I’ve been playing what I’d categorize as an unhealthy amount of Marvel’s new digital trading card game, Marvel Snap, since its beta began this week. What I quickly found out is that the game does everything it promised almost flawlessly. It’s a perfect card game for anyone who loves Marvel comics, like myself, because there’s no way I could ignore any game that includes both Nova and Magik.
After years of not playing card games — since Yu-Gi-Oh! back in elementary school — I’ve been wanting to find a deck builder to jump into and find that strategic fun I’ve missed since then. But I’ve always been intimidated by current series like Magic the Gathering or current digital Yu-Gi-Oh! games due to extensive metas and complicated sets of rules. Thankfully, Marvel Snap is the perfect game for newcomers to the genre who want a less complicated introduction.
Marvel Snap is a trading card game from former developers who worked on Hearthstone that sets out to be a simple and fast entry in the genre and retains strategy from other titles. I instantly fell in love with that approach, one that means a single game won’t eat up my entire lunch break.
The premise of the game is to capture three fields by placing cards that add up to a higher power than your opponent’s. You do this with some basic addition and subtraction depending on the ability of your cards and the fields themselves, which will sometimes present extra challenges and setting changes. The fields reveal themselves within three of the five turns and each can quickly turn the tide of battle, adding even more to the strategy of the game.
Players take their turns at the same time in Marvel Snap, so there’s no waiting around for an opponent (I don’t wait in the Marvel universe unless it’s for a post-credits scene). That simple change makes the game even more fast-paced and strategic.
As with all deck builders, many cards have different effects that can add to its player’s power or take away from their opponent’s. Of course, these cards can be avoided or outright countered, making the gambit of playing cards at the same time intense. For example, there are cards that will add to their power if the player predicts and places it where the opponent is going to play as well. Little battles like this are common in Snap and make every turn as brain-teasing as the last.
Depending on your cards, these strategies will constantly change. Cards like Nightcrawler can be placed and moved later, allowing him to hop to different buffs or even to fields where cards can’t normally be played. There are also cards, like Scarlet Witch, that straight-up move fields around, adding a random variable to the match.
Of course, cards can’t be played for free and cost a set amount of energy points per use. The energy points start at one and add up to six, and sometimes seven by the end of the match. This means that depending on your card draw, sometimes you’re completely stuck playing certain cards or may not be able to play any at all.
I’ve found Marvel Snap to be an easy to learn card game so far, one that I’ve been craving for a long time. Not only is it super easy to pick up and play, but it still brings a fair level of challenge. I can’t wait to see what the developers bring to the table with the full release.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some more grinding to do so I can finally get that Magik card I need.
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.