You are walking to your next challenge. It will be complicated and test your abilities as a gamer. But in this first-person game, you are not shooting bullets, you are creating cubes. And you are not beating enemies. You are beating puzzles.

“I think first-person is such a beautiful perspective to explore a world in. As much I like a good shooter, I think it’s an underused perspective to explore new game-types and experiences for players. The play doesn’t have to involve shooting each other to be fun; puzzles, exploration, and unique ways to interact are all possibilities,” says Benjamin Hill, the Creative Director of Q.U.B.E. 2.

Q.U.B.E. 2 is a first-person game that completely embraces the fact that it is weird. You are a character exploring an alien ship. You are using your mind and reflexes, not your trigger finger. There are red blocks and green blocks and blue blocks, all with different physical properties. There are sliding panels and rotating walls and the like. It is not your typical first-person game.

But being “typical” is no longer the norm. As more releases come out, as competition between console and PC and mobile gaming gets broader, developers are making games that move beyond the basics of their genres. These games go strange to get noticed.

Call of Duty can no longer just be a military shooter. Most of the annual releases in the franchise have to have a “zombie mode” to not only appeal to more players, but to keep existing players happy because they have been following along since the undead first came to CoD in 2008’s installment World at War.

Read the full article at Mandatory.