Minecraft Dungeons II is a great example of how to take ideas from the first game that didn't work and retool them into something meaningful and enjoyable.
Dune: Awakening is Funcom's best game yet, both in terms of gameplay and technically. They do a fantastic job of making the player feel like they are scrapping by living on Arrakis.
Graveyard Keeper 2 is everything I wanted in a sequel, and technically, aside from technical issues, is a great grim cozy game sim.
CONTROL Resonant isn't a bad game by any means, but feels more like a Remedy game that is trying to imitate its own legacy rather than making a wholly compelling experience.
Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave is a genuinely massive achievement, in scale and in ambition, with real depth and variety across the whole game.
Trails in the Sky 2nd Chapter improves on the goodwill built by its predecessor rather than just coasting on it, building one of the strongest JRPGs of this generation.
Marvel's Wolverine is a good-looking, beautifully performed game built on a combat system that never grows past its opening hours and a story that keeps giving away its own secrets.
Onimusha: Way of the Sword is a great modern entry into the long-running and long-dormant Capcom series. The combat and story are great, but open-world bloat makes this Capcom's most divisive release in years.
Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault just does what the original already did, slightly slower and slightly less crisp, with a handful of bugs that shouldn't have made it out the door.
Mortal Shell II is easily one of the biggest improvements from one entry to the next that I've seen in this space.
What Torn Banner has built is a genuinely tense, occasionally nerve-shredding co-op horror game that respects its 2011 roots more than almost anything else available right now.
Big Walk delivers on a promise that's rare in cooperative games: nothing here is scripted, and the funniest moments are ones the game couldn't have planned even if it wanted to.
Between rough gameplay feel and mechanics, The Relic: First Guardian doesn't present itself with a bang, but with a wimper.
The best moments in 007 First Light are the ones where everything aligns for a few minutes, and you stop thinking about mechanics entirely.
Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus II feels like a safe sequel. It dives into the 40K lore really good, but the gameplay, once you sort yourself out with a solid squad tends to be pretty repetitive.
Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus II feels like a safe sequel. It dives into the 40K lore really well, but the gameplay, once you sort yourself out with a solid squad tends to be pretty repetitive.
LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is the best LEGO game to date, delivering an incredible love letter to Batman through strong combat, a fun story, and a smart celebration of the character's defining eras.
Directive 8020 feels like Supermassive Games has finally rejuvenated after the disappointing The Devil In Me. With this being the start of season two, this is a great showing, and I can’t wait to see what horrors they bring us next
Little Nightmares VR: Altered Echoes is a cool experiment in the Little Nightmares world. I just wish they pushed it a little further because what is here mostly works, it just peaks too early.
Ground Zero is a bit of a weird one. On some levels, it works incredibly well, mostly in the nostalgic feel and wearing its inspirations on its sleeves.