Consistently building on a simple set of rules with progressively inventive twists, this detective puzzle game offers up tough but fair head scratchers you'll feel like a genius for solving.
I'm not sure an hour passed in the fourth entry in Bioware's fantasy RPG series where I didn't wish they'd handled something differently. Then, once the credits rolled after 50 hours, I started a second playthrough.
The new Spiritborn class's centipede Animorph is a great addition, and mercenaries widen buildcraft significantly. But Diablo 4's core loop is still mostly unexciting, and the story here feels thin and laboured.
A delightfully strange mystery box of toytown oddities and disturbing encounters, Grunn will murder you repeatedly and still leave you proud of an immaculately trimmed hedgerow.
A meandering plot filled with odd tonal choices, but elevated by incredible cinematography and animation. God Of War Ragnarok is a generous, gorgeous action adventure that's hard to take seriously, but easy to get sucked in by.
Occasional forced trinket collection aside, this tiny open-world is filled with stress-free exploration, lovely sights, and simple, satisfying puzzles.
Part wide-eyed escapism and part muscular, slightly ponderous driving sim, Star Trucker is as much about concentration as it is relaxation. Oh, and preparation - if you don't want to end up asphyxiating miles away from the nearest cash n' carry.
It's hard to get enthusiastic about Outlaws' weak stealth and combat, film-set worlds, and half-hearted nods at a more conceptually experimental game. Still, it's a perfectly ok bit of Star Wars entertainment with some great, authentic moments.
Layered challenges, unhinged abilities, and generous tools to support wild experimentation combine with brilliant, laugh-out-loud funny writing. A tactics game that's as welcoming to newcomers as it is rewarding for genre aficionados. What an absolute treat.
This exceptionally creative twist on the fundamentals of Blackjack makes for a moreish roguelike that can often make viable deckbuilding feel too much at the mercy of fate.
Conscript's grimy, disturbing setting and gruelling combat are effective and poignant, and a sturdy and well-crafted survival horror skeleton keeps things compelling.
Two-thirds exhilarating and ingenious, one third asinine and frustrating, Anger Foot feels played out by the time you've finished the first few stages. Through great level design, constant novelty, and mostly solid fundamentals, it remains intoxicating for another sixty of them.
Building on Sekiro's parry system in a layered and fascinating metroidvania world, Nine Sols is a punishing but encouraging 2D soulslike spilling over with personality and creativity.
Engaging from start to arguably too-soon finish, Felvidek is a raw, strange, and brilliant RPG that alternates between deadly combat, plummy prose, crass jokes, and odd beauty.
A compact but effective expansion for an already brilliant game, The Splintered Sea's additions are sure to make considerable waves for your toolbox of destruction.
A beautiful paper-folding puzzler that screwed up the last remaining scraps of my self esteem and yeeted them into the bin.
A lavishly presented, detailed, often gripping RTS with most of the atmosphere and tone you'd expect from the series, held back from greatness by playing it too safe, some control issues, and favouring reaction speed over tactical depth.
While obtuse in places, Manor Lords is an idiosyncratic, lively and sturdy sim that will keep you curious and delighted with its many intricacies.
Goblin Stone makes a wonderful first impression with playful and charming presentation, but that charm spell soon dissipates, revealing a sometimes stodgy, grindy, and unsatisfying tactics game with diminishing returns.
In the moment, Broken Roads offers up creativity in spades, but the bigger picture story - combined with weak combat and a dry take on moral choice - never coalesces into anything especially entertaining.