Strangers of Paradise is a loveable action-RPG despite its best efforts to spoil itself with a story that only becomes interesting in the last hour. The action is a little messy and not all of the moving parts gel together perfectly, but it's got a compelling janky charm that is hard to ignore.
An expansive, beautiful and engrossing new adventure that deepens the series' lore while doubling down on what made the original such a classic. A masterclass in meaningful open-world design, where exploration and curiosity is encouraged and rewarded.
Halo Infinite's campaign closes a few doors and opens some others, and even if the open-world stylings could be better integrated into the overarching gameplay design, it's a title that pays homage to the past while looking to the future
Call of Duty: Vanguard unabashedly apes the style of 2019's Modern Warfare, with a multiplayer that is fun though familiar, but featuring a campaign that largely misses the mark.
BPM: Bullets Per Minute demands its pound of flesh in terms of initial difficulty, and many will find this off-putting. But persist and you'll be rewarded with a unique roguelike rhythm-based FPS with a metal soundtrack that slaps harder than the hand of God.
An enthralling murder mystery with mature themes makes Lost Judgment one of the best narratives in the series. Yagami and his cohort are in their element as detectives and lawyers doggedly pursuing justice and truth, so much so that its relatively easy to overlook some of the tonal dissonance with the side content.
Deathloop takes Arkane's well known brand of first-person action stealth and artfully melds it into a time-bending multi-assassination power fantasy.
Some devilishly clever puzzles shine in a unique take on the point-and click genre, but the game waits to the end to make its story truly interesting, which might be a little late if you're looking for an emotional investment to get you through some of the more tedious moments.
Foreclosed features a masterful comic book art style and pumping sci-fi soundtrack, but its average action and failure to capitalise on its cyberpunk themes make it a hard sell.
The Ascent nails the cyberpunk aesthetic but doesn't really attempt to capitalise on its themes of corporate slavery. The solid audiovisuals and competent action-RPG twin-stick shooter hybrid gameplay manage to glue the experience together, even when glaring flaws such as lacklustre quest design and an overreliance on backtracking threaten to derail it.
Necromunda: Hired Gun features a stunning art direction, but with a garbled story and more technical and design blemishes than you can poke a space stick at, this one's bound to be buried in the under-hive.
Aspects of the gameplay of the earlier titles will probably no longer satisfy, but the Legendary Edition is a stellar compilation and dutiful upgrade of three classic titles that show BioWare at the peak of its storytelling and world-building prowess.
Resident Evil Village is a technical masterpiece, featuring a fantastically realised and foreboding setting with a great sense of balance between action and horror elements. The king of survival horror refuses to relinquish its crown.
A faintly interesting premise is irrevocably squandered by muddy visuals, tedious moment-to-moment gameplay and a hateable weak-willed protagonist.
A sort and sweet visual novel which gives the player plenty of choice and leverages its source material well, only occasionally stumbling in the writing department.
Two fantastic games from the last generation get a makeover, leaning into the substantial muscle of the PS5 to deliver a stunning new experience at the dawn of a new console generation.
This third-person action game is a little rough around the edges and tries a little too hard to be serious, but its premise and combat is compelling enough to get the job done.
The beating heart of the Call of Duty experience in terms of multiplayer feels like a solid return to the classic formula, but abundant technical issues make this a worrying stumble into a new generation
Technical blemishes aside, Wasteland 3 harkens back to the days of the classic CRPG
The same awesome high fantasy epic, the same technical issues