Gothic: A Shadow's Quest - Preview & Review

Gothic: A Shadow's Quest is a cooperative campaign-style board game with RPG elements for one to five players, based on the original Gothic from 2001 -- or more accurately, the recent remake from June 2026. Set in a fantasy prison colony where convicts were originally sent to mine magic ore to fuel the kingdom's war against the orcs, the prisoners since revolted and took control of the colony, splitting into three Camps based around different ideologies, that each sustain themselves through different means. In this game, which takes place before the events of the video game, you play as Shadows of the Old Camp -- the original camp that still trades magic ore with the king -- working together to explore the Valley of Mines map having scripted encounters that you read from an adventure book based on the things you discover at each location, while also fighting deadly creatures on a separate side board on your way to solving a series of main quests and side quests given to you by various NPCs. Surviving encounters and completing quests will grant you assorted resources like magic ore and experience points, which you can spend towards improving your character by buying new equipment or training your stats and skills. This is important because enemies do not scale to your level, so you will need to level up to face tougher encounters later in the main quest, or in more dangerous regions of the map. Players work together to solve a series of main quests that tell a loosely over-arching story spanning multiple sessions and up to 60+ hours in total, but you're also free to just explore the Colony in a non-linear fashion while also working on whatever side-quests you come across. The game is being crowd-funded through Gamefound with no plans for a future retail release; the campaign is set to launch on September 30th, 2026, with an anticipated fulfillment date in the summer or fall of 2027. It will have three pledge levels to include "standard" cardboard standees for enemies, "deluxe" acrylic standees, or "premium" 3D miniatures. 

The version of the game that I'm previewing, here, is a prototype and therefore is still very much a work-in-progress, so it does not necessarily reflect the final product that everyone will receive since everything is subject to change. Some graphics and artwork are clearly just placeholders and will be updated for the full release, and there are various production issues with this print run that they're already aware of and planning fixes for, while other things like specific gameplay mechanics, enemy and item balancing, and the complexity of the narrative encounters, for example, are all constantly being refined and expanded. The "global threat rate" tracker that this prototype uses has supposedly already been replaced with a more localized system to affect specific locations independently, instead of the entire colony all at once, so this specific mechanism, for instance, is already out-dated. There may be other improvements to the game since this version got manufactured, and the designers are planning even more changes and potential enhancements through stretch goals, which will offer expanded variety in some of the item cards you can uncover, plus more in-game depth given to the quests and exploration encounters, among other things. The previous prototype that I tested featured a one-off, "random adventure" scenario meant to be completed in one session, which is not represented in this prototype, so I'm not sure if that will still be an option in the full release, and the campaign that's presented in this prototype is likewise not the same campaign that will be featured in the final version, which will allegedly be "completely new" with a "complete overhaul" of the campaign book. But since this is the version I have, this is the version I'm going to preview; just understand that it's hard for me to predict what the final game will be like, and so take all of this with a grain of salt and some understanding that things will change during the crowdfunding campaign and as game development continues.  

Disco Elysium - Review | A New Standard for Role-Playing Games

Disco Elysium is a role-playing adventure game from 2019 that takes heavy influence from isometric, point-and-click classics like Planescape: Torment and others of its ilk, but with a major twist being that it features no combat whatsoever. Instead, your character development and role-playing choices relate to the different ways in which you perceive and react to the world around you, with different skills granting you varying degrees of ability to empathize with other people, to deduce information through logical reasoning, to interpret dreams and premonitions, or to be able to dance like a badass disco king, among plenty of other things -- all of which will help you in different ways as you interact with NPCs and solve quests while exploring the fantastical-realist setting of Martinaise, Revachol. 

You play as a police detective waking up with a massive hangover from the night before, having partied so hard that you forgot literally everything, including who you are and even basic details of the world itself -- but you quickly come to realize that you were sent here to investigate a murder and team up with your new partner, Kim Kitsuragi, with whom you work together to figure out who killed the hanged man, and in the process prevent the city from erupting into a violent outbreak over the murder. All-the-while you're also trying to learn more about yourself in terms of discovering who you really are and what led you to drink yourself into oblivion, while also going around picking up the pieces from your drunken rampage the night before. Typical gameplay involves non-linear exploration of a small map searching for loot that you can equip to improve your stats or else sell for money that you can spend buying other equipment and healing items; rolling dice to perform active skill checks while interacting with NPCs and objects in the environment; and earning experience towards level-ups which will allow you to customize your character build by increasing various stats of your choosing. 

