Kaiserpunk is a city builder with some cool ideas and a novel premise, but lots of bugs, an interface that lacks basic functionality, and a cumbersome strategic map left me feeling shell-shocked.
Two Point Museum is a rewarding, deep, challenging, and highly entertaining tycoon game with lots of variety and an excellent interface.
Civilization 7's improved warfare and added bits of narrative flair give me reasons to keep clicking one more turn late into the night, but the desire to streamline and simplify this legendary 4X series feels like it has also gone a bit too far, particularly when it comes to the interface.
Armed with excellent melee combat and an exceptional story, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is one part sequel and one part coronation, bringing a lot of the original's ideas to fruition.
Planet Coaster 2 may share the same problems as its predecessor, but it's even better at all of the things it was good at, with water attractions alone being reason enough to dive in.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard refreshes and reinvigorates a storied series that stumbled through its middle years, and leaves no doubt that it deserves its place in the RPG pantheon. The next Mass Effect is going to have a very tough act to follow, which is not something I ever imagined I'd be saying before I got swept away on this adventure.
While Ara: History Untold is a visually captivating historical 4X with an interesting underlying economy, it gets bogged down well before the midway point.
The War Within is the best World of Warcraft has been on all fronts in many years, making this two-decade-old MMO feel fresh and thrilling again.
Stormgate pushes that classic RTS formula forward with a veteran's eye for what works and what doesn't, even if its Early Access launch still has miles to go.
Still Wakes the Deep's nearly on-rails structure and ineffective scares undersell its otherwise fantastic setting.
Manor Lords is a gorgeous medieval city-builder that kept me occupied for hours building my perfect, cozy hamlets, but it definitely feels very early in its Early Access development.
Millennia focuses too much on the ways it wants to mix up the Civilization formula without building the base of a strong Civ-like first.
Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader is an ultra crunchy, 130-hour space epic with excellent writing and combat, but unfortunately, also a lot of bugs.
Persona 5 Tactica is a big bag of bite-sized Phantom Thieves adventures that keeps the spirit of the series alive and shows that it can work great with a grid-based battle system.
Cities: Skylines 2 is an ambitious sequel that might have bitten off more than it can chew – be prepared to do a lot of terraforming if you don't want your metropolis to look like a nightmare.
Total War: Pharaoh's interesting battles complement an impressively rich campaign centered on the Late Bronze Age Collapse.
Dune: Spice Wars is a clever, multilayered, challenging RTS that skillfully translates so much of what is cool about Frank Herbert's universe in its interesting mechanics.
With crunchy, tactical RPG combat, a memorable story with complex characters, highly polished cinematic presentation, and a world that always rewards exploration and creativity, Baldur's Gate 3 is the new high-water mark for CRPGs.
Jagged Alliance 3 is a flexible, challenging, approachable throwback turn-based tactics game in which the only thing that feels truly dated is the humor.
Aliens: Dark Descent is a fascinating, tense, inspired survival horror RTS with a few too many technical bugs to recommend it without caveats.