Discoveries

At Polygon, we want to introduce you do at least one thing we think you’d love every single day. With so many games, movies, shows, and and internet-based quick bites (or “quibis”) out there to experience, we know it’s next to impossible to decide how to take a chance on the untested, dive into the unknown. But allow us to give you that nudge. In our Discoveries feed, you will find impressions on everything we cover and recommendations on old stuff that feels just as urgent and worthy as the new. The hope: less thinking, more doing — just dig in.

• Eternal Strands is the Forspoken of 2025 (complimentary)
• Wikipedia rabbit holes trained me for this genealogical mystery game
• Civilization 7 embraces a new era
• By describing this game at all, I risk ruining it
• Friendship is survival in Citizen Sleeper 2
• Hello Kitty Island Adventure’s quirks are well worth enduring
• Congrats, movie trivia nerds. CineNerdle Battle feels like a real game now, and it rules
• A skiing game that’s as relaxing (or stressful) as you need it to be
• Hyper Light Breaker is not Hyper Light Drifter 2 — and that’s OK
• Paradise is part Lost, part 24, and a dash of network TV melodrama
• Sicko game developers keep returning to reinvent Tetris
• These two games demand you type if you want to survive
• Sleep, now on Hulu, is a terrifying movie rooted firmly in the real world
• Rocket Rats is the perfect New Year’s snack
• Diablo 4 Season of Witchcraft, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth on PC, and other new games out this week
• Twitch streamer Shroud honors his late father in a month-long charity event
• Inherit your grandpa’s farm in this Stardew Valley-esque TTRPG
• The year’s biggest horror-movie conversation starter is now streaming
• New city builder and grand strategy game imagines war blimps in alternate 20th-century setting
• Sea of Stars local co-op revived my love for turn-based RPGs
• The weakest Donkey Kong Country is still pretty great
• Dynasty Warriors: Origins turns in a bold new direction
• Can’t wait for Severance season 2? Watch Ben Stiller’s first mystery-box thriller, now on Netflix
• Chaotic co-op platformer Pico Park 2 shows the Switch is still getting great new games
• Galaxy Burger is like Diner Dash for stressed-out adults
• Love mess? Netflix just got the soapy dramedy for you to marathon
• Start 2025 with the overlooked feel-good anime of 2024
• Stimulation Clicker is pure internet hell mode
• The best hobby paint for miniatures only requires Two Thin Coats
• Fitness Boxing 3 can and should kick your ass
• Wilmot Works It Out is the perfect soothing puzzler for limbo week
• Naiad reminds me how magical water is
• Kissing ghosts is hard work in the Helltaker dev’s new free game on Steam
• ​​​​Windblown uses friendship to get around roguelike dread
• Fortnite Ballistic is planting the seeds to bring in a new kind of player 
• Too Much Fun finally tells the C64’s legacy
• In Mythwrecked: Ambrosia Island, the Greek gods are queer and kind
• Thank goodness! Wicked screenings for theater kids arrive just in time for Christmas
• Marvel Rivals is a noisy, unbalanced, and surprisingly fun spin on Overwatch
• Love the gorgeously animated cat movie Flow? Watch the director’s surreal debut for free
• Finally, a crafting game that solves the early game tree-punching problem
• Get your friends into TTRPGs as fast as Deborah Ann Woll using this game
• Crossbows & Catapults is the ultimate Christmas morning board game
• The Great Circle shines when it forgets about Indiana Jones
• Monument Valley 3 was designed to (maybe) improve the world
• Indie game Ikeelya dares to ask: What if an assassin loved designing breakfast nooks?
• Infinity Nikki stays true to its fashion-forward, secretly dark roots
• Fantasian Neo Dimension is remarkable but flawed
• The best music biopic of the year is now on Netflix and has all the energy of a real concert film
• The Legend of Hei is the perfect animated companion for Flow
• Behold an FPS Breath of the Wild with a hoverboard
• Threshold is a secret-stuffed horror game about the shittiest job
• Watch Thanksgiving this Thanksgiving, if your family has the stomach for it
• If you loved Arcane, you should play Dishonored 2
• The STALKER 2 documentary is worth your time, even if you haven’t played STALKER 2
• Minerva: Metastasis is the best Half-Life game Valve never made
• Rivals of Aether 2 is Super Smash Bros. Melee without the baggage
• Under the surface of Arco’s pixel RPG action, a breathtaking revenge saga
• Neva, the follow-up to Gris, is devastatingly beautiful
• Tetris Forever is an incomplete tribute to the best game of all time
• Death of the Reprobate combines potty humor with high art
• The Dragon Quest 3 remake delivers classic RPG comfort food with an ‘HD-2D’ sheen
• Lego Horizon Adventures is a delightful, kid-friendly twist on Horizon Zero Dawn
• D&D’s new Dungeon Master’s Guide is a huge upgrade for newbies
• The Rise of the Golden Idol sets the standard for point-and-click mysteries
• Judero is a psychedelic trip through Scottish folklore
• Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket won’t rock your world, and that’s OK
• Karate Survivor is a fun spin on the Vampire Survivors format… once you unlock the core mechanics
• Homicipher is a clever horror game about female desire and monster language
• Slitterhead transforms players into pawns in a parasitic proxy war
• Life Is Strange: Double Exposure is a brilliant thriller about accepting your flaws
• Papers, Please creator just released a new free LCD-style Halloween game
• Shogun Showdown is a lesson in positioning
• You should watch the bird politics anime, Yatagarasu
• Dragon Age: The Veilguard is the friend group simulator we’ve been waiting for
• Metal Gear Solid 5’s terrifying first mission is a glimpse into the Kojima Silent Hill game we never got
• Lady in the Water is the bridge between 2 eras of M. Night Shyamalan
• Thursday’s Google Doodle is actually a really fun strategy game
• How one of YouTube’s biggest ASMRtists created her shot-for-shot Shrek remake
• Wilmot Works it Out feels like solving a puzzle on the floor of your living room
• Carve pumpkins, solve spooky puzzles in Ghost Town Pumpkin Festival
• MechWarrior 5: Clans’ AI is terrible — play it with humans instead
• Kim Kardashian: Hollywood fans might have a replacement in Influencer Story: Rise to Fame
• Japanese Rural Life Adventure is exactly what it sounds like and more
• Quentin Tarantino’s favorite thriller of 2020 is now on Netflix
• Keep Driving turns a long-haul road trip into a turn-based RPG
• If you think about the Roman Empire every day, Citadelum is for you
• Kurt Vonnegut’s lost board game finally published
• FMV horror game Tenebris Somnia is a nightmare come true
• After some drama, Netflix just added the canceled sitcom of two of the funniest guys around
• Neko Atsume, but make it frogs
• Cain is tabletop gaming’s horror hit of the year
• Caddo Lake is extremely produced by M. Night Shyamalan, if you get what I’m saying
• Halo: Flashpoint, a new miniatures game, has all the right moves
• You can now watch the funniest movie of the year for free
• Sirocco and the Kingdom of the Winds is the best kind of surreal fairy tale
• What if Pokémon Snap was soaked in pumpkin spice?
