{"id":2188966,"date":"2026-10-10T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2188966"},"modified":"2026-10-10T07:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T04:00:00","slug":"what-weve-been-playing-its-pure-video-game-popcorn-movie-stuff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2188966","title":{"rendered":"What we&#8217;ve been playing &#8211; &#8220;It&#8217;s pure video game popcorn movie stuff&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<article class=\"article \" data-ads=\"true\" data-article-type=\"features\" data-article-group=\"feature\" data-paywalled=\"false\" data-premium=\"false\" data-sponsored=\"false\" data-type=\"article\">\n<header class=\"article_header\" data-component=\"article-header\">\n<div class=\"breadcrumbs\">\n<nav class=\"nav_breadcrumbs\" data-component=\"nav-breadcrumbs\" aria-label=\"Breadcrumb\">\n<ul class=\"nav-links\">\n<li>\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/\" data-active=\"false\"><br \/>\n                      Home<br \/>\n                <\/a>\n            <\/li>\n<li>\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/features\" data-active=\"false\"><br \/>\n                      Features<br \/>\n                <\/a>\n            <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/nav><\/div>\n<div class=\"headline_details\" id=\"main-content\">\n<h1 class=\"title\">What we&#8217;ve been playing &#8211; &#8220;It&#8217;s pure video game popcorn movie stuff&#8221;<\/h1>\n<p class=\"strapline\">A few of the things that have us hooked this week.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"headline_asset\">\n<figure class=\"headline_image_wrapper\">\n<p>        <img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"headline_image\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/gears-of-war-e-day-june-2026-screen-4.jpg?width=690&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;dpr=3&amp;auto=webp\" alt=\"A horrid alien creature roars with its spiny teeth showing.\" loading=\"eager\" data-uri=\"gears-of-war-e-day-june-2026-screen-4.jpg\" data-lightbox width=\"690\" height=\"388\"><figcaption>\n          <span class=\"attribution\">Image credit: <cite>The Coalition, Xbox.<\/cite><\/span><br \/>\n        <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"metadata\">\n<div class=\"avatar\">\n<p>    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Robert Purchese avatar\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/user-9946-originalxoriginal-14-03-23.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1017\"><\/p>\n<p>  <img alt=\"Robert Purchese avatar\" data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-uri=\"user-9946-originalxoriginal-14-03-23.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1017\">\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text\">\n<div class=\"byline\">\n                  <span class=\"article_type\" data-slug=\"features\"><br \/>\n                    Feature<br \/>\n                  <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"by\">by<\/span> <span class=\"author\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/authors\/robert-purchese\">Robert Purchese<\/a><\/span>                    <span class=\"job_title\"><br \/>\n                      Associate Editor<br \/>\n                    <\/span>\n            <\/div>\n<div class=\"published_at\">\n<p>Published on   <time datetime=\"2026-10-10T07:00:00+00:00\" data-auto-time-zone=\"true\" data-year=\"numeric\" data-month=\"short\" data-day=\"numeric\" data-hour=\"numeric\" data-minute=\"numeric\">Oct. 10, 2026, 7 a.m.<\/time>\n              <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"header_actions\">\n<p><button class=\"mypop-button button wide\" data-state=\"follow\" data-type=\"tag\" data-uuid=\"1db72fe1-5c27-4e10-bfd2-fd2a5bc5d9b9\" data-name=\"Gears of War: E-Day\" data-follow-text=\"Follow Gears of War: E-Day\" data-unfollow-text=\"Following Gears of War: E-Day\" data-aria-follow-text=\"Follow Gears of War: E-Day\" data-aria-unfollow-text=\"Following Gears of War: E-Day\" data-popup=\"true\" data-force-login=\"true\" aria-label=\"Follow Gears of War: E-Day\" title=\"Follow Gears of War: E-Day\"><br \/>\n  Follow Gears of War: E-Day<br \/>\n<\/button><br \/>\n  <a class=\"button outline wide preferred_source_button\" data-component=\"preferred-source-button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=eurogamer.net\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n    <span class=\"logo\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/span><br \/>\nPrioritise us on Google  <\/a>\n          <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"article_body\" data-component=\"article-content\">\n<div class=\"article_body_content article-styling\" data-autopogo>\n<h2>10th October<\/h2>\n<p>Hello and welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little about the games we&#8217;ve been playing. This week, Dom enjoys being back in Gears of War, which they should with a name like that; and Bertie ekes every last drop he can get out of The Blood of Dawnwalker before saving his family.<\/p>\n<p>But enough of that: what have you been playing this week?<\/p>\n<p>And don&#8217;t forget we have an entire<a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/topics\/what-weve-been-playing\"> dusty archive of previous What We&#8217;ve Been Playings<\/a>, just in case you don&#8217;t trust your memory any more and want to check which games you&#8217;ve played, and see what you thought of them.