Author: Flare

A Pit Stop for the Brain At 27, living with my parents definitely has its perks, but spending my entire Tuesday morning drafting up a formal $8,000 annual rental agreement to present to them has left my brain completely fried. When the logistics of adulting become too much of a headache, all I want is a low-stakes, pick-up-and-play arcade racer to decompress. Enter iRacing Arcade, released today on Steam. Developed by Original Fire Games—the brilliant minds behind the top-down indie darling Circuit Superstars—and published by the undisputed titans of competitive sim racing, iRacing, this title seemed like a slam dunk.…

A Bloody Good Travel Companion Before I pack my bags for San Francisco later this week, I need to lock in a solid game for the flight. Between the long hours walking the floor at the Game Developers Conference and eventually winding down in my room at the Westin St. Francis, an engaging, pick-up-and-play handheld title is practically mandatory. Seeing that Carmageddon: Rogue Shift recently snagged its official Steam Deck Verified badge, it felt like the perfect candidate for some mindless, hyper-violent stress relief on the go. Released last month by Italian developer 34BigThings srl (the team behind the blistering…

I Want to Believe For the past few years, the cooperative horror genre has been entirely dominated by the paranormal. We have hunted demons, identified poltergeists, and hid in closets from revenants. But what if the thing bumping in the night isn’t a restless spirit, but an extraterrestrial visitor? Enter UFOPHILIA, a first-person psychological horror game released in January 2026 by k148 Game Studio. It asks a simple question: what if Phasmophobia, but aliens? You play as an investigator obsessed with UFO phenomena, traveling to remote locations to track, identify, and photograph extraterrestrials. When the game fires on all cylinders,…

Oh Bother, Something is Wrong with the Bear Since A.A. Milne’s beloved bear entered the public domain, we have seen a deluge of low-effort slasher films and cheap cash grabs trying to shock audiences by putting a knife in the paw of a childhood icon. It became tiring almost immediately. But then comes Twice Different, the developers behind the cult classic Ring of Pain, with a proposition that is equally disturbing but infinitely more creative: What if you weren’t fighting the bear? What if you were the corruption inside him? Winnie’s Hole is a roguelite strategy game that tasks you…

From Legacy to Legend Identity is a tricky thing in the gaming industry. Last year, this game was known as Legacy: Steel & Sorcery, a hardcore PvPvE extraction game that punished players mercilessly. Today, it has re-emerged as Eldegarde, a rebranded, refocused, and fully released title that aims to bridge the gap between the high-stakes tension of Escape from Tarkov and the cozy progression of a classic MMORPG. Released fully on January 21, 2026, Eldegarde arrives with a “Mixed” recent review score on Steam, a badge of honor for any game that dares to mix PvP and PvE communities. But…

Into the Underground The survival horror genre is currently experiencing a renaissance, largely fueled by high-budget remakes of classics like Resident Evil and Silent Hill. But in the shadow of these giants, indie developers are scavenging for their own piece of the pie. Enter ENTITY: THE BLACK DAY, a project developed solo by Ali Al-Abboodi that was released on January 8, 2026. Priced at a modest $17.99, ENTITY promises a return to the golden age of third-person shooters—dark corridors, government conspiracies, and biological horrors. After spending about four hours navigating its subterranean labs, it is clear that while this game…