Hideo Kojima's farewell to Metal Gear Solid is a dream: the best ever stealth game, and the high point of a remarkable series.
Dark Souls 3 sees the return of the king in a spectacular conclusion to From Software's trilogy.
Put like that it almost sounds sinister, like this was made by a committee of scientists in lab conditions. Really it's been made by people who understand the joy of play and, much more crucially, that it's not just about the numbers. In the end it doesn't matter that Heroes of the Storm has 37 heroes, and the competition has hundreds. It doesn't matter that it has more maps, or no items, or shorter games. It doesn't even matter how many players it has. All that matters is it's more fun.
The structure underlying Bloodborne is not just original but coherent, and because of this the impact of everything it does is commensurately greater. This is total design. It feels wonderful to have a world like this and, over a week of solid play later, feel that there's so much more to discover. And it's awful to know that, in all likelihood, it will be a painfully long time until I play anything else that matches up to Bloodborne's breadth of vision, generosity of content, and - yes - genius.
The latest internet craze lets you experience life as a goat. It's the gaming equivalent of a novelty single
Everything adds up to a game with good ideas that is sorely lacking in refinement – the punitive flaws of The Swindle's meta-structure and procedural generation could have been ameliorated with minor tweaks. This feels 80% of the way to a great game, but that missing 20% soon comes to dominate the rest.
This zombie survival game tries hard to stand out from the flesh-hungry crowd, but glitches will leave players groaning
Activision's blockbuster shooter goes back to its roots, and offers a solid if unsurprising experience, but the three elements within feel like wildly different games
Faith is restored to a visually striking world she deserves in the return of the first-person parkour title – but, as with the original, niggles stop it achieving greatness
Bethesda has a reputation for two things: stunningly realised worlds and frustrating technical issues. In both cases, the latest Fallout does not disappoint
A charming but slight co-op action game where a basic combat system is elevated by clever bonuses and abilities, and half the pleasure is the world's incidental details.
Atomic Heart aims high and, even if it doesn't quite pull it off, is a decent shooter in an exceptionally realised setting.
This autobiographical game explores the death of a boy and shows the possibilities of the medium of video games
Darkest Dungeon is something fresh in one of gaming's most overdone genres, and the stress system is a winner – a particular delight being how a long-lived character will accumulate various mental scars.
With its taut, tense action and destructible environments, Siege is the best Rainbow Six for years – if only Ubisoft would rethink its business model
With the ability to play as a monster against a human team, Evolve offers something unique – and surely one of gaming's best-ever tribute acts. When you're fleeing from the hunters and get trapped in their containment field, swatting desperately while looking for an out, you think back to those Power Pills and how far we've come.
Resident Evil 4 remake is a great game in its own right, but can't hold a candle to the original.
Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak is more of the same for Rise fans, which is great, but the lack of truly 'new' stuff is disappointing.
Monster Hunter: Rise is arguably the greatest entry in Capcom's flagship series, and a game that simply never stops giving.
The action roleplaying game makes a masterful return to Lordran