Heading into Doom: The Dark Ages, I thought the game being a prequel to the 2016 series reboot would make a good entry point for the series. Despite enjoying high-octane first-person shooters, Doom and its 2020 sequel Doom Eternal somehow never landed on my radar (although I will defend the so-awful-it’s-good 2005 film and its first-person-shooter sequence). So I entered The Dark Ages, something of an origin story for the Doom guy and his crusade against the forces of Hell, ready to gorge the lore and push through the series. After completing its roughly 10-hour, 22-chapter campaign, I can definitively say: That shit doesn’t make any sense. And it doesn’t matter. We got demons to kill. The Dark Ages casts you as the Slayer, a remarkable soldier who’s so much better at murdering demons than any of the human rabble you come across. Why is he the best demon murderer? Shh, demons to kill. Doomguy is kept in reserve by some sort of alien group called the Maykrs (a tragedeigh pronounced like “makers”), chilling in a ship floating above the human-versus-demon battlefields. He’s almost like The Winter Soldier in that he’s kept as something of a prisoner in between being called upon for demon-slaying missions. In the early parts of the story, before he breaks free, he’s basically loaned out to techno-medieval humans as they battle against hordes of demons from Hell. Or are they aliens? Is this game set on Earth? Dude, there are demons to shotgun in the face. While on loan, Doomguy shows up everyone incapable of killing demons by slaying hundreds upon hundreds of them himself, sometimes just by jumping from really high up (so cool). He fights with some human kingdom in its quest to keep some MacGuffin away from some Big Bad Demon. The story takes the Slayer to Hell and also to an alien planet… maybe. Who really knows? You’ll be too busy parrying attacks with the chainsaw shield or piloting a mech suit to care. Its story won’t be receiving any honors come awards season, but Doom: The Dark Ages’ gameplay might. Parrying attacks and an emphasis on melee add welcome variety to the ways the Doom Slayer battles enemies, and by the end of the game, as you’ve upgraded his arsenal, you’ll truly feel like an unstoppable demon-killing machine, swapping between from the skullcrusher to the accelerator to more depending on what the situation calls for. Once the BFC — big fucking crossbow — winds up in your hands, it’s truly lights out for the demons. Though its plot may not matter (or make a lick of sense), by the end of The Dark Ages, you’ll at least understand the fear Doomguy instills in demons after you slaughter who knows how many of them, including their leader. Doomguy’s taken over the Maykr ship, now seemingly his base of operations for his demon-slaying exploits. He’s the demons’ nightmare, their eternal enemy, their John Wick after his puppy was killed. He’s unrelenting in his quest to rid the cosmos of demons. Why again does he need to kill demons? Hey man, just enjoy that sweet, sweet chainsaw shield.

Ever dreamt of wandering through the vast collections of a major museum in its rawest presentation — the storage warehouse? London's new V&A East Storehouse destination attempts to offer visitors an akin experience when it officially opens this Saturday, May 31st. Photo: Hufton+Crow, courtesy V&ADesigned by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the facility is both a working store and public attraction, built to house over 250,000 objects, 350,000 books, and 1,000 archives in a four-story building that spans over 173,000 square feet. Photo: Hufton+Crow, courtesy V&AThe collection includes works from an eclectic range of disciplines and time periods, from ancient Egyptian footwear through medieval art to Mid-Century furniture and contemporary avant-garde fashion items.  Photo: Hufton+Crow, courtesy V&ASix large-scale objects will be on display for the first time after spending decades in the hidden kind of storage, such as Frank Lloyd Wright's unique 1930s Kaufmann Office interior, a full-scale...

William Morris Biscuit Set. All images courtesy of Ella Hawkins, shared with permission Dr. Ella Hawkins Reimagines Ancient Artifacts and Prized Objects as Edible Replicas May 31, 2025 Grace Ebert Academic research is notoriously niche and often opaque, but Dr. Ella Hawkins has found a crowd-pleasing way to share her studies. The Birmingham-based artist and design historian translates her interests in Shakespeare performance, costume, and matieral culture into edible replicas. Hawkins bakes batches of cookies that she tops with royal icing. Decorating takes a scholarly turn, as she uses tiny paintbrushes and a mini projector to help trace imagery of William Morris’ ornate floral motifs or coastal scenes from English delftware. Rendering a design on a single cookie can take anywhere between two and four hours, depending on the complexity. Unsurprisingly, minuscule calligraphy and portraits are most demanding. Ancient Greek Pottery Sherds Hawkins first merged baking and her research about a decade ago while studying undergraduate costume design at the University of Warwick. She decided to bake cupcakes based on Shakespeare productions that her class examined. “It felt like a fun way to look back at all the different design styles we’d covered through the year,” she tells Colossal, adding: I carried on decorating cakes and cookies based on costume design through my PhD (mainly as goodies to give out during talks, or as gifts for designers that I interviewed), then branched out and spent lots of time doing cookie versions of other artefacts to keep busy during the pandemic. She has since published an academic book on the topic and is a senior lecturer at Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. But she also continues to translate artifacts and prized objects held within museum collections into delicious canvases. There’s a set made in collaboration with Milton’s Cottage, a museum in the country house where John Milton finished his epic Paradise Lost. Anchored by a delicately crosshatched portrait evoking that of the frontispiece, the collection contains typographic titles and signs that appear straight from a 17th-century book. Delftware Tiles Hawkins ventures farther back in history to ancient Greece with a collection of pottery sherds inspired by objects within the Ashmolean Museum. With a bowed surface to mimic a vessel’s curvature, the irregular shapes feature fragments of various motifs and figures to which she applied a sgraffito technique, a Renaissance method of scratching a surface to reveal the layer below. The weathered appearance is the result of blotting a base of pale brown-grey before using a scribe tool to scratch and crack the royal icing coating the surface. She then lined these etchings with a mix of vodka and black food coloring to mimic dirt and wear. (It’s worth taking a look at this process video.) Other than a select few preserved for talks and events, Hawkins assures us that the rest of her cookies are eaten. Find more of her work on her website and Instagram. Medieval Tiles, inspired by The Tristram Tiles, Chertsey, Surrey, England (c. 1260s-70s) Milton’s Cottage Biscuit Set developed in collaboration with Milton’s Cottage Outlander Biscuit Set Elizabethan Gauntlet Biscuit Set Next article

One of the many beautiful things about the indie gaming scene is that there's always something to check out. So if you don't fancy playing Elden Ring: Nightreign this weekend, there are plenty of other new options. To help you keep up with what's going on in the space, here's our weekly indie game roundup. As a heads up, we won't be publishing an edition of this roundup next week. Not because there won't be enough games to highlight. Quite the opposite: Summer Game Fest kicks off on Friday June 6. There will be literally hundreds of game announcements and updates. There's also the small matter of the Nintendo Switch 2's arrival in a matter of days. You can check out what to expect from SGF and find out how to watch the various showcases in our preview. We'll be bringing you news on titles of all shapes and sizes from Summer Game Fest Live, Xbox Games Showcase and other events. We'll also be on the ground in Los Angeles to go hands on with many of the newly announced games. Keep up with our coverage here on Engadget throughout SGF.  In the meantime, there are a host of new games to savor, as well as peeks at what's coming your way in the coming weeks and months. Let's get to it. Thinky Direct This showcase from Thinky Games was jam packed with captivating puzzle and mystery games. Two in particular caught my eye. The first is a very intriguing first-person archery puzzler. In He Who Watches, you'll walk on walls, rotate rooms and use a bow and arrow to solve puzzles. It reminds me of the shrines in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. A demo is out now on Steam and the full game should arrive this fall. The other game that really stood out to me was Echo Weaver, a so-called "Metroidbraina." Unlike in many Metroidvanias, where you need to find power ups or new abilities to progress, here you'll move forward by acquiring knowledge, including figuring out your character's special abilities.  There aren't any procedurally generated elements here. As with the likes of Outer Wilds, each run is time-based. You can find ways to extend the limit or sacrifice some time to pass through a barrier. Echo Weaver is coming to Steam and Xbox (including Game Pass). There was lots of other interesting stuff in the first-ever Thinky Direct. I really enjoy the chill train puzzler Railbound and it was neat to find out that there's a level editor available in beta. Kiko's Apple Adventure is an adorable-looking block-pushing game in which the aim is to nudge apples onto rafts. It just arrived on Steam. The Button Effect features a museum with a lot of buttons, each with a purpose for you to find out. It seems like a certain Taskmaster task taken to new extremes. The first public demo just hit Steam. Nonolith is another compelling game that was featured in the showcase. In this puzzle platformer, you can copy and paste blocks to create openings, bridges and staircases. At first glance, it reminds me a little of Animal Well. Monolith is coming to Steam in 2026. New releases One thing definitely worth getting excited about this week if you own a particular yellow console with a crank owner is the start of Playdate Season Two. Every Thursday throughout the six-week season (which costs $39), two new games arrive on Panic's diminutive device.  The first batch includes the charming-looking Dig! Dig! Dino! and Fulcrum Defender. The latter of those is from FTL: Faster Than Light and Into the Breach studio Subset Games, whose co-founder Jay Ma went through hell to make Fulcrum Defender. One of the titles included in the season, Blippo+, is a full-motion video game. It will have weekly episodic updates for 12 weeks, extending far beyond the rest of the Season Two window. The first episode is out now. Trails is a lovely puzzle game that just landed on Steam. You'll guide sandships to their destination by drawing a path for them. You can't take a ship through the same square twice, and you'll need to make sure they don't crash into each other. There are obstacles, of course, and you'll sometimes have to collect and deliver cargo. I've enjoyed my time with Trails so far. Developer PurpleSloth gradually teaches you how to play through trial and error, and it adds new hazards and mechanics at a nice pace, though the puzzles do become quite tricky. You may have spent many pleasant hours cleaning grime off of various objects and iconic landmarks in PowerWash Simulator (which is set to get a sequel later this year). It's time to flip the script a bit in Spray Paint Simulator, from North Star Video Games and publisher Whitethorn Games. The concept is pretty similar, in that you'll complete jobs for clients by painting certain items or environments. There are no time limits here and a feature that lets you mask an area to ensure you get clean lines is a nice touch. If marking your territory on public or private property with sick, definitely-not-ugly tags is more your thing, there's a free spray mode that you can play alone or with a friend in co-op. Spray Paint Simulator is out now on Steam, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. It's on Game Pass too. The game is also coming to Nintendo Switch on June 19. Eternal Evil debuted on Steam back in 2022, and two and a half years later, the survival horror game has made the jump to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. It has mostly positive reviews on Steam and seems very much in the vein of the Resident Evil series (it even has a dual narrative with two characters to play). You'll take on vampires that get stronger as they feed in this game from solo developer Honor Games. How could I not include a game with a name like Trash Goblin? This is a cozy shopkeeping title from Spilt Milk Studios that just came out of early access on Steam. You'll unearth, restore and upcycle trinkets to sell to customers so you can upgrade your shop. It seems one you might chill out with. Elsewhere, To a T, a game we mentioned last week, is out now on Xbox Series X/S, Game Pass, PS5, Steam and the Epic Games Store. Cowboy-themed life sim Cowboy Country just landed on Steam, PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch as well. Upcoming I've had my eye on Kingmakers for a while. It's a completely bananas-looking blend of third-person shooting and strategy game from Redemption Road in which you travel back in time to a medieval war, bringing modern weapons and vehicles with you. Publisher tinyBuild revealed during a showcase this week that Kingmakers will debut in early access on Steam on October 8. Really looking forward to that one. Beyond the Board is a moody-looking adventure that takes a rook... well, beyond a chess board. It takes inspiration from puzzle games like Limbo and Monument Valley, so it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that the story is told through visual storytelling and soundscapes rather than dialogue. This game from Fragile Shapes Studio doesn't yet have a release window, but you can check out a demo on Steam now. An extended demo for a fast-paced, melee-focused dungeon runner called Bloodthief dropped this week. It looks like a lo-fi, medieval spin on Ghostrunner (a series I enjoy but am quite bad at) but with vampires. So yes, I will be digging into this when I have a chance. The original demo is said to have 20 or so hours of gameplay and there's even more in the extended version, which will be featured in Steam Next Fest. Bloodthief, from developer Blargis, is slated to arrive later this year. I'm going to close this edition out with a game you'll probably never be able to play. Developer Kenney says that, a few years back, they helped a young Star Wars fan make a game based on The Mandalorian after a Make-a-Wish connected the pair. It's a heartwarming story, and the game looks quite charming based on the clip that Kenney shared on BlueSky. However, for legal reasons, it'll likely stay under lock and key, sadly.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playdate-season-two-spray-paint-simulator-and-other-new-indie-games-worth-checking-out-110035699.html?src=rss

