Epilogue Gaming: Video Games as Art, Literature and a Storytelling Medium
I avoided Persona 5 for a few years despite everyone I know recommending it as a masterpiece. I traditionally avoid games that exceed the 30 hour mark, but my fond memories of playing Persona...
There’s a moment in That Dragon, Cancer (TDC) that nearly stopped me from playing the game. A baby lies in a crib, crying at night. The crying escalates from soft whines to proper sobs...
Though streaming can be mentally taxing, it is also one of the most rewarding things that I do in my daily life. Before being shuffled indoors over these past few months due to social...
I have never been terribly raucous about the potential for virtual reality (VR) games to pioneer the medium forward. But as chance would have it, I found myself purchasing a steeply discounted PSVR headset...
This year’s LudoNarraCon event – a showcase celebrating narrative games – was jam packed with indie games of all stripes. It’s a remarkable time for games that I’ve previously written about, like Neo Cab...
Kill la Kill is one of the greatest single-run anime series of all time, featuring an exaggerated parodical critique of fashion culture. Naturally, the idea of playing an incarnation of that universe in video...
When I began working on the Ludonarrative Podcast a few years back, one of the first things I did was look around for similar podcasts – shows that produced thoughtful, engaging, critical, and unique...
It’s often difficult to argue that certain video games are “important” in the same way that knowing how to read and write is important. It’s furthermore difficult to convince a skeptic that some video...
I recently felt like I needed a quick vacation from massive 50+ hour games, and Mutazione was the perfect getaway. Mutazione reinvigorated my spirits, creating a relaxing but compelling narrative adventure through one of...
Dreams is almost impossible to describe. Media Molecule’s digital sandbox, packaged as a video game, is one of the most unique additions to the gaming sphere in years. Dreams hits that same “weird” spot...
In this spring’s Steam Game Festival – an event featuring dozens of demos mostly from smaller indie games – I found some incredible gems that have a plethora of potential and are worth paying...
Introduction Journey greets us with stunning visuals of a desert landscape. An out of focus dune reaches skyward, silhouetted against the white-wash sun. A bright light streaks through the sky below thin clouds and...
A Plague Tale: Innocence is a harrowing tale of familial love in the face of unimaginable and overwhelming tragedy. It is a story of life and death, of love and loss, of secrets and...
Welcome to Epilogue Gaming’s first video series. We’re calling it “Visualizing the Narrative” because we want to explore how games use interactive visuals to tell their stories. To explore this concept, we will be...
When I got hooked by Netflix’s adaptation of the Witcher series, I was initially inclined to skip the first two games and dive into the universally acclaimed The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Against my...
Every time a Games Done Quick (AGDQ/SGDQ) event comes to a close, I feel a certain kind of melancholic sadness that reminds me of the end of summer break as a schoolkid. The GDQ...
2019 was not an easy year to narrow down Game of the Year picks. When we had a meeting to discuss our Epilogue staff picks for this year, it became clear that many games...
As we wrapped up 2019, our staff members wanted to discuss our favorite games from the year. We agreed on some categories that allowed us all to highlight the treats that 2019 brought our...
Music has been a dominating force in my life for as long as I can remember. I picked up my first guitar when I was in 7th grade, and by 9th grade, I was...
Life is Strange 2 is an awkwardly paced adventure game developed by Dontnod, a spiritual successor and sequel to the original Life is Strange, which fails to improve on nearly anything that made the...
After a year of traipsing through the uninspiring world of the sequel to Life is Strange, I felt conditioned to expect that “Wolves” would be a flat note to a dull story. At first,...
Thank you readers, viewers, and community members for making 2019 such a memorable year for us at Epilogue Gaming. To show our gratitude, we have compiled a list of video game things we are...
For many people like me, depression is an ongoing involuntary struggle with everyday life. Though most of the time I can course-correct by adjusting my habits, sometimes depression descends like a raincloud that can...
Death Stranding has invoked some of the most exciting discourse that the gaming community has to offer this year, with some lifelong Kojima fans prematurely lauding the game as a masterpiece and industry skeptics...
Astral Chain wasn’t immediately on my radar for 2019, but it instantly smashed through all expectations as review after review praised it as a contender for game of the year. And the hype of...
