Over the last few years, I’ve started playing more difficult video games. Unfortunately, tough video games tend to include tough boss fights, and I don’t really like tough boss fights.

Usually when I play a single-player game, I go through it from start to finish. I play each new level after the last one, until I stop playing or get to the end. That’s not how I played 2016’s excellent episodic Hitman, however, and it’s not how I’m playing its fantastic new sequel.

The next big Assassin’s Creed Odyssey patch is live. This one increases the level cap and adds a new Lost Tale of Greece, among many other changes. It also adds visual armor customization, which means my Kassandra can finally dress like Wonder Woman without sacrificing her stealth armor bonuses.

This week, Destiny 2 got a big machine gun that chews through aliens while summoning lightning from the sky. It’s easy to get, and it rules.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is an absurdly big game, full of secrets, systems, and hidden surprises. It’s possible to just learn how it all works by playing, but its first few hours can be overwhelming and a little confusing. I’m here to help.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Red Dead Redemption 2 are both big open-world games, and they both came out in October of 2018. Both involve a hero on a horse riding around and murdering lots of people. The similarities end there.

From tip to tail, Red Dead Redemption 2 is a profound, glorious downer. It is the rare blockbuster video game that seeks to move players not through empowering gameplay and jubilant heroics, but by relentlessly forcing them to confront decay and despair. It has no heroes, only flawed men and women fighting viciously…

Of the many differences between last year’s Assassin’s Creed Origins and this year’s Odyssey, the changes to upgradable abilities have the most dramatic effect on gameplay. Origins’ skill trees were a convoluted mess even at the time, and Odyssey’s refinements bring that messiness into sharper relief.