The Black Phone was a grounded, tense horror film that balanced supernatural elements with gritty, serial-killer realism. Its sequel, Black Phone 2, looks at that balance and throws it out the window. Director Scott Derrickson and writer C. Robert Cargill have returned to craft a…

The world comes back into focus through a haze of pain and the coppery taste of your own blood. Your head feels like it’s been split open—and it has. A phone rings somewhere in the abandoned warehouse you’ve woken up in, an insistent, screeching demand.…

City-builders often ask us to spread out, to conquer vast lands and paint the map in our color. STARIO: Haven Tower, from developer Stargate Games, asks us to look up. It’s a game that trades sprawling continents for a single, impossibly tall spire — a…

There’s a unique, creeping dread that comes with being the last person to lock up for the night. The familiar hums of daytime commerce fade into an unsettling silence, every shadow seems to lengthen, and the mundane transforms into the menacing. Take IT Studio! has…

Disney’s relentless attempt to make Tron a viable blockbuster franchise continues with Tron: Ares, directed by Joachim Rønning. Starring Jared Leto as the titular AI program who crosses over into the real world, the film is a stunning technical achievement backed by a pounding Nine…

The side-scrolling beat ’em up is back — again — and Absolum might just be the best it’s been in decades. From the creative dream team behind Streets of Rage 4 (Dotemu and Guard Crush Games), joined by Supamonks for their hand-animated artistry, Absolum breathes…

In a year packed with sprawling RPGs and endless open worlds, Luctus stands apart by doing the opposite — it keeps things short, focused, and intensely personal. Developed by Mriya Game Studio and published by Blackburne Games Studio and IndieNext, this pixel-art action-adventure delivers a…

Every once in a while, a game slips onto the radar that doesn’t scream for attention — it murmurs. CARIMARA: Beneath the Forlorn Limbs, from solo developer Bastinus Rex and published by Critical Reflex, is exactly that kind of game: a hushed, eerie, poetic hour-long…

There are games that entertain you, and then there are games that ask you to think. Dreams of Another, from Q-Games Ltd.—the studio behind The Tomorrow Children and the PixelJunk series—is one of the latter. It’s not just a game, but a surreal art piece…

It’s not often that a LEGO game makes you cry — but LEGO Voyagers, from the creators of LEGO Builder’s Journey, manages exactly that. It’s tender, clever, and achingly emotional without uttering a single word. This is not your typical block-building romp full of slapstick…