Review
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8.0

For Honor review

For Honor is a fighting game. I had to keep repeating that to myself every time I got frustrated. The third-person camera, the medieval settings and the melee weapons had caught me off guard, thinking this was an action-adventure, or a hack-and-slash somewhat like Ryse. Approaching it with those expectations left me disappointed. When I accepted it as a fighting game, though, my attitude changed. Rooted in a clear system of checks and balances that require varied moves and annihilate spam attacking as viable gameplay, For Honor delivers some of the most creative melee combat I've seen. I'm no Robocop in this game, but there's something to be said for actually facing the person who chopped me down, rather than being slower on the draw or picked off from a blind spot. For Honor still...
Dishonored 2 guide
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Dishonored 2 collectibles guide

There are four types of collectibles in Dishonored 2 — runes, bonecharms, paintings and blueprints. In this guide, we'll show you how to find every one of them. Looking for a walkthrough? Our Dishonored 2 coverage doesn't end with a full walkthrough. We also have a Dishonored 2 walkthrough that will show you how to beat the game stealthily or … murder-ly. It's your call. Table of contents All A Long Day in Dunwall collectibles All Edge of the World collectibles All The Good Doctor collectibles All The Clockwork Mason collectibles All The Royal Conservatory collectibles All Dust District collectibles All A Crack in the Slab collectibles All The Grand Palace collectibles All Death to the Empress collectibles
Cover Story
Issue 25

January 9, 2017

Final Fantasy 7: An oral history

30,000 words! 35 interviews! 4 videos! A trivia minigame! We take an in-depth look back at Square’s breakthrough role-playing game.

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Video
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Elder Scrolls Online: Morrowind has its first gameplay trailer, new screenshots

The Elder Scrolls Online: Morrowind dropped its first gameplay trailer today, and it’s custom built to send your nostalgia into overdrive. The video, which is included above, is set to a motion-picture style orchestral soundtrack. You’ll see familiar locations from the 2002 classic, The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind, recreated in the modern MMO engine. We recognized Seyda Need, that games’ backwater swamp town, as well as Balmora where its first major quest line took place. There’s also a smattering of giant mushrooms, dwemer ruins and more bone armor than you can shake a glass mace at. The Elder Scrolls Online takes place 700 years before The Elder Scrolls 3, but that’s not stopped the developers from including locations made famous in Elder Scrolls games, including the imperial city of...
News
5 Comments

More huge Hearthstone changes incoming with Arena mode tweaks

It’s been a big month of long-anticipated announcements for Hearthstone, including card nerfs, changes to the ranked mode ladder format and some cards shifting out of standard as the game enters the Year of the Mammoth. Blizzard isn’t done with the news, however, as it hits players with another big announcement today. This time the changes are focused around Arena mode. In this mode, which has existed mostly unchanged since before Hearthstone’s full launch in 2014, players must pay either 150 gold or $1.99 to buy in to a run. Once you’re in, you choose one card from a set of three over and over until you have a full deck of 30 cards. Then you play against others who put together their deck the same way until you lose three times or manage to get the maximum of 12 wins. A reward is doled...
News
2 Comments

Rocket League Original Minis toys expanding with light-up cars (update)

Rocket League’s upcoming pull-back racers from Zag Toys’ Original Minis aren’t the only toys in the works. Those 12 cars will soon be joined by a line of light-up cars, Zag Toys told Polygon at Toy Fair New York today. The light-up toy cars will feature LEDs for the vehicles’ headlights, as you would expect. But since Rocket League is a game about jet-fueled battle cars, these toys will also illuminate at the back — with a “cloud” of rocket exhaust. Zag Toys plans to release the light-up cars this summer, after the spring debut of the pull-back racers. For both lines of toys, the initial rollout of cars will just be a start. While Zag wouldn’t let us take photos at Toy Fair because the vehicles were pre-production prototypes, the non-final retail box for the toys featured a “Series 1”...
News
45 Comments

Is this Overwatch’s next hero?

