"Building an open world that was suitable for 'battle royale' gameplay from scratch -- and doing it fast, based on iteration -- was the biggest challenge for us in terms of design, tech, and art," says Brendan "Playerunknown" Greene. ...

Capybara Games' Colin Weick speaks at GDC 2017 about the techniques used to achieve high visual fidelity in the context of the simplified yet dense aesthetic of the studio's upcoming roguelike Below. ...

Robert Weaver's sandbox game needed an engine that could render tens of thousands of combatants. "There really aren't any engines that support battles on that scale," he says. ...

Robert Weaver's sandbox game needed an engine that could render tens of thousands of combatants. "There really aren't any engines that support battles on that scale," he says. ...

Robert Weaver's sandbox game needed an engine that could render tens of thousands of combatants. "There really aren't any engines that support battles on that scale," he says. ...

"Or it would have been some strange, hopelessly delicate monstrosity," added creative director Ian Dallas in a recent Reddit "Ask Me Anything" session. "I'm very happy with the way things turned out." ...

At GDC 2017, IGDShare organizer and experienced localizer Jung-Sheng Lin tries to help devs avoid calamity by running down some of the potential pitfalls of localizing for the Chinese-speaking world. ...

In most games, death is associated with failure, or a narrative break that forces you to reattempt a challenge. What Remains of Edith Finch turns death into a key feature of story progression. ...

This week's highlights include a classic Deus Ex postmortem, making Steam games successful in China, and the surprise smash hit Lineage 2 mobile game, among other things. ...

What's cute, and why should you care? Game devw Jenny Jiao Hsia (Beglitched) answers both those questions in a talk at GDC 2017 about the aesthetics of cuteness, and how they make games better. ...