If the DNA of Biomutant sparks a re-evolution of some of the genre's dull spots, perhaps we can forgive the dull spots present here.
Though it comes with a crop of upgrades, and its graphics have been brushed to a smooth shine, what it offers, despite its title, is the joy of the old.
It's worth pointing out that few other studios have the confidence to take this approach to horror: not to jolt you with sudden frights or to ration your ammunition, but to probe and puncture your emotional ease by putting foulness in such close proximity to the childish.
Who would have thought that the solution to madness might be marriage?
That's why, as much as Hitman III was a pleasure to play, it left me longing for the mood of the old games.
What I didn't expect from the new Call of Duty was downtime, and the suggestion, at least in the first half, that guns, while great for going in blazing, can provide just as potent a thrill when holstered.
I would prescribe The Pathless to anyone feeling numbed and locked by our days of inanition; it's perfect if you feel your home becoming an isle on the edge of the world.
In the earlier, sandy hours, that restlessness is a boon-the work of a developer surveying the drier sweeps of a genre and divining a bright pool of ideas.
If there is any criticism to be made of Jusant, it's that developer Don't Nod – no stranger to over-egging the narrative pudding at times – couldn't hold its tongue, filling the beautifully spartan climb with diaries, logs, and otherwise unnecessary lore. But the game's focus on its core climbing mechanics, and some of the finest art direction we've yet seen, still make this an essential journey.
If you're already invested in the Remedy Connected Universe – that's Alan Wake, this sequel, and 2019's Control, thus far; officially, everything else is just an Easter Egg – then you will devour and adore Alan Wake 2. For everyone else it might feel like a slog, at times, through Alan's hackneyed writings and Remedy's penchant for mixed-media presentation, but this is still an excellent survival horror with many bright spots reflected in that signature flashlight.
Nintendo rather threw the kitchen sink (full of thousands of Post-it notes) at Super Mario Bros. Wonder, so it's unsurprising that not every element is as successful as the game's – and the genre's – best. But when you think about it, it's remarkable that, after nearly four decades, there are still new ideas left to try. The real wonder is how good Mario's latest 2-D romp turned out.
Shifting perspectives, changing abilities, and an expanded open world playground make this sequel into a bona fide blockbuster.
This XCOM meets X-Men effort from Firaxis isn't flawless, but its a fantasy dinner party of superheroes elevates the experience above its formulaic story and forgettable hero.
If Ragnarök spells the end of God of War, as both its themes and talk from Santa Monica Studio suggest, then it will serve as a fitting end for Kratos. Not just because it would make an impressive swansong for the God of War, but because that level of weariness and relief that Kratos feels from completing his lengthy endeavours is, by its end, projected onto the player, completing theirs.
Bayonetta 3 is an awful lot more, but it's also an awful lot more of the same. It's a game that revels in its spirited too-muchness.
In a medium preoccupied with guns and bombs and violent, power-fantasy notions of heroism, Gerda: A Flame in Winter treads a quieter path through its World War II setting, and is perhaps all the more powerful for it.
Sam Barlow's Immortality switches digital footage for celluloid film, and it's a better fit. His fixation with scrambled narratives has found its natural home, not in the realm of computers, those ghost-free machines, but here, on coils of vulnerable tape.
Kunitsu-Gami is exactly the sort of thing we need more of, the kind of game that you kid yourself used to crop up regularly in generations gone by.
Conscript may not be a true survival horror, but it taps into that legacy and roots it in fertile soil.
Taking inspiration from Bloodborne and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Lies of P leads the pack of FromSoftware imitators. It has an intriguing and arresting world and some brutal, assured combat. With a hollow hero in the middle.