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Digital Trends
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Digital Trends
Shadow Labyrinth might just pull off its oddball elevator pitch
45 years after the release of Pac-Man, Bandai Namco is finally answering the age-old question: 'How would it play as a 2D Metroidvania?' Surely you've all been wondering that, right? Well, ask no more because we'll soon have an answer to that head-scratching question with Shadow Labyrinth on July 18. At PAX East 2025, Digital Trends went hands-on with the upcoming game and chatted with Seigo Aizawa, producer at Bandai Namco, about Pac-Man's new look. Aizawa showed us how the oddball game is more true to Pac-Man's core tenets than it looks at first glance. It may be a gritty Metroidvania with intense boss fights, but this is still the same maze-navigating eat-em-up you've been playing for decades, albeit in a very different light. Recommended Videos Enter the maze In Shadow Labyrinth, players wake up in a strange world where everything is trying to kill them. The only thing aiding their survival is a Pac-Man-like creature that gives them abilities and guides them through a savage planet. Amazon's Secret Level episode starring Pac-Man serves as a prequel to Shadow Labyrinth, and watching it will give players a better understanding of what to expect. 'To expand our audience, we wanted to make something new,' Aizawa tells Digital Trends. 'We wanted to get people who never played a Pac-Man game to play [Shadow Labyrinth]. When we thought about the concept of the game, 'Dark Pac-Man' came up. When you think about a dark atmosphere and a maze concept, [the] Metroidvania [genre] matches it perfectly.' Shadow Labyrinth is especially fast-paced for the genre. Every attack must be executed with a plan in mind. But that's not to say Shadow Labyrinth isn't a Pac-Man game at its heart still. There's still a maze for players to run through, you just won't see it from a bird's eye view. Instead, players navigate 2D environments and you have to figure out where they're going as they explore. Pac-Man's tendency to eat everything in sight plays a role here too, though in much more sinister fashion. After players are done chopping up your enemies, they can perform an action that essentially turns you into a Pac-Man Kiju that lets them eat their foes to gain abilities. Aizawa revealed that this was by design, as the game needed three key pillars for which Pac-Man is known for: eating, mazes, and power ups. That's not the only thing my Pac-Man companion can do. As I was making my way through mazes, I was presented with paths that had rails on them. The only way to cross them was to turn into that iconic yellow sphere from the arcade classic. The catch was that the rails were packed with all sorts of traps that were trying to kill me. If I wanted to make it through alive, I needed to evade them. While the Shadow Labyrinth itself is a new location, it still connects to a familiar universe. Bandai Namco decided to toy around with the UGSF (Universal Gaming Simulation Framework), a narrative device that the company uses to connect many of its games. A clear example of this appeared towards the end of my demo. After defeating the main boss, I uncovered a Dig-Dug easter egg that played a bit of the game's music. Aizawa says that this is just one example of how all of the games are connected thanks to the UGSF. Shadow Labyrinth takes place in a distant future, whereas Dig Dug took place 3,000 years before this game. As players progress through the story, they'll find remnants of other beloved Bandai Namco properties. Sometimes these will be simple winks and nods to other games, and other times they'll play a bigger role in the story. The overall gameplay doesn't disappoint based on what I've played so far. There's a clear sense of Metroidvania progression that gives players plenty of new abilities to unlock, changing their tool set. The boss fights are engaging clashes against larger than life monsters and the platforming almost feels like a game of its own. Every aspect of it is working for me so far, which is a pleasant surprise considering how left-field the pitch is. Shadow Labyrinth is dark, edgy, and grim, but still very much a Pac-Man game at its core. As different as it is from anything else in the series history, I'm still having fun exploring mazes and eating enemies at the end of the day. Shadow Labyrinth is taking a big swing and hopes to capture a new audience with its latest iteration of Pac-Man. From what I played, Bandai Namco may just pull that off with something entirely new. Shadow Labyrinth launches on July 18 for PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and Nintendo Switch 2.
