The Week In Games: Galactic Refugees And Stone-Age Life Sims
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Destiny 2: The Final Shape Brings The Feels, That New Star Wars Shooter Is Fun, And More Of The Week's Gaming Takes

Destiny 2: The Final Shape Brings The Feels, That New Star Wars Shooter Is Fun, And More Of The Week's Gaming Takes

Also, now that it's on Game Pass you really have no excuse not to play Octopath Traveler II

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Image for article titled Destiny 2: The Final Shape Brings The Feels, That New Star Wars Shooter Is Fun, And More Of The Week's Gaming Takes
Image: Lucasfilm / Zynga, Square Enix, Bungie / Sony, Bungie / Sony, Screenshot: Bungie / Claire Jackson / Kotaku

This week, Destiny 2: The Final Shape finally arrived, bringing an end to a storyline the series has been telling ever since it launched. We’ve got thoughts on how successful the campaign is at managing such a massive task. Also, let us tell you about that new Star Wars shooter, and encourage you to play Octopath Traveler II now that it’s on Game Pass. That and more awaits.

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An image shows all the characters in Star Wars: Hunters.
Image: Lucasfilm / Zynga

A new Star Wars game launched yesterday and it’s pretty fun. Odds are, however, that you didn’t know that a new Star Wars game launched yesterday because Star Wars: Hunters—an Overwatch-like F2P shooter—is only available on mobile devices and the Nintendo Switch. That’s a shame, because Hunters is a fun (if a bit simple and messy) Star Wars shooter that I bet a lot of people would enjoy. - Zack Zwiezen Read More

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Party members sit around a camp fire
Image: Square Enix

In an age when so many new games are trying to recapture the greatness of old classics, it’s hard to find the ones that actually live up to their inspirations. For RPG enjoyers it’s often about finding something as good as the 90’s era of Square Enix’s Final Fantasy series. However, in that case, the best imitation of those classics comes from none other than Square Enix itself in the form of the Octopath Traveler games. Now with Octopath Traveler II on Xbox Game Pass, subscribers have no excuse not to play one of the best retro-inspired RPGs out there. - Willa Rowe Read More

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A screenshot of a Destiny 2 player fishing on Earth.
Image: Bungie / Sony

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: it’s fucked up that every year, Destiny 2 rips all of its seasonal content out of the game, never to be seen again. Though time has certainly numbed the pain of the removals, it still stings every year, especially when some of the stuff in Destiny 2’s seasons winds up being the most impactful. Sometimes, huge narrative beats are delivered through the seasonal pipeline, and other times, it just gives you a fun game mode or activity. This is a blog about one such feature. - Moises Taveras Read More

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Gif: Nathan Dearth

I don’t think I will ever get over the death of SSX. While EA’s extreme snowboarding series isn’t officially in the ground, there hasn’t been an entry since 2012. Yet the franchise still looms large in many gamers’ minds, including mine. That is especially true of 2001’s SSX Tricky, an arcadey snowboarding game dripping with style that has never been matched, even though many have tried and failed. However, the demo for new indie game Tricky Madness has given me hope that maybe, just maybe, somebody can recapture SSX’s greatness. - Willa Rowe Read More

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A screenshot showing The Final Shape's core cast around a campfire in the Pale Heart. (L-R: Ikorra, Zavala, the player's guardian, Cayde-6, and Crow)
Image: Bungie / Sony

There is something about returning to many of Destiny’s previous locations, including the very first areas of the original game, that makes The Final Shape reek of high school. A lot has changed about the series in the ten years since our ghost first found us just outside of Old Russia. Moreover, running down the same halls I once traipsed with the old gang feels like a high school reunion of sorts. When I was first here, I felt so small, but coming back to my old haunts all these years later as a bigger and better version of myself has revealed just how much I’ve grown in the years since. - Moises Taveras Read More

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Queen Mara Sov looks at someone off-camera.
Screenshot: Bungie / Claire Jackson / Kotaku

As I sit here, on June 6, 2024 at 11:45 a.m., two days after The Final Shape launched—Destiny’s last expansion in the story arc it clumsily started more than a decade ago—I am notably not blasting aliens nor taking in sweeping sci-fi vistas. I am not playing at all. - Claire Jackson Read More

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