Grab This Discounted Elden Ring Mini Figure Before It Sells Out At Amazon

The adorable Elden Ring Raging Wolf Figuarts Mini is one of the many collectible figures on sale during Amazon’s Big Spring Sale, which lasts until March 25. The discounts drops the Raching Wolf Mini to just $23.49 (was $30).

The Raging Wolf Figuarts Mini is based on the iconic Raging Wolf armor set that the player character is often shown wearing in promotional material. It stands 3.5 inches tall, includes two right arm pieces—one holding a sword and the other empty-handed–a detachable display stand, and features articulation in the neck, shoulders, and legs.

Tamashii Nations Elden Ring Raging Wolf Figuarts Mini

If you’re interested in adding the Raging Wolf Figuarts Mini to your collection, you should act fast. The figure has sold out at least once already during the sale, so grab it while it’s still in stock and on sale at Amazon. If it sells out, you can also grab the figure for $30 at Entertainment Earth.

Several other Elden Ring figures are available at Amazon right now, including other Figuarts Minis like Ranni the Witch and Melina. You can also preorder this larger Raging Wolf Figma action figure that comes with tons of weapons and accessories. For something you can cuddle, this nine-inch plush of fan-favorite turtle NPC Miriel Pastor of Vows is on backorder at Entertainment Earth. Check the links below for a list of more Elden Ring figure deals currently available online.

Collectibles from other franchises, such as Dragon Ball, Star Wars, and more, are also available in Amazon’s Big Spring Sale, so be sure to check our roundup of some of the best figure deals in the event.

We’re mere months away from the release of Shadow of the Erdtree, Elden Ring’s highly anticipated expansion. Check out our Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree preorder guide for all the details you need to know.

More Elden Ring figures

  • Raging Wolf Figuarts Mini
  • Malenia 9.4-inch Statue
  • Ranni the Witch Figuarts Mini
  • Festering Fingerprint Vyke S.H. Figurart Action Figure
  • Melina Figurarts Mini
  • Melina Vinyl Figure
  • Raging Wolf Figma Action Figure
  • Miriel Pastor of Vows 9-Inch Plush
  • Iron Fist Alexander Vinyl Figure

Stardew Valley Moss Locations And Recipes

Stardew Valley moss looks like a humble item, mostly because it is, but it turns up in some of the best crafting recipes in the Stardew 1.6 update. Getting enough of the green stuff for what you need is a bit hit-or-miss, though. Moss turns up randomly, so unless you get very lucky during a certain summer rainstorm, you’ll likely be hunting it down for a long time.

Our Stardew Valley moss guide explains where to find the plant and which crafting recipes you need it for.

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Where to find moss in Stardew Valley

Moss grows on trees, which is a pretty vague description, but outside one specific circumstance, there’s no way to narrow it down. Your best bet for finding a moss-covered tree is in Cindersap Forest, the area immediately south of your farm, though there’s a chance moss will turn up on any tree in the forest, around town, or literally anywhere else where trees stand.

The chance is pretty small, in my experience. You might only find one stack of moss in a given day, or you may get lucky and end up with several.

When you find moss, you can harvest it with your sickle. There’s no need to cut the tree down, and if you do chop it down, you’ll get the same amount of moss.

Any full-grown tree has a chance to sprout moss one day.

Stardew Valley green rain explained

The one time you’re guaranteed to find moss in abundance is on green rain days. Green rain is a weather phenomenon introduced in Stardew Valley 1.6, and it only happens during the summer. The weather channel will forecast it the day before, the same as any other weather event, and despite green rain scaring the villagers, it poses no harm to you.

During green rain, you have a much higher chance of finding moss on trees, and the special weeds that grow will leave moss behind when they disappear the day after the green rain event. Giant fern trees might also grow, though they only give you ferns, not moss – still useful, but not for recipes that need moss.

Green rain seems to be a pretty rare event. I only had it happen once during summer.

Stardew Valley moss recipes

Moss shows up in several crafting recipes, including:

  • Speed-Gro fertilizer
  • Mushroom log
  • Deluxe Worm Bin
  • Deluxe bait
  • Challenge bait
  • Statue of Blessings

Deluxe Worm Bins produce deluxe bait regularly and require 30 pieces of moss. The real star is the Statue of Blessings, though. Once per day, it grants a unique blessing, ranging from infinite energy to higher friendship gains when you interact with other people (in the game, of course. It’s not that special.) However, the Statue of Blessings requires 333 pieces of moss, so don’t expect to craft it during your first year.

