The measure of an open world is ultimately not the story it tells but whether you're happy to kill time within it, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance offers plenty of ways to do that, even if a lot of them will, in fact, get you slaughtered.
An oppressively beautiful portrayal of an undersea environment, and a well-wrought survival game with a vaguely eco-friendly message.
Though not without its moments, Forces is a depressing return to form for Sonic the Hedgehog after the joys of Mania.
Origins handles its creative inheritance more elegantly than some open worlders, not least because unlike, say, the first game's Altair, its protagonist actually feels like he is of this realm rather than merely in it. And if the levelling and to-do list grate, the series has never offered a society and a landscape so worthy of close attention.
Vicious, affecting, witty, spaced-out, crude, inventive, morbid and for the most part, a success.
Resident Evil 4 meets the Truman Show in an entertaining but unremarkable follow-up, held back by tepid stealth and warmed-over scares.
A powerfully grim, fleet-footed cyberpunk action odyssey that is caught in the spell of its own nihilism.
A scrappy, open-ended, infiltrator's delight for the player who enjoys breaking levels more than beating them.
A morbid, potent epilogue for Dishonored 2 equipped with new powers, some great locations and some overdue tweaks.
A one-of-a-kind blend of blood-thumping martial arts, combo curation and grindy multiplayer set in a ravishing wasteland.
A splendid hybrid of CSI, cyberpunk and Silent Hill woven around a potent central performance, spoiled a bit by unconvincing scare tactics.
1992 is alive and well. Christian Whitehead and team turn in a beautiful rewrite of the 16-bit Sonic games with all-new stages.
A sublime blend of Metroidvania and Lovecraft with beautiful hand-drawn art, tarnished a little by the element of repetition.
A winningly nasty turn-based cult sim with beautiful monochrome art and surgical orchestral audio.
A short, sweet, slightly dissatisfying translation of Gone Home's cosy environmental storytelling into the realm of speculative fiction.
A trashy, overwrought psychodrama with the odd inspired touch that alternates between simple forensic puzzles and gimmicky gunplay.
An ornate and clever if slightly under-cooked System Shock successor, which makes the most of a truly magnificent space station setting.
A wobbly first-person horror whose moments of splendid unease are spoiled by clunky stealth, casual misogyny and warmed-over scares.
Media Molecule prot'g' Tarsier turns in a masterpiece of meat and malice, swiftly consumed but with a lingering aftertaste.
A perfectly horrid, wonderfully thought-out mixture of Majora's Mask-style time rewinding and Metroidvania exploration.