Games
fromKotaku
1 day agoCyberpunk, League Of Legends Games Suggest TCGs Are Having A Moment
PAX East 2026 featured a shift from video games to trading card games, particularly a TCG based on Cyberpunk 2077.
Many collectors are looking to diversify their collections or discover emerging categories before they reach the level of demand we're seeing with Pokémon. While rare Pokémon cards are selling for millions in some instances, its competitors are catching on as collectors look for their next up-and-coming investment.
Everbound uses an 18-card construct to fill out the crew of a pirate ship. You start with your Captain and a twinkle in yer eye. And presumably a ship. Yarrrr. You'll take one of two actions per turn. Draw: Take a card from the Dock. Recruit: Play a card from your hand by paying its icon cost.
Shallow Regrets is an 18-card wallet game that is easy to transport, teach, and set up. All players start with 0 fishhooks, so they should be aiming to catch fish whose card backs show small shadows, indicating that those fish require 0 hooks to catch, in the early-game.
30 years ago chronicled a generational conflict between an old-timey pull-string doll and a fancy new one with buttons. The two toys learned to get along. This week a trailer for showing both toys enacting a against tablets. While I agree on the potential detriments of excessive screen-time, it is telling how the creators and intended audience now identify less with the kid playing with toys and more with the adult who just spent all of dinner hearing about ' butlerian jihad looksmaxxing.'
This is for that friend that finishes the Wordle in three tries and solves the purple clues first in Connections. League of the Lexicon reminds me a bit of Trivial Pursuit - players or teams take turns asking everyone questions from a double-sided card with answers on the back. Questions come in five categories and cover synonyms, word origins, spelling, definitions, archaic words, grammar, linguistic trivia and more.
I wish this was a one-off blip in my regimented friendship schedule, but all through 2025 I played the world's slowest game of message tennis. I'd invite a pal for dinner, only for the world to turn, the seasons pass, grey hairs gather at my temples, before a date was finally locked in. This sentiment seems to be common among my circle.
We do have a few senior managers that are [experts on AI]: none are that excited about it yet. We have agreed an internal policy to guide us all, which is currently very cautious, e.g., we do not allow AI-generated content or AI to be used in our design processes or its unauthorized use outside of GW, including in any of our competitions,
The shift reflects a playbook built around storytelling, familiarity and constant presence across the moments you already care about. Beyond speaking solely to gamblers, campaigns now speak to fans, followers and casual viewers who recognize faces, formats and references. That wider relevance has been driven by data-driven targeting, celebrity partnerships and a willingness to operate inside popular culture rather than outside it. When you trace the path from banner ads to cultural visibility, you see a deliberate strategy to become part of everyday conversation.
So popular is the fantasy game that its parent company Games Workshop is valued at a staggering 6bn and is almost ever-present on British high streets. The fact a niche interest game invented by self-confessed geeks has become a huge global business is a story almost as unbelievable as those played out on its customers' kitchen tables. Games Workshop started as a mail order board games company run by three friends
The last five years have seen a tremendous resurgence of role-playing games, from the turn-based masterpieces of Baldur's Gate 3 and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, to the action-packed Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. And staggeringly, it looks like that trend is set to continue well into 2026. While there's undoubtedly a handful of games we don't know about, even what we do have looks like it's going to make this another banner year for RPGs.
TPK, a combo brewery and gaming space that opened in 2023, eases entry for newcomers and provides a soft landing for the socially rusty. "Especially coming out of the pandemic, we had a lot of people in their mid-30s [who] were like, 'I have no way to connect with anyone,'" says Elliott Kaplan, TPK's CEO and one of its three founders. "Well, we'll throw you at a table. All the social interactions will be overseen by a GM."
Anyway, I'm outing myself as a geezer to tell you about how Dungeons & Dragons - the board game beloved by dorks everywhere - was viewed very differently back in the '80s. It wasn't quirky or wholesome. It was trouble. Dangerous, even. Talk shows, radio programs, church groups, and whispered PTA gossip warned that the game didn't just promote Satanism and the occult - it could literally lead to your kid's death.
Time is running out to play Anthem, BioWare's live-service game that originally launched in early 2019. In just one week, EA will take the online-multiplayer game offline, meaning it won't be playable starting January 12. EA officially announced that Anthem would be shut down in July 2025. This gave players roughly half-a-year to return to the RPG and to spend any leftover currency they had for the title.
Palworld: Official Card Game, a brand-new trading card game based on Pocketpair's creature-collecting game, has been revealed by Bushiroad and developer Pocketpair. While details are light for now, the game already has a launch date penciled in for July 30. Bushiroad describes Palworld: Official Card Game as a two-player competitive card game where players can "enjoy strategic and tactical battles" by deploying unique Pals to the battlefield.