Lorenzo Redaelli follows up 2020's uncompromising The Milky Way Prince: The Vampire Star with a pulverising, shape-shifting visual novel of friendship, post-COVID trauma, and horror in the blistering Italian sun that's as artistically dazzling as it is emotionally raw.
Developer Coal Supper's relentlessly inventive absurdist comedy might, by necessity, keep a tight rein on players, but this is an impeccably constructed masterclass in gag-telling.
Suspicious Developments' latest builds a witty, wonderfully generous adventure around a smart, rewarding, and endlessly imaginative turn-based tactics core.
Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew is a cerebral but hugely characterful stealth tactics game filled with creativity and depth. And fun pirate stuff.
Developer Balloon Studios cultivates a beautiful puzzle game with the timeless allure of a summer's day stroll.
Bleak realism meets absurdist fairytale in a stylish, surreal, and astonishingly surefooted - if mechanically unadventurous - exploration of faith, free will, and demonic temptation.
It might not have quite the same wow factor second time around, but Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 builds on its astonishing predecessor with intelligence and precision - making an already impressive achievement richer and more welcoming.
The most exhilarating and refined Monster Hunter yet, even if its attempts to balance the old and new don't always quite coalesce in its ongoing quest to please all audiences.
Acclaimed point-and-click studio Wadjet Eye's gently paced, time-travelling genre-hopper blends elegant puzzling and intricate, affecting storytelling to beautiful effect.
Developer Harebrained Schemes returns with an evocative and pulpy tactical adventure, where enjoyable turn-based combat just about offsets some woeful real-time stealth.
Structural complexity and a magpie's eye for pilfering makes for a strange, fragmentary journey into nightmare.
While Still Wakes the Deep is a beautiful work of atmosphere and tension, all that can be shattered by its strictly linear trappings.
A beautiful, elusive mood piece, Phoenix Springs' blend of taut dystopian detective noir and meandering surrealism is likely to frustrate as much as it intrigues.
Ubisoft's long-in-the-works pirate adventure boasts a beautiful world and bombastic ship-to-ship combat, but it sinks amid boring busywork and tedious traversal.
Planet Coaster 2's flexible creation tools are as compulsive as ever, but the fun butts up against an exhausting UI, uninspired management gameplay, and conspicuous content gaps that feel like cynical spaces for DLC.
Despite lacklustre management options, Frontier creates one of the finest park construction simulators yet.
A stylish and smart take on the beloved theme park formula, Parkitect is a winner.
Sega's brilliant puzzler Puyo Puyo makes a long overdue return to the west as part of this outstanding package.
A stylish, dreamily wrought open-world detective adventure that dances masterfully on the edge of cosmic nightmare.
An imaginative co-op experience that demands communication and teamwork, and conjures something memorable and unique as a result.