Best 2024 Video Game Stories from Epic Games Store News
12.16.2024
By Brian Crecente, Contributor
Everything from the artistry of the zombie apocalypse to mastering the skill of in-game photography, to deep dives into major releases like Path of Exile 2, Marvel Rivals, and Borderlands.
We chatted with movie makers, famed game designers, and skilled players. We taught you how to make so, so, so much money in Grand Theft Auto Online and why it’s hard to animate kissing.
If you haven’t yet, you should definitely go check out the Epic Games Store news page and make it a regular stop for your daily read.
In the meantime, we’ve put together a list of some of our favorite stories that ran in 2024. We couldn’t include them all (that’s what this is for) but we did our best at delivering a nice cross-section here of what you should read.
So grab a drink, maybe a nibble to eat, and find your favorite reading chair, as this may take some time.
Go Deep
Making a video game involves so much work over such a long period of time, often with teams of people who don’t always have the same perspective about what they want to create, that it is a sort of minor miracle that anything ever makes it to your computer to play.
So why wouldn’t you want to learn about how these modern digital miracles come to life? The best way to do that is to read a story that goes deep into…
The labor of love behind Rawmen
The history of Final Fantasy on PC
The surprising ideas behind Alan Wake 2’s The Lake House
How Dungeons & Dragons found its way into nightmare factory Dead By Daylight
Frostpunk 2’s frosty ambition
Shadow’s new campaign in Sonic X Shadow Generations
Apex Legends’ journey from Titanfall sequel to battle royale masterpiece
Did you know?
It’s not always about the deep dives and longreads. Sometimes a story is tied to one or two surprising facts. Like, did you know…?
That Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails influenced Pacific Drive’s OST
Stray Gods started out as a musical Dragon Age DLC
Infinity Nikki started out as a mobile dressing up game
Influx Redux was remastered three times before release
Turbo Overkill was a solo project
How games are remastered
Alien: Isolation the game inspired Alien: Romulus the movie
Tales of Kenzera: ZAU is a game from a son for his father
Two brothers built Darkblade Ascent
Eternal Strands has an immersive sim background
Bulwark is the Bob Ross of city builders
How-to
Not all guides are about how to complete a game or unlock a character. Sometimes they explain fun ways to play, and sometimes they’re not even really guides in the strictest sense. In this section you can read how to…
Go on safari in Rain World
Embrace the spirit of photography in Tchia
Do more than fish in The Angler
Admire the pixel vistas of Arco
Discover the real nuclear power in Fallout
Embrace British absurdity in Thank Goodness You’re Here
Weep for strangers in the horror of David Lynch-infused I Did Not Buy This Ticket
Pair up two scary movies with one scary game
Get free stuff in The Sims 4
Pick which video game genre really speaks to you
History
Video games have been around now for 65 years, plenty of time for some actual history to be made. And it’s awful fun to read about how games and development have evolved over the years. In these stories we explored the history of…
The Oregon Trail
Lara Croft’s evolution
Tribes, the fastest shooter in the west
BloonsTD’s popularity
Indie classic World of Goo
Our collective love of Peggle
Cuba’s first indie game
Innovative indie classic Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
Coffee Stain’s five-year post-launch development of Satisfactory
Players
Video game development includes a lot of factors, not least of which is you—yes, you! There’s a lot of time spent on figuring out how players will play a game, training them to play it the right way, and making sure they will enjoy it. In these stories we talk about how players…
Should just take a moment and explore Fortnite
Crafted an absolutely wicked Trackmania track
Are expected to behave in We Were Here Forever
Will absolutely have their expectations messed with in Kenshii
Etc.
Look, it’s been a long day and I simply can’t come up with another way to connect a batch of stories together. But we still have these three which we all kind of like. So give them a read!
How Killing Floor 3 finds its own footing without losing the series’ blood-soaked magic
Why Thunder Lotus looked to Dante Alighieri in its attempt to reinvent the roguelike
Radical games are suddenly popping up, tapping into the nostalgia of the ‘80s and ‘90s