Werewolf is firing on all cylinders when it lets you take on a wave of enemies, turning them all into puddles of jam. You don't have to think too much about the gameplay, and that gradually becomes a good thing. If this came out 10 years ago, I'd be thinking about it more during end-of-the-year talks.
Everybody has their Assassin's Creed. Mine might still be Black Flag. But Valhalla is basically Vikings vs. knights, filling out the other two sides of my personal trifecta. The assassinations might've gone soft, but the northern European world building hits hard.
If you like going on long walks, if your favorite color is safety orange, or if you're never taking "must love dogs" out of your Tinder bio, then Hunting Simulator 2 is sounding your mating call.
Chimera Squad gives XCOM something it needed a lot more of: direction. The stakes are lower, but the execution is smoother.
Part point-and-click radio play, part adventure game audiobook, Kentucky route Zero is as much of a journey in sound as it is a meditation on surrealism. I'd nominate it for the Booker Prize in literature before I'd hand it a Keighley statue at the Video Game Awards.
The Dark Souls of zoo tycoon sims. Start slower than you'd like to, YouTube yet another tutorial, then watch Planet Zoo blossom before your eyes. This is a slow, mindful, niche of a sim that demands more patience and learning than you'd expect.
Obsidian set out to make a Fallout game, but didn't think we'd mind if they actually made it a Firefly game along the way. So now we have an anti-capitalist Firefly mired in labor issues but elevated by rapidfire gunplay, peppered with chuckles from a tryhard sense of humor.
Hideo Kojima has fully weaponized the walking simulator, writing a love letter to the delivery service workers of our shipping and handling world. Death Stranding is about ending isolation, and does it so gracefully that I can't imagine it being done better than it's done here.
The family that slays together, stays together. When it comes to striking a balance between raucous gameplay and dramatic discourse, Children of Morta is an absolute gem.
Warsaw is World War 2's Darkest Dungeon. Excellent narrative beats hide under the gameplay rubble, telling the story of Poland's guerrilla fighters being turned into bullet sponges for Nazis.