I could feel the tension rising as I tried to pick the best dialogue choices to keep the twins at the roulette table. I needed to burn some time to get a behavioral imprint, letting me steal the netrunner’s identities. But one wrong line, and I’d put the whole mission in jeopardy.

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty brings a spy thriller story to the world of Night City, crafting a personal, emotional narrative that’s filled with intrigue. Add inventive mission design to the mix, and you’ve got an experience that’s far more satisfying than the main game, and easily the best “spy” experience we’ve seen in gaming in nearly a decade.

One of the biggest misconceptions about Edgar Allan Poe is that he was a horror writer. Sure, his works were integral to the birth of American horror as we know it, but it wasn’t the main theme in his work. In other words, Poe wasn’t big on the jump scare.

Instead, he wielded dread like no writer before him. Poe’s works often tell you the shocking ending before you even get there, and his short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” is a perfect example. The ending is right there in the name: The House of Usher has fallen, and we, the lucky audience, get a front-row seat.

Mike Flanagan’s The Fall of the House of Usher takes this same device and uses it to paint a twisted story that winds its way through Poe’s oeuvre. His latest (and final) Netflix project, House of Usher is the culmination of several adaptations of classic horror literature: The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, and The Midnight Club. But while those were different flavors of horror (generational horror, ghost stories, and young adult scares, respectively), House of Usher is full-blown dread. By combining his signature style with Poe’s greatest hits, Flanagan creates an epic family tragedy that caps off his Netflix era with a brutally dark note.