Remnant II is fortunately an improvement in nearly all respects, expanding on the the first game in interesting ways that push greater player agency and cooperative engagement while maintaining the same tight gun play. In that same breath, the problems from the first game are still present, though to varying degrees of annoyance.
Marvel’s Midnight Suns is an easy recommendation to strategy and superhero fans or anyone who’s been missing the more traditional BioWare experience. Its tactical combat stands out in the genre and is consistently compelling.
Slay the Spire is an absolute knockout of a devilishly simple concept that nevertheless merges the finesse of deck-building with the gripping strategy of a tightly-designed turn-based combat system, helped all the more by the desire to complete “just one more turn”.
While clearly a continuation of the Dark Souls games, Elden Ring is a natural evolution of that style but delivered in a package that is bigger and more breathtaking than anything the company has done before.
It may not be a brand new game, but even all these years later there still isn’t anything else quite like it.
In Hades, Supergiant Games has crafted an exemplar of both the action and rogue-lite genres, while pushing narrative in a way that even non-fans can appreciate.
Developer ZA/UM succeeded in making a game where progress isn’t tied to the defeat of, say, four hundred rats in a sewer, but to thoughtfully engaging with the world and characters it has to offer.