Blizzard Entertainment appears to be ramping up to a reveal of a new hero for Overwatch, posting an “interview” with a previously unseen character: 11-year-old robotics and artificial intelligence prodigy Efi Oladele, a native of Numbani. The interview with Efi was posted on the Overwatch website under the Atlas News byline, the same byline used to provide early details or background on the game’s other characters, including Sombra and Soldier: 76. While it seems unlikely that an 11-year-old would be the game’s next hero — pulling off sick headshots as Widowmaker on a little kid might just feel weird — it’s Efi’s expertise in building things that may point to who (or what) is coming to Overwatch next. From the interview: How did you get into robots and artificial intelligence? Well,...
9 Comments

Rogue Legacy creators reveal new brawler, Full Metal Furies

The team behind roguelike platformer Rogue Legacy is working on a new team-based brawler called Full Metal Furies, developer Cellar Door Games announced today. Bound for Xbox One and Windows PC, Full Metal Furies “will challenge you to think like a team, and to rethink what a brawler could be,” according to its creators. Full Metal Furies was developed “completely around cooperation,” the developer said in a news release. Up to four players can play as one of four character roles (sentinel, engineer, sniper, fighter) and battle creatures from Greek mythology (titans, minotaurs, lycoans). Cellar Door will also offer something for the lone single player as well. As seen in Full Metal Furies’ announcement trailer above, players can “quick-swap” between two characters on the fly, chaining...
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Resident Evil 7 guide
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Resident Evil 7 guide and walkthrough (update)

In Polygon's Resident Evil 7 guide and walkthrough, we'll show you where to go, how to defeat your enemies and where to find the weapons, keys, collectibles — antique coins, files and Mr. Everywhere statues — you're looking for. How to use this Resident Evil 7 guide Resident Evil 7 is both a departure from and a return to form for Capcom's long-running survival horror franchise. Though it unfurls in a single, long campaign without any named levels, Resident Evil 7 does have landmarks that seem an awful lot like levels. We've organized our Resident Evil 7 walkthrough based on these geographical locations that divide the game into sections. Follow our Resident Evil 7 guide, you'll find the path from the first moments to the final boss battle, with...
News
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NBA 2K17’s Sacramento Kings wouldn’t make that DeMarcus Cousins trade

The Sacramento Kings and the New Orleans Pelicans just pulled off a blockbuster trade, with the Kings shipping out one of the league’s best players in DeMarcus Cousins a year before he’s set to become a free agent. The deal, which our friends at SB Nation called “one of the worst trades in NBA history,” is so imbalanced in the Pelicans’ favor that even the video game version of the Kings wouldn’t agree to it. Here’s a full breakdown of the trade, along with each player’s current rating in NBA 2K17: Sacramento Kings get: SG Tyreke Evans, 78 SG Buddy Hield, 74 SG Langston Galloway, 74 2017 first-round draft pick 2017 second-round draft pick New Orleans Pelicans get: C DeMarcus Cousins, 93 SF Omri Cassipi, 70 At a 93 overall in NBA 2K17, Cousins is currently the seventh-best player in...
Culture
1 Comment

Grand Theft Auto Online mashes up the Full Throttle opening

Of the all-time greats from the halcyon days of point-and-click adventures, nothing compares to Full Throttle. In my mind, anyway. My answering machine message — when this shit had to be recorded on tape — was Ben's creed: "When I'm on the road, I'm indestructible. No one can stop me; but they try." Every woman in my life hated leaving a message for me, which only made me like Full Throttle more. So, forgiving a few subpar production values, and the fact Ben's bike doesn't have 98 tailpipes, here is a the best shot-for-shot remake of Full Throttle's opening within Grand Theft Auto 5 that we can find. It makes great use of Grand Theft Auto Online's bikers update, and at least manages to land the shots of Ben vaulting the stretch limo, and ashing his smoke at the end. Twenty years on,...
News
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Kolin is Street Fighter 5’s next character. Here’s why you should play her.