When George R.R. Martin crafted the world of Westeros back in the 90s, he probably didn’t think his words would go on to spawn graphic novels, TV shows, action figures, video games, and more. Moreover, I doubt the author expected his works to be adapted into a mobile-friendly action-RPG built to prioritize predatory microtransactions over the rich lore he’d spent decades perfecting. Yet in 2025, we have Game of Thrones: Kingsroad, a visually striking open-world exploration game that looks compelling in motion, but hones in more on menus and currency than fantasy adventure. And, as you push deeper into its sizable campaign to uncover a plethora of in-game currencies and progress-halting hurdles, the neo-medieval jaunt starts to feel more like a lesson in asset management than a thoughtful RPG. Kingsroad takes place during season four of the HBO TV series, putting you in the fur-lined boots of a northern-born bastard of House Tyre. With your father sickly and your inheritance caught up in the strict succession rules of the realm, the only hope for the safety of your people is to borrow, beg, and steal your way into the hearts of the lords and ladies of Westeros. Naturally, things aren’t as simple as just asking, and you’ll have to go round the houses (literally) to solve land disputes, find missing soldiers, and knock together the heads of vassal-house warriors on your way to earning your flowers. Alongside a cavalcade of curious NPCs, there are also White Walkers, mythical beasts, and traitorous Boltons to butt heads with. Thankfully, Westeros’ misfortune makes for an enticing landing pad for you to start from. PlayBefore you dive into the cobbled streets and open roads of Westeros, though, you’ll first need to pick a combat archetype to play as: a brutish Sellsword, a skilful Knight, or a nimble Assassin. Fuelled by my love of Brienne of Tarth and Dungeons & Dragons’ Barbarian class, I opted for the axe-wielding Sellsword, whose heavy strikes can easily wind gaggles of enemy forces. Indecisive? Good news: Kingsroad does allow you to switch between archetypes at any time, and your inventory is shared across your three possible characters, so you can boost your alts with your main’s hard-earned loot. That said, I was disappointed to find that once you finalise a character, you can’t delete them and start that class over, or change their name, a feature that bit me in the butt when testing how unsightly I could make my Knight. With your combat destiny chosen, Kingsroad’s decently impressive character creator lets you use a mixture of face-contorting sliders and colour-pickers to specialise your plucky hero. It doesn’t have the depth of something like Dragon’s Dogma 2 (although that’s an admittedly high bar), but I am glad I was able to bestow my characters with an identity that felt personal to me – which is to say moody, and tastefully adorned with smudgy eyeliner and edgy facial scars. You'll explore an impressively recreated map of Westeros.“Kingsroad wastes no time teaching you the basics of its combat and platforming with a tight but comprehensive tutorial, which takes you beyond the wall and back again. That’s where you’ll meet the first of many familiar faces for any fans of the show, as Jon Snow and Samwell Tarley do a decent job of filling in the narrative gaps for those in need of a season four recap. While the digital renditions of these well-known characters aren’t the most flattering, their conversations felt thoughtfully written and helped to establish my lowborn place within the setting. Soon enough, though, Kingsroad lets go of your hand and allows you to roam free across the countryside, providing a choice of campaign quests and side missions to follow, as well as plenty of points of interest to chase on your map. The open world of Kingsroad gave me the freedom to explore this (mostly) faithfully reimagined Westeros, and I enjoyed riding across snowy plateaus and uncovering the secrets of curious stone architecture nestled on the horizon. But the initial exhilaration of high fantasy galavanting wore off quickly as the edges of developer Netmarble’s fantasy panopticon started to show. For every delicate snowflake at Castle Black or butterfly dancing in Winterfell, there were plenty more low-poly fruit trees, bouncy grass patches, and possessed weapons to pick at the sheen. I admire the sheer scale of the open world Kingsroad is offering, but it’s lacking the visual consistency to make it realistic and immersive. As I soon noticed those cracks in the facade, Kingsroad started to feel like a game full of pulled punches, despite how promising it seemed at a distance.This lack of polish extends to your movement on both foot and horseback – ice skating would be the most fitting comparison. When exploring the frosty reaches of the North, this sensation is strangely fitting. However, it became wholly frustrating when it persisted while charting the sunny coastal areas near Highgarden, especially when attempting to complete the occasional platforming puzzles dotted around the icon-covered map. Typically, I was only one slip away from falling down an unscalable hillside, or worse, into a camp of fierce opponents with no way out. Up close, the animations also err on the eerie side in cutscenes. My character would often deliver a wide-eyed death stare, and I couldn't take them seriously as they’d burn holes in the townsfolk’s skulls as they explained their heart wrenching tragedies.Memorable characters surface as uncanny valley clones of themselves.“Speaking of the citizens of Westeros, their heads and eyes wobble around like strange marionettes during conversations, which dampens the atmosphere considerably. It’s a shame, because their dialogue does a great job of affirming the grim, corrupt cloud that hangs over the continent as winter approaches. I felt particularly bad laughing when an old lady thanked me for saving her daughter from being eaten by Ramsay Bolton’s dogs. Unfortunately, the most egregious offenders are often Kingsroad’s recreations of characters from the show. Memorable players, like Nymeria Sand and Varys, surface as uncanny valley clones of their likenesses. I’ll be seeing yassifed Cersei in my nightmares for many moons to come…Beyond exploration, the bulk of your time in Kingsroad is split between investing in complex resource management systems at your homestead and completing multi-stage quests and battles out in the world. As such, you can find a plethora of challenges that boost both of these areas, like dungeon crawls, bandit camps, occupied villages, and giant mythical beasts, all of which reward you handsomely for spilling blood by the gallon. How efficiently you blend your time between these two aspects is integral to maintaining a solid pace within the grind-heavy progression system – alas, a lack of technical balance makes succeeding in this endeavour profoundly painful.Game of Thrones: Kingsroad Gameplay ScreenshotsThe trouble begins with the combat, which is a total mixed bag. While your actions feel pleasantly grounded, and rugged blows always arrive with flashy particle-heavy animations, the process begins to feel overfamiliar fast. Despite the solid variety of moves available – light, heavy, and special attacks, as well as decent dodge and parry options – inaccurate hit boxes consistently hampered my attempts at strategy. Occasionally, I would need to use my head a little and skulk around an area to remove edge threats, though those tactical moments arrived few and far between. It says something unflattering that Kingsroad feels almost identical at 60 hours as it did at 20. You can specialise and upgrade your moveset in combat with traits and skill trees, too, but they do little to impact how the combat feels in motion. Kingsroad gives the impression of having useful Traits by putting options like learning to parry and crafting arrows up at the top of the trees, but as you work your way down, many of the lower options offer small percentage-based improvements to defense and attack that barely make a dent. So as your sparkly slashes lose their lustre, you’re often left cycling through the same few enemies and combos until the battle is won. It seems as though the architecture of a solid combat system is there, but much like the rest of Kingsroad, it’s all facade with no foundation. What hampers the fun most are the frequent and appropriately-named Momentum roadblocks.“Still, what hampers the fun of Kingsroad most of all are the frequently appearing and appropriately-named Momentum roadblocks. Similar to Destiny’s Gear Score, Kingsroad tallies up the quality of all your equipment, accessories, and skills into one neat number called your Momentum Score. These pesky little digits are the cruel gatekeepers of story content, forcing you to scour the map for dull side objectives that can juice the numbers and shuffle you towards the next episode. While I’m more than happy to invest in grind-heavy games like World of Warcraft Classic and no stranger to mobile-minded progress gating, the Momentum system in Kingsroad is a particularly brutish arbiter that doesn’t allow you to get crafty or punch above your weight by taking on more challenging enemies. Instead, imposing forces appear with a skull icon over their head, their damage and health ratings untouchably high. But as soon as you inch over the Momentum line, the fight shifts dramatically in your favour. This black and white process neutralises any sense of gamesmanship, and frequently forced me into hours of toil to get back to the story I was, for the most part, enjoying. Sarah's favourite fantasy jauntsSee AllWhen you’re ready to take some time out from the combat, you can invest more in the slower-paced aspects of Kingsroad, namely the tedious Estate Management side game. As the last remaining heir to Lord Tyre, his homestead, Renan’s Rest, becomes your project. As is to be expected, helping this dilapidated village flourish rewards you with the tools necessary to beef up your arsenal, and gives you a place to spend all those resources you’ve been hoarding by completing missions – though the process of cleaning up this town is about as much fun as cleaning your actual room.While the jeweller and the forge are convenient additions that allow you to craft wearable items, the most valuable activity is embarking on gacha-based Artefact Expeditions. You’ll spend resources to hire workers and send them into the wild to find more resources, as well as historical items called Relics you can then leverage to further bolster your Momentum. Similar to other gacha game systems, you’re guaranteed a high-quality item after a set amount of runs, but a standard expedition takes eight actual hours to complete, which is a frustrating turnaround when not every run guarantees a good haul. That is, unless you’re willing to pay real money to speed things up. The Story Continues - Live Service UpdatesPlayWhile it took me roughly 60 hours to complete the story missions that were available at Game of Thrones: Kingsroad’s 1.0 launch (in part thanks to the benefit of the Ultimate Founder’s Pack code we were provided for this review), once you finish up, it doesn’t really “end” and you can seek out the plethora of side quests and repeatable combat challenges across the map. While there isn’t an official roadmap for what’s on the horizon, Netmarble announced during its 1.0 release Dev Note that the team will continue to add content and make technical improvements as time goes on. Alongside the Battle Pass, there are also timed Events that offer additional goalposts and ask you to complete a series of challenges to earn further rewards. Continued support is always good, and here’s hoping things like the floaty movement and inconsistent animations might eventually get the polish they need, but I’m skeptical that much can be done to fix Kingsroad’s biggest issues without a complete rework of its economy and progression. For example, the new quests that were already added post-launch should’ve been enticing, but instead they pushed the finish line absurdly far out of sight – by my rough estimate, I would need to play more than twice what I already have just to reach the Momentum Score required to take them on (without spending any money), and that’s despite the fact that this new content seems to follow the exact same loop of mission types already used across the rest of the campaign. Thanks, but I’m good.That brings us to the elephant in the room. Almost every activity in Kingsroad can be expedited with the use of cold hard cash, which translates to Iron Bank Marks in-game. Of course, you can pay to complete an aforementioned expedition early, or buy higher-rarity expedition wagons by the dozen that don’t take time to complete. Stuck behind a Momentum block? Just purchase Gold to speedrun your jewellery maker’s upgrades and smelt higher-rated necklaces and rings to jolt your score. Typically, you can only fast travel by making your way to a special signpost first, and there’s a copper fee for each warp – but you can fast travel from anywhere for free if you pay for the premium option. Behind nearly every aggravating system in Kingsroad is a far more user-friendly one, but only if you’re willing to cough up the dough. It seems intent to toe the line between being intentionally frustrating and passably functional, subtly egging you on to pay up rather than sit through the repetitive, time-consuming activities necessary to proceed. While it’s to be expected that there will be premium aspects in a free-to-play game available on mobile devices (in addition to Steam), the overwhelming flood of paid subscriptions, resource packs, and confounding currencies feels like a heartbreaking affront to Game of Thrones fans, like myself, who have been begging for a fully-fledged Westeros RPG similar to this. Across the 60 hours I’ve played so far, I’ve felt guilty for slashing down innocent defectors and filled with joy for feeding the starving smallfolk. It's clear Netmarble wants you to feel like you’re making a difference in this world, but it’s also just as keen to remind you that you can make a difference quicker if you’re willing to enter your credit card details first. It’s sad to see so much effort put into the underlying concept of a Game of Thrones adventure like this only for it to be tarnished by microtransactions and the repetitive gameplay loops that enable them.

