A party of adventurers stands before a large roaring dragon.
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Dragon Age: The Veilguard Preview - Epic Fantasy Action at its Peak

After a decade, Dragon Age is finally back. With a name change to Dragon Age: The Veilguard, I had the chance to see the first hour of gameplay in a hands-off presentation at Summer Game Fest Play…

June 11, 2024 | 11:00 EDT

Assassin's Creed Shadows SGF preview image
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Assassin’s Creed Shadow’s Dual Protagonists Open Up a World of Possibilities

With over a dozen Assassin's Creed games released, it's crazy to think we're just now getting to see Ubisoft's take on the Land of the Rising Sun. It's fitting, then, that Assassin's Creed Shadows, …

June 10, 2024 | 04:05 EDT

No Rest for the Wicked header image for preview.
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No Rest for the Wicked has the Bones of a Great Game

My thoughts and feelings for No Rest for the Wicked are complicated, and I'm most certainly conflicted by it all. By all means, this is a game made for me: Dark fantasy? Check. Soulslike? Check.…

April 26, 2024 | 02:20 EDT

Lightning attacks in Path of Exile 2
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Path of Exile 2 Hands-on Preview - The Next Great Action RPG

Path of Exile 2 is a seamless action RPG that runs impressively well despite recent delays that have pushed the Path of Exile 2 beta back to the end of the year. On the show floor of PAX East 2024, I…

March 23, 2024 | 10:05 EDT

Path of Exile 2 Preview Art
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Path of Exile 2 Hands-Off Preview - Introducing the Ranger Class and Path of Exile 3.24

Grinding Gear Games is kicking off the spring season with a wealth of updates centered around the upcoming Path of Exile 2, among other announcements to their slate of games. We had a chance to…

March 21, 2024 | 05:16 EDT

Image of a Character in Enshrouded
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Enshrouded Final Preview - Survival Progression at its finest

I'm someone who loves checking out new survival games, partially because I'm (currently) the Guides Editor here at TechRaptor, but also because each one has its own take on the genre and offers a…

January 24, 2024 | 04:06 EST

Dragon's Dogma 2 Preview Hero Image Showing the Arisen
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Dragon's Dogma 2 Preview - A Gorgeous, Wild World We Can't Wait to Explore

Fans have asked for a sequel to Dragon's Dogma for a long time, and Capcom is finally delivering. While we still don't have a release date, this week at TGS I finally got my hands on a preview build…

September 23, 2023 | 11:05 EDT

A header image for First Dwarf featuring the title character.
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First Dwarf Preview - Dwarven Delight

I'm a simple man. I see a dwarf in a game? I play it. So obviously, I'm not skipping out on First Dwarf. It also helps that the game is quite good, if my preview session at PAX West 2023 is any…

September 10, 2023 | 11:00 EDT

Dungeons of Hinterberg featuring the title character, Luisa.
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Dungeons of Hinterberg Preview - It's Time to Explore

It might not be on your radar now, but it definitely should be: Dungeons of Hinterberg combines two addicting game genres into one potent combo. Half action role-playing game, half social sim, I can…

September 8, 2023 | 10:30 EDT

Pieta looks into the camera during a cutscene in Lords of the Fallen
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Lords of the Fallen Preview - A Soulslike Surprise

If you remember the couple years after Dark Souls’ success, a flurry of Soulslikes came out, chasing those bloodied coattails in hopes of tasting that same estus-laden success. Lords of the Fallen in…

September 7, 2023 | 10:30 EDT

Like a Dragon Gaiden The Man Who Erased His Name Preview Kiryu fighting a gangster

Like a Dragon Gaiden The Man Who Erased His Name Preview - Kicking It, Agent Style

If Kazuma Kiryu could stop getting into trouble, I’m pretty sure the world would stop turning, so it makes perfect sense that he’s back as the protagonist of Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased…

August 23, 2023 | 04:37 EDT

A party in Remnant 2 exploring a stage
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Remnant II Preview

In all of gaming, there’s a certain beauty in grinding for loot. Watching your damage numbers get higher so you can kill bigger things to get even better gear never really gets old, whether it’s the…

June 16, 2023 | 11:30 EDT

Mageseeker Sylas surrounded by purple flames
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PAX East 2023: The Mageseeker: A League of Legends Story Preview

This weekend at PAX East I was able to go hands-on with The Mageseeker: A League of Legends Story with two of the developers at Digital Sun and walked away wanting more from my first exposure to…

March 26, 2023 | 04:15 EDT

diablo 4 header
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Diablo IV Will Consume Your Life

I am going to lose so much time to Diablo IV... This line permeated through my head as I played Diablo IV, and you'll find that many people think the same. Now, I had a healthy dose of skepticism…

March 21, 2023 | 10:00 EDT

The Hunter and a mysterious musician at the start of Wild Hearts
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Wild Hearts Preview: Strong Beginnings, Needs Stronger Connection

While the genre of hunting video games is one that's been around in many forms it's one that is dominated by a single franchise. You might not be familiar with God Eater or even the Final Fantasy…

