Gaming Round-Up: What Horrors Await

Posted on June 12, 2026 by Tyler F.M. Edwards

Time for another rundown of what I’ve played over the last few weeks. By purest happenstance, a lot (though not all) of this has been games that are at least horror adjacent.

Path of Exile:

I did finally get around to finishing the story in Path of Exile. My final judgment is that playing PoE on ruthless mode felt about equal in difficulty to my first playthrough of Diablo III on normal difficulty. I only really struggled on the final bosses of acts five and ten, mirroring D3, where I only struggled with Belial and Diablo. I’ll also note again the act five boss was mostly so hard because it was bugged out when I did it. The statues I was supposed to hide behind never spawned.

I only briefly sampled PoE’s endgame offerings, doing one “map.” It was a complete faceroll until I got to the final boss, at which point I was one-shot halfway through the fight by I have no idea what. The whole thing felt like the perfect microcosm of the PoE experience, and I decided I’d had more than enough at that point.

Some will say I haven’t really experienced PoE without getting into its endgame properly, but if you think you can’t form a fair opinion of a game after finishing a fifty hour story campaign, I think you’re a silly person.

Scars Above:

This is a horrorish sci-fi shooter I picked up for 90% off on Steam. Scars Above is pretty much your standard 7/10 AA jankfest, and I do mean that as a compliment.

Pretty much every part of the game is rough to some degree or another, but overall I had a lot of fun with it. I quite enjoyed the main character, Kate, who felt like a great example of competence porn. She shows enough vulnerability to feel human while also meeting every challenge with courage and wit.

There’s an interesting combo system around elemental status effects that can be triggered by both your weapons and the environment. It’s simple, but satisfying, and it helps strengthen the fantasy of Kate as a character who fights smarter, not harder.

The game’s greatest flaw is probably its difficulty. I’d read in the Steam reviews it was a very hard game, so I played on easy, but even so I almost gave up in the first hour because it was such a slog. However, once I leveled up a few times and unlocked some perks, it became a pretty effortless journey.

I was also a bit disappointed the final boss is just a buffed up version of a standard mob you’ve been fighting throughout the game, but otherwise, Scars Above was a good time. Given its apparent lack of recognition, I doubt a sequel is forthcoming, but I’d probably buy one if it does get made.

The Chant:

Another low to mid budget horror title I got for 90% off, but a less impressive one. I found the character movement, animations, and combat all felt painfully sluggish. Maybe authentic to the classic Resident Evil style experience they were going for, but certainly not for me, and the story was also less compelling than I’d hoped, so I bounced off after about an hour.

Amsterdam 1666 and other Summer Game Fest news:

One of the previews that most impressed me during the Summer Game Fest show was Amsterdam 1666. When they said it already had a demo live, I downloaded it immediately.

Unfortunately the demo ratcheted down my hype for the game considerably. The camera and character movement felt extremely awkward. That might be fixed before launch, but even more concerningly, the story didn’t seem that good. I kind of checked out when the father’s letter to his daughter started waxing poetic about his weird freaky BDSM sexscapades. Awkward…

It’s also concerning how little actual gameplay was in the demo. From the trailers, there will be combat in the main game, but the demo had none, which feels like a bit of a red flag.

Aside from that, there were a few other trailers at SGF that caught my eye, but nothing that immediately blew me away, more just things that might be worth keeping an eye on. Crossfire, Last Harbor, Haex…

I thought that the trailer for the Stellar Blade sequel looked really cool until I realized it was a Stellar Blade sequel, and now I just feel deeply conflicted and slightly gross.

Aion 2 setting a Western release date was probably the biggest news for me. Given my long history of bouncing off Korean games, my expectations are fairly managed, but it’s still probably the game I’m most anticipating, at least in the near future.

While not part of the main SGF show, around this time we also got news of the next expansion for Age of Empires IV, Raiders of the North. I’m disappointed by campaigns being neglected once again, but the expanded Crucible mode at least means there’s something for single-player, and I do think both the new civilizations look fun. It’s frustrating they’re calling them “Vikings” instead of something more accurate, but otherwise what we’ve seen so far seems like a fairly accurate and historical depiction.

Overall I’m looking forward to the DLC. I’m definitely rioting if the next civilizations aren’t from Africa or America, though. Those are way overdue for more representation.

