Games & Gaming 360°

If I know anything about the BioWare community, is that they only need to see a frame of a character before they fall in love with them. Mass Effect: Universe, the ill-fated fifth game in the studio’s sci-fi series, has been leaking since publisher EA shuttered the studio on Wednesday, and one of those leaks was an internal trailer that was being used to communicate the game’s James Bond-esque vibe. In that trailer, we get a few shots of what seems to have been one of the companions for the game: an unnamed male Quarian who seems a bit roguish and tech savvy. That was enough for fans to latch onto him. I've been waiting for YEARS for a hot male Quarian. I was shaking to get under this hunk. I'm so mad and sad that I needed to draw this! I will not let #MassEffect go out like this! #SaveMassEffect #MassEffectIsAlive #masseffectforever Lets go!! https://t.co/26XdIUdO10 pic.twitter.com/b4hPQGMgs8 — S-Kinnaly🌙 (@s_kinnaly) October 23, 2026 This guy would have been notable, as the only other Quarian squadmate in the entire series is Tali’Zorah vas Normandy, who is on your team for all three games as long as she survives the events of Mass Effect 2.

We are in the middle of a slow-motion industry crash that probably hasn't peaked Farewell then, BioWare. This week, EA shuttered the Canadian RPG specialist, home of Mass Effect and Dragon Age. I'll admit to never having been a fan — on a personal level, I didn't click with the games. But I get it. I can see why these stories and characters meant so much to so many people, for their drama and scope, but particularly for BioWare's eagerness for its games to be an affirming reflection of their players.

One of Gary Larson’s sorta-kinda recurring characters One of the biggest differences between The Far Side and most other comic strips is that The Far Side doesn’t have a recurring cast of characters. Charles Schulz’s Peanuts, for example, had Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy, Snoopy, and the rest of the gang, while Jim Davis’ Garfield has Garfield, Odie, Jon, and a handful of other recurring characters. But Gary Larson’s The Far Side, with its non-sequitur, single-panel jokes, didn’t have regular characters, or at least not really.

A hooded figure emerges slowly from the floor of a cavernous art-deco space — supposedly the hallway of his house, although it looks like a theater stage. He dramatically plays an organ mounted on a hydraulic platform. The organ is flanked by a sinister clockwork jazz band with papier-mâché heads. The hooded figure sets the band in motion and a beautiful young woman appears in a fantastical white gown. The pair dance together in courtly fashion. Then they go and murder a guy by lowering a cage full of ravenous bats into his bedroom through a skylight. The bats eat the man alive. The woman and the hooded man return home and he plays his organ again, sinking slowly into the floor. We are 10 minutes into The Abominable Dr. Phibes, and nobody has spoken a word. Robert Fuest’s 1971 horror film is a surreal, kitsch, and intentionally funny murder-museum of a movie. But it's also dreamlike and deeply strange in a way that lingers after you've watched it.

Sundays are, again, for running taxi duty for relatives visiting from overseas. If I had a nickel for every time I had an early morning Gatwick run in tandem with a Sunday Papers post, I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird than I’m being paid in USD when I live in the United Kingdom. In that international spirit, here are some fine writings from around the globe. For Stop Caring, Artemis Octavio interviewed Jeremy Couillard, the multimedia artist behind such offbeat indie experiments as Soul Injector Commando: an FPS about shooting a sense of humanity into enemies based on real-life billionaires.

Last night, I sat down with a greasy pizza and a few bottles of beer and braced myself for 10 episodes of heartbreak. Cyberpunk: Edgerunners' second season is out, and it follows in the footsteps of Studio Trigger's beloved, and tragic, debut. My expectations were way off. Not because it wasn't good: Edgerunners Season 2 is fantastic. Packed with a wonderful cast of troubled characters, their story brought to life with gorgeous and often unorthodox animation. The soundtrack, the voice acting... Quality-wise the bar is as high as the first season. What surprised me was the decision to bring something many may find peculiar given Cyberpunk's dire setting and desperate energy. The show is hopeful. Defiant, even.

5 great psychological thrillers you can watch online for free Psychological thrillers trigger a fight-or-flight response within a controlled environment and entertain us at the same time. Interpersonal relationships become the source of anxiety, as there’s more at stake than someone’s physical safety — their very sanity is on the line. The novelty of great psychological thrillers like Rear Window (1954), Memento (2000), or Mulholland Drive (2001) does not wear off after a first watch. There’s more to glean than suspense or twist, as catharsis is an integral part of the experience. Unfortunately, all those movies are locked up behind various streaming service subscriptions (if they're available to stream at all).