Street Fighter 5 adds six characters in its second season, which began with Akuma back in December. Coming next, on Feb. 28, is Kolin, who will be making her playable debut in the franchise. This video from Capcom delivers the lowdown on why she's worth a shot. Kolin's style appears to be a fast-paced, combo-driven attack to juggle the opponent and keep their stun gauge from recovering. Capcom community manager Matt Edwards explains in greater detail (and in a vernacular more familiar to Street Fighter players), why she’s worth a look, even if her strikes do not deal as much damage. Kolin first appeared as an NPC in 1997's Street Fighter 3: New Generations as the valet of Gill, that game's principal antagonist. Gill gave her her ice powers, so she likes him a lot. Kolin is available...
Review
7 Comments
6.5

Sniper Elite 4 review

While social media debates the ethics of punching Nazis, Sniper Elite 4 continues to consider how best to perforate their spleens. Sniper Elite 4 marks Rebellion’s fourth round for their World War II marksman, and it doesn’t lose sight of the series’ slow motion hook: showing the internal damage of bullet strikes, with bones, arteries and organs included. The gore remains untouched in this sequel, delivering a gruesome splatter fest alongside a sometimes tense stand-off between a lone American soldier and hundreds from the ranks of Nazi Germany. Sniper Elite 4’s campaign is filled with potential high points and anxious moments deep in enemy territory. But it’s also often soured by inconsistencies, AI that swings between the idiotic and superhuman, and shock that loses its value. K...
For Honor guide
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For Honor’s multiplayer modes explained

For Honor’s multiplayer takes a few different form, ultimately pouring into the Faction War — a broader meta-narrative that spans For Honor’s online multiplayer modes. All of the battles you fight across all of For Honor’s multiplayer modes — dominion, deathmatch, and duel and brawl — add up to determine the course of the ongoing war between the three factions — knights, samurai and vikings. In this guide, we’ll teach you how it all it works. The metagame: How For Honor multiplayer works After every match, you’ll be awarded war assets to distribute among disputed territories. Every six hours, those disputed territories update, and whichever faction has the most assets gets control. Those territories determine the maps you play on and some cosmetic features of those maps. ...
News
38 Comments

Mass Effect: Andromeda gameplay video goes in-depth on combat

Mass Effect: Andromeda developer BioWare kicked off its “gameplay series” videos today with a deep dive on combat, showing off the options that the Ryder twins will have at their disposal when it comes to defending themselves. The video offers the longest look yet at in-game footage of Andromeda, with five and a half minutes’ worth of action featuring both gunplay and special powers. A voice-over introduces the various weapons that will be available in the game: melee weapons plus four types of guns (pistols, shotguns, assault rifles and sniper rifles). The firearms are split into three classes, depending on their origin. Milky Way guns are traditional ballistic weapons, firing physical projectiles at enemies. Remnant weapons use energy beams; they’re very accurate even with a high rate...
News
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Vampire: The Masquerade series gets its first new title in a decade

White Wolf Publishing has released the first new game in the Vampire: The Masquerade series in a decade. Called Vampire The Masquerade: We Eat Blood, it’s joined by a sister title, Mage The Ascension: Refuge. Both are pieces of interactive fiction, “inspired by choose your own adventure books” says a press release issued today. They are available on Android and iOS from Asmodee Digital, and on Windows PC. “In Vampire The Masquerade: We Eat Blood you’re a young artist who wakes up at night to find you’re no longer human,” reads a statement. “Told entirely through an innovative mobile messaging perspective, We Eat Blood is a sharp, mature, and terrifying story about your first nights as unwilling predator and prey.” While We Eat Blood stays true to the gritty themes common in the...
News
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Plus a handful of classic cards will be retired from regular play

Hearthstone’s approach to expansions is totally changing in the Year of the Mammoth

