In one of Esoteric Ebb's chambers lies a chest. Above it, a sign: "Not a mimic." Snell, your goblin companion, deduces the most obvious outcome: The sign is the work of some prankster who's hoping to get one over on whichever unsuspecting rube decides to saunter into this secreted away room, ignore the sign, and loot the chest. Mimics are often "chest-shaped" like this--the game's joke, not mine--and seeing as how they are a trick as old as fantasy itself, it doesn't take a genius to piece together how such an encounter might end.

Esoteric Ebb is a lot like the mimic in this scene. It looks and sounds like things it takes the shape of--some more obvious than others--but delights in playing with expectations one might have of it. Just when you think you might have it figured out, it contentedly throws another wrench in your understanding of its tone and aspirations. It's a fun ride. It does not veer wildly off course in the process, but it is a stylistic and colorful detour that is nonetheless a riot worth your time.

In Esoteric Ebb, you are the Cleric, a bumbling idiot and magical savant sent by the magistrate to investigate the absolute hornet's nest that is an explosion of a tea shop in Norvik. The timing couldn't be any worse, since Norvik's constituency is voting on a referendum. Should it stick by the Urth-worshipping Nationalists who've governed and shepherded the city through its founding decades, consequently hardening the attitudes and beliefs that have called its rule into question at this very moment? Should it instead ally itself with the deep-pocketed Freestriders who are clearly strong-arming their way to a victory? Or should the city consider other policies, like the dwarven-born egalitarian platform of Azgalism?

I audibly gasped. My small community of Pokemon friends had been steadily growing in the first hour or so of Pokemon Pokopia, and now Professor Tangrowth asked me to build a house and mark it as my own. I could even invite another Pokemon to live there with me, he said. You mean I can have a Squirtle roommate?! I built my new house as quickly as I could and invited Squirtle to come live in it, and he happily agreed. Childhood dream fulfilled.

A few days later, Squirtle told me he wanted to move out.

Heartbroken and with nothing to do to change Squirtle's mind, I pressed on. I was determined to learn more, earn more, and do more, so that, one day, Squirtle will come back. Someday I'll make a new house and I'll invite Squirtle to live with me again. Maybe he just wanted his own bedroom? Admittedly, the leaf hut is not a lot of space. Maybe he didn't like my decor at the time--a few items I had arranged slapdash to fulfill the housing requirements.

The Resident Evil series has a long history of struggling to find the right balance of horror and action, sometimes becoming massively successful and influential in either genre, and sometimes completely faceplanting after leaning too far one way. Resident Evil Requiem, the ninth mainline game in the series, sees Capcom dialing in the combination of those elements better than ever, though in a somewhat inelegant way. Rather than try to blend different elements of two different genres into a single experience, it just staples together two distinct experiences that each capture the best parts of Resident Evil--to the point where it is almost two separate games running in parallel.

One game is a slow, frightening, gory haunted house story following an everyday person as its protagonist, hewing close to the horror-first approach of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. The other is a fast-paced, panic-inducing experience starring an action-hero badass that draws directly from Resident Evil 4. Requiem even lets you set different points of view for the separate protagonists, recommending RE7's first-person approach for horror and RE4's third-person camera for action, though you can use either for both.

Disparate as they may be, though, both halves are extremely compelling. Requiem feels like Resident Evil's developers, for the most part, recognizing what they do well and leaning in all the way. The result is a game that's unwilling to leave the track set by its predecessors, but one that still provides an intense, often exciting ride.

I first heard about Hytale a few years ago. My son, a huge Minecraft fan, told me how the Hypixel server on Minecraft was a major landing spot for some dedicated players. He added that the team running that server, today known as Hypixel Studios, was making its own game, Hytale, and it had already spent years in development. It was to be a new Minecraft competitor, building on what players loved about the Hypixel server while establishing ways to stand out as an experience that even Minecraft diehards could not deny. In January 2026, Hytale is certainly not that. Instead, it's a Minecraft clone that rarely justifies its existence. Presumably, it's going to change a lot over the next several years, but for now, it's best left to players who are so dedicated that they're compelled to get in on the game's ground floor.

Starting out in Hytale, you'll drop into a procedurally generated world full of trees, rivers, a few villages and ruins, and mines, of course. The blocky, voxel art style is a bit less pixelated than Mojang's titan of the genre, but in most other ways, the early moments of Hytale are remarkably familiar to anyone who has played Minecraft.

You'll collect a few basic resources so you can craft a pickaxe and a hatchet, use those to chop down trees and smash small boulders, thereby crafting things like workbenches, which quickly open up the world to many more craftable items, from target dummies and beds to teleporters and various meals. It's not long before you've built yourself a humble abode, both stylish and sturdy in the face of enemy "mobs" that roam the land, like rats, skeletons, and rock golems.