Jake is a journalist, editor, and critic with over a decade of experience covering entertainment, gaming, culture and more. His writing has been published in WIRED, The Ringer, Rolling Stone, Vice, Men's Health, HuffPost, and more. Before joining Polygon, he was the Executive Editor of Inverse. James Marsters' snarky vampire remains one of the show's most memorable characters

Paul's quote about cyclical violence is a seminal aspect of Dune Frank Herbert’s Dune novels were once considered unfilmable. This makes sense, since Herbert’s world is chock-full of ecological details and complex characters. It is a cautionary tale about unchecked power, nestled within a vast setting with several dense subplots. David Lynch tried to make sense of Herbert’s saga in his flawed 1984 adaptation, while Alejandro Jodorowsky was unsuccessful in bringing his eccentric vision for Dune to life.

Slowly and surely, draw your plans to watch A foundational alien-invasion movie is currently streaming for free on YouTube

More information about the now-canceled Mass Effect: Universe keeps trickling out following this week’s closure of BioWare and the end of years of development of the next game in the studio’s sci-fi series. After an internal trailer featuring a new protagonist and original trilogy party member Liara T’Soni leaked, more information came out about how the game would handle choices from the previous games, as well as how the galaxy gradually built itself back up after the cataclysmic events of Mass Effect 3. Now, some folks who were working on the game at BioWare have started talking about the game, and while they’re not exactly going full spoiler mode for the canceled game, they are teasing a bit of what they were working on. One such developer is franchise technical director Romain Toutain, who held a stream on Twitch where he watched and commentated over the trailer and gave a few new details about what BioWare was cooking. Toutain speaks in French, but Bluesky user @loustica-lucia posted a clip of some of his commentary with English subtitles. So earlier, my brother was watching Octobinz (Romain Toutain)'s livestream on Twitch.

Terry Terrones is an entertainment writer for Polygon. His work has appeared in The Hollywood Reporter, Parade Magazine, Paste Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, The A. V. Club, The Wrap, TV Insider, and other national outlets. He is a member of the Television Critics Association, the Critics Choice Association, and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. This Captain Kirk speech says more about what Star Trek stands for than any other line in the original series.

Thomas is a writer and author from Chicago, working out of Washington state, with subspecializations in comic books, horror movies, zombie outbreaks, and tabletop RPGs. His work has appeared in Lifewire, GameRant, Digital Trends, and Prima Games, including several official strategy guides. If you haven't seen Bloodsport, stop what you're doing and watch Bloodsport

Oli Welsh has been covering the business and culture of video games for two decades. He started out writing for Edge and other publications (specializing in MMOs and Blizzard, as cover for his World of Warcraft playtime) before joining Eurogamer, where he worked for 14 years as reviews editor, deputy editor, and editor-in-chief; Eurogamer won many Games Media Awards during his tenure. At Polygon, he writes about film and TV as well as games, and provides news, analysis, and criticism on the entertainment we love and the industries that make it, all from his home in London. He loves role-playing, racing, puzzles, tactics, exploration, storytelling, Nintendo, mysteries, spies, fantasy, reality, cars, and classic cinema. He wanted to be a movie critic when he grew up, and now he’s definitely grown up, and occasionally is one. He considers this a win. Blasts from the past that deserve a comeback

Twenty-five years into Kingdom Hearts, Square Enix has yet to establish a reliable formula for how the games represent various Disney worlds. Some levels simply insert Sora, Donald, and Goofy into a familiar story from movies like Mulan, Tarzan, or Aladdin. Agrabah returned in Kingdom Hearts 2 for a loose adaptation of The Return of Jafar, while Kingdom Hearts 3 used the setting of San Fransokyo to create a bona fide sequel to Big Hero 6. Traditions like a heartfelt romp through 100 Acre Wood with Winnie the Pooh and friends feel mandatory, but beyond those, there’s no telling where Sora might fly his Gummi Ship in Kingdom Hearts 4 — if he has a Gummi Ship at all.

Sony and Nintendo's live-action Zelda movie is building a strong cast Every The Legend of Zelda movie cast member rumored and revealed so far

Sam Hill is a news writer at Polygon covering gaming and entertainment. He's a Portland, Oregon–based journalist known for covering gaming, the outdoors, national parks, tech, food, and internet culture. He has written for a range of publications including Outside Magazine, Boston Magazine, Vice, the Seattle Times and Digital Trends. In the 2004 novella adaptation, Depp plays a writer whose quiet retreat takes a disturbing turn