A little over a year ago, Blizzard brought major changes to its popular digital card game, Hearthstone, with the introduction of two formats of play: Standard and Wild. With this new system, Wild mode would encompass decks built from any Hearthstone card ever released, while Standard would stick to the original Classic set and cards from add-ons released in the current and previous calendar year. As we approach a presumed spring launch of Hearthstone’s first expansion of 2017, Blizzard is preparing for the game’s second ever “rotation,” where cards from expansions and adventures released in 2015 will no longer be playable in Standard format. But as the developer attempts to combat a stale metagame, imbalance and the frustration of fans who burn out on new content as fast as the company...
Review
73 Comments
8.0

Halo Wars 2 review

Halo Wars 2 feels like the relic of two different histories. On the one side you'd find the real-time strategy genre, a collection of games that found a brief period of big-budget dominance on the PC and occasionally ventured onto consoles. RTS games spawned the current 500-ton gorillas of modern free-to-play gaming in the form of League of Legends and DOTA 2, but the more traditional model of base-and-army-building games largely languishes The original Halo Wars also came at a time when it seemed like an offshoot of Halo into new arenas outside the FPS was natural, even inevitable. But since Halo Wars’ 2009 debut, the series has remained content to play in its own first-person sandbox as the RTS genre faded. And now, in 2017, for whatever reason, Microsoft and Halo stewards 343...
For Honor guide
12 Comments

Understanding For Honor: A guide to bizarre combat

For Honor controls unlike any game you’ve played before. Once you accept that, our recommendation will sound less strange: Spend your first hour or so just learning to fight. Nothing else. We’re going to devote this entire For Honor guide just to combat. That’s how weird it is. Why is fighting worth a whole guide? Because the most important part about learning to play For Honor (let alone getting good at playing For Honor) is understanding its weird controls. Trust us: Investing the time to learn how to block, dodge, guard, fight, parry, throw and attack keeps you from spending your first several hours mashing buttons and throwing controllers. In this guide, we’ll explain it all — and show it with videos that turn the frantic combat into easily digestible demonstrations. After you put...
News
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Homefront: The Revolution’s final expansion coming in March

It’s been months since Homefront: The Revolution developer Dambuster Studios provided an update on post-release plans for the game, so you could’ve been forgiven for wondering if the company had abandoned it. Today, though, Dambuster resurfaced to announce future plans, including downloadable content. Beyond the Walls, the third and final piece of single-player DLC in Homefront: The Revolution’s season pass, will be released in March, according to Dambuster. The studio said that it has been “working incredibly hard” on the add-on as well as “remaining issues.” When the game launched in May 2016, it was lambasted for serious performance issues, including a low and inconsistent frame rate. Dambuster issued a patch to address some of the problems in August. While Dambuster didn’t provide...
Pre-review
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It’s hard to keep one’s discipline in multiplayer, though

For Honor pre-review: The combat shines, given enough time

Rarely, if ever, have I sized up an opponent in an online multiplayer game, much less a team deathmatch. There's simply no time for it in a shooter. Yet that is what my dueling partner and I were doing last night in For Honor. I felt him looking me over, too. We switched our guards twice and circled each other. This preamble to sword combat probably lasted about 2.5 seconds. In my mind's eye, it seems like a full minute, and even though I lost, it was by far the highlight of my play so far. When this happens, For Honor feels novel and engaging. The problem is it just didn't happen often enough in multiplayer for me. There wasn't enough in For Honor’s blocking/guard system, nor the inscrutably tight window for parrying attacks, to discourage an opponent’s relentless assault on the fast...
News
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Watch Dogs 2’s new ending scene might be teasing the series’ future

A new patch for Watch Dogs 2 has expanded the game’s conclusion. While the overall story hasn’t changed much, some players are convinced that the new scene teases the hacking-filled action series’ next installment. The cutscene immediately follows the game’s existing, much lengthier ending. As such, be warned that there are spoilers in the footage below. The new addition kicks off around the 2:18 mark. It’s a brief addition, and the teaser may be lost on those focusing on the audio instead of the accompanying video. Eagle-eyed Watch Dogs fans took note of the numbers in the name of the audio file that appears for the 20-second clip. Turns out that those aren’t just random numbers for the hell of it — they may very well be coordinates. Throwing the numbers (51.462014 and -0.112504)...