Trailers for the Marvel Cinematic Universe summer blockbuster "Deadpool & Wolverine" were chock-full of references and Easter eggs, in typical MCU fashion. But only the most observant viewers spotted a sneaky addition to one of these promotional videos, something that has popped up in movies and marketing over the years.

Filmmaker and Philly-area native M. Night Shyamalan has stuck close to his roots throughout his career, though his new movie "Trap" has other locations dressed up as Philadelphia and its surrounding region.

The number of people who play games has steadily increased since the beginning of the 21st century. According to the ATUS, there was a spike in gaming activity in 2009, with more than 10% of U.S. residents regularly playing games—from board games to video games.

Dismissed as a "passing fad" in its nascent days, video games have since exploded in the market, particularly during the pandemic. The global games market is expected to reach $187.7 billion in revenue for 2023, according to a report by video game insights company Newzoo.

These figures provide video game enthusiasts with a snapshot of a fast-moving industry. You might see one console succeed over its contemporaries due to its stronger software library, or perhaps because it had an innovative feature that attracted nongamers into purchasing it. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft have each had triumphant successes and very public failures—and their sales numbers show it.

Video game properties have permeated mainstream popular culture, with characters like Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog achieving the same recognition as Mickey Mouse, and "The Last of Us" becoming the first video game adapted into an Emmy-nominated show. Of course, this level of success took decades of build-up. What is now a major pillar in the entertainment world started as mere projects to tinker with in the early days of computing.

Metroid Prime Remastered came out on the Nintendo Switch over two decades later, and countless words have been published about the excellence of the original title since then. It’s hard to cover anything that hasn’t been said about the original Metroid Prime, and I’m sure any compliments I’m about to give it will resemble marketing speak from the time of its GameCube debut. Metroid Prime has some amazing staying power — and two weeks deep into it, I’m starting to wonder if any game since then (besides its sequels, of course) have provided a similar experience.

Capturing the zeitgeist and making a splash in online multiplayer is the first tough step for any budding live service game — the next is trying to maintain that audience. Splitgate from 1047 Games took that first step, and while its initial success overwhelmed the studio to a degree, the indie arena shooter earned its big break. A full year later, Splitgate is in the middle of its “Beta Season 2” as it tries to maintain a playerbase.

I’m told that the idea of constantly moving between places is a very “American” concept. Whereas my family in the Philippines is accustomed to staying in the same family home for generations, I’ve been moving from one new space to another — twice in the past year, in fact. It is a stressful ordeal every time, but around the time of my most recent move, I happened to be playing Unpacking from developer Witch Beam. What resulted from playing the puzzle game was an enlightening recontextualization of how interacting with my personal physical space affects my mental space — and I loosened my anxiety over building a complete, “perfect” home.

There are times when you hear a game premise that sounds so obvious that you’ll be wondering why you didn’t think of it yourself. Enter Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed, a five-player asymmetrical multiplayer game that pits four Ghostbusters against one Ghost. According to studio IllFonic, best known for Friday the 13th: The Game and Predator: Hunting Grounds, the hope is that this next title will be a reflection on lessons learned from making those games.

It’s easy to find comfort in the familiar, whether you’re rewatching shows or movies or starting a new playthrough of a game you’re intimate with. But when an older game is remade rather than remastered, there’s an opportunity to go beyond and reimagine something outdated in a modern context. But as much as some Pokemon fans wanted Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, these remakes for the Switch benefited little and will only provide comfort for those with unconditional affection for the originals.

There’s always a level of passion and intensity displayed from the developers behind these campaigns, but nearly all Call of Duty stories eventually fall into the same traps, restrained by the series’ structural limitations. Despite some of the technical and cinematic triumphs of Call of Duty: Vanguard, the single player narrative ends up an “also-ran” amidst the countless forgettable Call of Duty campaigns. Even with some deviations from formula, Vanguard can’t help but feel derivative of other triple-A games.

Samus Aran is anything but a chatterbox in Metroid Dread. After mountains of monologues in 2010’s Metroid: Other M, Dread represents a true return to form, not just in terms of gameplay but in tone. With a magnetic sense of style and atmosphere, Dread puts the Metroid series on the right path, maintaining the ideals of the original games with modern sensibilities and technology. Samus is once again depicted as a cold and steely operative with little to say — yet she’s never been more expressive or compelling as a character as she is now.

Kitfox Games’ Boyfriend Dungeon has a number of characters and scenarios built on the concept of societal pressure — romantic interests like Isaac, Sawyer, and Seven have plotlines where they have to conform in some way, whether it be from family expectations, academia, or celebrity, respectively. However, at the game’s core, the theme of pressure and expectation applies the most to your own customized character. Once you move into the game’s setting of Verona Beach, you are immediately asked: why can’t you just get a date?

For 35 years, Metroid has been one of Nintendo’s most beloved franchises. But there’s one notable exception to this — Metroid: Other M, a third-person action game released for the Wii back in 2010. “We couldn't just leave this part of the storyline untouched,” series producer Yoshio Sakamoto told USA Today ahead of launch. “It's so critical that without addressing it, we wouldn't be able to make new games that show Samus' adventures that take place after the events of Metroid Fusion.” Sakamoto asserted that depicting the time between Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion was essential to moving the series forward. Now, more than a decade later, the upcoming Metroid Dread is looking to complete this prophecy.

The Halo series has been around with us long enough that every change will come under some degree of scrutiny, as fans hold onto the familiar. The upcoming Halo Infinite is the next step of a perceived identity crisis, the third full title from developer 343 Industries. Xbox and PC players were finally able to try a slice of the game through a multiplayer technical test, and I found myself both comforted by the familiar and bewildered by the new.

One of the many memorable scenes in Loki’s first episode is seeing Miss Minutes dance across the screen as she schools the infamous Trickster god on the rules of time and destiny. The Time Variance Authority believes everyone’s destiny is predetermined and must be enforced. But amid all of the existential questions of fate versus free will and the scientific and mystical musings about the multiverse, there’s a thread that fights against this idea. Underneath the franchise-building and Easter eggs is a personal story about Loki that helps to define Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe thematically.

I sometimes fear that I might be too reductive in calling first-person shooter Splitgate “Halo meets Portal,” which is a phrase tossed around any time the game is mentioned. But it’s literally that — developer 1047 Games has created a happy marriage between Halo 2 and 3-style arena shooter sensibilities and the traversal possibilities experienced in Valve’s Portal games. It’s such a fun and simple idea that you’ll wonder why you weren’t the one to think of it.

Sea of Thieves from its genesis was pitched as “Pirates of the Caribbean meets Wind Waker,” and A Pirate’s Life is not some soulless corporate tie-in, but an opportunity for the developer to fully realize the game’s original vision while paying homage to what inspired it in the first place. And for devotees of Sea of Thieves who have paid attention to the game’s earlier Tall Tales, its theme park inspirations were evident from the very beginning.

The PlayStation 5 remaster Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade reintroduces players of the 1997 version to Yuffie Kisaragi, a young ninja from Wutai and the playable protagonist of a DLC story called Episode Intermission. Wide-eyed and donning a raggedy Moogle costume, this side story makes it immediately evident that Yuffie is no Cloud Strife. Whereas Strife had emotional baggage and constantly expressed reluctance in his mission, Yuffie is spunky and ambitious, albeit to a fault. With a proper sequel to Final Fantasy VII Remake still quite far off, seeing this story from a brighter set of eyes was much needed to hold fans over.