Video

A screengrab from Armored Core 6 shows the large mech Balteus, which has a jetpack larger than its body and a ring that encompasses its entire body. In the image, lightning crackles around Balteus and fires rage behind it.

What makes Armored Core 6’s Balteus such an effective gatekeeper?

By Clayton Ashley

A pair of hands places a cardboard game piece for the game The Night Cage on top of the game board, which looks like a black and white 6 x 6 grid with a number of tiles and game pieces on it.

The Night Cage makes co-op board gaming scary fun

By Clayton Ashley

Simone posing in front of Volcano Manor, saying “dang, you like like this?” to Rya, a hunched woman in a green dress.

How Elden Ring uses architecture to freak you out

By Simone de Rochefort

Why Tears of the Kingdom’s physics are so mind-blowing

By Simone de Rochefort

A bearded man in a pink hoodie is in the center of an art collage with a stunned look on his face. Surround him in a circular pattern are gears, the character from Satisfactory, the Evergiven cargo ship, a red diesel train, and a blue cargo container.

What logistics games can teach us about the supply chain crisis

By Clayton Ashley

The component for Heat, including a modular track and plastic cars, laid out for display.

Heat: Pedal to the Metal is a tabletop racing masterpiece

By Clayton Ashley October 1

A scale model of the Constellation Frontier starship from Starfield, as designed and built by Adam Savage and the crew at Tested. It’s about two feet long, and sitting backlit on a workbench. It’s immaculately filthy.

Adam Savage is probably having more fun with Starfield than you are

By Charlie Hall September 7

VTubers, explained

By XTINA GG August 10

Tekken boss confirms iconic fighter King’s strange origin

By Owen S. Good August 7

Polygon is hosting a 24-hour charity livestream for Foster Love

By Simone de Rochefort July 31

a crop of XTina GG tipping her Mario hat while sitting on stairs

Video Game Fashion Week 2023

I lived like Mario for a week

Running, jumping, kart racing, dining on mushrooms — the Mario lifestyle!

By XTINA GG July 14

Four people sit around a table in a studio with a backdrop of pink, blue, and purple. On the table is a small board game city made precariously of popsicle sticks and small blocks. Three of the four players look prepared to demolish the city with their hands.

Tokyo Highway is a tense board game about building roads

By Clayton Ashley June 30

A composite image of a car accident in the video game JFK Reloaded. Cut-out images of JFK and Simone de Rochefort, the video’s host, are overlaid on it.

Video games keep complicating JFK’s death

By Simone de Rochefort June 23

A view of a board game from directly above shows a large number of small green discs and medium brown discs, and four colorful beetles all on a log themed platform sitting on a wooden table. I the lower right two hands hold a blue insect shaped piece up to the board as if to measure a piece between the blue mandibles.

Kabuto Sumo brings wrestling thrills to tabletop gaming

By Clayton Ashley May 6

The board game box for Concept sits on top of it’s colorful board of icons with little game pieces and scoring tokens strewn across the table.

Concept reboots the whole concept of a guessing game

By Clayton Ashley April 6

Simone de Rochefort, a brunette white woman in a black t-shirt, points at the original 1925 cover of The Great Gatsby.

These developers want you to steal The Great Gatsby

By Simone de Rochefort March 31

Sungwon “ProZD” Cho and XTina GG face each other down across a table, holding hands of cards and laughing.

We challenged ProZD to a card game

By Simone de Rochefort March 8

A notebook with blue ink drawings of puzzles and codes from the video game Fez, which includes tetrominos, directional arrows, and an alphabet translation.

Taking notes makes gaming more fun

By Clayton Ashley February 13

A lot of papers and ephemera on a black background. A green target is overlaid on the objects.