• Phoenix Springs is a lesson in using negative space, both visually and narratively
• Mouthwashing is a surreal horror gem about being lost and starving in space
• Frankie Freako takes an Oscar-worthy approach to goofball gremlin terror
• Silent Hill 2: Enhanced Edition is the best way to play the original game on PC
• Hauntii feels the best when you let go
• Apartment Story is a short, dramatic thriller with life sim elements
• Mirage Feathers is an anime-twist on a neglected Sega classic
• Sleep turns sleepwalking into a supernatural slasher — and it’s wicked fun
• Forget Palworld — TCG Card Shop Simulator is the best Pokémon-like game 
• 20 years later, an N64 cult classic gets a killer spiritual sequel 
• This shopping kart racing game is more than a Jackass knockoff
• The rod is mightier than the sword in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
• Warhammer 40K Kill Team: Hivestorm is way more than a starter set
• Leap Year is a Metroidbrainia for people who hate Metroidbrainias
• Please don’t let the dogs with grappling hooks game die
• Crime Scene Cleaner is, ironically, my zen game of choice
• Before Terminator Zero, Batman Ninja revitalized an American franchise by setting it in Japan
• The Ark is a perfect throwback to an age when sci-fi didn’t have to be so serious
• UFO 50 was terrible to review but incredible to play
• Dreamy, scene-building games like Tiny Glade and Summerhouse are all vibes
• 2001’s Black & White is finally playable again (kind of)
• Cupiclaw blends roguelike, deck-building gameplay with a claw machine for a chaotic good time
• I Am Your Beast is an instant classic of wacky speed-revenge proportions
• Closer the Distance replicates grief so well that I couldn’t finish playing it
• The Fall Guy, now on Peacock, enters its ‘perfect couch movie’ era
• Daggerheart, a new Critical Role game, feels more complicated than D&D in a good way
• Prosecutor’s Gambit is the best Ace Attorney story since the original trilogy
• Modern text parser game The Crimson Diamond rewards precision
• Emio – The Smiling Man is a captivating murder mystery with a middling end
• Fields of Mistria is pure magic
• Tactical Breach Wizards is a near-perfect blend of wits and witchery
• The slickest superhero RPG I’ve ever seen is on sale for $20
• Logan Lucky just keeps getting funnier the longer we wait for The Winds of Winter
• Malware plucks at the bland horrors of the computer desktop
• Dustborn offers perspective on the choices that shape us
• Everybody wants to change the world in Paper Trail and Slider
• Outlanders 2 makes the case for city builders on mobile
• SteamWorld Heist 2 is a multi-classing masterwork
• Gourdlets is the laid-back building sim for people sick of the grind
• Welcome to my Supermarket Together store, Nice Groceries
• You need just one button in this bullet-hell gem
• This season’s best mecha anime is a student film inspired by Mobile Suit Gundam
• Fantasy epic The Deer King, now on Netflix, feels like a Ghibli movie — even if it isn’t one
• Looper is a mind-bending puzzle game that challenges you to think inside the box
• New shoot-’em-up Devil Blade Reboot is like an alt-history Sega Saturn import
• Earth Defense Force 6 is the perfect podcast game
• Isles of Sea and Sky taught me it’s okay to move on
• The Suicide Squad anime continues Japan’s history of making American superhero stories better
• Guncho is a truly mind-melting Old West cowboy shooter
• Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure’s masterful, clever design is clear right from the start
• Survival horror game Conscript puts you face-down in the muck of World War I
• The most confounding anime of the season is a slice of life at the end of the world
• Lego Hill Climb Adventures is a charming, simplified Trials
• Capcom’s Kunitsu-Gami plays like a lost PS2 cult classic
• One of the year’s best underrated action thrillers just dropped on Netflix
• Schim is like Homeward Bound, but you’re a shadow
• Clickolding is a clicker game that looks like a meme but hits hard
• Darth Plagueis remains one of the great Star Wars books
• The most difficult movie to see of the past decade is now streaming