While the video game industry seems to be in free fall, especially at Xbox, the TV-pulled-from-video-games industry is on the rise. Especially at Xbox. Earlier this month, Microsoft announced a new department dedicated to cross-media property development. According to an industry insider, the team may have come from the ashes of a burned deal with Netflix, after Xbox reportedly over-leveraged the value of its intellectual properties. In a report from Puck News‘ Matthew Belloni, a deal was forming between Xbox and Netflix to develop projects based on its extensive gaming portfolio. In a write-up on freshly arrived Netflix executive Peter Rice, it was revealed that the streaming megalith offered newly appointed Xbox CEO Asha Sharma $500 million for exclusive rights to adapt a great deal of their intellectual property over a seven year period. A shiny figure. A healthy chunk of time. But Sharma apparently upped the ante to $800 million, at which point Netflix rescinded the offer. In a statement to Puck, Xbox says that “Netflix is a valued partner,” and that on top of upcoming animated Minecraft and Diablo series they have “received record-breaking interest” in adapting their IP.

Would that make what we're currently in the beforedeath? I have no particular thoughts on what the afterlife may look like, namely because if there is one, and I'm allowed to hang out in it, I don't want to be disappointed. What if I have the expectation that it's a hedonistic paradise and am met with only having a guy named Gary who only eats cheese sandwiches for company? How embarrassing! No, I'll leave the imagining to others on this particular front. Doing so bears some ripe fruit for me occasionally, too, as is the case today with Abelina, a surreal platformer about a man who died and finds himself tending to gardens and carving masks and trying "not to think about what this place might really be. "

Curl up with these oddly-comforting horror stories Autumn feels cozy and nostalgic, even as the spooky season rolls in. Horror can be an unlikely source of comfort during colder months, and cozy horror books are no exception. Although the definition of “cozy” can be subjective, these books usually balance their frightening elements with low-stakes events and (mostly) happy endings.

Sam Hill is a news writer at Polygon covering gaming and entertainment. He's a Portland, Oregon–based journalist known for covering gaming, the outdoors, national parks, tech, food, and internet culture. He has written for a range of publications including Outside Magazine, Boston Magazine, Vice, the Seattle Times and Digital Trends. Ahead of The Rings of Power season 3, fans can own the first 2 seasons

You know, I think at this point in my life there is a non-zero chance I will die before anyone is able to settle comfortably on what defines an immersive sim. I'm not going to even try to! The idea is too annoying and I'm sure someone will disagree with some aspect of it. And if you ask New Blood boss Dave Oshry, when it comes to trying to flog an immersive sim, it's probably best to not even refer to it as one. "Is it a good marketing term? No. It sucks," Oshry told PC Gamer in a recent interview. "It's awful. " For those unfamiliar with New Blood, they're a publisher of some pretty cultishly popular games like ULTRAKILL, as well as immersive sims like Gloomwood and Fallen Aces. Ironically, though, it's through publishing Gloomwood and working with lead dev Dillon Rogers specifically that he even heard of the term. "He's like, 'That's what these are called'. I'm like, 'I have never heard that before in my life. What the fuck are you talking about?'"

A new weekend has arrived, and today, you can save big on Persona 3 Reload, Pikmin 4, The Adventures of Elliot, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Star Wars Zero Company, and more. Check out our top picks for Saturday, October 24, below. Persona 3 Reload (Switch 2) for $24.99Persona 3 Reload - Nintendo Switch 2Persona 3 Reload Switch 2 copies are available at Amazon for $24.99 this weekend. This is a pretty great price for an expansive RPG that you can easily sink 100 hours into. The Switch 2 version had a rocky launch with frame pacing issues, but those have been resolved. Atlus also did add support for 60 FPS in docked mode. The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales On Sale for the First TimeThe Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales - Amazon Exclusive Edition (Nintendo Switch 2)The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales was released this June, and for the first time, you can pick up a copy of the game on sale! Amazon has copies for all platforms discounted to $44.99 today, which is a great price for this action-based HD-2D game.

October is, unambiguously, the best time of year to love horror. Whether you lean toward horror movies, games, or both, there’s no shortage of ways to get scared this season. But what if you love everything about Halloween but the scares? Plenty of people love the aesthetics and vibes of the Halloween season, but could do without the terror. If that describes you, have no fear (get it?). We’ve gathered five games that pack in spooky art styles, eerie atmospheres, and fall visuals, but stop short of leaving you with nightmares.

From mind-bending mysteries to dystopian futures, these Netflix sci-fi gems pull you in from minute one Not every great sci-fi show needs to start with a bang, but the best ones know how to grab your attention from the very first frame. Whether it’s a gruesome public execution in the middle of a cultural revolution, a child stepping into a smoke-filled battleground littered with corpses, or an alien organism mutating a host in seconds, the most compelling series understand the power of a great first impression. Such shows offer something tangible enough to keep you glued to your seat before the opening credits even roll.