After a couple sleepy weeks, the gaming hype train of 2024 is finally moving at full steam. We saw the first major showcase of the year with Xbox’s Developer Direct, dug into The Last of Us Part II Remastered, and oogled MachineGames flamin’ hot digital dupe of ‘80s Harrison Ford. These are the week’s most important previews, reviews, and takes.

There’s been a lot of deserved criticism thrown Persona 3 Reload’s way for not implementing Persona 3 Portable’s female protagonist route into its ground-up remake. However, we’re not talking enough about one of the few parts of the female protagonist route that did make its way into the modern revitalization of Atlus’ classic RPG: We finally get to hang out with the best boys Akihiko Sanada and Junpei Iori in a way we couldn’t as a male player character until now. - Kenneth Shepard Read More

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth seems poised to dive Buster Sword-first right into stories about the multiverse. And rather than chasing tired trends like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Square Enix’s three-game retelling of FF7 may come closer to one of the most influential comic storylines of the last century: Crisis on Infinite Earths. - Corey Plante Read More

A fun-sounding project, a Nintendo 64 demake of Portal, has been pulled from Steam. It’s developer, however, is imploring people not to get angry with Valve, suggesting his idea was always doomed from the start. And yet, you know, I’m still a bit mad. - John Walker Read More

Thanks to today’s Xbox Developer Direct, we’ve finally got the long-awaited details of the upcoming Indiana Jones game from Bethesda-owned studio and Wolfenstein developer MachineGames. It’s called Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, it swaps between first- and third-person, you can choose to be stealthy or go in fists flying, and Troy Baker is voicing the iconic professor—but none of that matters. What matters is how MachineGames has managed to so faithfully recreate the unassailable hotness of ‘80s Harrison Ford. - Alyssa Mercante Read More

The Last of Us Part II Remastered’s roguelike mode, No Return, is a prime example of how it’s nearly impossible for games made by hundreds to thousands of people to have a consistent thematic vision. See, director Neil Druckmann wants you to believe The Last of Us Part II is all about how the cycle of violence is bad, and the player should feel bad for taking part in it. But No Return remixes all the weapons, upgrades, infected monstrosities, religious cults, violent militias, and every way you can gut, shoot, and disembowel a person into a loop you can partake in. It’s a cycle of violence made into a video game mode. - Kenneth Shepard Read More

Earlier this month, we asked you, dear readers, what you wanted to see in the newly announced The Mandalorian and Grogu movie based on the Disney+ series created by Jon Favreau. The answers were pretty varied, but we discovered two commonalities across most responses: readers want the film to be totally disconnected from the rest of the Star Wars fiction while providing a satisfying end to the dynamic duo’s storyline. - Levi Winslow Read More