Asus ROG Ally Gaming Handheld Is Only $400 At Best Buy For A Limited Time

The Asus ROG Ally is back on sale for only $400 at Best Buy. This price applies to the ROG Ally Z1, the base model of Asus’ Windows gaming handheld that normally goes for $600. It’s a fairly powerful handheld, especially for the price. The ROG Ally is one of the best devices in the burgeoning portable PC market that has experienced immense growth in recent years thanks to Valve’s Steam Deck. The Linux-based Steam Deck is an all-around great gaming machine, but if you’re partial to Windows, Best Buy’s ROG Ally matches the best offer we’ve seen yet. If you want more power–which certainly comes in handy for more demanding AAA games–the ROG Ally Z1 Extreme model is on sale for $600 (was $700).


Asus ROG Ally Windows handheld deals at Best Buy


The $400 ROG Ally comes with a sharp 1080p screen, AMD’s Ryzen Z1 processor, 16GB LPDDR5 6400 RAM, and an internal 512GB NVMe SSD. If that’s not enough space, you can always make use of a microSD card for a quick and cheap storage upgrade. Alternatively, you can upgrade the internal SSD with the WD Black SN770M 1TB or 2TB drive, which is on sale at Best Buy, too. If you want to upgrade your SSD without spending over $100, the Corsair MP600 Mini 1TB SSD is discounted to its best price yet at Amazon ($70).

Asus ROG Ally Z1

What makes the ROG Ally stand out from the Steam Deck is that it runs on Windows 11, allowing you to play virtually any PC game in your collection from a wide range of storefronts. That includes Steam, the Epic Games Store, GOG, Prime Gaming, Itch, and more. Best of all, you can run the Xbox app on the ROG Ally, so if you have a Game Pass subscription, you get a massive library of games that you can take on the road with you. There’s a standard array of inputs arranged over the white shell, some handy paddles on the back, and the handheld charges via USB-C.

In terms of power, the standard Z1 is a solid middleweight contender to the heavyweight champ that is the Z1 Extreme. It can easily play the latest indie games and many older AAA titles, but more demanding, newer games will require some graphical concessions to get running on it. In comparison, the Z1 Extreme offers a considerable performance boost. It has eight Zen 4 CPU cores (the Z1 has six) and a better GPU that allows for modern games to work brilliantly at 1080p on it.

That’s not to say that the base model Z1 isn’t a great handheld PC gaming console, but if graphical fidelity is a priority for you, you’ll want the Z1 Extreme model. The Lenovo Legion Go, a $700 handheld with detachable controllers and an 8.8-inch display, also uses the Z1 Extreme chipset. Meanwhile, the recently released MSI Claw is equipped with Intel Core Ultra 7 processor and starts at $750

For the price, however, you really can’t beat the $400 Asus ROG Ally Z1 if you want a handheld Windows PC.

Stardew Valley Bookseller Location And All Items

The Stardew Va is a new vendor who comes to town in version 1.6 and gives you a chance to swap your unwanted reads for something a bit better. He also sells books himself. It’s in the name, after all.

We’ve explained where to find the Stardew Valley bookseller location below and outlined what he has to offer.

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Stardew Valley bookseller location

The bookseller visits the valley on two random days each season, and you’ll find the days marked with a balloon on the town calendar outside Pierre’s shop. When the seller does arrive, he’ll set up his shop in the little clearing behind JojaMart on the east side of town. Walk behind the store, and you’ll see a small flight of steps that lead up to the clearing.

It’s just an empty space on days when the bookseller isn’t in town, so there’s no real reason to check it out otherwise.

There’s nothing specific you need to do for the bookseller to come around. He’ll start showing up in your first year, though you may not have some of the books he wants to trade for rare items yet.

The bookseller sets up shop behind JojaMart.

What does the Stardew Valley bookseller do?

He sells books, which you probably guessed from the name, but there’s a bit more to it than that. Stardew Valley’s books grant some useful buffs when you read them, but if you’ve maxed out your mining or don’t need a woodcutting boost, they’re a bit useless. Or, they were until Stardew Valley 1.6.