Tides of Tomorrow:

I’ve already covered this on Massively, so I’m just adding it for completionism’s sake. I mostly enjoyed Tides of Tomorrow, and I would recommend it, but it wasn’t as special as Road 96, and I did have an issue with the ending (spoiler-filled elaboration on reddit for those interested).

New World:

I dipped back into New World a little bit. I made yet another alt, as I wanted to replay Monarch’s Bluffs (thankfully the game cooperated and landed me there). Since I feel like my time in New World has contributed to my success with Brigitte in Overwatch, I decided to make a character modeled after her. Made her look as similar as I could and gave her a flail/lifestaff build.

Funny thing: New World’s character limit for names isn’t big enough to fit “Brigitte Lindholm.” It cut me off at “Brigitte Lindho.”

WELCOME
LINDHO

I ended up going with “Brigitte Lind.”

Had a lot of fun revisiting Monarch’s Bluffs, but wasn’t sure what to do after that. I do want to play more New World while I still can, but I’ve always struggled to motivate myself in games without clear goals to chase. I’ve already done all the stories in the game, often at least twice, and I don’t really need better gear on my high level characters, especially with the shut down looming.

The Secret World:

My returns to TSW are becoming ever shorter and less frequent, but I did pop in for a couple hours recently. The Dragon alt I have been very slowly leveling since the maintenance mode announcement is closing in on the end of Transylvania. She’s already super OP from all my GM perks, so I’ve started skipping most missions outside the main story.

I did have to do Last Dance of the Padurii. Wasting a gear manager slot on a hinder build you literally only use for one mission is an essential part of the TSW experience.

When the maintenance mode news first came down, I thought the servers would be shuttered before too long, and for whatever reason one of the things that made me saddest was the thought this character would never see Tokyo. I’m now within striking distance of achieving that goal at long last, which feels kind of surreal. There’s still a decent chunk of Transylvania left, but maybe one day soon.

World of Warcraft:

I wasn’t planning to be back in WoW until the next major content patch, but I really wanted the May and June Trading Post stuff, so I ended up burning a WoW Token. I’m not treating it as my main game, though. As this post attests, I’m still playing lots of other things.

There just isn’t much for me to do in WoW right now. I’ve done all current content, and I don’t like most of the tier sets this time around, so there’s not much transmog to chase. I am still enjoying my characters at least. Rogue, monk, and paladin all feel great right now.

Once again I lament WoW’s forced subscription. I honestly quite like having it as a background game I can just pop into now and then, but with the sub it’s just not financially justifiable long term.

Overwatch:

I continue my love/hate relationship with Overwatch. My problem is I really do love the setting and the character design (in all respects — lore, visuals, gameplay), but I’m just not much for competitive games. I don’t really mind losing as long as I don’t feel like I’m the main cause of the loss… but I very often am.

It’s especially frustrating that most of my favourite characters are the ones I’m bad at. After a strong start, Ramattra seems to have turned out to be another character I’m no good with, with my win rate on him having fallen below 50%.

The weird thing is unlike other characters I’ve struggled with, I don’t feel like I’m doing badly when I play Ram. I get lots of kills, don’t die that much, am frequently the MVP by Stadium cash, and get PotG often. The other day I hit 80K cash by round five, which is by far the best I’ve ever done with any character and near double what most of my teammates had (we still lost). By every metric other than the win rate, I’m doing great with Ram, but I guess the win rate is all that matters.

Weirdly I have the opposite issue with Vendetta. I feel like I do nothing but flail and die when I play her, but I have a win rate well above 50% with her… though admittedly I haven’t played her enough to have a strong sample size of matches.

I may still try a few more matches with Ram to see if I can turn things around, but I’m not optimistic.

I’m still over 65% win rate with Brigitte after around 150 games, which seems absolutely insane to me. I never had anywhere near a win rate that high after so many games on any character in Heroes of the Storm. I usually settled around 52-55% for my mains.

As much as I like Brig, though, I don’t want to be stuck just playing her. I do have good win rates on a few others, but they’re usually characters I’m just not super passionate about. It’s fun playing Sigma now and then, but I’d much rather be D.Va or Ramattra if I’m going to tank. Doesn’t seem fair to my teammates, though, when I have win rates around 48% with those two but over 60% with Sigma.