Digital Trends
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Digital Trends
I got bullied during my Patapon 1+2 Replay demo and I loved it
During PAX East 2025, I played a whole bunch of games. But Patapon 1+2 Replay is the one that will forever be etched into my brain. Before walking into my appointment, I didn't know a thing about Sony's cult series. The only thing I knew was that I had a hard time pronouncing the name initially, and that it was some kind of rhythm-based game. Before I entered the appointment, a colleague (let's call him John) asked if he could join and watch. I had no problem with that, and Bandai Namco gave the okay. When I had begun talking to the team about Patapon 1+2 Replay, they immediately noticed that I had said the name wrong and engaged in some playful teasing as they corrected my pronunciation. It was foreshadowing of what was to come during a demo that would show me the comedic joy and tension of a classic series that's built for casual, carefree entertainment. Recommended Videos Discovering Patapon The second John and I sat down, we were greeted by Savannah Ho, the marketing lead for Patapon 1+2 Replay. After a short introduction, Ho gave me a simple elevator pitch to get me up to speed: 'Patapon is a rhythm action game that's perfect for people who love … Rhythm and action! This game has an easy entry level but a high skill ceiling. Especially with the Patapon 1+2 Replay bundle, we've added difficulty levels, which are new to the franchise.' The last piece of her pitch would become especially important as my appointment went on. As someone who was born with two left feet, easy mode sounded appealing. After talking with Ho, I was instructed to load into the game and was given a series of commands to press that would allow my adorable little eyeball men to perform various actions. These included tasks as simple as moving forward, attacking, and jumping. The catch was that they needed to be pressed alongside the beat, and if I failed to do so, I would need to start said input all over again. Not only did my little men perform an action when timed correctly, but I was also rewarded with an adorable, catchy bit of music. Ho assured me that the songs used in 1+2 Replay are also the same ones used in the originals. Hitting the combos on the right beat gave me a nice hit of serotonin. The cherry on top is the visual upgrade. It's great to see games built for older handhelds polished up to feel modern once again. For the first level, I was tasked with hunting down a handful of animals before they escaped from my tribe. I thought I was in for a good time because of the game's cheerful tone and the fact that I was playing on easy mode. But my lack of coordination meant that getting past the intro took me much longer than I'd like to admit, so much so that John started to rib me over it. Ho even started to laugh at his jokes and chimed in at first. That may sound like bullying, but it made my demo of an already upbeat game even more enjoyable. It's hard not to smile and laugh whenever you see your little men perform an action or hunt down a creature — or, in my case, messing up. Although there weren't real stakes in the first level, it did hurt to know that I let one creature get away and that it took me nearly ten minutes to complete it. Of course, without skipping a beat, John and Ho were right there to make sure I knew how badly I messed up, which made the situation funnier than it should have been. The stakes only got higher from there. For the second level, Ho informed me that I would be fighting a T-Rex-like creature who would actively fight back. By this point in the demo, I was locked in and ready to prove them wrong — or so I thought. I was feeling the rhythm, and before I knew it, I made it to the T-Rex and was prepared for battle. The second it started, John and Ho began cracking jokes about my lacking skills. It immediately broke my concentration because I started busting up too. The adorable dinosaur made quick work of my frontline troops, which was a feat. Ho made it a point to say that the ones who died are specially designed to withstand damage; the fact that I got them killed was impressive. Even though I had lost good folks in the battle, my eyeball creatures and I ultimately walked away victorious in a deadly fight full of catchy music. As I learned during my demo, when I perform certain actions back to back, I begin to build up an ultimate attack. Every time I was getting close to obtaining it, John or Ho would taunt me with one-liners like 'oh look, he's getting closer!' Like clockwork, that would get me laughing and break my combo. Even though I was the butt of a lot of the jokes while playing Patapon 1+2 Replay, I wouldn't have had it any other way. My playtime perfectly emphasized what Patapon is all about, giving me a crash course in a series that's new to me. It's meant to be carefree and fun, something casual that can be made even more enjoyable while playing with others. That's why Patapon 1+2 Replay is worth checking out. Even if you're someone like me who has no rhythm, that upbeat energy is infectious. And it's only amplified while playing with friends who can bask in that joy with you. It's hard not to smile when playing. Patapon 1+2 Replay launches on July 11 for PC, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch.
