A Dark Souls vacation will soothe the soul

Plus, Assassin's Creed Shadows is gorgeous but familiar

Our top pick of the week: Retreat Week Our latest special issue went live this week, looking at games that feel like vacations for your brain. When you don't want to worry about strategy or challenge or complex narratives, and you're just in it for the experience. A sunny beach. A snowy cabin. A meditative drive. A… foggy small town designed to scare you? You might be surprised!   Welcome to Retreat Week, a pack of 12 stories celebrating the cozy places worth visiting when you want to relax, whether the games were designed with that purpose in mind or not. We've got stories on the most comfortable place to hang out in Dark Souls 2, the best way to go birdwatching in Red Dead 2, the most memorable routes to take in Pokémon to date, and plenty more. These fans claimed Silent Hill as a cozy retreat The 12 best routes in Pokémon history Lance Vance and Ken Rosenberg are GTA: Vice City's worst tour guides World of Warcraft players are flocking to taverns with their alts Try birdwatching in Red Dead Redemption 2 I installed a bunch of Fallout 4 mods to experience maximum coziness The best scenic driving routes in the Forza Horizon games The expert on finding weird places in Skyrim, GTA 5, and others does it out of love Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's Costa del Sol gives so much wanderlust it hurts Dark Souls got cozy when it went to Majula Season: A Letter to the Future is way more intense than your typical vacation bike ride I built a starship to play video games in Polygon's Shopkeeper is a weekly newsletter that collects the best deals on games, gaming accessories, Blu-rays, books, and other fine wares. Subscribe here. This week on TikTok | Minecraft movie merch looks interesting | Decisions were made. 10 stories to read Pokémon Go director addresses concerns about its new owners and the future of the game | 'We will not be building into our games any type of obtrusive ads or anything like that.'   Bring back the 2000s-era sci-fi flopbuster | The 2000s were a wonderful time for movies, good and weird.   Half-Life: Alyx, VR's first — and hopefully not last — killer app, turns 5 | Valve's masterpiece still carries the platform on its back.   Everything wrong with the live-action Snow White can be summed up in one jacket | Rachel Zegler is in a Disney Princess movie… but no one else in Snow White is.   If you love Severance, you'll probably love these 6 books, too | Hiatus reading recs for innies and outies alike.   The RTX 5080 is a great GPU that you probably can't get right now | Its AMD competitor seems great too, not that you can get that one either.   Kraven the Hunter embodies the fatal flaw of Sony's Spider-Man Universe | Or, I can't stop thinking about Kraven's 'voodoo' potion powers.   The comic book story behind Daredevil's mystery killer | Who is that masked man?   10 cozy games that hide a secret twist | Cozy gaming is great, and these games add something new to the formula.   The TV fantasy gold rush is over. Now maybe Wheel of Time can finally be itself | It can be something more than just the 'next Game of Thrones.' 7+ things to watch Pantheon on Netflix | Letting animation beget pure science fiction possibility.   Den of Thieves 2: Pantera on Netflix | Pulling off another great heist with a smart subgenre pivot.   Ash in theaters | Flying Lotus says his sci-fi horror-thriller 'was made for the gamers.'   Opus in theaters | A24's 'elevated' horror wraps back around into formula — and that's OK.   Tales from the Loop on Prime Video | The quiet, devastating miniseries is everything The Electric State isn't.   Trap on Netflix | M. Night Shyamalan's Trap is a perfect Hitman movie.   The best action movies on Netflix from around the world | The best fight scenes and the highest-octane set-pieces Netflix has to offer. 6+ games to play Assassin's Creed Shadows | A gorgeous retread of tired RPG mechanics. Available on PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X. Fallout 76 | The newest update adds player ghouls. Available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.   Avatar Legends: Realms Collide | All your faves can team up in this new Avatar mobile game. Available on iOS and Android. Myst | Babe, wake up, it's 2025 and Myst just patched in new content. Available on Mac, Meta Quest, and Windows PC. Assassin's Creed Shadows and the other new games out this week | This week's games branch out in some new directions.   The best indie games of 2025 so far | It's still early in the year, but indies have been off to a great start. Shop talk Get 7 games starring leading ladies for just $12 at Humble!   "While I personally love Control for both its general aesthetic and the fashion sense of its protagonist, my latest obsession included in this bundle has been Kill the Crows: a brutal and frenetic twin-stick shooter where you get to murder vengeful corvids with a six-gun using a Red Dead-style quick-draw mechanic," writes Alice Jovanée. "Other games featured in this bundle include Darksiders 3, Thief of Thieves, Pseudoregalia, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, and Beyond: Two Souls." Free game of the week Half-Life 2 RTX demo | Owners of Half-Life 2 on Steam can snag the free in-progress mod that overhauls the graphics from Valve's 2004 FPS opus, complete with DLSS 4 support, ray tracing, and enhanced textures. Available on Windows PC. The best of the rest MIXED: Hey! Riot added Inscryption into my League of Legends! FUNDED: D&D co-creator Gary Gygax is having a big week in crowdfunding. TEASED: Hasbro exec says to expect what's next for Baldur's Gate 'in really short order.' TIPPED: 33 quick Assassin's Creed Shadows tips in no particular order. RIGGED: In Zenless Zone Zero, everything has jiggle physics. Now cat balls do, too. This email was sent to reunisoft.cryptonews@blogger.com. Manage your email preferences here: unsubscribe     If you buy something from a Polygon link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.   View our Privacy Notice and our Terms of Service. Vox Media, 1201 Connecticut Ave. NW, 12th Floor Washington, DC 20036. Copyright © 2025. All rights reserved.