The thing that makes Disco Elysium so special, at least for me, is how it handles role-playing by really emphasizing character-based decisions, in terms of how you shape your character's personality; how you speak to other characters; how you internalize details about things happening around you; what options even exist for how you solve quests, or even what quests you're capable of triggering at all; and also just how your character thinks. These are aspects that I find critical for proper role-playing, that I feel have been under-represented in mainstream RPGs going on for a while now, where all too often they make their skill systems predominantly about what methodology you use to kill things with no other way to effect your character's background or personality through dialogue, or else with the scope of dialogue options being narrowly focused on a binary scale of some variation of "good or evil" with maybe a neutral option if you're lucky. That makes role-playing in those kinds of games feel a bit arbitrary and superficial to me, whereas Disco really leans into deeper aspects of how you play out your character, with several statistical systems and measurements that let you craft your own sort of character that will see and interact with the world differently than another.

Ranking My Most/Least Favorite Quests in Disco Elysium

Disco Elysium is one of the most engaging RPGs I've played in a long time. This is in large part due to its unique take on role-playing through social skills and an abundance of stat checks that influence the way you literally perceive and react to the world around you, but its quests played a significant role as well in hooking my interest from the very beginning and keeping me glued to my computer for the entirety of its 60-hour run time. The quests in Disco relate predominantly to your main investigation to solve a murder, with you playing a police detective waking up from a bad hangover, with no memory of himself or the world around him, who's been sent to figure how who killed the Hanged Man, and why, with two different sides on the verge of breaking out into violent conflict over the murder. 

But throughout your time in Martinaise, you're able to get involved with numerous stereo investigations, or that is to say, side quests, most of which don't seem to be ostensibly related to the case or the greater situation in Martinaise, but which inevitably do wind up relating back to something important, somehow. The quests all contribute to a greater whole sum, in other words, which makes it a little difficult to pick out specific, individual quests since everything ultimately overlaps with something else in some significant way -- but despite that, I'm going to do my best to pick ones out that I particularly enjoyed, and go over what it was that made them so enjoyable. Additionally, I'll also expound on some that I didn't like as much, which is not to say that they were bad quests because I ultimately enjoyed just about everything in this game, but there were still a few that didn't live up to everything else, or that proved to be somewhat underwhelming. 

As always, this is not meant to be an objective ranking of what quests have the most complex mechanics, or the best-told stories, or anything like that -- it's simply my personal opinion, on which quests I enjoyed most based on my own particular tastes and interests. Also please note that this article will have major spoilers for every quest mentioned, some of which will relate to important details in the main story, so just treat the entire thing as spoilers. And now, without further ado, here are my most and least favorite quests in Disco Elysium, in some attempt at a ranked order:

Disco Elysium Beginner's Guide - Tips and Advice

Disco Elysium is a unique sort of role-playing game, in that it doesn't play like other typical sorts of RPGs. With a gameplay system based around a much more abstract set of social skills, no combat whatsoever, and a fictional setting that bears many similarities to reality, but which is ultimately a little strange, it might not be the easiest game to understand right away. From the moment you click "New Game" and are greeted with strange voices talking to you about bizarre nonsense over a black screen, it's going to be an unusual experience that will take some time to fully comprehend. In this game, you play as a detective waking up with a massive hang-over and no memory of yourself or even the basic details of the world around you, but you quickly come to realize that you were sent here to solve a murder investigation, and thus, your main quest is to find out whodunnit, and along the way, also discover more about your past while giving yourself a fresh start to a new life based on how you choose to role-play your character. 

In truth, the game is not very difficult to get through, and its mechanisms -- while very sophisticated in terms of their technical implementation -- are relatively straightforward. It's not a game that really NEEDS a beginner guide, in other words, and in fact, I would say the experience is best enjoyed by just going into it completely blind and learning everything as you go, since that helps you to identify with the main character who is equally clueless about literally everything at the start of the game. But all the same, there are some things that I think might be helpful to know if you're not sure about what to expect or if you're struggling with everything early on, which I wanted to highlight just as friendly pieces of advice. Now as usual whenever I make these sorts of guides, I don't want to spoil things by telling you exactly what to do in terms of "pick these skills, go here and get this special item early, watch out for this NPC, etc," because I want to leave that room for you to discover things on your own as part of the journey, but here are some basic, spoiler-free tips that may help you get a better feel for the game and avoid certain pitfalls. 