The bookseller takes a selection of books and gives you some pretty useful rewards in return. We’re not sure yet whether the rewards on offer change each month, but so far, the bookseller has offered:

  • Fairy Dust in exchange for a Book of Stars
  • 100 wood in exchange for Woodcutter’s Weekly
  • 20 hard wood in exchange for Woody’s Secret
  • Monster Mask in exchange for Combat Quarterly
  • 30 Deluxe Bait in exchange for Bait and Bobber
  • 1 Slime Incubator in exchange for 2 Monster Compendium
There’s no mystery surrounding when the bookseller visits, thankfully.

Fairy Dust and the Slime Incubator are the clear winners here, though the other items are useful if you have a sudden need for them while crafting something. If you sprinkle Fairy Dust on a piece of refining equipment, you instantly get the item cooking inside it instead of having to wait several hours or days. Getting a free Slime Incubator means you can take the Iridium Bars you would’ve needed to craft one and spend them elsewhere.

The bookseller also has a collection of books chosen at random every time he visits. You can buy these for your own use or to trade back to him for something better. The bookseller is just one of many new features in Stardew Valley 1.6. Be sure to catch up on all the new crafting recipes, too.

Save Hundreds On Pathfinder And Warhammer Tabletop RPG Bundles

Humble often spoils tabletop fans with huge collections for popular pen-and-paper RPGs, but right now the online retailer has two massive tabletop book bundle deals worth checking out—one for Pathfinder 2E and another for the Warhammer Fantasy RPG. Both bundles include starter guides, rulebooks, and tons of bonus materials, making them perfect for new and experienced players alike. However, they will only be available for a few weeks, so be sure to grab them soon if you’re interested.

Pathfinder 2E Guns of Alkenstar Book Bundle

Pathfinder 2E Core Rulebook

Humble has done a few Pathfinder 2E bundle deals previously, but this new Guns of Alkenstar collection is based around the eponymous Alkenstar steampunk setting.

The bundle comes in three options. Pay at least $5 and you get the first four items, which include digital versions of the Pathfinder 2E Beginner Box, Outlaws of Alkenstar Player’s guide, and two pre-made campaign books set Alkenstar.

For $15, you get nine items, including the four books from the base tier, plus the Pathfinder 2E Core Rulebook, Pathfinder 2E Bestiary, Lost Omens Character Guide, and Lost Omens World Guide. Pay $30 or more to get the full bundle, which adds the Pathfinder 2E Game Mastery and Advanced Player’s guides, the Lost Omens: Impossible Lands and Guns & Gears sourcebooks, and four pre-made Alkenstar campaign modules. That adds up to a $366 value for just $30.

Humble’s Pathfinder 2E Guns of Alkenstar book bundle is available until April 11.


Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Book Bundle

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay rulebook

Humble’s other big tabletop bundle deal is for the official Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying game published by Cubicle Seven. The game is set in the same war-torn fantasy world of the Warhammer tabletop wargame and its many spin-off video games and novels. However, the tabletop RPG is much easier to get into than the wargame since it doesn’t require a bunch of expensive minis–all you need is the rulebooks, character sheets, and a few dice (though you can always embellish your RPG campaigns with Warhammer minis if you want to). Luckily, Humble’s Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay bundle comes with digital versions of all the rules and gameplay materials you need (minus the dice), and includes a bunch of pre-made adventures for you and your party to follow along with.

The Warhammer bundle starts at $1 for three digital books, including the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Starter Set which includes everything you need to start playing. You also get The Guilty Party one-shot adventure and the Enemy Within Volume 1: Enemy In Shadows campaign book. The $15 tier adds the full Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay rulebook and six more adventure modules, while the full $25 bundle includes 18 digital books, including all the items from the previous tiers, equating to $288-worth of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying content.

To top it off, all three Humble Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay bundle tiers also include a coupon code for 20% off at Cubicle Seven’s online store.

The Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay book bundle is available at Humble until April 4.


You can check out the full contents of the Pathfinder 2E Guns of Alkenstar and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay bundles at Humble. All books included in the bundles are delivered as PDF files. Humble donates a portion of sales from both bundles to charity, and you can increase your pledge and modify the revenue split between the publishers, charities, and Humble before checkout.

While you’re at Humble, make sure to take a look at this month’s Humble Choice lineup. For just $12, you can get eight games, including Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin and Nioh 2 Complete Edition–both of which have never been available for this low of a price on their own. Once you claim the games, they are yours to keep forever, even if you cancel your subscription.