What worked in The Witcher 3 and what didn't: looking back on a landmark RPG with CD Projekt Red "We learned a lot of lessons down the road." Image credit: CD Projekt Red Feature by Robert Purchese Associate Editor Published on May 31, 2025 Do you remember what you were doing when The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was released? It came out on 19th May 2015. I remember because I was inside CD Projekt Red at the time, trying to capture the moment for you - a moment I'm unlikely to replicate there or anywhere else. I recall sitting in the studio's canteen in the small hours of the morning, after a midnight launch event in a mall in Warsaw, chewing on a piece of cold pizza and wondering out loud what would come next for the studio, because at the time, who could know? One era was ending and another was about to begin. Would it bring the fame and fortune CD Projekt Red desired? Today, more than 60 million sales of The Witcher 3 later, we know the answer is yes. The Witcher 3 became a role-playing classic. It delivered one of the most touchable medieval worlds we've explored, a rough place of craggy rocks and craggier faces, of wonky morales and grim realities, of mud and dirtiness. And monsters, though not all were monstrous to look at. It was a world of grey, of superstition and folklore, and in it stood we, a legendary monster hunter, facing seemingly impossible odds. The Witcher 3 took fantasy seriously. But the decade since the game's release has been turbulent for CD Projekt Red. The studio launched its big new sci-fi series in 2020 with Cyberpunk 2077, and though the game has now sold more than 30 million copies, making it monetarily a success, it had a nightmarish launch. The PS4 version had to be removed from sale. It brought enormous pressure, growing pains and intense scrutiny to the studio, and CD Projekt Red would spend a further three years patching and updating - and eventually releasing an expansion - before public opinion would mostly turn around. Today the studio returns to safer ground, back to The Witcher world with the new game The Witcher 4, and as we look forward to it we should also look back, to the game that catapulted the studio to fame, and see what has been learnt. The Witcher 3 is at version 4.04 today, a number that represents an enormously long period of post-release support.Watch on YouTube It all began with naivety, as perhaps any ambitious project should. It's easy to forget that 14 years ago, when The Witcher 3 was being conceived, CD Projekt Red had never made an open-world game before. The Witcher 1 and The Witcher 2 were linear in their approaches. It's also easy to forget that the people making the game were 14 years younger and less experienced. Back then, this was the studio's chance at recognition, so it aimed high in order to be seen. "The Witcher 3 was supposed to be this game that will end all other games," Marcin Blacha, the lead writer of the game, tells me. Simply make an open-world game that's also a story-driven game and release it on all platforms at the same time. How hard could it be? "When I'm thinking about our state of mind back in those days, the only word that comes to my mind is enthusiastic," Blacha says. "It was fantastic because we were so enthusiastic that we were full of courage. We were trying to experiment with stuff and we were not afraid. We were convinced that when we work with passion and love, it will pay off eventually." Every project has to begin somewhere and for Blacha, the person tasked with imagining the story, The Witcher 3 could only begin with Ciri, the daughter-of-sorts to The Witcher's central monster hunter character Geralt. As Blacha says, "The most important thing about Geralt and the most important thing about the books is the relationship between Geralt, Ciri and Yennefer. I already did two games with no sign of Ciri, no sign of Yennefer, and then we finally had a budget and proper time for pre-production, so for me, it was time to introduce both characters." It's a decision that would have major repercussions for the rest of The Witcher series at CD Projekt Red. Blacha didn't know it then, but Ciri would go on to become the protagonist of The Witcher 4. Had she not been the co-protagonist of The Witcher 3 - for you play as her in several sections during the game - who knows if things would have worked out the same way. It's an understandable progression as it is, though there is still some uncertainty among the audience about Ciri's starring role. But Ciri's inclusion came with complications, because the Ciri we see in the game is not the Ciri described in the books. That Ciri is much closer to the Ciri in the Netflix Witcher TV show, younger and more rebellious in a typical teenager way. She might be an important part of the fiction, then, but that doesn't mean she was especially well liked. "People were thinking that she's annoying," says Blacha, who grew up reading The Witcher books. CD Projekt Red, then, decided to make a Ciri of its own, aging her and making her more "flesh and bone", as Blacha puts it. He fondly recalls a moment in the game's development when reviewing the Ciri sections of the game, and saying aloud to studio director Adam Badowski how much he liked her. "I didn't know that she's going to be the protagonist of the next game," he says, "but I said to Adam Badowski, she's going to be very popular." Once Ciri had been earmarked for inclusion in The Witcher 3, the idea to have her pursued by the phantom-like force of the Wild Hunt - the members of which literally ride horses in the night sky, like Santa Claus' cursed reindeer - came shortly after. CD Projekt Red had introduced the Wild Hunt in The Witcher 2 so it made sense. The outline of the main story was then laid down as a one-page narrative treatment. Then it was expanded to a two-page treatment, a four page treatment, an eight page treatment and so on. At around 10 pages, it already had the White Orchard prologue, almost the entirety of the No Man's Land zone, and a hint of what would happen on Skellige and in Novigrad. When it was around 40 pages long, the quest design team was invited in. CD Projekt Red made their Ciri older than she is in the books. | Image credit: CD Projekt Red The quest design team's job is to turn a story into a game, and this was a newly created department for The Witcher 3, created because the old way of writers designing the quests wasn't working any more. "We were struggling a bit with making sure that every written story that we have prepared is also a story that we can play well," Paweł Sasko says. He joined CD Projekt Red to be a part of that quest design team. The quest design team carves up a narrative treatment, paragraph by paragraph, and expands those into playable questlines for the game. "It's basically something between game design and a movie scenario," Sasko says. There's no dialogue, just a description of what will happen, and even a one-paragraph prompt can balloon into a 20-30 page design. Among the paragraphs Sasko was given to adapt was a storyline in No Man's Land concerning a character known as the Bloody Baron. The Bloody Baron storyline is widely acclaimed and has become synonymous with everything Sasko and CD Projekt Red were trying to do with the game. It's a storyline that probes into mature themes like domestic abuse, fatherhood, and love and loss and grief. More importantly, it presents us with a flawed character and allows us time and space to perhaps change our opinion of them. It gives us layers many other games don't go anywhere near. When Sasko first encountered the storyline, there was only an outline. "It said that Geralt meets the Bloody Baron who asks Geralt to hunt a monster and look for his wife and daughter, and for that, he is going to share information about Ciri and tell Geralt where she went. That was pretty much it." And Sasko already knew a few things about what he wanted to do. He knew he wanted to show No Man's Land as a Slavic region bathed in superstitions and complex religious beliefs, one that had been ravaged by famine and war. He also knew the tone of the area was horror because this had been outlined by Blacha and the leaders of The Witcher 3 team. Says Blacha: "My opinion is that a successful Witcher game is a mix of everything, so you have a horror line, you have a romance, you have adventure, you have exploration. When we started to think about our hubs, we thought about them in terms of a show, so No Man's Land, the hub with the Bloody Baron, was horror; Skellige was supposed to be an adventure; and Novigrad was supposed to be a big city investigation." But there were key missing pieces then from the Bloody Baron sequence we know today. The botchling, for instance - the monstrous baby the quest revolves around. It didn't exist. It was an idea that came from Sasko after he read a Slavic bestiary. "Yes," he says, "the botchling idea came from me." The Bloody Baron. | Image credit: Eurogamer / CD Projekt Red He wanted the botchling to be the conduit through which more mature themes of the story could be approached - something overt to keep you busy while deeper themes sunk in. It's an approach Sasko says he pinched from Witcher author Andrzej Sapkowski, after deconstructing his work. "What he's doing is he's trying to find universal truths about human beings and struggles, but he doesn't tell those stories directly," Sasko says. "So for instance racism: he doesn't talk about that directly but he finds an interesting way how, in his world, he can package that and talk about it. I followed his method and mimicked it." This way the botchling becomes your focus in the quest, as the Baron carries it back to the manor house and you defend him from wraiths, but while you're doing that, you're also talking and learning more about who the Bloody Baron - who Phillip Strenger - is. "I wanted you to feel almost like you're in the shoes of that Bloody Baron," Sasko says. "Peregrination is this path in Christianity you go through when you want to remove your sins, and that's what this is meant to be. He's just trying to do it, and he's going through all of those things to do something good. And I wanted the player to start feeling like, 'Wow, maybe this dude is not so bad.'" It's a quest that leaves a big impression. An email was forwarded to Sasko after the game's release, written by a player who had lost their wife and child as the Baron once had. "And for him," he says, "that moment when Baron was carrying the child was almost like a catharsis, when he was trying so badly to walk that path. And the moment he managed to: he wrote in his letter that he broke down in tears." There's one other very significant moment in The Witcher 3 that Sasko had a large hand in, and it's the Battle of Kaer Morhern, where the 'goodies' - the witchers and the sorceresses, and Ciri - make a stand against the titular menace of the Wild Hunt. Sasko designed this section specifically to emotionally tenderise you, through a series of fast-paced and fraught battles, so that by the time the climactic moment came, you were aptly primed to receive it. The moment being Vesemir's death - the leader of the wolf school of witchers and father figure to Geralt. This, too, was Sasko's idea. "We needed to transition Ciri from being a hunted animal to becoming a hunter," he tells me, and the only event big enough and with enough inherent propulsion was Vesemir's death. Eredin, the leader of the Wild Hunt, breaks Vesemir's neck. | Image credit: Eurogamer / CD Projekt Red But for all of the successful moments in the game there are those that didn't work. To the team that made the game, and to the players, there are things that clearly stand out. Such as Geralt's witcher senses, which allow him to see scent trails and footsteps and clues in the world around him. Geralt's detective mode, in other words. Sasko laughs as he cringes about it now. "We've overdone the witcher senses so much, oh my god," he says. "At the time when we were starting this, we were like, 'We don't have it in the game; we have to use it to make you feel like a witcher.' But then at the end, especially in the expansions, we tried to decrease it so it doesn't feel so overloaded." He'd even turn it down by a further 10 to 20 per cent, he says. There were all of the question marks dotted across the map, luring us to places to find meagre hidden treasure rewards. "I think we all scratch our heads about what we were thinking when trying to build this," Sasko tells me. "I guess it just came from fear - from fear that the player will feel that the world is empty." This was the first time CD Projekt Red had really the player's hand go, remember, and not controlled where in the world you would be. Shallow gameplay is a criticism many people have, especially in the game's repetitive combat, and again, this is something Sasko and the team are well aware of. "We don't feel that the gameplay in Witcher 3 was deep enough," he says. "It was for the times okay, but nowadays when you play it, even though the story still holds really well, you can see that the gameplay is a bit rusty." Also, the cutscenes could have been paced better and had less exposition in them, and the game in general could have dumped fewer concepts on you at once. Cognitive overload, Sasko calls it. "In every second sentence you have a new concept introduced, a new country mentioned, a new politician..." It was too much. More broadly, he would also