February 13, 2023 | 10:00 EST

forspoken frey view

Forspoken Preview - Dazzling With Parkour and Characters

Way back in October, my colleague Dan and I got the chance to try a hands-on demo of Forspoken while we were at NYCC. We both had a great time, and so when I was offered to try a deeper dive preview…

December 12, 2022 | 09:00 EST

An image of the main character from Wild Hearts attacking the Kemono known as the Ragetail
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Combat In Wild Hearts Is Fun But Abusable

Wild Hearts is a new Hunter-like game from EA and Koei Tecmo releasing February 17th, 2023. Set in a world of Edo-era Japan filled with large monsters known as the Kemono you get to take up a sword/…

October 10, 2022 | 11:04 EDT

crisis core reunion final fantasy vii zack fair

Crisis Core Final Fantasy VII Reunion Feels Like Coming Home

When Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core was originally released for the PSP in 2007, it was one of the reasons I even bought a PSP in the first place and it quickly became my favorite Final Fantasy game…

October 10, 2022 | 10:00 EDT

Frey in Forspoken
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Forspoken Nails Parkour Traversal

At New York Comic Con, we had the chance to meet with folks from Square Enix and go hands-on with a Forspoken gameplay demo. I had the chance to play the game for about an hour, testing out different…

October 9, 2022 | 12:08 EDT

Asterigos Curse of the Stars Preview
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Asterigos: Curse of the Stars Has Flashy, Stylish Action

In a faraway fantasy world inspired by Ancient Greece, a young, passionate, cheeky warrior named Hilda carves a path through the cursed city of Aphes in search of her father. Along the way, she meets…

October 3, 2022 | 01:36 EDT

Valkyrie Elysium's demo lets you try out what it's like to play as a valkyrie.
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Valkyrie Elysium Resurrects the Classic Square Enix Action Series for the New Generation

It’s been a long time since Square Enix did anything with the Valkyrie Profile series. Outside of the mobile outing with Valkyrie: Anatomia in 2016, the last time there was any activity on the…

September 28, 2022 | 11:00 EDT

Flintlock Official Key Art
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Flintlock Is Already Set to Blow Players Away

The team at A44 Games is one that has always clearly had ideas and stories to share. Though their debut title Ashen was a love letter to the Soulsborne games through and through, it still managed to…

September 1, 2022 | 09:00 EDT

Alaloth Preview Key Art 2022
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Old is New With Alaloth: Champions of the Four Kingdoms

CRPGs as a market are, admittingly a small niche. The revival of CRPGs thanks to Pillars of Eternity has pushed it into a more mainstream spot than before, but let's be real, it’s a hard sell to push…

June 29, 2022 | 11:00 EDT

The main artwork of Steelrising
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Steelrising Is A Hugely Promising, Very Weird Soulslike

A creative setting can do a lot for a game. For evidence of this, look no further than Spiders' Steelrising, a Soulslike currently in development and set for release this September. Uniquely, …

June 16, 2022 | 03:00 EDT

Achilles: Legends Untold
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Achilles: Legends Untold is an Interesting Souls-Like in Need of More Time

Early Access is an interesting program that has allowed many games to thrive. Putting just a fraction of the game into the world, it incorporates your biggest critics and most ardent supporters into…

May 12, 2022 | 11:17 EDT

No Place for Bravery
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PAX East: No Place for Bravery Preview

At PAX East, we had the opportunity to get a hands-on No Place for Bravery preview. This game stood out as a really well-designed, Souls-inspired pixel art RPG. The top-down perspective beautifully…

April 25, 2022 | 01:00 EDT

eiyuden chronicle rising
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Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising Feels Like a Long Fetch Quest

Every so often, you'll come across a Kickstarter game that swiftly meets its funding goal and hits stretch goals like nothing -- as was the case with the upcoming Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes.…

March 21, 2022 | 09:00 EDT

Achilles Standing Over A Vista
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Achilles: Legends Untold is a Souls-Like Worth The Pain

Achilles: Legends Untold took me by surprise. It appeared in my feeds out of seemingly nowhere, yet from the small trailers and videos, I saw before the playtest, I was hooked. I eagerly anticipated…

February 7, 2022 | 12:17 EST

Infernax
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Metroidvania Infernax is Old-school to a Fault

One of my favorite flash developers is Berzerk Studio, but I realize it's not necessarily a household name. I don't think Berzerk got as much recognition as it deserved. This team's signature style…

January 11, 2022 | 10:00 EST

The hut in the woods.
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Blacktail Shows Off Witchcraft Origins

Stories of magic powers and mystical beings remain some of the most popular in literature and media to this day. Every culture has a library of magical stories and its own version of witches to go…

December 7, 2021 | 12:00 EST

Elex 2 Landscape
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Elex 2 Is a Post-Apocalyptic Sequel Worth Exploring

I may be one of the outliers that really enjoyed the original ELEX, so naturally, I was excited to get my hands on a preview copy of the game to cover. Over 20 hours later, I'm hooked on ELEX II and…

December 6, 2021 | 11:00 EST

The player talking to an NPC in Elden Ring
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Elden Ring Breathes New Life Into the Souls Formula

