Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong falls short of its ambitions as a story-focused detective RPG due to a dense but uninteresting plot, bland characters, and unintuitive puzzles.
With an outstanding variety of places to visit and a strong combat system, Lost Ark is an extremely generous free-to-play action-RPG-MMO that draws a lot from Diablo – including its well-worn story about humans and Heaven teaming up against demons.
Now free to play, PUBG: Battlegrounds' unique focus on massive zones and realistic simulation remain a lot of fun, even if its novelty wore off years ago.
New World is a very pretty survival-MMORPG hybrid that saves its best moments for the endgame – but you have to be willing to grind like hell to get to them.
Lost In Random is a delightful, sprawling action adventure set in a dark but fun Tim Burton-esque universe. Its combat doesn't always hold up but exploring its worlds absolutely does.
Baldo is a vast action-adventure RPG that looks like it should be Zelda meets Ghibli, but it trips over its own feet at nearly every opportunity, from frequent bugs to frustrating combat.
I Expect You To Die 2 is a fabulous second stab at the spy thriller genre in VR, even if it's a bit short.
The Forgotten City does a fabulous job exploring interesting moral quandaries through excellently written dialogue and characters.
A decent but poorly paced VR shooter that at least scratches both World War II and arcade sniping sim itches.
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is an exemplary PS5 game, showing full well what the system is capable of — all while masterfully reviving a beloved series for the new generation.
Wraith: The Oblivion - Afterlife is a thrilling VR horror game that engrosses on a level not seen since last year's Half-Life: Alyx Jeff sequence.
MLB The Show 21 isn't the generational leap forward we might've expected following a new console launch, but it's still the best baseball sim you can play on any platform.
The Climb 2 is a short but sometimes thrilling VR climbing simulator with some nicely diverse backdrops.
Rhythm-based spinoff Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory is a nostalgia-heavy love letter to the RPG series, but doesn't have much by way of depth of its own.
The fourth official expansion pack to the six-year-old MMO hardly does justice to the source material that it's based on, but it still manages to conjure up a decent adventure of its own.
Final Fantasy 7 Remake faithfully updates Midgar and the original's enigmatic cast of antiheroes for a new generation, masterfully weaving its own grand tale in the process.
Rogue-lite and bullet hell fans will both find something to enjoy about HyperParasite, a retro 80's-themed bullet hell roiling over with mean streets and terrible hairdos.
While the "VR-only" part may alienate many current PC gamers, it's a triumph that a VR title as excellent as Alyx exists at all.
MLB The Show 20 isn't the biggest upgrade the series has ever seen but it's a solid one with a few good highlights and no real downsides.
Explore an icy peak and a desert tomb in two new Elder Scrolls Online dungeons that underwhelm in comparison to past releases.