In Jurassic World Evolution, you can finally create a Jurassic Park to be proud of.
I thought I wanted more Kingdom Battle, but what I really want is something that captures the magic of experiencing its opening hours for the first time.
It took time to get here, but Destiny 2: Forsaken has evolved to be more than Destiny 2 or Destiny ever hoped to be. Forsaken is the return of Destiny as a hobby, but with all the improvements included in vanilla Destiny 2 readily available for all.
Thankfully, the rest of Diablo 3 can be played offline. And online or not, Diablo 3 is one of the best games to be released this decade. There's a reason it's still getting ported to new systems more than six years after its debut. The pairing of Blizzard's design and Nintendo's hardware, both companies working at their finest, is undeniable. As someone who has been a fan of Diablo 3 since it first launched, airplane rides will never be the same again.
Darksiders 3 is a nostalgic trip, reminding me of games I loved when I was younger. It never does anything spectacular, nor does it offer many new ideas. Instead, it exists as an earnest reminder of how games played eight years ago, and that’s enough for me.
Monster Hunter’s newest expansion adds tons of monsters, and comes with a punishing difficulty
Familiar isn’t always bad, and in the case of The Surge 2, familiar is just aggressively fine.
I’m not just excited about playing all that Shadowkeep has to offer, but also to see what’s happening next, and that’s a huge improvement from where the game was even a year ago.
Try as I might, I cannot find fault in Hades. It’s even created a calm in me that no other similar game has. Loss isn’t a frustrating experience met with loud swear words and the sounds of scrambling feet made by my previously sleeping cats. Failure is just another step on a long adventure with one of my favorite games, years in the making and well-worth the wait.
The best part about Beyond Light is that it looks and feels like a sequel without needing to start from scratch. A new power set like this isn’t something I expected to see out of an expansion. In that way, Beyond Light answers a question that’s given me serious doubts as a fan: how much can Bungie change Destiny 2 without moving to a new game entirely? For the first time, Beyond Light feels like Destiny 2 is truly putty in Bungie’s hands, rather than a titanic ship that takes eons to turn.
Shadowlands doesn’t do everything perfectly. The questing experience doesn’t feel as fluid in as previous expansions, and the quests aren’t as diverse. And it’s still too early to see how good the endgame content and updates will be. But even with the limited time I’m willing to put into Shadowlands, I’ll actually be able to play that endgame content as it comes out. And as my real life just gets more complicated the older I get, I couldn’t ask for a better shift in philosophy from my favorite MMO.
Persona 5 Strikers is the best version of a high school reunion
Rise’s gameplay variety and mobility — all fueled by that little Wirebug — make it a must-try game for Monster Hunter skeptics and hardcore fans alike.
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart earns its PS5 exclusivity
Children are like sponges, eager to learn and soak up new knowledge to apply to the decades ahead of them. If you’re an adult who’s curious about how games work, Game Builder Garage is a fun, informative experience most of the time — but it’s one you may prefer to experience in short bursts, lest the slow-moving lessons force you to snap your Switch in two.
For Dark Souls veterans, Death’s Door provides a less stressful but moody journey through a new world that offers familiar gameplay from a new, top-down perspective. But for players who’ve never played a game like this, Death’s Door gradually leads you into the deep end.
All of WarioWare: Get It Together!'s characters can compete in every single one of its microgames. And while some characters have clear strengths and weaknesses, it's impressive to see how co-developers Nintendo and Intelligent Systems made tweaks to each microgame to ensure that characters like 9-Volt or 18-Volt can still stand a chance against their more mobile co-workers.
It’s the grim veneer that not only saves Alan Wake, but like his flashlight, burns through the darkness that is its cloying gameplay. Alan Wake’s sense of place, its themes, the mood it creates, makes it a classic, and nothing — not even time — can overshadow that.
Left 4 Dead is a beautiful relic, something I and many others spent hundreds of hours playing in high school and college. But with games like Warhammer: Vermintide 2 and even Aliens: Fireteam Elite branching out and taking more of a class-based approach, I was sure Back 4 Blood’s more classic bone structure would crumble under the pressure. But Back 4 Blood is more like that makeshift, armor-clad Hummer you see in every zombie show and movie: The bones of what it once was are easy to see, but it’s been reinforced to survive in a new environment.
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy is the biggest surprise of the year