Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment is worth picking up on its own, but you should really just get the total package and play through all three campaigns. They each offer something unique like a Vegas buffet, and coincidentally enough the new price point of the Treasure Trove edition matches up.
Do you want to slice some demons into little meat chunks as a troubled badass, and perhaps missed out on the great Dreamcast and PS2 renditions of Berserk? Get Band of the Hawk. Seeing the story continue past the Golden Age is enough for an enthusiast to buy in. Otherwise, wait for the price to match what's being offered.
Horizon Zero Dawn is a fascinating premise wrapped in a tortilla of tropes. It has detective vision, radio towers, skill trees, masked load screens (Tony Hawk's American Wasteland gets no credit for popularizing this in 2005, by the way), and a world map littered with billions of points of interest -- all stuff you've seen before. But after you set up and execute a cunning plan to decimate a pack of giant robot crocodiles and that smile hits your face, it's more excusable.
If you're craving an RTS on a console, or perhaps aren't particularly well-versed in the genre, Halo Wars 2 has you covered. It doesn't offer much that other games in the same space have given us over the past 10 years, but it's polished and fun to play.
With its emphasis on challenging combat and light storytelling elements that are at times bordering on parody (in a good way), Nioh feels like a true successor to the Ninja Gaiden series and fills a nice void that Souls left behind. Did Team Ninja ever leave? Whatever the case might be, it's back.
Described as "Dark Souls underwater," this tactical action game is a brief, but fun little journey.
This wonderful looking Spider-Man simulator in the sky doesn't live up to its full potential.
Arc System Work's staunch dedication to the retro aesthetic for Double Dragon IV is admirable, but still falls short of the mark even when juxtaposed to several of the series' own entries. Punch and kicking dudes as Billy and Jimmy still works, but many elements of IV just feel a little too off-brand for my liking.
As usual the new zombie map feels like the main event, but Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare: Sabotage is a mostly successful injection of new stuff to do. I'll be combing forums for days trying to figure out all of Rave in the Wood's tiny secrets, and at this point, I think we've solidified that the gang is coming back for three more add-ons. Tubular!
Resident Evil returns to its horror roots, and is all the better for it in a game that was designed to be played in VR.
While the new engine doesn't sport a consistent framerate and you can pretty much skip the Chi movie, Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue is a healthy enough serving of what's to come in Fragmentary Passage, and bundles in one amazing core entry that everyone should play. It's a massive risk if you aren't already invested in this wacky series, and as always, all eyes are on Kingdom Hearts III at some nebulous unknown time.
A little platformer that offers new mechanics in a graduated, character-centric fashion.
I might not be as hypnotized with Stardew Valley as a lot of other folks, but it's pretty much the Harvest Moon follow-up I've been waiting for since the SNES and Nintendo 64 days.
Gravity Rush 2 is the kind of game that makes me want to do everything. If there's more DLC beyond the upcoming free Raven campaign, I'll play it. If there's some uncovered secret or time trial I haven't done yet, I'll find it. Now that the series is unchained from the ill-fated Vita, I hope it gets the recognition it deserved the first time around.
Superhot VR is one of the best virtual reality games you can buy right now.
Wild Guns Reloaded is a treat. Whether you're the type of score-attack addicted player who wants to rocket ahead in the leaderboards, or you have three other friends/family members ready for co-op, it's worth digging into.
While I didn't have any trouble seeing this season through per se -- as the amazing action choreography helped -- City of Light did run out of gas once most of the major players bowed out. But truth be told, Telltale has created a strong universe to keep expanding on, and as long as it can keep supplanting well-known characters in the future, I can see an excuse to keep making this series more than any of its other projects to date.
Werewolves Within is a cool experiment wrapped into an above-average game. It's limited and laser-focused, but it's good at what it does.
I can really get lost in the world of Let it Die, and I think I'll be playing it off and on for the next several weeks at the very least. It begs you to come back, and given the platform in which it's been distributed, it's something that can easily evolve into a better game in the future.
Like Team Ico's past work, talking about The Last Guardian too much inherently drifts into spoiler territory, but we have years to unpack this. For now, I'm confident in saying that although it isn't their best work, there really aren't too many directors out there like Fumito Ueda, and I hope for our sake, he continues making games.