season with this felt like it came out of left field. My War takes a completely different musical direction from the other hyped up openings of the season, and more importantly, we barely see any Titans, which can feel a bit jarring for a show that’s all about the horror of the Titans.

New year, new Marvel Snap roadmap. It’s been a while since we’ve gotten a solid development roadmap update from Second Dinner, and the developers are starting the year off strong by showing players what’s coming up in the pipeline. Most of these features were teased in the last roadmap update, but seeing a few things get bumped up to the Coming Soon column lets us know they’re not too far off from official release.

Some of the headlining features coming up include customizable borders and new infinity splits, with the former being a much-requested feature from players. The last big patch also introduced albums, where players could unlock new cosmetics and even Spotlight Keys by collecting variants, and Second Dinner promises to improve the feature even further going forward.

With the rollover of every month, Marvel Snap gets a brand new season to shake things up. Here’s everything you need to know about the upcoming Planet Hulk season in Marvel Snap.

Everything New in Marvel Snap’s Planet Hulk Season

Marvel Snap Planet Hulk Season Start and End Date

The Planet Hulk season is set to start on Jan. 3, 2024, and will run till Feb. 7, 2024, at 11 a.m. Pacific Time.

As 2023 winds down, it’s time to take a look back at the year and revisit all of the great video games that have released so far. It’s been a pretty solid year for Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch fans, as all three consoles got some strong exclusive games, but it’s time to determine who the winner is. Here are the best console exclusive titles of 2023.

2nd Runner-Up: Starfield

Writer Stephanie Watel: This year, Bethesda took us to the stars in more ways than one with Starfield, their biggest and most technologically ambitious IP so far that put them back on the map of groundbreaking RPGs for the first time in nearly a decade.

Sometimes there’s nothing better than playing a game with friends. While we all love huge, expansive single-player adventures like Spider-Man 2 or Starfield, co-op games add a social element to gameplay that players can really treasure.

With the year coming to a close, join us as we count down the best co-op games released in 2023. These are the games that don’t only stand up as quality titles in their own right, but are made even better thanks to those memory-making co-op sessions that always end up going long into the night!

Marvel Snap‘s meta has gone through quite a few slumps. We’ve been plagued by Galactus, Alioth, and now Blob, and there’s always one particular card that’s at the center of it all: Professor X.

With this week’s OTA update, Professor X is finally getting a small slap on the wrist, though it’s worth noting that his core ability remains the same. Aside from X, a few other cards have also gotten small nerfs, including Viper, Werewolf by Night, Black Widow, and more.

Ever since Second Dinner announced the flexible Series drop system for Marvel Snap, things have felt dire, to say the least. We’ve not seen any Series drops in nearly a year, and the studio only spoke up about it a couple months back to state that there would be more news coming before the end of 2023.

Well, the news is finally here, and we’ll be getting some downgrades with the patch coming in early January. Here are all the Series drops that are happening on Jan. 9, 2024:

Mobile games typically get a bad rep for being pay-to-win and riddled with microtransactions, and look, we’re not here to dispute that. It’s absolutely true. If you want to have any hope of breaking into the top 1% of the leaderboard rankings for any mobile game, you’ll need to shell out some cash.

However, that’s not to say that there aren’t a few good ones out there that are actually very friendly to free-to-play players or light spenders. With that in mind, here’s a rundown of the best F2P-friendly mobile gacha games you can play in 2023.

A24 has risen in prominence in the last few years, putting out quality films like Hereditary, Midsommar, Lady Bird, and Uncut Gems, just to name a few. On the other side of the coin, video game developer and industry auteur Hideo Kojima is a huge film buff, and it’s widely known that he enjoys A24’s works as well. With all that in mind, the A24 adaptation of Death Stranding seems like a happy marriage.

Kojima Productions and A24 announced today that the studio would be adapting Death Stranding into a live-action movie.

The Last of Us came with a pretty fun and unique multiplayer mode in the form of Factions, and when The Last of Us Part II released, much of the player base was excited to see how Naughty Dog would iterate on an existing formula. We’d gotten a few updates over the past couple years, but as of today, the studio has officially decided to stop development on The Last of Us Online.

Essentially, while Naughty Dog was happy with the way things were progressing with the game, the vision for The Last of Us Online had become so massively ambitious that would require a lot of time and resources for the years to come. Things had gotten to a point where the company had to decide to either continue focusing their efforts on creating single-player games, or become a live service studio that focused on The Last of Us Online.

Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto franchise is one of the most popular and most profitable video game series in the year, and for good reason. They’re fun, they’re a real power fantasy, and they’re also the embodiment of the sandbox game that lets you do anything. Here’s our ranking of all 12 GTA games, from worst to best.

12. Grand Theft Auto

Let’s make one thing clear, none of the games on this list are bad. They not only helped to crate a whole new way of playing, but they have been influential in everything from design to tone. The game that started it off may be ‘last’ on this list, but that’s only because each of the games that followed it up were so incredible.