How To Get The Stardew Valley Mystery Box And What’s Inside

Stardew Valley mystery boxes live up to their name, with contents and locations that come as a surprise every time you find one. These boxes might reward you with anything ranging from rare items and meals that grant useful buffs to flower seeds and iron ore. It’s probably not worth going out of your way to find them, but if you do get a mystery box, you’ll walk away with something useful and potentially even valuable.

We’ve explained where to find Stardew Valley mystery boxes below, along with what you’re likely to find inside.

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Where to find Stardew Valley Mystery Box locations

Mystery boxes have a small chance of turning up when you:

  • Till the ground where an Artifact Spot appears
    • Artifact Spots have three small brown spires sticking out of the ground
  • Fish up a treasure chest in the river or from the ocean
  • Mine – anything, whether it’s in the mine or busting rocks around town
  • Win them from the Trout Derby
There’s a decent chance you’ll find a mystery box just by breaking rocks.

A bit of confusion surrounds when mystery boxes start appearing. Some have said you have to earn the millionaire achievement, though I found one without earning that achievement yet. Some fans also think you have to win one in the Trout Derby or the Squid Fest to unlock them across the town, something that also didn’t happen to me.

However it happens, there’s no doubt you’ll know when mystery boxes start appearing, as Stardew 1.6 includes a cutscene that introduces them. One night, you’ll see the mysterious Mr. Qi flying over town in his airplane, dropping boxes as he goes.

How to open mystery boxes in Stardew Valley

Stardew treats mystery boxes like geodes, which means you need to visit Clint the smith. Clint’s shop is open every day except Friday, from 8 AM until 4 PM It’s easy to get busy during the day and miss his closing time, so you might want to make visiting his store your first task of the day.

You can’t use your own geode smasher on mystery boxes, so Clint is your only option.

Clint charges the same amount for opening mystery boxes as he does for smashing geodes 25 gold–so it won’t break the bank.

What’s inside Stardew Valley mystery boxes?

From our experience, you have a random chance of finding one of the following:

  • Pepper seeds
  • Parsnip seeds
  • Cauliflower seeds
  • Radish seeds
  • Mixed seeds
  • Mixed flower seeds
  • Fruit tree saplings
  • Random books
  • Treasure chest
  • Rings
  • Prismatic shard
  • Shrimp cocktail
  • Omelette
  • Vegetable medley
  • Quality fertilizer
  • Hardwood

Other surprises are likely inside, though we just haven’t found enough mystery boxes yet to be sure. For more on the big patch, don’t miss the new crafting recipes and everything else in Stardew Valley 1.6

How To Get Sea Jelly In Stardew Valley

Stardew Valley’s Sea Jelly is one of several new materials in the 1.6 update with one specific purpose, but finding it is a bit more difficult than you might expect. You’ll want to do some prep work before hitting the beach, and even then, you might need more patience than usual.

We’ve explained where to find Sea Jelly in Stardew Valley below and outlined what you can, and should, do with it once you find the rare item.

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Where to find Stardew Valley Sea Jelly

This may come as a surprise, but you’ll find Sea Jelly in the sea. Any sea. Every body of water outside the mines that doesn’t count as a river or pond has a small chance of gracing your pockets with the slimy blue gel. That includes:

  • The beach south of Pelican Town
  • The beaches around Ginger Island
  • Pirate Cove
  • The Fishing Submarine that shows up during winter’s Night Market

In theory, that means you should also have a small chance of finding Sea Jelly if you live on the Beach Farm and go fishing there, though I haven’t found any so far.

It might take a while before you get even one Sea Jelly, so be patient.

The “small chance” of getting Sea Jelly at this location is the key here. The item is pretty rare, though you can increase your chance of hooking Sea Jelly by using luck-boosting items. These include eating foods such as pumpkin soup, shrimp cocktail, and banana pudding, and since the luck buff stacks in Stardew Valley, you can increase the odds of catching Sea Jelly by making yourself very lucky indeed before fishing.

Granted, you might come up with treasure or rare fish instead, but since both are valuable, that’s not entirely a bad thing.

What is Sea Jelly for in Stardew Valley?