Digital Trends
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Digital Trends
The best games we played at PAX East 2025
Table of Contents Table of Contents Fresh Tracks Battle Train Tunnels Let Them Trade VILE: Exhumed Pigface Nocturne The Lacerator Heartworm PAX EAST returned to Boston this year with nearly three hundred exhibitors for four days of video games and gamer culture. With over 100,000 attendees, it was a weekend full of games to play, people to meet, and spectacular cosplays to marvel at. Digital Trends attended this year's show and went hands-on with several upcoming games that should be on your radar. From an RPG about exploring the digital afterlife to a roguelite about exploring trains, here are the most must see games we played at PAX East 2025. Fresh Tracks Fresh Tracks, from developer Buffalo Buffalo, was one of those games I just couldn't stop talking about. At first glance it's a rhythm based, skiing roguelite, but you only need to watch for a few minutes to see it's so much more than that. Under gorgeous Nordic skies, with skis underfoot and sword in hand, you are on an adventure to stop Mar, the Queen of Terror. As you move, jump, lean, and slash to the rhythm of all original songs it's easy to get lost in the beauty of it all, though the gameplay was challenging enough to keep me on my toes. As it's a roguelite, you take on multiple runs, with and learning the patterns like an expert Guitar Hero player seems like great fun. The mix a heavy emphasis on a mythological story with gorgeously intertwined sites and sounds felt like it married some of the best parts of Hades and Sayonara Wild Hearts, and put this squarely on my Steam Wishlist. ~ Justin Koreis Recommended Videos Battle Train Battle Train is a turn-based deck builder and roguelite from Nerd Ninjas and Terrible Posture Games where players build their ultimate train, all while competing on a game show to become the Supreme Conductor. In an interview with Digital Trends, Jessica Woodard, producer at Terrible Posture Games, described it best: 'Have you ever in your life felt the deep and abiding urge to take a super-powered steam train, pack it full of explosives, and run it as fast as you can into someone or something?' That's Battle Train in a nutshell. In each run, players are tasked with ensuring they have enough resources to spend their cards, properly place tracks so they can destroy their opponent, and save up enough money to purchase upgrades. On top of that, each map will have specific cards unique to each level, so it's always a surprise what you'll get. ~ Luis Gutierrez Tunnels I'm not a big fan of horror games, but in my defense I have a good reason: They scare me. That said, the idea of Tunnels, a terrifyingly immersive VR adventure into claustrophobic caves filled with monsters, was just too interesting to pass up. The demo began with a simple descent into some caves, as I climbed down hand-over-hand from the view of a Meta Quest 3. After a simple tutorial walked me through the basics of running, crawling, and using my flashlight, I was soon squeezing my way through narrow passages and spelunking through the darkness. Suddenly, a strange snarling and crawling shape darting out of view set the hair on the back of my next standing. What followed was a tense cat and mouse game as I tried to evade the creature. The only thing that could keep it at bay was my flashlight, and just thinking about it now the paranoia of hearing it echoing in the distance, and wondering if it was coming up right behind me has my pulse racing. If you have the constitution to handle that, there will be both a full single player story mode and a free-to-play multiplayer option. If you are going to be eaten by monsters in an abandoned mine, may as well do it with friends, right? You can find out when Tunnels launches exclusively for the Meta Quest 2 and 3 on May 15th. ~ Justin Koreis Let Them Trade It's hard to go wrong with a chill city builder and Let Them Trade from Byterockers has coziness in spades. Like an adorable and streamlined Civilization, you work on behalf of your kingdom creating towns and industry. Everything drops onto hexagonal tiles in a grid, with an adorable woodcraft aesthetic, and zooming out the camera to reveal it all takes place on a kitchen table was a fun touch. You work for the king, and each city you construct has it's own economy that can be largely left alone, or micromanaged if you are the sort that likes to tinker on a granular level. My first goal was to build a few simple townships, one with a potato farm based economy, the other a lumber industry, and connect them so they could open up commerce and trade. I loved watching the little units rolling their cards from town to town, and upgrade trees to unlock things like sawmills created opportunities to branch into different strategies, though without the complexity of the most hardcore games of the genre. Another scenario asked me to build a fishing village then, in a surprise twist, the king dropped an extra and unexpected construction project for some sort of tower. This came with a list of materials needed, but no clear directions on how to get them, creating a nice (but reasonable) puzzle to solve to advance. Let Them Trade oozes charm, with a demo out now and a planned full release later this year. ~ Justin Koreis VILE: Exhumed I'm not sure if a video game can ever truly capture the struggles that many women face daily, but Vile: Exhumed aims to do just that in visceral fashion. Developed by Final Girl Games, Vile: Exhumed has players uncovering what happened to a female actress. To discover it, you're forced to explore some dark parts of the internet and interact with truly horrible folks. After I was done with my demo, I felt as if I needed to take a shower to wash all the grime away and collect my thoughts. That's precisely why this game is on our list. Vile: Exhumed aims to provoke strong emotions in players and leave them with a better understanding of struggles they may not experience in their own lives. It's already had an impact on me after one demo. ~ Luis Gutierrez Pigface Pigface from developer titolovesyou is a grimy throwback to the PS2 era games that your parents warned you about. The setup is simple: You wake up in what appears to be an abandoned warehouse, while a Jigsaw-like voice explains that there is a bomb drilled into your skull, and if you don't follow his demands, you die. Your first order of business? Kill the people coming in to kill you. This first person shooter seems equal parts Condemned and Manhunt, as my demo had me picking up any weapon I could find, like guns, hammers, and throwing axes, with sprays of blood and severed heads flying as we tore through the nameless enemies. With a sizable body count already, I'm then introduced to the big picture: Whether I like it or not, I am a hitman, and I can either take on missions or die. ~ Justin Koreis Nocturne One of the most eye-catching games at PAX East was Pracy Studio's Nocturne, part of the featured PAX Rising showcase. Gorgeous 16-bit inspired pixel graphics harken back to the SNES era in this story heavy RPG. The setup is intriguing: When people die, their consciousness gets uploaded to Maya, a digital afterlife. As someone who is deceased, you arrive looking for your brother. He has been uploaded, but no one has any idea where he is. You're left searching in a world that seems to be teetering on the edge of corruption as AI takes control, and the few with admin powers fight among themselves in a story that has the potential to fit in perfect with the classic fantasy RPGs that so clearly inspired it. In a unique twist, battles play out as rhythm games, with perfectly timed button presses helping you build up attacks. If you time it just right you can even interrupt incoming attacks, adding a layer of thoughtfulness to the rhythm. Between the catchy beats, gorgeous graphics, and thoughtful story about what it means to be alive, this has all the makings of one of the year's most intriguing games when it releases in early 2026. ~ Justin Koreis The Lacerator The Lacerator, by Games from the Abyss, clearly takes inspiration from retro games from the PS2 era, and that's great because I missed out on many of those games (I was no older than 3 years old during the original PS2 era). You play as an adult movie star who wakes up in some kind of horror building filled with people and traps waiting to kill you. I was caught by surprise early in my demo when character's hand was suddenly cut off when I reached for a pistol. I didn't die; the game just kept going. The catch was that my aim was off, and I couldn't throw as many punches, creating a hurdle for me to overcome. Unfortunately, I didn't make it far and ended up dying rather quickly, but the humor mixed with the dark tone created something rather unique. If I hadn't been playing a demo, I would have started over and kept trying new methods to get further. That's how fast it got its hooks in me. ~ Luis Gutierrez Heartworm Heartworm is another game that takes huge inspiration from the PS2 horror era, as evidenced by its fixed camera angles. This one stood out to me for one huge reason: The primary weapon in this game is a film camera you use to fight off static monsters. Whenever you use the camera to defend yourself, the game will immediately switch to a 3rd person angle so you can properly aim and snap some pictures of these monsters before they kill you. Heartworm isn't afraid to get weird with itself either. There were a couple of moments where I found myself walking through a floating street, just to end up in a flooded house up to my knees. Set pieces like that kept my demo interesting, but I was more so happy to have my creative muscles exercised here. I genuinely wanted to take some good pictures! ~ Luis Gutierrez Honorable Mentions Devolver had a great showcase this year, featuring Botsu, a hilarious robot-sports party game with more than a little Gang Beasts style, and the Helldivers inspired, fungus planet assaulting first-poerson shooter Mycopunk. Tanuki: Pon's Summer is a cute and cozy Paperboy/Tony Hawk hybrid where you play as an adorable Tanuki on a BMX delivering mail, and taking on all sorts of challenges like a Sumo Wrestling minigame. Be My Horde is a Vampire Survivors-like where you control a sassy necromancer, battling the living and raising the dead to create an unstoppable army. Our Shadow Labyrinth demo really hammered home the fact that the dark Pac-Man spinoff feels like something special. Fatal Run 2089 is like the perfect marriage of Burnout and Twisted Metal, and yet another in what has been a series of impressive titles from Atari.