If you want to understand why Dark Souls works where so many Soulslikes don't, look to its fauna. The hulking knights and shadowy mages are one thing, but the native inhabitants of Lordran's varied…

November 15, 2021 | 11:30 EST

The logo for Salt and Sacrifice
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Salt And Sacrifice Is Trying Out New Flavors

2016's Salt and Sanctuary was a solid, if slightly perfunctory, Soulslike Metroidvania. It presented a satisfying world to explore, chunky combat with plenty of enemy variety, and a series of tough…

October 18, 2021 | 09:41 EDT

Void Arena preview demo - cover
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Void Arena Shows a Promising New Design for RPGs

First-person RPGs tend to be slow affairs where you're dragged down by slow combat and spending skill points. I had the chance to check out Void Arena, a game that aims to make a better kind of RPG…

May 7, 2021 | 11:00 EDT

ender lilies
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Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights is Both Bleak and Beautiful

With a name like Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights, it's hard to know what to expect. It's certainly a mouthful, so it wasn't necessarily the title that caught my attention to this title; rather,…

January 20, 2021 | 10:00 EST

Persona 5 Strikers Preview Preview Image
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Persona 5 Strikers Adds Omega Force Flair In All The Right Places

Coming up on almost a year since the Japanese release of Persona 5 Scramble we're now a month away from Persona 5 Strikers getting its global release. Wanting to play more since the Japanese demo…

January 15, 2021 | 10:00 EST

King of Seas - Key Art
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King Of Seas is Treading Water

The ocean is a great setting for video games. Since Sid Meier's Pirates!, people have been settings games on the open sea. It's possibly the sense of freedom and adventure, and possibly it's the…

December 1, 2020 | 08:00 EST

techraptor ys origin

Ys Origin Treks to Switch

Another day, another new Nintendo Switch port of a classic game. This time? It’s Nihon Falcom’s Ys Origin, the prequel to their long-running series. Originally released in 2006 in Japan, it was first…

October 19, 2020 | 01:00 EDT

The Enslaved Grisha boss fight in Mortal Shell
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Mortal Shell Is A Brutal, Effective Soulslike

When creating a Soulslike, a developer has two options. The first is to innovate on the formula in a way that makes your game memorable. The other is to simply pull off the formula so well that you…

July 2, 2020 | 11:28 EDT

undungeon
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Improve, Adapt, and Dash Through the Wasteland In Undungeon

Undungeon isn't expected for release until late this year, but we were given a little taste of it during the Steam Game Festival. It's been a few years since the game's initial announcement, so I'm…

June 26, 2020 | 11:00 EDT

Last Oasis Game
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Avoid The Sun And Survive In Last Oasis

Survival games come and go, when titles like Rust, Ark: Survival Evolved, and Don't Starve Together, seem to have a hard time keeping their player bases engaged, it's really going to take something…

March 26, 2020 | 01:00 EDT

FF7R Demo Impressions
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Final Fantasy VII Remake Impressions - Like The Demo I Remember

The first console I got as a kid was the PlayStation 1, in all of its big honkin’ brick-like glory. After tearing open the wrapping paper to find what was inside, and opening the box, and setting it…

March 3, 2020 | 04:37 EST

Persona 5 Scramble Battle
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Taking a Language Immersion Trip With Persona 5 Scramble

Persona 5 is coming back in 2020 in a big way. It is now just a few months from the release of the expanded Persona 5 The Royale, where fans can replay the original game with new content. For…

February 12, 2020 | 11:00 EST

Nioh 2 Featured Image
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Nioh 2 Open Beta Sticks With What Works

The Nioh 2 open beta is here months ahead of release. Available to anyone with a PlayStation 4 until November 10, this highly-anticipated sequel follows Team Ninja's uber-difficult world established…

November 6, 2019 | 12:00 EST

the surge 2 preview main
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The Surge 2 Is A Definite Improvement Over The Original

The Surge was a pleasant surprise. Deck13's first game Lords of the Fallen felt to me like a transparent attempt to replicate Dark Souls' success but without any of that game's charm or idiosyncrasy…

July 19, 2019 | 03:00 EDT

borderlands 3 cover art
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Borderlands 3 Feels Fresh and True to the Franchise

The last entry in the Borderlands series was nearly five years ago with The Pre-Sequel. In many ways, the mechanics of all three mainline entries feel clunkier and a bit dated, although they are…

June 16, 2019 | 04:11 EDT

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Final Fantasy VII Remake Packs More Punch than Tifa's Fist

Final Fantasy VII just sort of showed up at my house at some point. I can't actually tell you when, just there's the time before Final Fantasy VII and the time after. At first... I didn't really like…

June 14, 2019 | 12:00 EDT

children of morta preview - fire
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Children of Morta Weaves a Wonderful Narrative with Tight Combat

Children of Morta is a game that just wasn't on my radar when I was first invited to check it out by 11 bit studios. It's a shame that it wasn't—a quick look at some of the media that's come out for…

June 3, 2019 | 11:00 EDT