have liked the open-world to be more closely connected to the game's story, rather than be, mostly, a pretty backdrop. "It's like in the theatre when you have beautiful decorations at the back made of cardboard and paper, and not much happens to them except an actor pulls a rope and it starts to rain or something." he says. It's to do with how the main story influences the world and vice versa, and he thinks the studio can be better at it. Ciri and Geralt look at a coin purse in The Witcher 3. This is, coincidentally, the same tavern you begin the game in, with Vesemir, and the same tavern you meet Master Mirror in. | Image credit: Eurogamer / CD Projekt Red One conversation that surprises me, when looking back on The Witcher 3, is a conversation about popularity, because it's easy to forget now - with the intense scrutiny the studio seems always to be under - that when development began, not many people knew about CD Projekt Red. The combined sales of both Witcher games in 2013 were only 5 million. Poland knew about it - the Witcher fiction originated there and CD Projekt Red is Polish - and Germany knew about it, and some of the rest of Europe knew about it. But in North America, it was relatively unknown. That's a large part of the reason why the Xbox 360 version of The Witcher 2 was made at all, to begin knocking on that door. And The Witcher 3, CD Projekt Red hoped, would kick that door open. "We knew that we wanted to play in the major league," says Michał Platkow-Gilewski, vice president of communications and PR, stealing a quote from Cyberpunk character Jackie. That's why The Witcher 3 was revealed via a Game Informer cover story in early 2013, because that was deemed the way to do things there - the way to win US hearts, Platkow-Gilewski tells me. And it didn't take long for interest to swell. When Platkow-Gilewski joined CD Projekt Red to help launch the Xbox 360 version of The Witcher 2 in 2012, he was handing out flyers at Gamescom with company co-founder Michał Kicinski, just to fill presentations for the game. By the time The Witcher 3 was being shown at Gamescom, a few years later, queues were three to four hours long. People would wait all day to play. "We had to learn how to deal with popularity during the campaign," Platkow-Gilewski says. Those game shows were crucial for spreading the word about The Witcher 3 and seeing first-hand the impact the game was having on players and press. "Nothing can beat a good show where you meet with people who are there to see their favourite games just slightly before the rest of the world," he says. "They're investing their time, money, effort, and you feel this support, sometimes love, to the IP you're working on, and it boosts energy the way which you can't compare with anything else. These human to human interactions are unique." He says the studio's leader Adam Badowski would refer to these showings as fuel that would propel development for the next year or so, which is why CD Projekt Red always tried to gather as many developers as possible for them, to feel the energy. It was precisely these in-person events that Platkow-Gilewski says CD Projekt Red lacked in the lead up to Cyberpunk's launch, after Covid shut the world down. The company did what it could by pivoting to online events instead - the world-first playtest of Cyberpunk was done online via stream-play software called Parsec; I was a part of it - and talked to fans through trailers, but it was much harder to gauge feedback this way. "It's easy to just go with the flow and way harder to manage expectations," Platkow-Gilewski says, so expectations spiralled. "For me the biggest lesson learned is to always check reality versus expectations, and with Cyberpunk, it was really hard to control and we didn't know how to do it." It makes me wonder what the studio will do now with The Witcher 4, because the game show sector of the industry still hasn't bounced back, and I doubt - having seen the effect Covid has had on shows from the inside of an events company - whether it ever will. "Gamescom is growing," Platkow-Gilewski says somewhat optimistically. "Gamescom is back on track." But I don't know if it really is. Michał Platkow-Gilewski cites this moment as one of his favourite from the Witcher 3 journey. The crew were at the game show PAX in front of a huge live audience and the dialogue audio wouldn't play. Thankfully, they had Doug Cockle, the English language voice actor of Geralt, with them on the panel, so he live improvised the lines. Watch on YouTube Something else I'm surprised to hear from him is mention of The Witcher 3's rocky launch, because 10 years later - and in comparison to Cyberpunk's - that's not how I remember it. But Platkow-Gilewski remembers it differently. "When we released Witcher 3, the reception was not great," he says. "Reviews were amazing but there was, at least in my memories, no common consensus that this is a huge game which will maybe define some, to some extent, the genre." I do remember the strain on some faces around the studio at launch, though. I also remember a tense conversation about the perceived graphics downgrade in the game, where people unfavourably compared footage of Witcher 3 at launch, with footage from a marketing gameplay trailer released years before it. There were also a number of bugs in the game's code and its performance was unoptimised. "We knew things were far from being perfect," Platkow-Gilewski says. But the studio worked hard in the years after launch to patch and update the game - The Witcher 3 is now on version 4.04, which is extraordinary for a single-player game - and they released showcase expansions for it. Some of Marcin Blacha's favourite work is in those expansions, he tells me, especially the horror storylines of Hearts of Stone, many of which he wrote. That expansion's villain, Master Mirror, is also widely regarded as one of the best in the game, disguised as he is as a plain-looking and unassuming person who happens to have incredible and undefinable power. It's not until deep into the expansion you begin to uncover his devilish identity, and it's this subtle way of presenting a villain, and never over explaining his threat, that makes Master Mirror so memorable. He's gathered such a following that some people have concocted elaborate theories about him. Lead character artist Pawel Mielniczuk tells me about one theory whereby someone discovered you can see Master Mirror's face on many other background characters in the game, which you can, and that they believed it was a deliberate tactic used by CD Projekt Red to underline Master Mirror's devilish power. Remember, there was a neat trick with Master Mirror in that you had already met him at the beginning of The Witcher 3 base game, long before the expansion was ever developed, in a tavern in White Orchard. If CD Projekt Red could foreshadow him as far back as that, the theory went, then it could easily put his face on other characters in the game to achieve a similar 'did you see it?' effect. The real villain in the Hearts of Stone expansion, Gaunter O'Dimm. Better known to many as Master Mirror. There's a reason why he has such a plain-looking face... | Image credit: CD Projekt Red The truth is far more mundane. Other characters in the game do have Master Mirror's face, but only because his face is duplicated across the game in order to fill it out. CD Projekt Red didn't know when it made the original Witcher 3 game that this villager would turn into anyone special. There was a tentative plan but it was very tentative, so this villager got a very villager face. "We just got a request for a tertiary unimportant character," says Mileniczuk. "We had like 30-40 faces for the entire game so we just slapped a random face on him." He laughs. And by the time Hearts of Stone development came around, the face - the identity - had stuck. Expansions were an important part of cementing public opinion around The Witcher 3, then, as they were for cementing public opinion around Cyberpunk. They've become something of a golden bullet for the studio, a way to creatively unleash an already trained team and leave a much more positive memory in our heads. Exactly what went wrong with Cyberpunk and how CD Projekt Red set about correcting it is a whole other story Chris Tapsell told recently on the site, so I don't want to delve into specifics here. Suffice to say it was a hard time for the studio and many hard lessons had to be learned. "The pressure was huge," Platkow-Gilewski says, "because from underdogs we went to a company which will, for sure, deliver the best experience in the world." But while much of the rhetoric around Cyberpunk concerns the launch, there's a lot about the game itself that highlights how much progress the studio made, in terms of making open-world role-playing games. One of my favourite examples is how characters in Cyberpunk walk and talk rather than speak to you while rooted to the spot. It might seem like a small thing but it has a transformative and freeing effect on conversations, allowing the game to walk you places while you talk, and stage dialogue in a variety of cool ways. There's a lot to admire about the density of detail in the world, too, and in the greater variety of body shapes and diversity. Plus let's not forget, this is an actual open world rather than a segmented one as The Witcher 3 was. In many ways, the game was a huge step forward for the studio. Cyberpunk wasn't the only very notable thing to happen to the Witcher studio in those 10 years, either. During that time, The Witcher brand changed. Netflix piggybacked the game's popularity and developed a TV series starring Henry Cavill, and with it propelled The Witcher to the wider world. Curiously, CD Projekt Red wasn't invited to help, which was odd given executive producer Tomek Baginski was well known to CD Projekt Red, having directed the intro cinematics for all three Witcher video games. But beyond minor pieces of crossover content, no meaningful collaboration ever occurred. "We had no part in the shows," Pawel Mileniczuk says. "But it's Hollywood: different words. I know how hard it was for Tomek to get in there, to convince them to do the show, and then how limited influence is when the production house sits on something. It's many people, many decision makers, high stakes, big money. Nobody there was thinking about, Hey, let's talk to those dudes from Poland making games. It's a missed opportunity to me but what can I say?" The debut trailer for The Witcher 4.Watch on YouTube Nevertheless, the Netflix show had a surprisingly positive effect on the studio, with sales of The Witcher 3 spiking in 2019 and 2020 when the first season aired. "It was a really amazing year for us sales wise," Platkow-Gilewski says. This not only means more revenue for the studio but also wider understanding; more people are more familiar with The Witcher world now than ever before, which bodes very well for The Witcher 4. Not that it influenced or affected the studio's plans to return to that world, by the way. "We knew already that we wanted to come back to The Witcher," Platkow-Gilewski says. "Some knew that they wanted to tell a Ciri story while we were still working on Witcher 3." But, again, with popularity also comes pressure. "We'll have hopefully millions of people already hooked in from the get-go but with some expectations and visions and dreams which we have to, or may not be able to, fulfil," Platkow-Gilewski adds. You can already sense this pressure in comments threads about the new game. Many people already have their ideas about what a new Witcher game should be. The Witcher 4 might seem like a return to safer ground, then, but the relationship with the audience has changed in the intervening 10 years. "I think people are again with us," Platkow-Gilewski says. "There are some who are way more careful than they used to be; I don't see the hype train. We also learned how to talk about our game, what to show, when to show. But I think people believe again. Not everyone, and maybe it's slightly harder to talk with the whole internet. It's impossible now. It's way more polarised than it used to be. But I believe that we'll have something special for those who love The Witcher." Here we are a decade later, then, looking forward to another Witcher game by CD Projekt Red. But many things have changed. The studio has grown and shuffled people around and the roles of the people I speak to have changed. Marcin Blacha and Pawel Mielniczuk aren't working on The Witcher 4, but on new IP Project Hadar, in addition to their managerial responsibilities, and Pawel Sasko is full-time on Cyberpunk 2. It's only really Michał Platkow-Gilewski who'll do a similar job for The Witcher 4 as on The Witcher 3, although this time with dozens more people to help. But they will all still consult and they're confident in the abilities of The Witcher 4 team. "They really know what they're doing," says Sasko, "they are a very seasoned team." "We learned a lot of lessons down the road," Platkow-Gilewski says, in closing. "I started this interview saying that we had this bliss of ignorance; now we know more, but hopefully we can still be brave. Before, we were launching a rocket and figuring out how to land on the moon. Now, we know the dangers but we are way more experienced, so we'll find a way to navigate through these uncharted territories. We have a map already so hopefully it won't be such a hard trip."