CNET
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CNET
I Can't Not Be Excited About the New Final Fantasy Magic: The Gathering Cards
Final Fantasy is one of the most successful game series of all time, with more than 200 million copies sold across the 16 mainline games and various spinoffs. So you can imagine the hype when Wizards of the Coast announced last fall that Magic: The Gathering -- a trading card game that pulled in $1 billion in revenue last year -- was releasing a Final Fantasy set. At PAX East on Saturday, we got the latest glimpse at some of the cards in the Final Fantasy Magic set, which will be released next month. The Final Fantasy panel took us through cards from every mainline Final Fantasy game, giving us our first looks at protagonists like Final Fantasy 8's Squall and 13's Lightning, plus glimpses of recurring characters like chocobos and Cid. We also got to see multiple versions of Final Fantasy 7 icon Cloud Strife -- one card in the main set, another card leading a Commander set. Wizards of the Coast We saw Final Fantasy staples like crystals, summons, villainous transformations (in the form of double-faced cards) and towns. We also got our first look at a new Magic mechanic: Tiered, which allows players to pay more mana for bigger effects, like a more versatile version of the Kicker mechanic. By paying more mana when you cast Fire Magic, you get better effects, similar to the magic systems in most Final Fantasy games. Wizards of the Coast Magic: The Gathering has been experimenting with other properties via its Universes Beyond series, which effectively started with limited-edition drops of cards featuring characters from The Walking Dead, before being officially introduced with a similar drop for Stranger Things. Prior to Final Fantasy, the biggest Universes Beyond set was The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth, the first full-fledged Universes Beyond set, released in 2023. When Universes Beyond was first announced, Wizards of the Coast said the mechanically unique cards would be restricted from the game's Standard format, which generally allows cards from the most recent sets. (Tales of Middle-earth was legal in the Modern format, but not Standard.) The Final Fantasy set is a big deal for Magic because it brings Universes Beyond into Standard, helping to usher in Spider-Man and Avatar: The Last Airbender sets later this year that will also be Standard-legal. Collectively, these sets are a huge change to how Magic looks, and Final Fantasy is the start of that change. Wizards of the Coast I started playing Magic back in 2014 when a group of former players from the game's early days got back into it and dragged me along with them. I've played inconsistently since then, ranging from tournament entries and being a regular at Friday Night Magic to "I last played a single game of Commander several months ago." But the Final Fantasy announcement -- which came shortly after I finished Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth -- has me hopping on my chocobo to get back into the game. Tifa, like Cloud, appears in both the main set and the Commander set. Wizards of the Coast I fired up old Final Fantasy favorites again. I jumped back into Arena, Magic's slickest digital version (sorry, Magic Online). I put TCGPlayer gift cards on my Christmas list because I knew there would be some wildly expensive versions of characters that I needed to have. Case in point. Wizards of the Coast The PAX panel has deepened my desperation for this set, but it also made me pretty optimistic for it. In media interviews before the panel, the game designers spoke about the imperative they felt to get things right -- to design cards that felt authentic to the games and series, cards that felt meaningful to the fans, instead of just constructing them based on business goals. Wizards of the Coast "We had the rule of cool," Principal Magic Designer Gavin Verhey said. "Like, if something was an awesome idea, we did it." He pointed to having a card that showed off 15 different versions of the character Cid, or having just one pair of cards with the Meld mechanic because it mechanically and emotionally fit the characters on those cards as examples. "Every single card in this set is like a carefully hand-crafted gift." The Final Fantasy set will be released on June 13, with preorders technically available now, but out of stock most places.
