Ultimately, the jury is out on if this will all come together and click as a satisfying longer-term live-service experience. There are a lot more activities, progression systems, and interesting loot ideas and actual endgame here to sink your demonic claws into. For now, Vessel of Hatred continues to be in dialogue with its own legacy, from setting its story campaign in the jungles of Diablo II’s Kurast to looking back at some of the key progression and power systems of the franchise’s own past that clicked with players and bringing them back with a new spin.
In a game where narrative is everything (and the only thing) - does the game succeed? Is this a story worth embodying? Are the conclusions satisfying? I think for me, the answer is yes.
Diablo IV offers a strong opening impression. It has a rich, detailed story campaign, filled with spectacle and gore. Its combat and game-feel is so satisfying. The classes feel distinct and play quite differently from each other. It feels so good to burst down screens of demons with spells and swords. Will it live up to other competitors in the ARPG space? It’s too soon to tell, but what’s here so far is extremely promising especially for players looking to enjoy an impressive horror story.
The one person passion project from German developer Matthias Linda re-works and banishes some of the genre's more frustrating staples and presents an exciting, fleshed out fantasy world meshed with some of the best strategic turn-based combat the genre has seen in years.
God Of War: Ragnarök then has some hefty God-sized shoes to fill and thankfully it not only lives up to the expectations of its predecessor - it exceeds them. Ragnarök is a bigger game, not just in size and scope, but in the ambitions of its story and the goals of its narrative. This is a story about cycles of revenge, prophecy and fighting fate, being allowed to make mistakes and of course - parenthood.
You won't find a better representation of a cat in a video game, this stylish narrative adventure innovates strongly overall but feels derivative in others, but Stray is at its best when you're just being a cat roving through this compelling world
Visually, TREK TO YOMI is a cinematic feast, using static camera angles with gorgeous placement and attention to detail to the max. There's a real focus on framing here, the camera shifting and adjusting in just the right ways to show you wide-landscapes when Hikori is outnumbered and isolated, and tight carefully framed snippets of pastoral village life and bustling marketplaces.
13 SENTINELS: AEGIS RIM is a game that's so complex it shouldn't work, with branching narratives, time travel, flashbacks and thirteen different perspectives on the same story, but Vanillaware have managed to pull together an experience that all scifi fans should play.
WEIRD WEST wants to push back at you. It wants to make every step you take through its dust covered, occult landscape feel layered with consequence. Who are you? How does the world react to you and your choices? Are the people you’ve wronged going to get their revenge? Why did that witch give you a mysterious box and should you open it?