Sea Jelly has a few uses, but the main one is as an ingredient in Stardew 1.6’s new refinement machine, the Fish Smoker. You also need River Jelly, Cave Jelly, and hardwood to make it. Fish smokers double the value of any fish you put in there. It’s an excellent way to boost your profits from fishing and a must-have machine if you’re playing on the Riverland Farm.

Sea Jelly is best used as a crafting material.

Consuming Sea Jelly gives you a fishing buff for a short period, and it restores 75 energy and 33 health. You can ship it for 200 gold. Given how rare Sea Jelly is, though, we recommend hanging on to it unless you have no plans at all, ever, of selling a fish.

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire Director Breaks Down Phoebe’s Ghost Crush

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is a busy movie. It’s got the new group of Ghostbusters, the old group of Ghostbusters, a guy who’s the heir to an entirely separate Ghostbusting tradition, and tons of accompanying new lore about that and the terrifying new spirit threat. It’s a lot of stuff to balance, but new director Gil Kenan has some experience with that–he co-wrote Ghostbusters: Afterlife with that film’s director, Jason Reitman, and Afterlife was a similarly full flick.

Reitman, whose father Ivan directed the original two Ghostbusters movies, stuck around to help Kenan write Frozen Empire–Kenan described the younger Reitman to me as “my writing partner, and creative collaborator and best friend for a long time”–and the task of both balancing so many disparate elements and even unifying them required all their effort.

“It sort of happens in a couple of ways. One is, we’re fans, right? Even though for Jason, this is deeply personal, and was his family business growing up. I saw the first movie with my dad in a movie theater when I was seven,” Kenan told me. “I’d never met any single person in my life until I was like 16, or 17, who had ever worked on a movie. For me, it was purely from the outside looking in. But that doesn’t mean that my relationship to these characters was any different than for Jason, even though he knew the actors playing them. He, just like me, has a deep love for these characters. And that love comes from us wanting the best for them as fans.

“So we always knew that we could lean on those instincts to ask those questions about what would a true Ghostbusters fan want in another adventure in this saga. At the same time, Afterlife was a story that was pinned on a family. And that was a kind of new invention in the world of ghost busting. Because before it was a disparate group of outsiders who came together with a sort of shared vision of starting this business of supernatural extermination and just happened to stumble into the near-end of the world.”

Mckenna Grace as Phoebe Spengler in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. Image courtesy of Columbia Pictures

But the franchise is much more defined now, especially with Afterlife delving into a new generation with Phoebe and her family. Things were set in motion that had to be followed up on.

“With Afterlife, with the story rooting in the Spengler saga, and specifically in Phoebe Spengler, [it] meant that there was now a new dramatic throughline. And we knew that if we followed Phoebe’s development as a character and her relationship with her family, it would lead us in the direction that the story would want to go into,” Kenan said, before noting that they also wanted to increase the scale of the story this time out.

“The other element that really pushed the boundaries of where this story was going to go was we knew early on that we wanted to up the stakes in this story, that because we had worked out the Gozer problem in the fields of Summerville, Oklahoma, we had room now to create a new movie villain, a new a new threat for our heroes. And that created a sort of expanded set of story requirements and tools, and it started to kind of stretch us in that direction.”

The story of Frozen Empire ends up hinging on Phoebe in a few ways–the most memorable being her burgeoning crush on a teen ghost named Melody, who accidentally burned her own house down, killing herself and her entire family. Phoebe’s always had a hard time dealing with her fellow living folks, but there’s something about Melody that just clicks with Phoebe. We’ve got more about Melody and Phoebe’s relationship in our spoiler discussion of the film here.

That situation is one of the best parts of Frozen Empire, and Kenan said the idea was just too perfect to not include.

“Phoebe, if you actually track her arc through the first story, she is a brilliant and special young person who has a sensitivity to the other side that she revealed in the first film in her relationship with her grandfather,” Kenan told me, referring to the fact that Phoebe’s grandfather was Egon Spengler from the original movies.

“That sensitivity was a thread that we were looking to develop in this next story, regardless, because it’s suggested that Phoebe, through her own passion for ghostbusting also has this counterbalance, which is the ability to actually relate and empathize with the supernatural in a way that maybe makes her extraordinary and uniquely positioned to have a more fully dimensional relationship with a spirit. So that was really the beginning of it. And then it was just like, dramatically, so compelling to think that a Ghostbuster could find the one person in the biggest city in America, who could actually sort of relate to them and see them, and they could feel like there was a sort of shared language between the two of them. And the sort of tragic irony that that one other person just happened to be a ghost. That felt too juicy not to explore.”