Xando Member Oct 28, 2017 37,943 In an interview with GamesMarkt, Omega Forcedirector and producer Tomohiko Sho – who produced this year's Dynasty Warriors: Origins – was asked how successful the series is in the West, given that most of the Steam user reviews for the game are written in Chinese. Sho replied that, in his view, Dynasty Warriors is not yet a successful series in the West, but that it's possible for this to change in the future. "I believe that the 'Dynasty Warriors' series is not yet in a position to be called a success in the West," Sho said. "On the contrary, I believe that there is a great potential for the series to gain many fans in the future. "With our latest title, Dynasty Warriors: Origins, we were able to attract new fans in addition to those we have had since the PlayStation 2 era. The Western market is very important, and I believe that if there is a next title, we will gain even more new fans." Click to expand... Click to shrink... Dynasty Warriors producer says the series still can’t be called a success in the West | VGC The latest game, Dynasty Warriors: Origins, has sold more than 1 million copies worldwide… www.videogameschronicle.com Origins was the first game in the series i played and i absolutely loved it so i hope it can continue to grow in the west.  --R Being sued right now, please help me find a lawyer Member Oct 25, 2017 15,658 Origins is a must play for everyone that likes action games. A masterpiece from beginning to end.   PlanetSmasher The Abominable Showman Member Oct 25, 2017 133,345 I think he's being modest more than anything else. This is less "the series is a failure" and more "I think we can do even better".   Glio Member Oct 27, 2017 27,882 Spain I honestly think what limits the franchise most in the West today is the setting of Three Kingdoms, not the gameplay. It's a fascinating historical period, but I don't think it'll be very popular here.  Dekuman Member Oct 27, 2017 21,144 Glio said: I honestly think what limits the franchise most in the West today is the setting of Three Kingdoms, not the gameplay. It's a fascinating historical period, but I don't think it'll be very popular here. Click to expand... Click to shrink... it's why spin offs of the formula like Hyrule Warriors do considerably better.   Richietto One Winged Slayer Member Oct 25, 2017 26,133 North Carolina Glio said: I honestly think what limits the franchise most in the West today is the setting of Three Kingdoms, not the gameplay. It's a fascinating historical period, but I don't think it'll be very popular here. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Unfortunately this. Obviously it did really well on Steam and what not but there's a reason Hyrule Warrios can do so damn well on a single platform. It's the setting.   fiendcode Member Oct 26, 2017 26,412 We saw this from the CCUs tbh, overwhelmingly tilted towards Asia.   LAA One Winged Slayer Member Oct 28, 2017 3,264 Origins I haven't tried, more tempted seeing impressions here, but I read Steph Sterling's review on it and they weren't happy with realism essentially removing personality from it. I think the other thing that puts me off is they just seem very heavy handed with DLC too, and seemingly for pretty basic things, I want as complete of a game as possible. Really I'm kinda surprised they haven't done more collabs with more IPs. I think Hyrule Warriors was really the first I truly played and loved. Other collabs since I've enjoyed too like P5 Strikers. Berserker was fine. AOT I enjoyed too and that's actually very different from the others. I'd love a KH Musou eventually.. so many characters and abilities they could use, and enemies are pretty simplistically designed, and there's already been moments where you had to kill 1000+ Heartless, seems a perfect fit, ha.  PlanetSmasher The Abominable Showman Member Oct 25, 2017 133,345 Dekuman said: it's why spin offs of the formula like Hyrule Warriors do considerably better. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Do they really do that much better?  OP OP Xando Member Oct 28, 2017 37,943 Glio said: I honestly think what limits the franchise most in the West today is the setting of Three Kingdoms, not the gameplay. It's a fascinating historical period, but I don't think it'll be very popular here. Click to expand... Click to shrink... You're probably right but for me the three kingdoms setting made it even more interesting. Don't think a medieval europe or a more western fantasy approach would catch me in the same way.  Disco Stu Member Oct 27, 2017 2,557 Glio said: I honestly think what limits the franchise most in the West today is the setting of Three Kingdoms, not the gameplay. It's a fascinating historical period, but I don't think it'll be very popular here. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Totally agree and this is coming from someone seeks out other Three Kingdoms content because of KOEI. Someone the other day mentioned using the engine for an Avengers or Superman style game. I could see that catching on if done right.  Glio Member Oct 27, 2017 27,882 Spain PlanetSmasher said: Do they really do that much better? Click to expand... Click to shrink... Not all of them, but some, yes. Age of Calamity is the best selling musou at 4M.  Rosebud Two Pieces Member Apr 16, 2018 51,357 I want Origins but still too pricey unfortunately. I love Samurai Warriors, Pirate Warriors, Persona 5 Strikers...   TheAggroCraig This guy are sick of the One Winged Slayer Member Nov 6, 2017 7,354 I'll show up for the franchise again when they bring back Dynasty Warriors Gundam   Dekuman Member Oct 27, 2017 21,144 PlanetSmasher said: Do they really do that much better? Click to expand... Click to shrink... Here's what i can find from the Nintendo million seller list Hyrule Warriors - Age of Calamity 4+ million units as of March 2021  MetalKhaos Member Oct 31, 2017 2,228 PlanetSmasher said: I think he's being modest more than anything else. This is less "the series is a failure" and more "I think we can do even better". Click to expand... Click to shrink... That's my take. Origins was first DW game I enjoyed in a really long time. Solid entry, and I feel a game like this is made all the better with this current gen due to how incredibly fast the loading times are.  SlasherMcGirk Member Oct 27, 2017 4,429 Cincinnati Glio said: I honestly think what limits the franchise most in the West today is the setting of Three Kingdoms, not the gameplay. It's a fascinating historical period, but I don't think it'll be very popular here. Click to expand... Click to shrink... It's not even that I think its the fact that they have done the same setting and characters 20 times over. It's an interesting period and story with great characters but you can only add and stretch the same story so many times without diminishing returns.   PlanetSmasher The Abominable Showman Member Oct 25, 2017 133,345 SlasherMcGirk said: It's not even that I think its the fact that they have done the same setting and characters 20 times over. It's an interesting period and story with great characters but you can only add and stretch the same story so many times without diminishing returns. Click to expand... Click to shrink... I think the other problem is there aren't that many periods of time across history that can support this kind of game structure with such a heavy emphasis on specific heroes. Like, they tried Troy once and it didn't really catch on, nor did Bladestorm. For better and for worse, the Three Kingdoms and Sengoku eras are kind of the time periods that have A) a level of ubiquity in Asia that makes East Asian players interested in them and B) an emphasis on character substantial enough to support the Musou gameplay format. By comparison, I don't think a Musou game based on (for example) the American Revolution would sell particularly well outside of the US, and that war was A) not that long and B) took place in an era where firearms had largely supplanted melee combat so the movesets would wind up feeling very samey.  Ltn_Esteves Member Feb 4, 2021 213 Dekuman said: Here's what i can find from the Nintendo million seller list Hyrule Warriors - Age of Calamity 4+ million units as of March 2021 Click to expand... Click to shrink... And I think that is without japan sales, since Nintendo is only the publisher in the west   Astral Member Oct 27, 2017 33,463 TheAggroCraig said: I'll show up for the franchise again when they bring back Dynasty Warriors Gundam Click to expand... Click to shrink... Man I would love this. Did they stop for licensing reasons or something? Origins was amazing and I can't wait for what's next.  PlanetSmasher The Abominable Showman Member Oct 25, 2017 133,345 Astral said: Man I would love this. Did they stop for licensing reasons or something? Origins was amazing and I can't wait for what's next. Click to expand... Click to shrink... They stopped because the third game sold almost no copies. People got sick of the concept after the second game.  Glio Member Oct 27, 2017 27,882 Spain PlanetSmasher said: I think the other problem is there aren't that many periods of time across history that can support this kind of game structure with such a heavy emphasis on specific heroes. Like, they tried Troy once and it didn't really catch on, nor did Bladestorm. For better and for worse, the Three Kingdoms and Sengoku eras are kind of the time periods that have A) a level of ubiquity in Asia that makes East Asian players interested in them and B) an emphasis on character substantial enough to support the Musou gameplay format. By comparison, I don't think a Musou game based on (for example) the American Revolution would sell particularly well outside of the US, and that war was A) not that long and B) took place in an era where firearms had largely supplanted melee combat so the movesets would wind up feeling very samey. Click to expand... Click to shrink... It doesn't really need to be historical. There are One Piece, Zelda, Dragon Quest, Gundam... They could do something sci-fi or fantasy with their own setting and characters if they want. But, hey, if they like three kingdoms, they don't need to change it, but it's going to be very hard to grow in the West.   Dreamboum Member Oct 28, 2017 23,942 How are they gonna find an audience in the west when the game is 80 *euros* on all platforms? Their biggest discount is 64 euros. Come on man  MarvelousIntent Member Aug 13, 2019 3,936 LAA said: Origins I haven't tried, more tempted seeing impressions here, but I read Steph Sterling's review on it and they weren't happy with realism essentially removing personality from it. I think the other thing that puts me off is they just seem very heavy handed with DLC too, and seemingly for pretty basic things, I want as complete of a game as possible. Click to expand... Click to shrink... I'd recommend watching some gameplay to see how you feel about it. I understand Steph's gripes with Origins, but it is legitimately the best game in the series and it isn't even close. Like, the combat is actually good. Enemy officers actually put up a fight. Lu Bu is an actual boss fight and hard as hell to beat. Origins three greatest faults are where it chooses to end, the silent protagonist you can't customize, and that there are only like 9 weapons. The weapons issue also isn't that bad because each weapon has functions different and has plenty of abilities to choose from. It feels fantastic to play and blows every other game out of the water. Also, as far as I'm aware, Origins doesn't really have DLC. It had some pre-order bonuses, but thats it. As it is, the game is complete.  PlanetSmasher The Abominable Showman Member Oct 25, 2017 133,345 Glio said: It doesn't really need to be historical. There are One Piece, Zelda, Dragon Quest, Gundam... They could do something sci-fi or fantasy with their own setting and characters if they want. But, hey, if they like three kingdoms, they don't need to change it, but it's going to be very hard to grow in the West. Click to expand... Click to shrink... I don't think a bunch of anime Musou spinoffs are going to grow the franchise in the West. They've been doing anime spinoffs for 20 years and they just sell to people who are already Musou fans who happen to like that particular anime. It's a concept that only works on fanbase overlap. And I don't think an original setting is going to interest people who aren't already fans either.  General Tso Member Jan 10, 2018 540 Dynasty Warriors Origins was an excellent refresh, and I hope they continue to build off it (like they did DW2 through DW5), because the fundamentals are all there.   DontHateTheBacon Unshakable Resolve Member Oct 27, 2017 14,618 It was my first Dynasty Warriors game and I had a complete blast with it. I'm in if this is what they'll be like going forward. I hope the dust settles well for it in the west.   Dale Copper Member Apr 12, 2018 24,363 Glio said: Not all of them, but some, yes. Age of Calamity is the best selling musou at 4M. Click to expand... Click to shrink... One Piece Pirate Warriors 4 is also at 4 million sales. Spinoffs are more popular if they push them.  thewienke Member Oct 25, 2017 19,345 "If there is a next game" I hope they're being deliberately evasive there considering Origins ends half way through the story Although I do think the story is more interesting before the Three Kingdoms are established since there are more players and more going on  Pyro God help us the mods are making weekend threads Member Jul 30, 2018 18,900 United States Glio said: I honestly think what limits the franchise most in the West today is the setting of Three Kingdoms, not the gameplay. It's a fascinating historical period, but I don't think it'll be very popular here. Click to expand... Click to shrink... This is definitely part of it. I'm more into Samurai Warriors because the setting is more interesting to me.  LiquidDom Avenger Oct 27, 2017 2,729 I bought Origins on day one but have so much else on my plate. I'd like to get to it soon, might be a good palette cleanser after Death Stranding 2   OP OP Xando Member Oct 28, 2017 37,943 Dreamboum said: How are they gonna find an audience in the west when the game is 80 *euros* on all platforms? Their biggest discount is 64 euros. Come on man Click to expand... Click to shrink... I bought a key for like 43€ a few months ago so you can definitely get it cheaper if you're looking for it.   Kyrios Member Oct 27, 2017 19,152 --R said: Origins is a must play for everyone that likes action games. A masterpiece from beginning to end. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Yup, still a frontrunner for my personal GOTY.  OP OP Xando Member Oct 28, 2017 37,943 Only thing i wished they would improve on really would be that the MC has more of a personality   DyCy Member Oct 25, 2017 587 I loved Origins as my first real DW (I played the first Hyrule Warriors) but as interesting as it was for a first timer I do wonder how much I'd want to revisit the Three Kingdoms story over and over again in sequels so I do think the setting is limiting the potential of the franchise. Would love a spin off based on Star Wars, Marvel or Final Fantasy though.  Astral Member Oct 27, 2017 33,463 PlanetSmasher said: They stopped because the third game sold almost no copies. People got sick of the concept after the second game. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Aw damn. I honestly didn't even know there was a third one. I think they have the potential of making a really good one with the current formula.   Glio Member Oct 27, 2017 27,882 Spain PlanetSmasher said: I don't think a bunch of anime Musou spinoffs are going to grow the franchise in the West. They've been doing anime spinoffs for 20 years and they just sell to people who are already Musou fans who happen to like that particular anime. It's a concept that only works on fanbase overlap. And I don't think an original setting is going to interest people who aren't already fans either. Click to expand... Click to shrink... I'm going to be cynical because it's an idea that doesn't appeal to me personally, but I'm pretty sure if they made a dark fantasy setting with fallen knights, ruined kingdoms and cursed battlefields; and marketed it as "the Dark Souls of musou," it would sell. And I feel almost dirty just proposing it.  PlanetSmasher The Abominable Showman Member Oct 25, 2017 133,345 Glio said: I'm going to be cynical because it's an idea that doesn't appeal to me personally, but I'm pretty sure if they made a dark fantasy setting with fallen knights, ruined kingdoms and cursed battlefields; and marketed it as "the Dark Souls of musou," it would sell. And I feel almost dirty just proposing it. Click to expand... Click to shrink... I don't...really think it would work? Like the entire fantasy of Musou is "being an unstoppable killing machine", trying to focus it around super-hardcore grimdark difficulty would kind of defeat the purpose of it being Musou at all. Dark fantasy doesn't just succeed by default, and I don't think audiences would be tricked by that either. The Berserk musou flopped catastrophically badly.  MaxAugust Member Jan 28, 2018 3,573 thewienke said: "If there is a next game" I hope they're being deliberately evasive there considering Origins ends half way through the story Although I do think the story is more interesting before the Three Kingdoms are established since there are more players and more going on Click to expand... Click to shrink... The secret is everyone throughout time has felt that the pre-Three Kingdoms phase of the Three Kingdoms is the interesting part. Pretty much every adaptation stalls out a bit after things solidify. Hard to make the decades long stalemate and then abrupt anticlimactic (although poetic in an "everyone fails" way) denouement satisfying as a conventional narrative.  