<\/p>\n<h2>Gears of War: E-Day, Xbox Series X<\/h2>\n<figure>\n<div class=\"primis_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"primis_video\">\n<p><span class=\"embed_placeholder\" data-type=\"targeting\" style=\"display: none\"><br \/>\n<span class=\"message\">To see this content please enable targeting cookies.<\/span><br \/>\n<button class=\"optanon-show-settings link\"><br \/>\nManage cookie settings<\/button><\/span> <\/div>\n<\/div><figcaption>Gears of War: Legs Day, amirite?<a class=\"video\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=vz6PwEkFWe0\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch on YouTube<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>God, Horde Siege is good. Initially, I thought it was a bit too contrived compared to the very simple past version of the mode, that many people come to Gears for in the first place. But the open-ended maps, potential for cross-squad interplay and emergent moments&#8230; It&#8217;s pure video game popcorn movie stuff. I assumed I&#8217;d play Gears for review then put it down, but with Siege&#8230; it&#8217;s a good job there are no other big games coming out soon. Right? Right?!<\/p>\n<p><em>-Dom<\/em><\/p>\n<h2>The Blood of Dawnwalker, PS5<\/h2>\n<figure>\n<div class=\"video_wrapper youtube\">\n<a aria-label=\"The Blood of Dawnwalker - Official &apos;The Hunger&apos; Live Action Trailer\" class=\"video-facade full-size\" data-platform=\"youtube\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gwxTStB1Uvw?autoplay=1\" title=\"Click to play video from YouTube\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Cover image for YouTube video\" class=\"video-facade__image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/gwxTStB1Uvw\/hqdefault.jpg\"><span class=\"video-facade__title\">The Blood of Dawnwalker &#8211; Official &#8216;The Hunger&#8217; Live Action Trailer<\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/a>\n<\/div><figcaption>He could use some moisturiser.<a class=\"video\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=gwxTStB1Uvw\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch on YouTube<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I&#8217;ve got one day left before Brencis&#8217; coronation! In other words, I&#8217;ve got one day left to save my family before he presumably eats them as part of his dastardly plan to take over the world. To catch you up: I&#8217;ve already finished the game but I reloaded a save so I could see more of the world. And I&#8217;ve been stretching it out, trying to push into as many nooks and crannies as possible to see what else is out there.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m glad I have. I&#8217;m constantly impressed with this game. I most recently got close to one of Brencis&#8217; vampire-gang people Xanthe, the veiled kind of witchy vampire, and learnt more about her backstory and what she&#8217;s been, um, working on in her spare time. And like so much else in the game: there&#8217;s real genuine storytelling value in what you find. Creepy, twisted, but also heartfelt. Suffice to say I made a deal with her because she&#8217;s awful. Let&#8217;s see what happens.<\/p>\n<p><em>-Bertie<\/em><\/p>\n<h2>Quake 3, in a browser?<\/h2>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been playing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/quake-iii-arena\">Quake 3<\/a> again&#8230; in a browser. I know this isn&#8217;t a particularly shocking revelation given that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/quake-live\">Quake Live<\/a>, I think it was, did the same thing. But the version I was playing today was recompiled by AI &#8211; I was testing it for a news story. I wasn&#8217;t smiling while playing it I promise!<\/p>\n<p>I had meant to only play for five minutes but I soon found myself at the top of the scoreboard &#8211; me! &#8211; and couldn&#8217;t pull myself away. It was carnage; there were way more people than the map could handle so people were spawning on top of each other and gauntlet-punching each other to death more often than not. But it was a reminder &#8211; AI aside &#8211; of how enticing this game is, especially when there are a lot of people playing it.<\/p>\n<p><em>-Bertie<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"poll_wrapper\" data-fixed=\"true\" data-hashid data-init=\"false\" data-poll-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"article_body\" data-component=\"article-content\">\n<div class=\"article_body_content article-styling\" data-autopogo>\n<h2>10th October<\/h2>\n<p>Hello and welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little about the games we&#8217;ve been playing. This week, Dom enjoys being back in Gears of War, which they should with a name like that; and Bertie ekes every last drop he can get out of The Blood of Dawnwalker before saving his family.<\/p>\n<p>But enough of that: what have you been playing this week?<\/p>\n<p>And don&#8217;t forget we have an entire<a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/topics\/what-weve-been-playing\"> dusty archive of previous What We&#8217;ve Been Playings<\/a>, just in case you don&#8217;t trust your memory any more and want to check which games you&#8217;ve played, and see what you thought of them.