Corey Plante

Corey Plante covers games and genre entertainment with a focus on intricate systems, long-running live-service worlds, and tabletop play. He serves as a tabletop editor at Polygon, leading coverage of tabletop games, including role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons and trading card games like Magic: The Gathering. His writing across outlets concentrates on helping players understand complex mechanics while surfacing the long-term stories and theories that keep communities engaged. Within the Destiny franchise, he combines day-one player experience with detailed service journalism, from breakdowns of current content to forward-looking pieces on what the next sequel should change.

Tabletop games and role‑playing worlds

At Polygon, Plante’s core responsibility is the tabletop gaming section, where he leads coverage dedicated to tabletop games and their communities. His role centers on table-focused play, explicitly including TTRPGs such as Dungeons & Dragons and trading card games such as Magic: The Gathering. That position places him at the intersection of rules-heavy systems and storytelling, requiring an editor who can track mechanics, expansions, and the broader culture around tabletop brands.

The tabletop remit distinguishes him from a general gaming reporter, grounding his perspective in face-to-face play, campaign building, and the way rules and narrative interact at the table.

Destiny 2 guides and Destiny franchise analysis

Plante’s work on Destiny is a defining strand of his coverage, and it is unusually deep for a mainstream gaming writer. He describes himself as a Day One Destiny Guardian and a Hunter main, positioning his writing from the vantage point of a committed, long-term player rather than a casual observer. His Fanbyte bylines include detailed guides such as “The Best Ways to Farm Ascendant Shards in Destiny 2,” which walk players through efficient resource acquisition in one of the game’s most important upgrade currencies.

He also writes the “Destiny 2 Moments of Triumph 2023 Guide,” laying out the Triumphs, rewards, and timing for an annual, progression-heavy event.

Features like “We’re Still Missing a Grenade Launcher from Destiny 2: Lightfall” show him pushing beyond pure how‑to guidance into gap analysis of weapon archetypes and how new expansions reshape the meta. On Polygon, his Destiny coverage extends to franchise-level thinking, exemplified by his piece outlining four major changes he wants to see in a hypothetical Destiny 3, where he argues for structural shifts rather than incremental tweaks. Across these articles, the through-line is a mix of mechanical fluency, system-level critique, and speculation rooted in long-term play.

Action RPGs and systems‑heavy worlds

Beyond Destiny, Plante writes extensively about action RPGs and other systems-forward games. His coverage of Elden Ring includes “Everything We Know About Elden Ring DLC: Shadow of the Erdtree,” which compiles release information, trailer details, and story expectations for the major expansion.

He follows that with “Everything in the Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree Trailer, Explained,” breaking down individual shots and sequences to extract mechanical and narrative implications for players preparing for new content.

For Dragon’s Dogma 2, he authors an “Archer Build Guide” that specifies optimal armor, weapons, and stat priorities, translating the game’s open-ended vocation system into concrete, recommended builds. He applies the same methodical approach to more relaxed yet still intricate titles, including a Stardew Valley trinkets guide that explains how to unlock and find new items, and an Infinite Craft piece that walks players through crafting a Kingdom Hearts recipe. Across these games, his reporting consistently turns sprawling systems into practical, stepwise advice, and this service orientation sets him apart from writers whose coverage centers only on broad impressions or reviews.

Co‑op shooters, survival sandboxes, and community issues

Plante also covers co-op shooters and survival sandboxes where balance changes and community management are central.

His Helldivers 2 work includes a story on the “Democratic Detonation” Warbond, highlighting incoming explosive weapons and how they expand player arsenals in a high-coordination co-op environment. In Palworld, he reports on the developers’ plans to crack down on cheaters, focusing on anti-cheat measures and how enforcement affects the health of an online community built around creature collection and base-building. These pieces show him tracking not only new content but also the policies and technical systems that govern fair play, a layer of coverage that goes beyond patch-note summaries. The same cross-media sensibility appears in his Polygon review work, including a take on HBO’s Lanterns framed as “True Detective with superheroes,” which situates a comic-derived series in the language of prestige crime drama.

Across these topics, Plante’s distinguishing trait is attention to how systems, updates, and enforcement shape everyday player experience, whether in a live-service shooter, a survival sandbox, or a genre television series tied to fan communities.