Het universum zingt voor mij, I guess.

You’d think after a year I’d be getting better at this game, but no. It’s hard to get excited about new characters when it’s so unlikely I’ll be any good at them. Shion looks awesome, but gods know when she’ll make it to Stadium, and when she does I’ll probably just suck at her, too.

At least I’ve still got faithful Brigitte. If no one got me, I know mace to the face got me.

Gaming Round-Up: My Bathroom Is Being Torn Apart Edition

Posted on May 1, 2026 by Tyler F.M. Edwards

A tradesman is currently doing some renovations on my apartment. I feel a vague discomfort around the idea of playing video games the whole time he’s here, so I’ll write about video games instead. That’s much more respectable, clearly.

Let’s talk about what I’ve been playing lately.

World of Warcraft

As of this writing, my WoW sub has just expired. I’ve completed all of my main goals in the current patch, so it was time to take a break.

Midnight has been one of the most mixed experiences of an expansion so far. As you may have seen from me ranting about it over at Massively, the story has been a huge disappointment. However, I do still enjoy the “third era” endgame loop quite a lot, and as long as I don’t think about the big picture plot, it’s lovely spending time in Quel’Thalas and soaking up the ambiance.

I realize this is how must people traditionally approach WoW — ignore the main plot, just focus on the gameplay and enjoying the scenery — but it’s an alien and not entirely comfortable experience for me.

Aside from issues with the story, my main regret with WoW lately is my attempt to switch things up by prioritizing a different set of characters to play. In hindsight, that was a mistake.

I am loving my paladin, so leveling her up early worked out, but while the demon hunter feels okay, it’s not as fun as it was in War Within. If I had to do it over again, I’d still play her a bit, but I would have relegated her to the second string alt she’s traditionally been in the past. And as for the death knight, I’m afraid it still just isn’t quite clicking for me for whatever reason.

I started having a lot more fun once I’d finished leveling up my traditional rogue/monk/warlock triad — rogue in particular is the most fun it’s been in several expansions, as long as I stick to Assassination — but by then there wasn’t much time left in my subscription.

Overwatch

My relationship with Overwatch continues to be a bit of a rollercoaster.

The most recent major patch absolutely gutted my Hyper Healer Juno build by removing the Rally Ring power. It’s a bizarre choice because this was by no means a meta or even popular build. It was just a fun, quirky oddball build that let you keep your team buffed with speed and overhealth nearly all the time. Why it needed such a savage beating with the nerf bat is beyond me.

I’m learning to live without Rally Ring, but I definitely feel noticeably less powerful, and it’s just not as fun. It’s really demoralizing, and it feels like another example of a worrying trend of Stadium moving away from fun and creative powers that genuinely change how a character plays.

On the other hand, I have had a lot of fun with Stadium’s new addition, Ramattra, who has definitely become my favourite tank to date. I like his versatile, tactical playstyle and battle mage vibes, to say nothing of Ramon Tikaram’s exquisite voice work (took me longer than it should have to realize Ram has the same voice actor as Dorian from Inquisition, whom I also loved).

But then I was again discouraged as my preferred build with him — Vortex spam — was almost immediately nerfed. I still feel decently powerful post-nerf, so maybe it was justified, but the fact it came so quickly felt a bit kneejerk, and coupled with the Rally Ring removal it felt like another example of punishing fun and different ability-focused builds. I’m getting over it, but it did leave a bad taste in my mouth.

To Blizzard’s credit, Ram does seem to have multiple fun and viable builds. While I settled on Vortex spam as my favourite, I also tried out several other builds, and they all felt viable and enjoyable, which is unfortunately pretty rare for Stadium characters.

I am pleased to know we’re getting more than one character for Stadium this season… but dismayed that the second will be Jetpack Cat. Who asked for this? There are so many older characters people have been begging to have in Stadium since it launched, but we get the most divisive of the new characters instead?

Like I said, rollercoaster.

Finally, I want to say I absolutely love the new Diablo inspired paladin skin for Brigitte. A proper paladin skin for her is all I’ve wanted since I started playing. Burn in the Light!

Age of Mythology: Obsidian Mirror

The latest expansion for Age of Mythology: Retold has arrived, much sooner than expected, and I can’t help but feel a bit too soon. Obsidian Mirror and its new Aztec civilization are not the unmitigated disaster Demeter was, but they do still have a certain vibe of having been pushed out in a hurry.

