Ben Sheene
Metallic Child is a wild anime dungeon crawler wrapped in a few roguelike mechanics. Though its levels can run a bit long and its combat grow repetitive, a friendly difficulty makes bashing robot masters and their ilk a joy.
Taking cues from Zelda and Stardew Valley, Garden Story is a charming adventure packed with action and crafting that can often be oddly paced, dampening the fun of an otherwise delightful time.
The Medium finally arrives on PlayStation 5, bringing over Bloober Team's horror experience to a new audience with packed DualSense implementation and a few persistent gripes from the Xbox Series version.
Tribes of Midgard blends survival, crafting, and action in a cooperative Viking setting. But if you aren't matched with a helpful, communicative lobby, be prepared to spend long stretches of time engaging in the game's less fun activities.
Biomutant is an amalgamation of familiar concepts and mechanics most players will have encountered across dozens of games. Despite being busy and sometimes under-cooked, Biomutant aims high enough to mostly reach its unique aspirations.
Narita Boy is an explosion of 80s-inspired excess, splattering the player with a viscera of technobabble and cathode rays. Yet after peeling away the fragmented flesh, some may find the splendor of nostalgic reverence does not supplant equally memorable gameplay.
Immortals Fenyx Rising's Myths of the Eastern Realm DLC is a noble effort by Ubisoft Chengdu to infuse new and rarely touched upon mythology into the mainstream of games. Though mainly a reskin of the base game, fans should enjoy this godly romp.
Immortals Fenyx Rising's first piece of DLC, A New God, expands on the complexity of the base game's puzzles, testing the mettle of players but providing only a handful of opportunities for combat, exploration, and story.
As another varied entry in the expansive franchise, Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus gives players a gloomy turn-based adventure with enough good ideas and personality to differentiate it from similar titles, while overcoming a few minor downfalls.
Though it doesn't reinvent the rogeulike genre, Fury Unleashed makes a name for itself through its comic book style and action-heavy combo system that relies on agile shooting and swift thinking.
The Surge 2 builds upon the unique ideas of its predecessor to create a more engaging, sprawling sequel. A few bumps in the road do little to impede a satisfying construct of combat and customization.
Arca's Path strips away familiar virtual reality gimmicks and gives players a serene, occasionally challenging puzzle game that requires no controllers, just the simple motion of your head. Though it runs quite short, it's a peaceful space that offers another glimpse at what the platform offers.
A surprising twist on the strategy and resource management genre, Kingdom Two Crowns offers players a mostly serene experience with gorgeous art and limited direction that may frustrate players not willing to uncover its secrets.
Warhammer: Chaosbane joins the large family of Warhammer properties in a small stable of action-RPGs. Though somewhat derivative of the genre, it offers enough new blood and style to be a valuable entry for those looking for dungeons to crawl and loot to collect.
The path towards competent and engaging virtual reality games is littered with the corpses of tech demos and half-baked products. The Mage's Tale fires on many cylinders and becomes one of those mythic "must haves" not because it is simply decent but because it proves that VR has magic in it.
The Invincible is an apt, narrative-focused piece of science fiction. Avoid entrenched gameplay expectations as this "walking sim" aims to extend a curious, eerie hand, offering players a tense journey of alien discovery meant to be slowly absorbed.
Players not fond of a nostalgic challenge may bristle at Infernax's devotion to the past but beneath a few rough edges is a gory romp that hits a lot of classic notes.
Rainbow Six Extraction somehow translates the phenomenal gunplay from Siege into tense PvE incursions but can stumble with Operator diversification and mission variety as teams master their relentless and deadly alien foes.
More than just a competent roguelike fresh out of early access, Skul: The Hero Slayer delivers power-swapping action and a mostly satisfying loop that should sufficiently satisfy your Dead Cells or Hades cravings.
Plucking inspiration from several unsettling sources of entertainment, Transference delivers a creepy, cerebral virtual reality tour through a broken family dynamic that is unimpeded by taxing puzzles and relishes in immersing players in haunted house of tragedy.