<\/p>\n<h2>Gears of War: E-Day, Xbox Series X<\/h2>\n<figure>\n<div class=\"primis_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"primis_video\">\n<p><span class=\"embed_placeholder\" data-type=\"targeting\" style=\"display: none\"><br \/>\n<span class=\"message\">To see this content please enable targeting cookies.<\/span><br \/>\n<button class=\"optanon-show-settings link\"><br \/>\nManage cookie settings<\/button><\/span> <\/div>\n<\/div><figcaption>Gears of War: Legs Day, amirite?<a class=\"video\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=vz6PwEkFWe0\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch on YouTube<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>God, Horde Siege is good. Initially, I thought it was a bit too contrived compared to the very simple past version of the mode, that many people come to Gears for in the first place. But the open-ended maps, potential for cross-squad interplay and emergent moments&#8230; It&#8217;s pure video game popcorn movie stuff. I assumed I&#8217;d play Gears for review then put it down, but with Siege&#8230; it&#8217;s a good job there are no other big games coming out soon. Right? Right?!<\/p>\n<p><em>-Dom<\/em><\/p>\n<h2>The Blood of Dawnwalker, PS5<\/h2>\n<figure>\n<div class=\"video_wrapper youtube\">\n<a aria-label=\"The Blood of Dawnwalker - Official &apos;The Hunger&apos; Live Action Trailer\" class=\"video-facade full-size\" data-platform=\"youtube\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gwxTStB1Uvw?autoplay=1\" title=\"Click to play video from YouTube\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Cover image for YouTube video\" class=\"video-facade__image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/gwxTStB1Uvw\/hqdefault.jpg\"><span class=\"video-facade__title\">The Blood of Dawnwalker &#8211; Official &#8216;The Hunger&#8217; Live Action Trailer<\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/a>\n<\/div><figcaption>He could use some moisturiser.<a class=\"video\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=gwxTStB1Uvw\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch on YouTube<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I&#8217;ve got one day left before Brencis&#8217; coronation! In other words, I&#8217;ve got one day left to save my family before he presumably eats them as part of his dastardly plan to take over the world. To catch you up: I&#8217;ve already finished the game but I reloaded a save so I could see more of the world. And I&#8217;ve been stretching it out, trying to push into as many nooks and crannies as possible to see what else is out there.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m glad I have. I&#8217;m constantly impressed with this game. I most recently got close to one of Brencis&#8217; vampire-gang people Xanthe, the veiled kind of witchy vampire, and learnt more about her backstory and what she&#8217;s been, um, working on in her spare time. And like so much else in the game: there&#8217;s real genuine storytelling value in what you find. Creepy, twisted, but also heartfelt. Suffice to say I made a deal with her because she&#8217;s awful. Let&#8217;s see what happens.<\/p>\n<p><em>-Bertie<\/em><\/p>\n<h2>Quake 3, in a browser?<\/h2>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been playing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/quake-iii-arena\">Quake 3<\/a> again&#8230; in a browser. I know this isn&#8217;t a particularly shocking revelation given that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/quake-live\">Quake Live<\/a>, I think it was, did the same thing. But the version I was playing today was recompiled by AI &#8211; I was testing it for a news story. I wasn&#8217;t smiling while playing it I promise!<\/p>\n<p>I had meant to only play for five minutes but I soon found myself at the top of the scoreboard &#8211; me! &#8211; and couldn&#8217;t pull myself away. It was carnage; there were way more people than the map could handle so people were spawning on top of each other and gauntlet-punching each other to death more often than not. But it was a reminder &#8211; AI aside &#8211; of how enticing this game is, especially when there are a lot of people playing it.<\/p>\n<p><em>-Bertie<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"poll_wrapper\" data-fixed=\"true\" data-hashid data-init=\"false\" data-poll-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Home Features What we&#8217;ve been playing &#8211; &#8220;It&#8217;s pure video game popcorn movie stuff&#8221; A few of the things that have us hooked this week. Image credit: The Coalition, Xbox. Feature by Robert Purchese Associate Editor Published on Oct. 10, 2026, 7 a.m. Follow Gears of War: E-Day Prioritise us on Google 10th October Hello [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,253],"class_list":["post-2188966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-eurogamer-net"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2188966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2188966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2188966\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2188966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2188966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2188966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}