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is in theaters now.

Gigabyte’s New Quantum Dot OLED Monitors Launch April 30

PC hardware manufacturer Gigabyte is releasing two new quantum dot OLED monitors next month: the 27-inch AORUS FO27Q3 and 32-inch AORUS FO32U2. Both monitors support features like HDR and FreeSync Premium Pro and sport super-high refresh rates. They also have plenty of input ports so you can use the displays with a range of devices. The new monitors drop on April 30, and you can preorder them exclusively at Newegg’s online store.

While you’re at Newegg’s online store, it’s also worth checking out the Super Spring Sale, which runs through the end of Monday, March 25. There are hundreds of deals to grab, including discounts on PC components like RAM, GPUs, and CPUs, and even gaming laptops and pre-built desktops. We’ve listed a few notable offers below, or you can head over to Newegg to see all the deals.

Newegg Super Spring Sale

Tales Of Kenzera: ZAU Helped Me Cope With My Own Loss

Grief is messy. It’s complicated. It’s noisy. Or, at least, that’s how Abubakar Salim described grief to me when we sat down to play Tales of Kenzera: ZAU, the debut game from his studio, Surgent Studios. On the surface, Tales of Kenzera: ZAU is a confident and vibrant 2.5D metroidvania, with an African mystical world as its backdrop. But below its genre foundation, are roots nourished and forged from tragedy. When Abubakar’s father passed away, he said it was like “the rose-tinted glasses were snatched from his face.”

Abubakar was shoved into the depths of grief, navigating a labyrinth of questions he couldn’t answer and emotions he had trouble unpacking. It was noisy and unclear–a feeling that he felt only Tales of Kenzera: ZAU could emulate. “It doesn’t matter if you’ve lost a parent, a brother, a friend, a pet, or a job. Grief is something we’ll all experience, and it’s a journey that we all go through. It’s what makes us all human,” he told me. Hearing him contextualize grief in that way, regardless of what/who you’ve lost, struck a resounding chord for me.

Tales of Kenzera: ZAU

Six months ago, I lost my cat of 14 years, Lili. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of her. And even half a year later, the smallest thing can trigger a welling of emotions that brings me back to the final moment when I had to say goodbye. It’s gotten easier with time to center myself and become present in the moment, to not get entirely lost in the maze of my emotions and memories, or the sinking reminder that I’ll never see her again, never smell her again, never hear her again. It’s utterly crippling having to go through that maze. Yet as painful as it is, I also don’t want to lose sight of that grief–it brings me back to her. Instead, I want to better understand my way around it. I will likely never come to terms with losing her, but I can at least learn to navigate life without her. Even writing this and trying to find the words to encapsulate that feeling is vague and obtuse. It’s complicated. It’s messy. It’s grief.

For Abubakar, that labyrinth-like feeling of navigating grief isn’t unlike the very tenets of the metroidvania genre–an analogy I understood on paper but hadn’t quite fully grasped until sitting down with Abubakar and playing Tales of Kenzera: ZAU. In its nature, the genre often emphasizes an unknown world, maze-like in design, where dead ends are eventual passageways yet to be unlocked. But the more you explore and persevere past harrowing challenges, the more you learn, and the more you understand how to maneuver the trials around you. None of it makes sense at first, but with time, things will unlock and start to have meaning. In so many ways, it’s about growth.

Tales of Kenzera: ZAU sees its main character, Zau, grapple with the death of his father, and trudge into an African mystical maze in an attempt to strike a deal with Kalunga, the god of death, to bring his father back to life. Despite its considered themes of loss, Tales of Kenzera: KAU strikes an incredible balance in presenting itself as a confident metroidvania in its own right. It allows the game to transcend audiences and invite different interpretations for people at different moments in their lives, which is something I hadn’t quite felt until I sat down to write this preview. It rewards those willing to look deeper into the game but doesn’t alienate players who just want to play a solid metroidvania.

Tales of Kenzera: ZAU

As Zau, I swiftly scaled and ran through the tunnels of Kenzera. I avoided obstacles, leapt from collapsing platforms, wall-jumped past plunging spears, and double-jumped across dangerous pits, ending with an air dodge to close the gap between me and a ledge that hung over a bed of spikes. There was momentum in moving through the moss-covered stone walls, with the occasional sight of a waterfall in the background, and the warm sun bleeding through the cracks above me. As I ventured deeper, I encountered locked paths, areas I’ve yet the skill to reach, and mythical African creatures to battle.

