Crusader King 3 takes the throne as the new king of historical strategy by expanding on and deepening the best parts of what made its predecessor memorable and unique.
A Total War Saga: Troy absolutely nails its Bronze Age setting and comes up with interesting ways to make the period work in its grand strategy framework, but its AI has trouble wrapping its head around it.
Othercide is a tactical roguelike with a flair for the dramatic, full of satisfying combat, careful planning, and sometimes heart-rending decisions.
Deep Rock Galactic is the best kind of four-player co-op game. Exciting combat, great missions, and lots of upgrades make this one a winner.
Persona 5 Royal takes an all-time great JRPG and makes it even greater. Going above and beyond a re-release or a remaster, almost everything has been expanded and improved with an entire game's worth of new content and improvements.
An underwhelming strategic take on the Three Kingdoms, especially compared to Total War.
Once its major bugs are resolved, Wolcen's clever ideas could let it compete with the heavyweights of the action RPG genre. For now, though, too much of the mayhem is caused by bugs to recommend it.
Reforged is an uninspiring remaster, but Warcraft 3 itself is still a great game nearly two decades later.
MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries checks most of the boxes I would have asked for out of a modern revival of the series.
Planet Zoo is a wildly satisfying park-builder with a menagerie of lovely looking animals.
Age of Wonders: Planetfall is a dazzling, slick, diverse 4X with snappy and exciting turn-based combat and a story I was always eager to discover more of.
Steel Division 2 does almost everything Normandy 44 did as well or better, but just about everything new it tries gets bogged down in the mud.
Warhammer: Chaosbane can stand proudly alongside some of the best games that have used the foreboding, Gothic Old World as a setting.
Total War: Three Kingdoms uses excellent pacing and strong character mechanics to create a consistently exciting and challenging historical strategy campaign.
High skill cap melee combat is equally rewarding and daunting, though the archery and support roles could use some work.
Imperator: Rome packs more interesting strategic systems and detail into its vast historical sandbox simulation than its interface can fully handle, but they produce some excellent political scheming and warfare.
Tropico 6 stands out as an in-depth city-builder with a strong personality, but its economic systems are unwieldy.
Stellaris: Console Edition brings Paradox's grand 4X strategy to consoles remarkably effectively, but it's a few lightyears behind in important updates.
At the Gates tries some ambitious new ideas that, in time, may leave a mark on the 4X genre. But today, it's far too broken to recommend.
Below is a gorgeous, atmospheric dungeon crawler that is difficult to take in at the pace it deserves because of oppressive survival mechanics.