Rick Lane
Solasta's storytelling may not be up to much, but its tactical combat and accessible approach to D&D rules make it worth considering for CRPG fans.
Necromunda is a sight to behold, but it's undermined by wonky shooting, superfluous mechanics, and bugs.
Blending classic stealth mechanics with puzzle-y sniping, Contracts 2 gets the job done.
Slight repetition can't diminish the incredible atmoshpere of Farm 51's post-apocalyptic survival game.
Despite a messy start, this spiritual successor to Left 4 Dead becomes more challenging and characterful the longer you spend with it
CoD's multiplayer is as dependable as ever, but Vanguard's campaign and Zombies mode fail to capitalise on what could be interesting ideas.
It may not be a radical change, but it's still one of the best management experiences around.
Excellent combat and a stunning sense of scale help steer Lost Ark through its more tired MMO conventions.
Galactic Civilizations 4 is a vast and dependable grand space strategy. But there's little here that radical, and expect to meet it halfway.
Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong offers an impressively flexible story, but that can't save it from its mediocre writing and scattershot game design.
Through its invasion mechanic, Sniper Elite 5 achieves the ultimate goal of any sniping game, to capture the tension and drama of Jude Law and Ed Harris squaring off in Enemy at the Gates. If, like me, you watched that film when you were too young to do so, and thought "I wish there was a game that let me do that", rather than the more balanced "wow, war is terrible," then Sniper Elite 5 is that game, just without the Russian setting or Rachel Weisz. Couple that with eight superbly flexible sandboxes and the most imaginative interactive representation of the second world war in at least a decade, and you've got yourself one of the most entertaining games of the year.
Crossfire: Legion is a perfectly adequate RTS capable of generating some spectacular player-driven action, but it's so keen to be the next Starcraft that it skips right past much of what made Starcraft great in the first place.
A tough yet rewarding turn-based tactics game with a supernatural twist on the western theme.
Insomniac's Spider-Man is as loveable as ever, even if the surrounding game can't quite live up to him.
Build knight schools and wizard academies in this imaginative college life sim, an endearing follow-up to Two Point Hospital
The Outsiders' impressive debut combines the gunplay of Doom with the musical button-mashing of Guitar Hero
Bounding Box delivers an anachronistic high-wire act, and the perhaps the best shooter outright since Doom Eternal.
There's a decent space sim buried within Dual Universe, but you'll need to do a lot of digging to find it.
Asobo's medieval adventure sequel is bigger, bleaker and more battle-scarred, but suffers from uneven storytelling
An extraordinarily detailed economy and range of interlinking systems make Victoria 3 a grand strategy to rival some of Paradox's best.