Playing on Nintendo Switch, combat felt intuitive and punchy. On his journey, Zau collects masks that grant different move sets and abilities, and can be changed with a single button press. Wearing one mask, I was brawling up close and personal with foes, smashing through enemies with a flurry of light and heavy combos, dodging behind them, and jumping on and off platforms to avoid their attacks. When an airborne enemy would swoop in, I’d switch to the mask that granted me a ranged attack, firing a spray of needles above.

Performance held up with the Nintendo Switch when it mattered most, like when facing off a horde of enemies, but there were some visual hiccups along the way like textures popping in the background or the occasional frame dip when moving through certain tunnels before entering bigger arenas. Still, the game is expected to release April 23, so there is time to iron those minor details out.

While venturing and dodging and battling my way through Kenzera, I was zoned into the flow and rhythm as with any good metroidvania. It wasn’t until after my hands-on time with the game and chatting with Abubakar that I began to recontextualize my experience with my own journey of grief and even questioned the lengths I would go to bring back a loved one from the dead if the opportunity were presented to me. Being able to play this game and write this preview allowed me to navigate my feelings in a way I hadn’t quite thought of before. Something I haven’t really given myself the chance to do since Lili died six months ago.

For Abubakar, the journey to making this game was a maze in and of itself, not just for finding a means to cope with the loss of his father, but to create a piece of art that was entirely his own. As an actor, Abubakar has stepped into many roles stretching from video games (Bayek in Assassin’s Creed Origins) to television (Father in Raised by Wolves). But despite working in creative fields, he never felt as if he had creative ownership of his work as an actor. “As an actor, you’re a small cog in a massive machine. But making a game, I was positioned to find the beating heart of the entire project and had to listen to it,” he said.

Development began in late 2019, beginning with writing down concepts and mapping out the game. He knew nothing about making a game. “I came in very naive, and I knew I wanted to tell a story that was really personal, that was really real,” he explained. “So I jumped in and said I’m going to learn as I go along. Because, even as an actor, with all your training, you never really learn until the camera is on and rolling.”

Tales of Kenzera: ZAU fits nicely in the resurgence of 2.5D metroidvanias that have come back into fashion the past few years, with AAA studios like Nintendo bringing Metroid back to its roots with Metroid Dread or Ubisoft taking a chance with Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. From what I played, Kenzera has the leverage to stand right alongside them, and, even more so, for its depiction of truth, and not just Abubakar’s truth, but the truth of everyone. “The human truth,” as he refers to it.

One way Abubakar approached this mantra of the human truth is by using African mythology. When Abubakar was younger, his father would tell him stories of his grandfather who was a Nganga, an spiritual healer. “My father would tell me these wild stories like how my grandfather would go out and talk to spirits and sit under baobab trees, and when I was younger I’d be like, ‘What are you smoking?’ but I eventually saw it as fascinating and beautiful. And that’s something my father shared with me that I wanted to share through this.”

Tales of Kenzera: ZAU

It was an opportunity to not just celebrate his father, but to celebrate his heritage. For Abubakar, using African mythology as the glue for his game’s world and story was a means to inspire a new audience to be excited about history rather than overtly educate them about it.

Tales of Kenzera: ZAU is shaping up to be a solid entry in a warm welcome to this upturn of 2.5D metroidvanias. But its story and emphasis on the journey of not just grief, but in being human, separates it from the bunch in a meaningful way.

Throughout my life, I’ve lost grandparents, I’ve lost an uncle, I’ve lost pets, and I’ve watched loved ones lose their loved ones. Each loss presents its own maze of the unknown, trials to push through, and questions that may never be answered. No loss is harder or easier than the other, but bespoke in their own complicated, messy, and noisy way.

Writing this preview has been cathartic and emotional. It’s been an outlet for me to understand that this journey isn’t over and it may never be over, but the most I can do is persevere and keep going, even if everything doesn’t quite make sense. But, most importantly, while I may be writing this by myself, Tales of Kenzera: ZAU is a reminder that I am not alone. Grief is something we’ll all experience. It’s a journey that we all go through. It’s what makes us human.