Polygon.com - Gaming Previews

Gears of War: E-Day’s multiplayer sure is more Gears of War

Ari Notis — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 13:00:12 GMT

That’s at least according to a recent hands-on preview of Gears of War: E-Day, the prequel entry developed by The Coalition and planned for an Oct. 6 release on Windows PC and Xbox Series X. Gears of War, of course, was one of the original bro-y 2000s shooters, known for its machismo, viscera, and roided-up player characters. “Emergence Day,” or “E-Day,” is the inciting event of the series: a violent race of humanoids called the Locust burst out of the planet’s surface and killed 25% of the human population in a single day. Gears of War: E-Day explores that event.

Silksong's new replacement is about to become the best action game of the year

Marloes Valentina Stella — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 13:00:12 GMT

What to do when you're a writer incapable of finishing a story? Simple: you kidnap an editor. Optionally, you may use your vampire powers to trap said editor inside your manuscript and have him fight demonic creatures until he's cleared up your work. But should the editor really complain about his fate, when the manuscript looks as gorgeous as it does in Chronoscript: The Endless End? I got the chance to find out during a 20-minute online presentation followed by an exclusive hands-on demo.

Silent Hill Townfall preview: already one of 2026’s most terrifying games

Jen Glennon — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 07:00:12 GMT

During a preview event in Los Angeles in July, I had the chance to spend three hours in the moody and broody fictional Scottish town of St. Amelia. You play as Simon Ordell, a young bespectacled guy who’s washed up near the docks of this abandoned coastal village, with only fragmented memories of the people who once called it home. He’s got a hospital bracelet around one wrist, and an IV bag full of dark, viscous fluid on his shoulder that feeds into a port on his hand. He’s clearly not from St. Amelia — he doesn’t speak with a Scottish accent, for one. But as you investigate the town, you piece together evidence of his life and relationships there. My demo mostly covered the game’s opening hours, then jumped ahead to a section in the middle of the game, which ramps up the intensity and combat challenge.

MTG The Hobbit exclusive reveals Orcrist, Goblin-cleaver and Eagle of the Great Shelf

Corey Plante — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 16:00:12 GMT

When you stop and think about the coolest swords in the history of Middle-earth, Sting probably comes to mind, along with Aragorn’s reforged Anduril, Flame of the West. Both feature prominently in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy. But The Hobbit features some truly epic blades as well, namely Glamdring and Orcrist, two legendary swords forged in the First Age that are discovered by Thorin’s company in a trolls' lair. Gandalf also wields Glamdring throughout the War of the Ring, which explains why it appeared as an equipment card in the previous Magic: The Gathering x Lord of the Rings crossover. But now, The Hobbit's other iconic sword is finally coming to Magic, too.

Exclusive League of Legends TCG reveal showcases Protective Sands, a new battlefield for Riftbound: Vendetta

Corey Plante — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 16:30:16 GMT

True to its roots as a trading card game based on League of Legends — where characters duke it out across three lanes of play — Riftbound has always focused on battlefield cards as a key facet of gameplay. Each player typically brings three battlefields of their choosing for a best-of-three, 1v1 matchup, and they select one at the start of the match. Players accrue points as they take over and retain these battlefields. Each battlefield comes with specific ability, which means players should always choose battlefields that support their deck strategies.

New Soulslike from the Pokémon team is confusing, challenging, and such a blast

Jen Glennon — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 16:00:17 GMT

You probably know Game Freak as the studio behind Nintendo’s Pokémon games, from all the way back to the series’ origins in Red and Blue, to last year’s Legends: Z-A, and 2027’s hotly anticipated Switch 2 exclusive Winds and Waves. It’s an intriguing change-up: a studio known for its kid-friendly catch ‘em all RPGs is making a crunchy action game with shades of Monster Hunter and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. How’s that gonna work?

D&D Fiends and Foes is a new monster book — see the first pages here

Sam Nelson — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 13:00:20 GMT

A great game of Dungeons & Dragons requires a terrible enemy for players to fight. The designers of the tabletop role-playing game have spent decades coming up with iconic villains from the vampire lord Strahd von Zarovich to the five-headed dragon goddess Tiamat. Their schemes have been the subject of countless adventures, while the names of Vecna and Demogorgon have become mainstream thanks to Stranger Things. Now a new book is providing a fresh perspective on these baddies, and Polygon has an exclusive first look.

Brigandine Abyss preview: A cult-classic series returns with Fire Emblem flavor

Paulo Kawanishi — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 13:01:19 GMT

Slated to release on Aug. 26 on Windows PC and Aug. 27 on Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X, Brigandine Abyss is the fourth title in the strategy RPG series. The first one, Brigandine: The Legend of Forsena, was released in 1998 for the PlayStation. Since then, we've seen only a remake of that game in 2000 and Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia, which came out 20 years later. After having played the Brigandine Abyss demo on Windows PC, I had the chance to participate in an online preview event held by NIS America to learn more about specific features that were not available in the demo.

Splatoon Raiders preview: Switch 2 shooter is messy single-player fun

Giovanni Colantonio — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 14:00:20 GMT

After riffing on the same ideas for three games, Splatoon Raidersis set to shake up Nintendo’s multiplayer ink shooter for the first time in a decade. It’s billed as the series’ first true single-player game, one that remixes some of the best ideas from modes like Splatoon 3’s PVE Salmon Run into something new. Based on that pitch, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what to expect when I sat down to play around 90 minutes of it.

MMO legend Raph Koster is countering World of Warcraft with Stars Reach, his dream project

Matt Patches — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 20:00:19 GMT

In Stars Reach, rain falls. Water pools. Rivers carve paths through terrain. Lakes freeze in winter. Trees propagate. Forests burn. Cave ceilings collapse due to overmining. Every cubic meter of every planet has temperature, humidity, geology, and hundreds of material properties. Koster proudly explained how players can melt stone into lava, cool it into new rock formations, or accidentally create ecological disasters. I had a pretty simple question, devoid of judgment: Why?