I’m not a superstitious person, but I am sure of one thing: Fallout 76 is cursed. Every time the game enters the news cycle, I uncannily feel like I’m reading news from a satirical...
When Concrete Genie arrived at my doorstep this week, I dropped everything and binged through the game. It’s a brilliant concept that focuses on wholesome themes, a unique art style, and fun painting mechanics...
I took my first cab ride in Guilin, China, in 2015, and I quickly realized somewhere between the radically sharp 90 degree turns, the language barrier, and choking cigarette atmosphere that I was more...
A few years ago, Canadian Geese flew several hundred miles south to where I live for the winter, but the gaggle never migrated back. Ever since, they have become an invasive, traffic-stopping, defecating, overly...
In the age of the internet – a maelstrom of confusion, corruption, call-out culture, and hateful rhetoric – I often find myself in need of a break from digital media. The question of whether...
Somehow it didn’t click at the end of my first playthrough of NieR: Automata that there would be multiple routes to multiple endings: 26, in fact. As is standard procedure through most of the...
I fell in love with Control the moment I saw the first teaser trailer. Control breathed life into the supernatural space of mainstream gaming, borrowing from tropes and archetypes from series like The X-Files and Twin...
The original Life is Strange series is one of my favorite games of all time. The characters, the worldbuilding, the magical realism, the soundtrack, the gameplay and how it’s integrated into the narrative themes...
Chicory: A Colorful Tale, better known as Drawdog, is the charming new project by Greg Lobanov, the developer behind Wandersong – which was one of my favorite games of 2018. Even better, the game...
In yet another tirade, the gaming community has inflicted its most toxic behaviors on a small indie developer for the upcoming game called Ooblets. I have been following the Twitter account for Ooblets for...
This month, we’ve got Dakota and Ayana diving deep into Night in the Woods, a tale about millennial dread, the fear of growing up, and how to move on from your familiar past. They...
This weekend, I began my first venture into what is colloquially known as a “Nuzlocke” run of Pokemon Crystal. I picked Crystal because it was the game I played most as a kid. Whether...
Riding the wave of 2019 releases, I had high hopes that Sea of Solitude would be an emotionally driven experience that told its story through artistic direction and style. It was reported that Sea...
Cadence of Hyrule instantly danced itself into the top spot for my 2019 game of the year contenders. I was expecting a casual offshoot to the Zelda universe, just a whimsical indie one-off. But...
Flora, Marcos and Dakota break down each of the major E3 conferences – the good, the bad and the cringe. We gush over some of our favorite moments and grade each conference on how...
Kids by Playables, recently published by Double Fine, experiments with how our interactions we have with other people influence our perceived identity. In a nonverbal way, the game abstractly investigates social proprioception. I picked...
This article is a roundtable written by Marcos Carmona, Blake Andrea, Ben Vollmer, and Andy Webb. Here are our thoughts on the Pokémon Direct that aired on June 5th, 2019. Andy: How are we...
The past twelve months of streaming on Twitch have fundamentally changed my relationship to video games, and now that this first year comes to a close, I think I have learned a few psychological...
Vampyr is an exhausting game. From annoying technical issues to an overburdened story, the game falls apart at nearly every opportunity. What seems like an interesting narrative-based action game that branches out in consequence...
Josh: To what extent do we as reviewers allow the idea of games as live services affect our reviews; with the knowledge that our review may become completely inaccurate not just in technical aspects...
The third episode of Life is Strange 2 was the make-or-break episode for this struggling spiritual sequel to one of my favorite games of all time. After playing “Wastelands,” I can say that I’m...
This week in the Epilogue Gaming Discord server, a series of opinions exploded around a central theme: should a game’s price affect the way it is reviewed? It began with a discussion of Joseph...
It is Flora Eloise’s recommendation that you listen to In Love With a Ghost’s “Heart of the Woods” while reading this review. I picked up Heart of the Woods expecting a simplistic, happy-go-lucky dating...
This past weekend, after 27 hours in the game, I made the decision to stop streaming Hollow Knight. This was an emotional decision to make, because Hollow Knight is such a masterfully crafted piece...
Owlboy is one of the most visually charming and beautifully crafted video games that I have ever had the pleasure of playing. Every pixel in this retro-style 2D platformer bursts with exuberance. From the meek...