A bunch of great games made with Unity dropped in May—across genres, budgets, and styles. Here’s a quick roundup of what shipped that anyone not still lost in Blue Prince should check out.IGF Awards Huge congrats to all the IGF finalists, especially the games made with Unity that dominated the awards this year — including Consume Me, which took home three wins! Fresh off their Audience Award win at the IGF Awards, The WereCleaner team joined us on stream. Check it out:Made with Unity Steam Curator Page Once again we sent out a clarion call for Unity staff to share which of your games they've been playing this past month. Be sure to see them all on our Steam Curator Page here:Working on a game in Unity? We’d love to help you spread the word. Be sure to submit your project.Without further ado, to the best of our abilities, here’s a non-exhaustive list of games made with Unity and launched in May 2025, either into early access or full release. Add to the list by sharing any that you think we missed.ActionShotgun Cop Man, DeadToast Entertainment (May 1)Deliver At All Costs, Studio Far Out Games (May 22)Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo, Pocket Trap (May 28)Bullet HeavenBioprototype, Emprom Game (May 19)Broventure: The Wild Co-op, Alice Games (May 15)Tower of Babel: Survivors of Chaos, NANOO (May 19 – early access)Cards, dice, and deckbuildersMonster Train 2, Shiny Shoe (May 21)Into the Restless Ruins, Ant Workshop Ltd (May 15)Casual, rhythm, and partyAmong Us 3D, Schell Games, Innersloth (May 6)Dunk Dunk, Badgerhammer Limited (May 8)Ithya: Magic Studies, BlueTurtle (May 7)Kulebra and the Souls of Limbo, Galla (May 16)Bugtopia, Nocturnal Games (May 21)Kabuto Park, Doot, Zakku (May 28)City and colony builderPreserve, Bitmap Galaxy (May 15)MEMORIAPOLIS, 5PM Studio (April 30)Darfall, SquareNite (May 8)Worshippers of Cthulhu, Crazy Goat Games (May 22)City Tales - Medieval Era, Irregular Shapes (May 22 – early access)ComedyPick Me Pick Me, Optillusion (May 28 – early access)Experimental or surrealistENA: Dream BBQ, ENA Team (March 27)FPSBloodshed, com8com1 Software (May 22)GRIMWAR, BookWyrm (May 16)Noga, Ilan Manor (May 30)HorrorLiDAR Exploration Program, KenForest (April 2)White Knuckle, KenForest (April 17 – early access)The Boba Teashop, Mike Ten (April 21)Out of Hands, Game River (April 22)Darkwater, Targon Studios (April 22 – early access)Management and automationBlacksmith Master, Untitled Studio (May 15 – early access)Liquor Store Simulator, Tovarishch Games (May 2)Animal Spa, Sinkhole Studio, Moonlab Studio (May 13)Toy Shop Simulator, PaperPixel Games (May 16)Alien Market Simulator, Silly Sloth Studios, Kheddo Entertainment (May 25 – early access)MetroidvaniaOirbo, ImaginationOverflow (February 11 – early access)SteamDolls - Order Of Chaos, The Shady Gentlemen (February 11 – early access)Narrative and mysterydespelote, Julián Cordero, Sebastian Valbuena (May 1)Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping, Happy Broccoli Games (May 22)Beholder: Conductor, Alawar (April 23)PlatformerPaperKlay, WhyKev (March 27)Bionic Bay, Psychoflow Studio, Mureena Oy (April 17)Once Upon A Puppet, Flatter Than Earth (April 23)PEPPERED: an existential platformer, Mostly Games (April 7)Ninja Ming, 1 Poss Studio (April 10)Seafrog, OhMyMe Games (April 15)Puzzle adventurePup Champs, Afterburn (May 19)Strings Theory, Beautiful Bee (Console release)Kathy Rain 2: Soothsayer, Clifftop Games (May 20)Poco, Whalefall (May 20)Axona, Onat Oke (May 28)Projected Dreams, Flawberry Studio (May 29)Elroy and the Aliens, Motiviti (April 2)Leila, Ubik Studios (April 7)Tempopo, Witch Beam (April 17)BOKURA: planet, ところにょり (April 24)Amerzone - The Explorer's Legacy, Microids Studio Paris (April 24)Roguelike/liteSavara, Doryah Games (May 6)Vellum, Alvios Games (May 2)Yasha: Legends of the Demon Blade, 7QUARK (May 14)An Amazing Wizard, Tiny Goblins (May 22 – early access)Garden of Witches, Team Tapas (May 23 – early access)RPGTainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon, Questline (May 23)The Monster Breeder, Fantasy Creations (May 6)Yes, Your Grace 2: Snowfall, Brave At Night (May 8)SandboxA Webbing Journey, Fire Totem Games (May 19 – early access)Islands & Trains, Akos Makovics (May 29)SimulationThe Precinct, Fallen Tree Games Ltd (May 13)Liquor Store Simulator, Tovarishch Games (May 2)Doloc Town, RedSaw Games Studio (May 7)Tales of Seikyu, ACE Entertainment (May 21 – early access)Trash Goblin, Spilt Milk Studios Ltd (May 28)Sports and drivingThe Last Golfer, Pixel Perfect Dude (May 28)Turbo Takedown, Hanging Draw (March 3)StrategyTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown, Strange Scaffold (May 22)Tower Dominion, Parallel 45 Games (May 7)9 Kings, Sad Socket (May 23 – early access)SurvivalDino Path Trail, Void Pointer (May 9)Survival Machine, Grapes Pickers (May 7 – early access)Oppidum, EP Games® (April 25)That’s a wrap for May 2025. Want more Made with Unity and community news as it happens? Don’t forget to follow us on social media: Bluesky, X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, or Twitch.

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These annual rankings were last updated on May 30, 2025. Want to see your firm on next year’s list? Continue reading for more on how you can improve your studio’s ranking. Ireland’s architecture is a rich tapestry of vernacular craft, foreign architecture, and, most importantly, good ol’ grit. Like any nation, Ireland’s complex history is easily contextualized through its urban makeup. Dublin and Cork, for example contain a wealth of Georgian and Victorian structures that directly speak to the republic’s past ties to Britain through churches, libraries and courthouses. In the 20th century, Irish designers turned to modernism and other international trends, this time on their own terms. Art Deco, Brutalism and sleek Modern structures began to appear around the country, generating an architectural expression to mirror the republic’s newfound independence. Ireland’s traditional architecture — specifically the thatched cottage — was again made popular by tourists seeking a quintessential ‘Irish experience.’ Today’s designers continuously engage with discourse surrounding nationalism. What is the quintessential ‘Irish experience’, and how does it inform today’s architecture? With a built environment rooted in pluralism, Irish architects have an incredible opportunity to recreate and rectify an architectural language that best represents today’s Irish folk. With so many architecture firms to choose from, it’s challenging for clients to identify the industry leaders that will be an ideal fit for their project needs. Fortunately, Architizer is able to provide guidance on the top design firms in Ireland based on more than a decade of data and industry knowledge. How are these architecture firms ranked? The following ranking has been created according to key statistics that demonstrate each firm’s level of architectural excellence. The following metrics have been accumulated to establish each architecture firm’s ranking, in order of priority: The number of A+Awards won (2013 to 2025) The number of A+Awards finalists (2013 to 2025) The number of projects selected as “Project of the Day” (2009 to 2025) The number of projects selected as “Featured Project” (2009 to 2025) The number of projects uploaded to Architizer (2009 to 2025) Each of these metrics is explained in more detail at the foot of this article. This ranking list will be updated annually, taking into account new achievements of Ireland architecture firms throughout the year. Without further ado, here are the 30 best architecture firms in Ireland: 30. Hussey Architects © Hussey Architects Hussey Architects was established in 2009 in Dublin. The practice has grown from working on small domestic projects then to large healthcare, housing and hospitality projects now. We are a small practice with experience completing large projects. Over the past decade we have completed seven Primary Care Centres, two hotels, a nursing home, ten masterplans and over one hundred houses. Our focus is on designing simple economical buildings that respect their context. Our style has evolved from our more angular early buildings and projects to a more classical simple architectural language in traditional materials. Some of Hussey Architects’ most prominent projects include: National Leprechaun Museum Cafe The Hendrick, Dublin, Ireland Navan Road Primary Care Centre, Dublin, Ireland Celbridge Primary Care Centre, Celbridge, Ireland Balbriggan Primary Care Centre, Balbriggan, Ireland The following statistics helped Hussey Architects achieve 30th place in the 30 Best Architecture Firms in Ireland: Total Projects 14 29. Donaghy & Dimond Architects © Donaghy & Dimond Architects Based in Dublin, Donaghy + Dimond Architects was established in 2001 by Marcus Donaghy and Will Dimond, two architects with extensive experience of working on urban and rural design projects in Ireland and abroad. The practice has developed a reputation for high-quality, innovative and sustainable design, and has been selected for numerous national and international awards for completed projects. Their work has been published and exhibited in Ireland, Europe and the USA. Some of Donaghy & Dimond Architects’ most prominent projects include: Laneway Wall Garden House, Dublin, Ireland The following statistics helped Donaghy & Dimond Architects achieve 29th place in the 30 Best Architecture Firms in Ireland: Featured Projects 1 Total Projects 1 28. ABK Architects © ABK Architects Established in 1961, ABK Architects is a design-led practice with an international reputation for the delivery of buildings of the highest quality. It is renowned for its work in many fields including master-planning, education, healthcare, housing and the arts. The practice offers skills in architecture and related fields such as urban design and planning, interior and furniture design and is one of the leading exponents of sustainability in the field of architecture. Implicit in the work of ABK is a search for quality, which concerns the character and atmosphere of spaces and a sense of place. Each building proposal is a unique response, integrating the general and the particular into a coherent whole. Some of ABK Architects’ most prominent projects include: Roscommon Civic Offices, Roscommon, Ireland The following statistics helped ABK Architects achieve 28th place in the 30 Best Architecture Firms in Ireland: Featured Projects 1 Total Projects 1 27. de Siún Scullion Architects © de Siún Scullion Architects We are a new Dublin-based Architecture practice offering a broad range of experience and specialist expertise in high quality, innovative and sustainable design to both public and private sector clients Some of de Siún Scullion Architects’ most prominent projects include: 5Cube, Dublin, Ireland The following statistics helped de Siún Scullion Architects achieve 27th place in the 30 Best Architecture Firms in Ireland: Featured Projects 1 Total Projects 1 26. TAKA architects © TAKA architects TAKA is an architectural practice based in Dublin, Ireland. Our practice is focused on creating buildings, places and moments which have a distinct character. Our approach involves a careful and economic approach to materials and construction and a first-principles approach to sustainability. We collaborate closely with clients, professional consultants, and expert makers to ensure the ambitions of projects are met and exceeded. A continuing level of excellence in the built work of the practice is recognized by multiple national and international awards and worldwide publication. Some of TAKA architects’ most prominent projects include: Merrion Cricket Club, Dublin, Ireland The following statistics helped TAKA architects achieve 26th place in the 30 Best Architecture Firms in Ireland: Featured Projects 1 Total Projects 1 25. NOJI Architects © NOJI NOJI Architects are a practice based in Sligo Town working on individual and collaborative projects throughout Ireland. NOJI architects have been in existence for 4 years, now with two staff and the principle architect being John Monahan. The practice has been primarily involved with residential work ranging from renovation extensions of period properties to one off houses and the possibility of community level buildings in the near future. In parallel to the mainly residential work there is an emphasis on the smaller scale design projects allowing an artistic expression and shorter build fruition periods. NOJI architects aim to have craft and innovative design solutions