Directive 8020 is Supermassive Games’ most chilling and best horror game yet. The new engine shines with the most beautiful and atmospheric environment yet, with an amazing cast of crew members we desperately try to keep alive. The survival horror stealth sections provide the interaction I’ve been craving from the genre, and the sense of dread as you figure out who to trust never left me. It’s not only one of the best games in its sub-genre, but one of the better horror games in recent memory.
Moses & Plato – Last Train to Clawville is an enthralling murder puzzler, pulled along by an amazing cast and memorable characters. Even though it’s light on deep gameplay mechanics, the animal senses add wrinkles to clue gathering, setting up tense verbal standoffs as you zero in on the true murderer. Fans of Sherlock Holmes, visual novels, and well-executed mysteries are sure to enjoy this caper.
RACCOIN is the next rogue-like I didn’t imagine I’d want, or would even work, but developer Doraccoon has pulled the correct levers for what makes one of these games feel good. While it didn’t consume my every thought like other similar titles, there was more than enough coin pushing goodness to keep me at the cabinet for hours. With its hundreds of modifiers and power up’s, and handful of unique characters with special abilities, RACCOIN is the next dopamine hit game to get your paws onto.
WWE 2K26 is a solid improvement on a series already on the upswing. The changes to stamina make the moment-to-moment gameplay feel more real to life and add risk and reward to every match, and the plethora of options to see your dream matches play out are all solid to great, MyGM being a personal favorite. Ringside Pass changes the entire content unlocking system to a bit of a battle pass grind, but in terms of booking and living out the wrestling fantasy, WWE2K26 takes home the world title.
Cairn is a difficult and sometimes punishing climbing game, forcing you to struggle with scaling a mountain, and what it means to survive doing a task that gargantuan. Those who keep at it will be treated to a great story about what people are willing to give up to achieve their goals, on top of a great sense of accomplishment once you finally reach the peak.
Moonlighter 2 carves out its own place in gaming, being a mix of a delightful shop-keeping simulator, with its newly added action rogue-like mechanics to differentiate itself from the gameplay of the original. Every change over the original game was welcome to me, with deeper and more varied combat, and more engaging shop and town management. It’s a tale of two games, and Digital Sun Games has given us an improved and more rewarding experience across both.
Gigasword is a mix of an old school art style, Metroidvania progression, Souls-like combat, and the addition of a weighted weapon that changes how you solve puzzles and platform. All together it makes for an interesting and enjoyable gameplay feel that I was happy to engage with for hours. I felt less enthused about the aimless backtracking, which could have been fixed with better signposting or a more nuanced map. While those issues did frustrate me, I still would recommend this to folks looking for a throwback to older titles, with an original twist to keep things fresh for the modern day.
Goodnight Universe stands apart with an engrossing sci-fi story about family drama and our place in the world, while giving us a taste of the super-powered fantasy of a young child. It delivers on both those prompts, giving me a gaming experience I wouldn’t put down until I rolled credits. In a year of grand stories, unforgettable characters, and new personal favorite games, Goodnight Universe cements itself alongside the year’s best titles.
Undusted: Letters from the Past is a satisfying mix of what it presents to the player, a lo-fi cozy cleaning game that leaves me wanting to clean things perfectly over and over, while also presenting a narrative about family that pulls at the heart. I enjoyed myself so much that I played it entirely in one session, about two hours in total, finding myself enraptured in the art, music, story, and gameplay of this fantastic game about cleaning up old things.
Cozy gaming is not my main genre of gaming, but Is This Seat Taken? gives me that good brain feeling as I perfected each scenario. While I found the story not entirely interesting, the gameplay loop kept me more than intrigued as I kept passengers happy across its many levels. If doing a few levels before bed had a poster child, I could see this game contending for that prize.