Alice Bell
Dishonored 2 takes everything you loved about Dishonored and improves upon it without becoming bloated. It's a beautifully designed, layered game, stuffed with hidden gems and secret stories. Also you can stab people in mid air.
You know when you were a kid, in the summer, you used to have huge pretend adventures in the back garden with all your mates? Where the shed was a castle and the hedge was a jungle? And it was like really having an adventure? This is sort of like that.
The more you play Overwatch the more you realise Blizzard thought of basically everything you might criticise it for.
Thumper is a great rhythm action game, with strong visuals, fantastic design, and more speed than Keanu Reeves on a bus rigged to explode.
Fast, satisfying combat and the most ambitious single player for a fighting game yet, Injustice 2 is a great game elevated further by its attention to detail and Cavill-esque good looks.
Beautiful, unsettling, challenging. The fungal growths in it are cute little creatures rather than mushrooms (which are horrible). What's not to like?
Little Nightmares is frightening, in a way that gets under your skin. A way that whispers in your ear that you won't sleep well tonight. Little Nightmares takes things you were afraid of when you were a kid, and reminds you you're still afraid now.
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is beautiful, discomforting, and compelling. It might challenge what you like about games, but challenge is good. You're doing yourself a disservice if you don't try it.
I might not have enjoyed it quite as perfectly as Dishonored 2, but Death of the Outsider is a fittingly melancholy way to wrap up a story arc I've loved. The Empire of the Isles is a strange and exquisitely horrible world, and this entry is no different.
This long standing series makes an outrageously good current gen debut. The size and scope of the environments, and the monsters in them, is awe inspiring, making Monster Hunter: World a true (lizard) king of games.
God of War achieves a very impressive balance between the epic and the mundane, between the ultra violent and the domestic. It's undoubtedly the coolest and most interesting God of War to date.
Final Fantasy XV is about adventure and excitement. There are oddities, and it's not the FF you're used to, but it's a good time with some good boys, and has an unexpected emotional resonance to it. Sometimes it seems like it shouldn't work, but it does.
The attention to detail and beautiful flat colour design really shine in this metroidvania about a brave probe exploring an alien planet. Though the difficulty curve can spike frustratingly, fans of Ori and the Blind Forest should enjoy Forma.8's travels
Tacoma is a quiet, lovely, yet slightly melancholy exploration of humanity struggling in a corporate vacuum, and one that proves Fullbright still has an eye for detail.
XCOM 2 is more tense and thrilling than a turn-based strategy has any right to be. There are some great additions to the original gameplay, but the port to console is an imperfect one.
The representation of a familly dealing with the protracted illness of a child is well done, but wasn't as interesting to me as the exploration of faith that was inextricably woven into it.
The Flame in the Flood is beautiful, desolate, and it will kill you again and again.
Changing aesthetic from 'Dry Urban Dilapidation Chic' to 'Irradiated Sea Fog Realness' is refreshing.
Watch Dogs 2 is missing a bit of refinement, and has had issues with multiplayer, but joining DedSec is still a riot and a half. It's high energy fun with engaging characters, and you can make an entire city your playground.
Skyrim Special Edition on console looks lovely and runs well, and with all the DLC included it's a great option if you aren't fussed about mods. If you are fussed about mods you might be disappointed. Or already have a PC.