GamingCult - Our Gaming Culture

One of the things I've appreciated most about modern gaming is the carryover demo, which allows you to transfer your progress from a game's demo to the full release when you decide to buy it. When developers do them well, they not only end up being the perfect hype tool for a game, but also allow players to get a head start on the full experience without losing the time they've already invested. The first carryover demo I can recall goes back to 2013, when Sony released Soul Sacrifice on the PS Vita. In the PlayStation Blog post announcing the demo , they explained, “The demo is not only a great way to sample the full experience, but also to let you get a head start on that adventure before the game releases.” They also took the opportunity to explain that not only would your save data carry over, but you would receive an exclusive in-game bonus item for doing so. Soul Sacrifice wasn't the last game to offer this type of experience on the PS Vita, either. Koei Tec...

I wasn’t expecting to write about a demo today, and I don’t expect to write about demos too often, but I couldn’t ignore the return of Castlevania to modern consoles in any shape or form. Seeing as we won’t be getting the full Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse for another 15 days or so, I thought I would play through the demo and share my thoughts on the return of one of my favourite franchises of all time. Belmont’s Curse takes place in 1499, 23 years after the events of Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse . It also takes place 20 years after  Castlevania: Curse of Darkness , making it the latest chapter in this particular era of the Castlevania timeline. This time around, you play as Rose Belmont, daughter of Trevor and Sypha Belnades. Rose starts off equipped with a longsword and, unfortunately, does not have her father’s Vampire Killer whip, at least not in the demo. She also has magic in the form of the Cursed Flame, which allows her to launch a fireball. On top of that, she is prov...

There may be no better way to build hype for upcoming paid content than by giving something meaningful back to the people who already supported you. Yesterday, CD Projekt Red released the highly anticipated “The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered.” Announced a little more than a month ago at Gamescom 2026, the remaster is available for free to previous owners of the game on PS5, Nintendo Switch 2 and Xbox Series X/S, and includes the two previously released DLC campaigns at no additional cost. All of this comes ahead of the upcoming paid DLC, “Songs of the Past,” which releases in 2027. After installing it myself and spending the first few hours playing, I realized that the model CD Projekt Red followed here should be adopted by more publishers going forward. The free upgrade path, which was also used by Xbox Game Studios with the release of “Gears of War: Reloaded,” is a goodwill gesture that rewards the gamers who helped make these titles successful in the first place. “The Witcher 3: W...

I recently wrote about how to make gaming more affordable , and I thought it would be interesting to follow up with a little something explaining how I collect these days and why. As you may have gathered from my “ Gaming Is Expensive: Here’s How to Make It More Affordable ” piece, I rarely buy games during their initial release window and generally wait until they get their first significant price cut. (October will be a little different, as I currently have two highly anticipated games that I can’t wait to tear into.) This gives me more options when it comes time to buy a game. One thing I look for is whether a game has a Sony PlayStation 4 release. For a while now, I’ve been using the PS4 as my modern-day base console. Generally, PS4 games look and play better than titles on the original Nintendo Switch (more on this later) and are, more often than not, completely available on disc and playable without an internet connection. The nice thing about more recent PS4 releases is that man...

Since my last editorial, “ The Sega 32x Could Have Been So Much More , ” I’ve been pondering creating a follow-up opinion piece that uses a similar premise. As I was brainstorming ideas about how a system or service could have been saved, I kept coming back to Microsoft and its Xbox brand. So I decided that it just made sense for me to tackle this. Xbox has had its fair share of highs and lows, with the majority of them being on the bottom end of the success scale. The platform arguably peaked during the Xbox 360 era and then progressively lost steam from the Xbox One onwards. Paired with Xbox Game Pass, the Xbox Series X/S seemed poised to get them back on track, but a few missteps along the way (let’s just say it didn’t begin well with the failure to launch Halo Infinite with the Series X/S in Nov. 2020 ) ensured it wouldn’t be as successful as its closest rival, Sony and its PlayStation brand. So what could they do? At this point, the focus needs to absolutely change to affordabili...

The Sega 32X add-on always fascinated me. It originally came out in November 1994. It had a lot of hype leading up to the release, but that hype quickly fizzled out after Sega was unable to deliver on the initial demand. It also came out a month ahead of the Japanese launch of Sony’s PlayStation and Sega’s own Saturn. At the time, even though I was interested, I didn’t bother getting a 32X as I was still enjoying playing on the Sega Genesis, which still had solid and stellar releases. As cool as the launch lineup was, Star Wars Arcade, Virtua Fighter, Virtua Racing, etc., it wasn’t enough for me to justify using the limited disposable income I had. I ended up getting the add-on later in my adult life and have been a massive fan ever since. Looking back, the unit failed for so many reasons, with Sega clearly to blame for its failure. Sega didn’t have the proper development tools for third-party developers, making the 32X difficult to develop for and ultimately resulting in mediocre rele...