The campaign was quite disappointing. The story is an absolute mess of shameless fan service that tries to do far too much things at once and ends up doing none of them well. Meanwhile the mission design focuses way too much on defensive missions considering that the Aztecs were designed uniquely unsuited for defense. I also found it frustrating how few missions let you choose your own minor gods or make it to age 4.

Meanwhile the Aztec civilization itself is a mixed bag. A lot of their new units and god powers are quite fun, and everything’s very pretty, but their favour mechanic is a bit of a mess. I like the flavour of having to collect life force, but it’s hobbled by the fact the main way of doing so — your warrior priest hero units — are just… terrible. They’re squishy and weak, and they’re melee, so there’s always on the front lines, and usually the first to die.

I doubt it will happen, but if it were up to me I’d make warrior priests ranged. If they weren’t on the front lines all the time, it’d be a lot easier to keep them alive long enough to collect your tonalli. I also think the diminishing returns on sacrificing villagers for favour should be softened. Maybe make it more of a cooldown than permanent reduction.

I’ve also heard from those who are in the know about such things that it’s not a very faithful or respectful depiction of Aztec culture, which is disappointing. Even I as a layman can see issues. Jaguar riders are an absolute nonsense unit based on neither history nor mythology, and the god portraits all look like white Instagram models cosplaying Aztecs. It’s gross, frankly.

The Age of Mythology: Retold community seems to be as toxically positive as most game communities are toxically negative, and I’ve seen many rush to point out AoM has always had inaccuracies, but at the risk of being a stereotype, I really feel like we should be expecting more in the year of our lord 2026.

That’s really the crux of my issues with Retold, and why I keep griping so much even as I continue to play it. It’s not that it’s offensively bad or actively unfun (Demeter notwithstanding). It’s just that it always has this sense of just settling for the bare minimum. The game’s concept has so much potential, and I really thought after twenty years they’d be able to truly take it to the next level, but it just doesn’t seem to have the ambition. AoE2, despite being even older, is finding ways to continue evolving and pushing the envelope, but Retold is content to keep doing the bare minimum.

I don’t hate Obsidian Mirror, and I will play the Aztecs more, but in hindsight it feels like something I should have bought on sale. The level of polish isn’t high enough to justify its price tag.

The road ahead

While I continue to play Overwatch on the side, I plan to clear up some loose ends for the next week or two, now that WoW is off the menu.

I want to finally get around to finishing the campaign in Path of Exile. I’m not wildly enthusiastic about it, but there’s not so much left to go, so I might as well see it through to the end. If I don’t post about it again, assume I finished it, and that of all the RPGs I’ve played, it was certainly one of them.

When Nexon gave me that huge lump of cash shop currency to cover Dia in The First Descendant, I bought the current battle pass, so I think I might finish that up. Not much excitement left for TFD these days, but sunk cost fallacy is what it is.

Supposedly Scars of Honor is running a playtest around now, and I think I’d signed up for it, so we’ll see if I get in. I expect the reality of it is likely to disappointment me, but the previews do have me mildly to moderately hyped. I like the WoW style graphics, and the bearfolk race looks super cool.

I have pre-ordered the upcoming Yue Fei’s Legacy DLC for Age of Empires IV. Just as I’d fully written off AoE4 as having lost its way, this DLC seems like a step in the right direction. There’s a campaign, and an actual new civilization, not just some weird variant.

The irony isn’t lost on me that I refused to play Sultan’s Ascend at launch because I didn’t think it had enough content to justify the price, and Yue Fei’s has arguably even less, but an actual civilization with real historical significance is worth more to me than any number of nonsense variants.

Not that I’m sure I’ll even get to play it, mind you. It’s unclear if you actually get to play Jin Dynasty in the campaign or if they’re only antagonists, and last I checked the skirmish AI in AoE4 was still a disaster. But I’m voting with my feet for the kind of content I want to see.

Finally, if I can find the time, I’d like to pick up Tides of Tomorrow, the new narrative game from the Road 96 devs. Been looking forward to it for a while.

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Gaming Round-Up: What Horrors Await

Gaming Round-Up: My Bathroom Is Being Torn Apart Edition

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