SOMA - 10th Anniversary Retrospective

Note: SOMA is best enjoyed going into it completely blind. This review has minor spoilers for certain story elements and specific moments, but does not spoil any major twists or outcomes. I have also previously reviewed SOMA back in 2017; this is an entirely new review, completely revamped and improved, but you can read my original review here if you'd like.

If you listen to the internet, SOMA is one of the greatest video games of all time, a truly transcendent experience like no other game out there -- a flawless masterpiece of science fiction storytelling that sticks with you long after you finish, a life-changing event that forever alters your perception of yourself and the world around you. That's all a bit hyperbolic for my taste, but I do remember enjoying it quite a bit when I played it originally, not too long after its release in September 2015. At the time, I found its story strikingly thought-provoking and its atmosphere highly immersive, but felt the actual gameplay to be somewhat lacking, especially with it being advertised as a survival-horror game from the esteemed creators of the Penumbra and Amnesia games beforehand, which I had considered to be among my favorite horror games of all time. Still, it was an enjoyable experience overall that has stood out as particularly memorable in my mind, to the point that I was still recommending it to friends and family as recently as a few months ago. With its 10-year anniversary approaching and the game's subject matter on my mind as of late, I figured it was worth replaying to see how well it holds up nowadays, and if SOMA is still as good as I remember it being. 

In SOMA, you play as Simon Jarrett, a man in 2015 who survived a car crash with heavy brain damage that has shortened his life expectancy to just a few months. The game begins with you waking up in your Toronto apartment before you're scheduled to undergo an experimental brain scan that purports to be able to model a virtual simulation of your brain in order to test various treatments in a faster, safer environment. The idea being that, if all goes well, they'll be able to try more aggressive or unorthodox options and find a cure to prolong your life, and if not, then at least your contribution will help to refine and advance the technology so that it can help others in the future. So you sit down for the scan as a contraption is lowered over your head, your vision flashes white, and the next thing you know, the room has gone dark, with no sign of the doctor who was administering the test. After getting up and fumbling around for a light switch, you realize that you're in a completely different place, now -- an all-metal facility with high tech computers, environmental suits on the wall, blood on the floor, and strange growths protruding around the structure. You investigate further and find the place seemingly deserted and left in a state of disrepair, with a call log from an intercom system in which two people talk about sealing the doors to keep something out and making sure everything is set to run on standby for when they evacuate.

From there, the game becomes a matter of exploring the facility to figure out where you are, how you got there, and how you can get back home to Toronto -- if you even can at all -- with you piecing information together from computer messages, audio logs, and imagery on the walls, that tell the story of what happened to Pathos II -- the research station that you suddenly find yourself in, and that you now hope to escape from. Gameplay takes the form of a walking-simulator-style adventure game where you explore environments looking for ways to advance to the next area by solving simple puzzles, finding particular key items, and occasionally even dodging monsters who appear to impede your progress. It is meant to be a horror game, after all, what with the dark and spooky atmosphere, the disturbing monsters that you're forced to run and hide from, and a fair number of scripted scares mixed with a heightened sense of dread and tension as you worry about what might happen next. And yet, despite Frictional Games' reputation for creating excellent horror games, the horror stuff in SOMA actually takes a backseat to other far more compelling elements -- that being its deeply immersive atmosphere, and its incredibly absorbing story. 

The Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos - Review

The Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos is an open-world action-adventure role-playing game, based on the popular Gothic series, which was originally developed by Piranha Bytes in the early 2000s. As a total conversion mod for Gothic 2, created by fans and released near the very end of 2021, Archolos offers a full-length, standalone experience with up to 100 hours or more of content in an all-original map and story, plus tons of new mechanics and upgrades to the existing Gothic formula. It's therefore worth stressing that this isn't just a mod for Gothic 2, but it's an entirely new game altogether, one so extensive and professional in quality that it could easily be confused for an official Gothic game. It is completely free to download and play, so long as you have a copy of Gothic 2: Gold Edition on which to run it. The mod was originally written in Polish and features professional Polish voice acting, but includes English subtitles as well as other language options for the interface and subtitles.