How the most ambitious cult game of the ’90s got made

By Simone de Rochefort December 12, 2022

Pat and Simone looking concerned over the prospect of playing a racing sim

We built the ultimate racing rig

By Simone de Rochefort December 2, 2022

A whale dungeon in Nobody Saves the World

We’re streaming the best games of the year on Twitch all month long

By Tara Long December 1, 2022

Polygon employees Simone de Rochefort and Samit Sarkar share a victorious high five as Patrick Gill looks on approvingly. They are standing behind a newly constructed PC with its side panels removed. A monitor on the table shows the PC’s BIOS screen, indicating that it is working— in theory.

We built a PC live on Twitch

By Patrick Gill November 18, 2022

A broadcast shot of Ted Lasso as he appears on the sideline in FIFA 23. His arms are folded and he looks displeased.

FIFA 23 pits Ted Lasso against Ryan Reynolds’ soccer club, and it ain’t pretty

By Owen S. Good October 5, 2022

Lemon, played by Brian Tyree Henry, and Tangerine, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, are two slickly dressed assassins wearing blue suits under checked pea coats and are mugging directly at the camera, while Tangerine points at the viewer in the movie Bullet Train.

Bullet Train’s two best blokes pal around in the jauntiest blooper reel

By Joshua Rivera September 27, 2022

A Nintendo Switch playing Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is held up by two hands in front of an out of focus living room with a prominent television screen that is filled with the word WHATEVER.

Why do we multitask while gaming?

By Clayton Ashley September 26, 2022

The dog piece from Monopoly on a plain cream background.

Tune in to our Monopoly Enjoyment Stream

By Simone de Rochefort September 20, 2022

Polygon video producer Patrick Gill has been photoshopped into a smart doctors coat. He points at a lineup of fighting game characters. From left to right, they are Guilty Gear’s Bridget (a young woman dressed in a streetwear remix of a nun’s habit), Tekken’s King (a large muscular man with a jaguar’s head), and Street Fighter’s Ryu (A broad shouldered man in a ripped gi wearing a red headband).

How to get into fighting games without losing your mind

By Patrick Gill August 18, 2022

A paint horse from Breath of the Wild and Torrent from Elden Ring galloping on a pink and purple background.

Why video game horses are so hard to animate

By Simone de Rochefort August 11, 2022

Polygon is finally on TikTok!

By XTINA GG August 1, 2022

A clip from a video where five people are gathered around a table with a large board game. The background set looks like a forest with cardboard cut out trees and a faux cabin wall on the right side. The player at center of the table has an excited and terrified look on their face as the player on the left prepares to place something on the board. The rest of the players look on with intense trepidation.

Last Friday brings Friday the 13th vibes to Camp Overboard

By Clayton Ashley July 20, 2022

Eight people stand in a park with KanJam cans behind them and a scoreboard in front of them. Some of the people are cheering or jumping in the air.

Who will win our Camp Overboard Kan Jam tournament?

By Clayton Ashley July 13, 2022

Three people sit in front of a faux wood panel background with paper cut outs spelling “CAMP OVERBOARD”. A small, handmade clay figure sits in front of each of them on the green construction paper covered table in front of them.

We get crafty in Clay-O-Rama, a messy, hands-on tabletop RPG

By Jenna Stoeber July 6, 2022

Mario stands before an old magazine headline that reads “MARIO GOES TO WAR”

When emulators were legit

By Jenna Stoeber June 30, 2022

An emaciated Elden Ring dog against a plain background. There are many lines pointing to different parts of the dog, and each is labelled “bad dog.”

Leave me alone, Elden Ring dogs

By Simone de Rochefort June 21, 2022

In a grungy ’90s-style font, the image reads: Can you still call it a game if you can NEVER LOSE? A brunette woman with a Photoshop-enlarged head stares at you in question.

Cheating used to be fun

By Jenna Stoeber June 3, 2022

Polygon is hosting a charity livestream for Trans Lifeline!

By Simone de Rochefort June 2, 2022

An aerial shot from Immortal Empires in Total War: Warhammer 3

The new Total War: Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires trailer shows off dream alliances

By Mike Mahardy June 1, 2022