at the core of their work. Some of NOJI Architects’ most prominent projects include: Scale of Ply, Dublin, Ireland The following statistics helped NOJI achieve 25th place in the 30 Best Architecture Firms in Ireland: Featured Projects 1 Total Projects 1 24. Carr Cotter Naessens Architects © Dennis Gilbert, VIEW Box Architecture was created in 1997. Since conception, the company has been established as a leading design practice in the nation. Quality has remained the focus of Box throughout and this has been employed to a variety of projects including urban schemes, apartment units, award-winning private commissions, corporate offices, crèches and housing developments. The success of Box Architecture is achieved through a personal approach to understand client needs. With a hands-on approach, technical expertise, creative execution and a commitment to continued education, the company applies a philosophy of the highest principle in order to contribute to a sustainable future and maintain quality architecture. Some of Carr Cotter Naessens Architects’ most prominent projects include: dlrLexicon, Dublin, Ireland The following statistics helped Carr Cotter Naessens Architects achieve 24th place in the 30 Best Architecture Firms in Ireland: Featured Projects 1 Total Projects 1 23. Box Architecture Timber elements mark the transition between openness and enclosure - © Box Architecture Box Architecture was created in 1997. Since conception, the company has been established as a leading design practice in the nation. Quality has remained the focus of Box throughout and this has been employed to a variety of projects including urban schemes, apartment units, award-winning private commissions, corporate offices, crèches and housing developments. The success of Box Architecture is achieved through a personal approach to understand client needs. With a hands-on approach, technical expertise, creative execution and a commitment to continued education, the company applies a philosophy of the highest principle in order to contribute to a sustainable future and maintain quality architecture. Some of Box Architecture’s most prominent projects include: BALLYROAN PARISH CENTRE Ballyroan Library The following statistics helped Box Architecture achieve 23rd place in the 30 Best Architecture Firms in Ireland: Featured Projects 1 Total Projects 2 22. Kingston Lafferty Design © Donal Murphy Kingston Lafferty Design are an award-winning, international multi-disciplinary design company run by Roisin Lafferty based in Dublin, Ireland. At KLD we think differently about design. Our designs take people on a journey, delivering fun and unexpected experiences. With a holistic approach, we study the way in which people live and work to create tactile and meaningful design, putting human behavior at the centre of every project. Some of Kingston Lafferty Design’s most prominent projects include: Dublin Residence, Dublin, Ireland Ballsbridge Residence, Dublin, Ireland Ranelagh Residence, Dublin, Ireland The following statistics helped Kingston Lafferty Design achieve 22nd place in the 30 Best Architecture Firms in Ireland: Featured Projects 1 Total Projects 3 21. Architecture Republic © Architecture Republic Architecture Republic with offices in Dublin (Ireland)and Lyon (France) operates in the fields of architecture, urbanism and landscape design. We engage with engineers, artists, researchers, policy-makers, and other professionals through research, analysis and cross disciplinary collaboration. We find the seeds of our inspiration in the rich and complex realm of ordinary everyday life. We believe in the social engagement and spatial power of architecture more than its visual or plastic expression. We believe in architecture that creates public spaces and democratic cities. An architecture that revitalizes redefines and strengthens existing buildings and neighbourhoods. Some of Architecture Republic’s most prominent projects include: The Plastic House, Dublin, Ireland Formwork Studio Brick a Back, Gordon Street, Dublin, Ireland Orla Kiely’s New York Store, New York, New York The following statistics helped Architecture Republic achieve 21st place in the 30 Best Architecture Firms in Ireland: Featured Projects 1 Total Projects 4 20. Conneely Wessels Architects © F22 PHOTOGRAPHY Conneely Wessels Architects is an Award Winning Architectural Practice, established in 2008 and based in Kinsale, County Cork. Our practice provides a responsive, imaginative and professional service, tailored to the aspirations of each of our clients, and to deliver quality results, regardless of commission size or type. Some of Conneely Wessels Architects’ most prominent projects include: Three Pavilions, House Clancy, Kinsale, Ireland Peek-a-Boo!, Kinsale, Ireland Cardinal Point, Kinsale, Ireland Ardgwee House, Kinsale, Ireland The following statistics helped Conneely Wessels Architects achieve 20th place in the 30 Best Architecture Firms in Ireland: Featured Projects 1 Total Projects 4 19. ARCHITECTSTM © Ros Kavanagh ARCHITECTSTM is a design practice founded by Tom Maher. Based in Dublin, Ireland the firm boasts a portfolio of residential, cultural and commercial designs. Some of ARCHITECTSTM’s most prominent projects include: K HOUSE, Ranelagh, Ireland GARDENER’S WORLD (FUTURE), Callan, Ireland SLATE STOREY EXTENSION, Dublin, Ireland COTTAGE, County Kilkenny, Ireland 8BY4, Dublin, Ireland The following statistics helped ARCHITECTSTM achieve 19th place in the 30 Best Architecture Firms in Ireland: Featured Projects 1 Total Projects 5 18. Paul Dillon Architects © Paul Dillon Architects In 1999, architect Paul Dillon established his full-service practice in Galway, which quickly earned a reputation for combining design sensitivity with professional management and delivery. Each year, paul dillon architects complete a small number of challenging everyday projects, ranging from domestic extensions and garden designs to large commercial, retail, industrial and public projects. This commitment to the process of building, has been recognized with numerous national and international publications and awards. The completed work, both public and private, is receiving growing understanding and appreciation from those who take responsibility for their built environment. Some of Paul Dillon Architects’ most prominent projects include: Carnaun Primary School, Athenry, Ireland Extension to Secondary School, County Galway, Ireland Kilrickle Primary School, Kilreekill, Ireland Art Room, Secondary School, Aran Islands, County Galway, Ireland Art Room, Inis Mór, County Galway, Ireland The following statistics helped Paul Dillon Architects achieve 18th place in the 30 Best Architecture Firms in Ireland: Featured Projects 1 Total Projects 5 17. Isabel Barros Architects © Robert Mullan Photography isabel barros architects are driven by a passion for creating high quality contemporary architecture. Our goal is to make good design available to the general public while maintaining a strong focus on the energy efficiency and sustainability of our designs. Some of Isabel Barros Architects’ most prominent projects include: Seaview House, Wexford, Ireland Conservation Works at Brandon House Hotel, New Ross, Ireland Extension to House Over 100 Years Old, Ireland River House Kilkenny, Kilkenny, Ireland Shaolin Cottage, Ireland The following statistics helped Isabel Barros Architects achieve 17th place in the 30 Best Architecture Firms in Ireland: Featured Projects 1 Total Projects 6 16. Solearth Architecture © Solearth Architecture Solearth Architecture specialise in design that is both beautiful and deeply sustainable. We have for 15 years been Irelands leading green design firm and now provide architecture, design and consulting services further afield. All projects and client types are of interest to us but our key experience to date lies in hospitality, visitor, environment, wellness and buildings for spirituality as well as housing and private houses. We also have expertise in sustainable masterplanning and urban design. We are Europes only Living Building accredited practice. Some of Solearth Architecture’s most prominent projects include: Airfield Evolution, Dublin, Ireland Castle Espie, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom The Daintree Building, Dublin, Ireland Ballybay Wetland Centre, Ballybay, Ireland Dechen Shying, Cork, Ireland The following statistics helped Solearth Architecture achieve 16th place in the 30 Best Architecture Firms in Ireland: Featured Projects 1 Total Projects 7 15. Foley Architects © Foley Architects, CAMPUS Foley Architects is an architectural practice based in Dublin led by Stephen Foley and Marta Lopez driven by creating sustainable buildings and considered spaces that connect to their physical and social contexts. Our mission is to uncover what is special about each project to create unique spaces and buildings which can inspire communities. The concept of our first built project, the Eastbourne Beach Hut took inspiration from a local story involving fossils and was developed using digital fabrication tools. The pavilion’s translucent skin allows it to transform at night, emitting light and expressing its structure. The Cork Butter museum involved the adaptive reuse of an existing space, it’s remodelling and installation of elements for a collection of artefacts, using economic materials like mild steel and birch plywood. Some of Foley Architects’ most prominent projects include: The Lark Theatre, Dublin, Ireland Eastbourne Beach Hut, Eastbourne, United Kingdom Rossaveel Small Craft Harbour, Galway, Ireland 12th Lock Area Masterplan, Lucan, Ireland Killybegs Small Craft Harbour, Donegal, Ireland The following statistics helped Foley Architects achieve 15th place in the 30 Best Architecture Firms in Ireland: Featured Projects 1 Total Projects 9 14. David Flynn Architects © David Flynn Architects Ltd We are award-winning Architects in Dublin specializing in residential projects, including newbuild houses, reconstruction and significant refurb / extension / transformation of existing. We are currently engaged as Architects in a small number of projects across Dublin with construction values ranging from €400,000 up to €1.5m. The majority of our houses will end up as highly efficient A-rated homes for life. We have a track record in delivering highly bespoke residential architecture projects which run smoothly through design, planning and construction stages, many of which have received awards and been widely published. We use highly detailed 3D Digital models to plan, visualise and clearly communicate from early in the design process to ensure a successful outcome. Some of David Flynn Architects’ most prominent projects include: Garden Retreat, Blackrock, Ireland Mount Merrion, Dublin, Ireland 1930s Extension Renovation, Booterstown, Ireland 1870s period house extension, Sandymount, Ireland Rebuild & Renovation, Clonskeagh, Ireland The following statistics helped David Flynn Architects achieve 14th place in the 30 Best Architecture Firms in Ireland: Featured Projects 1 Total Projects 10 13. ODKM Architects & Designers © ODKM Architects & Designers ODKM are highly experienced award-winning architectural practice, with accolades and publications both in Ireland and abroad. We love design, how it makes us feel, and what it offers us every day, and we are passionate about how important this is in creating new spaces, identities and places that exceed our clients expectations. Ultimately, buildings are about people, and we believe in quality driven design to create environments with a sense of place. Our team each bring unique and diverse skills to the practice, all stemming from a common holistic design philosophy; that design can improve the quality of our lives, and make us happier. Some of ODKM Architects & Designers’ most prominent projects include: Ranelagh House, Dublin, Ireland The following statistics helped ODKM Architects & Designers achieve 13th place in the 30 Best Architecture Firms in Ireland: A+Awards Finalist 1 Featured Projects 1 Total Projects 1 12. Architectural Farm © Ste Murray | Photography & Design Architectural Farm is a design focused architectural studio based in Dublin. The studio has been led by Shane Cotter and Kathryn Wilson since 2010. To date the practice has worked on a variety of projects specializing in residential and public commissions in both urban and rural settings but also have collaborated on retail, commercial and landscaping projects. Some of Architectural Farm’s most prominent projects include: Walled Garden, Ballsbridge, Ireland St Declans