All of that has been done away with, replaced by a nauseating terrine of pointless progression mechanics, baffling interface decisions, and clunky controls, fermented in a formaldehyde cocktail of technical issues. This game is agonizingly bad.
If players give it time, and accept it on its own terms, they’ll find a masterpiece of third person action, physics-based chaos, and bravura visual design lurking under this thick slab of untreated concrete. This isn’t just Remedy’s best game since Max Payne 2. It’s the best game the studio has ever made.
Nothing else quite captures the experience of being hunted by a mammoth horde or finally taking them down with equal parts brain and brawn. Yes, it has its issues, there are some annoyances and oversights, but they aren’t enough to keep me from recommending Days Gone to just about everyone with a PS4.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is as brutal, punishing, and satisfying as any game FromSoftware has ever made.
The Division 2 is a breath of fresh air in a crowded genre. It’s not trying to reinvent the loot shooter, and it doesn’t need to. Instead, Ubisoft has focused on carefully refining and polishing the base elements of gameplay.
The core of the game certainly does have that classic feeling: uncompromised, ambitious, unique, and bursting at the seams with creativity.
Devotion is at its worst in the moments when it relies on cheap jump-scares and horror tropes, and at its best when it prods the depths of protagonist Feng Yu’s psyche, as it does to devastating effect in its grisly climax and conclusion.
The future of this legendary developer remains a question for another day, but its followers shouldn’t be so quick to write off this new franchise. This Anthem may not be a perfect song, but it has a lot of promise.