Micro-developer Lunar Division melds scientific rigour and faithful devotion into one, creating an entirely singular game about the depths of space, the limits of your own mind, and the divine beauty of mathematics.
Despelote's creators tell a remarkable, pseudo-autobiographical tale about football, Ecuador, and community - but also one about the act of remembering, and the creative act itself.
Fit for the red carpet.
Like the Blizzard hits of old, Diablo 4 is a designer's game at heart, built on intricacy and depth. A sense of fearful overcompensation holds it back.
At once a little simple and a little over-stuffed, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is still above all a game of immense charm and fluid, free-form style.
While platforming, rhythm, and navigation mechanics might clash at times, turning the map upside down reveals a game that puts all in service of nature and experience.
A punishing, exhasperating slog, or an off-beat love story between driver and car, human and the Zone? Pacific Drive is both and then some.
Nomada Studio follows up on the striking Gris with an effort that's poignant and precise, if maybe just a tad melodramatic.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 is the most extensive Call of Duty game ever made, but not without its flaws. Dour storytelling and purely incremental changes to multiplayer prevent it from reaching the legendary status of its predecessors.
Ubisoft Montreal could have made a bold, brave statement as to what a hardcore, competitive multiplayer shooter should be all about. For all the joy of its exceptional gameplay, Rainbow Six Siege is suppressed by a lack of commitment to what makes it great.
Star Wars Battlefront is remarkably beautiful. So much so that I genuinely believe it is the best realisation of the Star Wars universe we have ever seen in a video game. But it also feels empty. Simple, stripped back shooting is great in a game with tons of ways to play, but when it's confined to what feels like only two fully-fledged game modes, and the metagame is taken back to bare bones too, it begins to make you wonder if there's actually much there at all.
Starfield pairs near-impossible breadth with a classic Bethesda aptitude for systemic physics, magnetic sidequests, and weird vignettes. But in sacrificing direct exploration for the sake of sheer scale, there's nothing to bind it together.
Rocksteady's talent is so evident in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, it almost overcomes the terrible decision to try and make it.
A visually arresting, warm-hearted tale of a gofer searching for his purpose, Harold Halibut flounders amongst endless fetch-quests and waffle.
This is a new FC, with some genuine differences on- and off-pitch. It's also the exact same FC it's always been.
For a series built on high-octane thrills and explosive gratification, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6's withdrawal to the well-trodden formula echoes the wider industry's continued allergy to risk.
Warm-hearted, funny, and never less than sincere, Wanderstop is a pleasant place to while away the time, though less successful as a vehicle for mindfulness in itself.
This is a game of just remarkable craft - we've not even mentioned the stop-motion style of animation! It's lovely - and likewise remarkable attention, thought, and care. If only just a little more of that care had been afforded to the playing of it.
Mixing repetitive, imprecise combat with annoying characters and a landslide of nonsensical, proper noun-stuffed lore, Immortals of Aveum is almost so bad it's good. If only.
Massive bravely peels away the many layers of Ubisoft open world-isms in Star Wars Outlaws. It's a fatal error.