While you could conceivably play Archolos as your first introduction to the Gothic series, due to it occurring chronologically first and being a mostly separate adventure that requires no prior knowledge of the Gothic series to understand, it's an experience that's probably best enjoyed if you've already played Gothic 1 and 2 so that you can appreciate the extra refinement that it brings to the established formula, in addition to all the small references and Easter eggs that set up future events in the series. 

The game takes place during a tipping point in the orc war against humanity, several years before the start of Gothic 1, as the orcs begin to seize the upper hand and as the war's effects begin to be felt among the common folk in the outer reaches of the kingdom. You play as a young man named Marvin, fleeing from your hometown with your brother Jorn to the island of Archolos, in hopes of escaping the war and starting a new life. While trying to integrate yourself with the local farming village, your brother is mysteriously kidnapped, thus instigating the main quest to track him down and learn more about the people responsible. The rest of the game involves exploring a densely-structured open world map where enemies and loot do not scale to your level; completing side quests for various NPCs and communities to gain their trust and earn valuable rewards; and leveling up your character by investing skill points in different categories so you can get better at fighting all the difficult enemies that populate the world. 

If you're familiar with the early Gothic games, then you'll feel right at home with Archolos, since it's based on the same engine and uses all of the same core mechanics, even reusing a bunch of the exact same audiovisual components. That simple basis does a lot of heavy lifting in terms of achieving that authentic Gothic feel, since it shares more of the same fundamental DNA than every other Piranha Bytes game to have come out since Gothic 1 and 2. However, Archolos does feature a certain "je ne sais quoi" in its design that extends a little deeper than simply copying those superficial aspects -- it really achieves an authentic feel in the tone and atmosphere, the early game difficulty and progression, the world design and exploration, as well as the general quest design and character interactions, with the added benefit of a lot of key improvements to various mechanics that weren't necessarily problems in the original games, but are all the more welcome to see in Archolos. This includes things like new quality of life improvements, new evolution on existing mechanics, all-new features and systems, and corrections for certain issues that Piranha Bytes never had the chance to address originally. You could even argue that some things are done even better than the originals, which is facilitated by the developers having 20 years of fan feedback from the original games to incorporate into Archolos. So in a way, it does kind of feel like "Gothic 2: Night of the Raven, But Better."

No One Lives Forever: Review + Full Series Retrospective (Replay)

Note: I had previously reviewed the full series back in 2016; you can read the original review here. This review is an updated version that's been largely re-written with updated and expanded thoughts, along with a full video version, seen here. 

The Operative: No One Lives Forever and its sequel, No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in HARM's Way, are a series of first-person shooters developed by Monolith Productions in 2000 and 2002, in which players take the role of 1960s secret agent Cate Archer trying to stop a villainous criminal organization from taking over the world. Typical gameplay involves combinations of run-and-gun action as you fight off hordes of enemy henchmen; sneaky stealth action as you try to infiltrate facilities undetected; exploring varied level environments to find hidden intelligence and bonus equipment upgrades; going undercover and mingling with civilians to meet with informants or interview suspects, occasionally even picking dialogue choices; riding vehicles through exotic locations; and watching cutscenes that progressively tell the game's lengthy story as Cate trots the globe to diverse and exotic locations to complete a variety of different objectives en route to saving the day. Both games also feature a strong humorous component with lots of genre-spoofing dialogue and jokes, thus lending them a much more whimsical and lighthearted tone than your typical shooter. Oh, and there's also Contract JACK, a stand-alone spinoff from 2003 that's loosely connected to the series, but uh, there's a reason it's not discussed much when it comes to the NOLF series and is perhaps better forgotten about, but don't worry -- I'll explain why in due time. 

 

Originally PC exclusives before seeing the first game ported to the PlayStation 2, the NOLF series received critical praise at the time but only ever achieved moderate financial success, having been overshadowed by so many other major releases in the surrounding years, and was soon abandoned by Monolith in favor of new series like FEAR and Condemned a few years later. A series of publisher acquisitions and mergers subsequently allowed the copyright to fall into no man's land, with none of the companies who MIGHT own it actually knowing for sure if they do or not, and none of them having any apparent interest in finding out, despite developer Nightdive Studios' best efforts in recent years while attempting to file for the license in order to do a remake. The games have therefore never been re-released beyond their initial run, nor made available for digital download on modern distribution platforms like Steam or GOG, while any attempt at a remake or legacy sequel has been shut down due to all the legal uncertainty, thus cementing the series legacy in the annals of video game history as lost, forgotten gems.