Digital Trends
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Digital Trends
Five Nights at Freddy's Dead by Daylight crossover lets you play as Springtrap for the first time
Table of Contents Table of Contents Daylight meets Five Nights What's next for Dead by Daylight What do Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Resident Evil, and Dungeons & Dragons all have in common? They're all represented in Behaviour Interactive's asymmetrical horror game, Dead by Daylight. Now, another franchise is joining that eclectic roster, and it's a big one for a certain generation of horror fans. Though it was teased only last year, Five Nights at Freddy's will finally join the Dead by Daylight club. Ahead of its official announcement at PAX East 2025, Digital Trends spoke with the Dead by Daylight team about the creative process of incorporating Five Nights at Freddy's into its brutal multiplayer playground and what the team has in store for the future. Recommended Videos Daylight meets Five Nights At face value, the collaboration seems like a slam dunk. When asked why Behaviour Interactive thought now was a good time to partner up with Five Nights at Freddy's, the head of partnership, Mathieu Corte, explained that there was never a bad time. He notes that licensing conversations can often be 'extremely delicate,' but the team is happy that it 'found a moment where every star aligned, where [we] could bring Five Nights at Freddy's to Dead by Daylight.' As a part of the collaboration, the team announced that Springtrap would be making his way to the game as a playable Killer. At first glance, this was a bit of a surprise, given that the team could have chosen other iconic characters to pick, including Freddy himself. When asked about that choice, gameplay designer Jason Guzzo explained the team's reasoning: 'He's the big bad from the Five Nights at Freddy's universe. His inclusion in Dead by Daylight is actually the first time players get to play as Springtrap in a video game.' When you're a kid, you're not chasing your friends with a knife, hopefully … Guzzo says that this would give players 'the FNAF (Five Nights at Freddy's) experience' while staying true to Dead by Daylight. But creating that experience was still challenging, given how both games play out differently. This is reflected in the upcoming map, Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, which is the central location in the FNAF franchise. Guzzo says that the team took inspiration from various sources, including games, movies, and fan-made layouts created using in-game screenshots. The team also looked at the 2023 film's take on the pizza parlor because it was 'the most complete version of the map.' Interestingly enough, Freddy Fazbear's Pizza was already an ideal map for Dead by Daylight due to having a lot of tables, tight spaces, and the natural loops you'd find in a kitchen. 'It kind of builds itself,' Guzzo says. 'That kind of environment is ripe for that kind of gameplay. I mean, you did it as a kid. You go to McDonald's and you run around with your friends, around tables, chairs, and hide behind low walls where you sit. Those spaces are almost pre-built as DBD maps. When you're a kid, you're not chasing your friends with a knife, hopefully, but you just age everyone up, and you give somebody a weapon, and it just kind of comes to the same game.' Although the team didn't go into detail, they reassured me that the Freddy Fazbear's Pizza map would be filled with various Easter Eggs for fans to discover. Fans of the Five Nights at Freddy's film may be excited to hear that Matthew Lillard will reprise his role as Afton via Legendary Outfit. The team confirmed his likeness, and the (movie spoiler ahead) Yellow Rabbit outfit he wore at the end of the 2023 film will be a part of the Legendary Outfit. On top of that, Lillard recorded his own voice over for the update, Afton says. This was to help create an authentic experience for the players. Springtrap will have other skins players can equip, but it's unclear what they'll be. What's next for Dead by Daylight Five Nights at Freddy's aside, the Dead by Daylight team aims to create a folklore-inspired chapter once the FNAF content is released. After that, Behaviour Interactive will do a 'Choose Your Own Chapter Adventure' to finish off year 10 of DBD. If that sounds familiar, it's because it's heavily inspired by the iconic 'Choose Your Own Adventure' books that ran from 1979 to 1998. With the help of the community, Behaviour Interactive will be crafting both a Killer and a Survivor together through a series of questions that will be asked, such as whether the Killer should be supernatural-based or someone rooted in reality. Corte acknowledges that this idea is ambitious, but the process will be similar to the team's usual creative process. Behavior Interactive has wanted to create new playable characters with the community for some time now. Even though the team doesn't have many points of reference on properly navigating this, they are confident it'll be a fun and lengthy process. With all that Behaviour Interactive has planned for Dead by Daylight, the multiplayer juggernaut seems to be in a healthy creative place. With the Five Nights at Freddy's collaboration, folklore-inspired chapter, and the 'Choose Your Own Adventure' process the team will take to make its latest Killer, there are a lot of reasons to dive in again right around the corner.