Terrace, Saint Declan’s Terrace, Ireland The following statistics helped Architectural Farm achieve 12th place in the 30 Best Architecture Firms in Ireland: Featured Projects 2 Total Projects 2 11. GKMP Architect © GKMP Architect GKMP Architects is a Dublin-based practice that designs high quality modern architecture. Our recent projects include house design, domestic extensions, public spaces and tourist facilities. Some of GKMP Architect’s most prominent projects include: Hedge House at Leeson Walk, Dublin, Ireland House Extension at Silchester Park, Dublin, Ireland The following statistics helped GKMP Architect achieve 11th place in the 30 Best Architecture Firms in Ireland: Featured Projects 2 Total Projects 2 10. Aughey O’Flaherty Architects © Aughey O'Flaherty Architects Since the start, in 1999, we have been blessed with great clients. We work closely with them to understand their needs and create buidings to fit those needs. By 2003, the practice had won the first of many awards and in 2005, we won the prestious RIAI award, best building in the landscape.As conservation architects, we have Grade II RIAI Conservation Accreditation. Some of Aughey O’Flaherty Architects’ most prominent projects include: Fethard House on Mount Anville, Goatstown, Ireland New House The following statistics helped Aughey O'Flaherty Architects achieve 10th place in the 30 Best Architecture Firms in Ireland: Featured Projects 2 Total Projects 3 9. BRENNAN | FURLONG Architects & Urban Planners © BRENNAN | FURLONG Architects & Urban Planners BRENNAN | FURLONG Architects, founded in 2015 by Gareth Brennan and Séamus Furlong, is an award-winning RIAI-registered practice based in Clontarf, Dublin. The practice is accredited in Conservation (Grade III), can act as Project Supervisors for the Design Process (PSDP) and holds full Professional Indemnity Insurance. The work of the practice – a mix of residential and commercial projects — centers on the principle that the well-considered and carefully developed design of buildings and spaces we use every day helps to enrich and enliven our experience and interaction with the built environment. Some of BRENNAN | FURLONG Architects & Urban Planners’ most prominent projects include: GLENTORA, Howth, Dublin, Ireland FOUR WINDS, Dublin, Ireland STRAND ROAD, Dublin, Ireland LERRIG, Dublin, Ireland The following statistics helped BRENNAN | FURLONG Architects & Urban Planners achieve 9th place in the 30 Best Architecture Firms in Ireland: Featured Projects 2 Total Projects 4 8. Ambient Architecture © Ambient Architecture At Ambient Architecture we design exclusive residences for private clients in new builds, renovation and conservation projects. For our commercial partners, we develop innovative, sustainable, and sound feasibility and planning solutions. As architects we focus on providing the best outcome for our clients, in terms of design, costs, and buildability. Some of Ambient Architecture’s most prominent projects include: New house in Malahide, Malahide, Ireland Rathgar Redbrick, Dublin, Ireland Loreto Abbey Dalkey Sportshall, Dalkey, Ireland Rathmines Redbrick, Dublin, Ireland 2SEMIS, Dublin, Ireland The following statistics helped Ambient Architecture achieve 8th place in the 30 Best Architecture Firms in Ireland: Featured Projects 2 Total Projects 5 7. Coady Architects © Coady Architects Coady Architects is an award winning practice of highly skilled professionals, specializing in healthcare, residential, workplace and education design. We are passionate about understanding our clients’ and end users’ needs. We understand commercial drivers and add value at every opportunity. We enjoy design, we listen and explore, we innovate and challenge to deliver better environments and better buildings. Some of Coady Architects’ most prominent projects include: Scholen van Morgen. VIIO, Tongeren, Belgium Eolas, Maynooth University, Maynooth, Ireland Clinical Education and Research Centre, Limerick, Ireland Scholen van Morgen. Heilig Hart van Mariainstituut, Berlaar, Belgium Scholen van Morgen, Virga Jessecollege, Hasselt, Belgium The following statistics helped Coady Architects achieve 7th place in the 30 Best Architecture Firms in Ireland: Featured Projects 2 Total Projects 5 6. Architecture 53seven © Architecture 53seven Architecture 53seven is focussed on the delivery of inventive architecture and urban design, with a particular interest in developing new programmatic forms that reflect the complexities of the contemporary city. Established by Jason O’Shaughnessy in 2000, Architecture 53seven has developed a series of acclaimed projects in Ireland and overseas and was nominated for the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – the Mies van der Rohe Award in 2009. Some of Architecture 53seven’s most prominent projects include: Egans Juice Bar and Roof Terrace, Main Street, Portlaoise, Ireland Tullow Ciivic Offices and Library Montenegro Villa, Dobra Voda, Montenegro Villa Petrovic, Dobra Voda, Montenegro Renaasance day hospital The following statistics helped Architecture 53seven achieve 6th place in the 30 Best Architecture Firms in Ireland: Featured Projects 2 Total Projects 37 5. FKL architects © FKL architects FKL architects is committed to contemporary design with a focus on the application of abstract ideas to built form. Each project is approached from first principles by responding to the specifics of site and program and formulating a singular concept that informs all aspects of the design. This individual concept is firmly rooted in the pragmatics of the project. We seek to condense ideas to their essentials, from the building form to the detail of junctions between materials with all decisions re-affirming and complementing the primary concept. The form and language of each project grows out of this approach leading to a diversity in the work, within a framework given by enduring interests; in space, atmosphere, assemblage, pattern, hierarchy, texture and materiality. Some of FKL architects’ most prominent projects include: A House, Rathmines, Ireland A house, Rathmines, Ireland St John’s House Nursing Home, Dublin, Ireland Brick House Reuben Street Apartments, Dolphins Barn, Ireland The following statistics helped FKL architects achieve 5th place in the 30 Best Architecture Firms in Ireland: Featured Projects 3 Total Projects 17 4. Heneghan Peng Architects © Iwan Baan heneghan peng architects is a design partnership practicing architecture, landscape and urban design. The practice was founded by Shih-Fu Peng and Róisín Heneghan in New York in 1999 and in 2001 opened an office in Dublin, Ireland. We take a multi-disciplinary approach to design and have collaborated with many leading designers and engineers on a range of projects which include larger scale urban masterplans, bridges, landscapes and buildings. Current projects include the Canadian Canoe Museum, The Old Library refurbishment at Trinity College Dublin, the Visitors’ Centre at the Berlin Botanic Gardens and the Grand Egyptian Museum. Some of Heneghan Peng Architects’ most prominent projects include: The Palestinian Museum, Bir Zayt Air BnB European Operations Hub, Dublin, Ireland School of Architecture and Design/Library at the University of Greenwich, London, United Kingdom The following statistics helped Heneghan Peng Architects achieve 4th place in the 30 Best Architecture Firms in Ireland: Featured Projects 3 Total Projects 3 3. Scullion Architects © Scullion Architects SCULLION ARCHITECTS are a Dublin-based Architectural Studio established by Declan Scullion MRIAI, providing architectural services for both the public and private sector. The practice’s work is characterized by a particular attention to user experience supported by an interest in things well-made. Our ambition is to provide a dedicated and professional service delivering exceptional buildings. Some of Scullion Architects’ most prominent projects include: Grand Canal Street, Dublin, Ireland Glass Ribbon, Dublin, Ireland Blackrock House, Dundalk, Ireland Churchtown, Dublin, Ireland The Liberties, Dublin, Ireland The following statistics helped Scullion Architects achieve 3rd place in the 30 Best Architecture Firms in Ireland: Featured Projects 4 Total Projects 5 2. ODOS © ODOS The constant questioning of how people work, rest and play in today’s society is the fundamental driving force behind the practice. We strongly believe our clients deserve to be challenged and that buildings need to inspire their occupants. As architects we have a duty to expose such possibilities. We hope to instill a sense of curiosity and excitement, stimulating a response, confronting and challenging traditional conceptions of architecture Some of ODOS’s most prominent projects include: Flynn Mews House, Dublin, Ireland Dwelling at Maytree, Wicklow, Wicklow, Ireland 3 Mews Houses, Dublin, Ireland Grangegorman, Dublin 7, Dublin, Ireland 31 Carysfort Road, Dalkey, Ireland The following statistics helped ODOS achieve 2nd place in the 30 Best Architecture Firms in Ireland: A+Awards Finalist 1 Featured Projects 4 Total Projects 9 1. McCullough Mulvin Architects © McCullough Mulvin Architects McCullough Mulvin Architects is an architecture and urban design practice based in Dublin. Much of our work has been in the design of cultural and civic buildings around Ireland, projects working to define a new public realm in a changing society, dealing with Ireland’s diffuse light and stark materiality. The work is based around an idea of experimentation – from small domestic work through to larger civic projects – testing at all scales, the work is original and the response to each brief particular. There is no house style, rather a concern for improving the lives of people by designing public and private spaces where life is played out. Some of McCullough Mulvin Architects’ most prominent projects include: Medieval Mile Museum, Kilkenny, Ireland Featured image: Trinity Long Room Hub, Dublin, Ireland Z Square House, Temple Gardens, Dublin, Ireland Beaufort Maritime Research Building, Cork, Ireland one up two down , Dublin, Ireland The following statistics helped McCullough Mulvin Architects achieve 1st place in the 30 Best Architecture Firms in Ireland: Featured Projects 4 Total Projects 6 Why Should I Trust Architizer’s Ranking? With more than 30,000 architecture firms and over 130,000 projects within its database, Architizer is proud to host the world’s largest online community of architects and building product manufacturers. Its celebrated A+Awards program is also the largest celebration of architecture and building products, with more than 400 jurors and hundreds of thousands of public votes helping to recognize the world’s best architecture each year. Architizer also powers firm directories for a number of AIA (American Institute of Architects) Chapters nationwide, including the official directory of architecture firms for AIA New York. An example of a project page on Architizer with Project Award Badges highlighted A Guide to Project Awards The blue “+” badge denotes that a project has won a prestigious A+Award as described above. Hovering over the badge reveals details of the award, including award category, year, and whether the project won the jury or popular choice award. The orange Project of the Day and yellow Featured Project badges are awarded by Architizer’s Editorial team, and are selected based on a number of factors. The following factors increase a project’s likelihood of being featured or awarded Project of the Day status: Project completed within the last 3 years A well written, concise project description of at least 3 paragraphs Architectural design with a high level of both functional and aesthetic value High quality, in focus photographs At least 8 photographs of both the interior and exterior of the building Inclusion of architectural drawings and renderings Inclusion of construction photographs There are 7 Projects of the Day each week and a further 31 Featured Projects. Each Project of the Day is published on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram Stories, while each Featured Project is published on Facebook. Each Project of the Day also features in Architizer’s Weekly Projects Newsletter and shared with 170,000 subscribers.     We’re constantly look for the world’s best architects to join our community. If you would like to understand more about this ranking list and learn how your firm can achieve a presence on it, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at editorial@architizer.com. The post 30 Best Architecture and Design Firms in Ireland appeared first on Journal.