South of Midnight is a beautifully crafted, delicately designed, story filled with heart, soul and positive energy. The world is stunning, the characters and the story they drive are memorable, and there’s a lovely mix of puzzles to keep you invested. While combat is the weaker point of the game, the boss battles coupled with the player progression do help bring this back up to a level of a game that deserves your time and attention.
Assassin’s Creed: Shadows is the finest addition to the series in years. It adds just the right balance of content, pacing and progression to keep you invested, gives you just enough but not too much so you don’t feel overwhelmed, adds a total overhaul of combat that offers both a satisfying challenge but makes the game stand apart from its brethren and offers perhaps the most captivating environments the series has ever had. Despite some uncertainty around certain mission objectives, a quite brutal difficulty curve and some repetition in content, there is no finer current open world offering on the market right now. Especially if you’re pining for a visit to Japan and need more cherry blossoms in your life!
Two Point Museum is without question the best Two Point game to date, but is also one of the finest strategy games in recent memory. With approachable design that plays effortlessly on controller, mouse or keyboard, easy to learn mechanics with a suitable amount of depth and gameplay with many intriguing layers to delve into, minutes will become hours and you’ll find the game charms your soul and feel a smile creeping onto your lips again and again. Just a wonderfully designed video game from top to bottom and one I cannot recommend heartily enough.
Monster Hunter Wilds is the definitive Open-World Monster Hunter experience. Where Rise feels a more traditional game that fans of the classics will appreciate more, Wilds truly opens the door to everybody and continues to build on the success of World. From the grand, epic battles that leave a lasting impression, to a surprising story that compels, an enjoyable abundance of quests and items to find and combat variety unlike anything else out there. Monster Hunter Wilds is just starting life as the game you’ll keep coming back to in 2025 and once more establishes Capcom as the most consistent, reliable, and high-quality AAA publisher in the world today.
Civilization VII is undoubtedly the most divisive instalment in the series to date. Removing the classic formula of play for the new Age system is a bold stroke that, for the most part, does pay off for the series. It rebalances the gameplay to make it more approachable for a wider audience pool – feeling surprisingly comfortable on controller – gives players more chance of winning conditions in a gameplay style that feels appropriate for them, and the objective based system really diversifies each playthrough to make it unique. However, some UI issues, lack of a classic mode offered and a shortened end date than expected mean this one isn’t going to be what everyone wants, even if it’s mostly, the Civ you know and love.
Lost Records: Bloom sets the scene for a very intriguing finale with good character and story build-up but it does take time to get there and the episode ends just as the story is taking a turn. In that build up is some brilliant characterisation across two periods in history, world-class acting that makes these characters feel truly three-dimensional, compelling writing that keeps you hooked and a truly stunning depiction of Michigan that glows and glistens with beautiful, natural scenery. Swan’s recording adds an interesting approach for players to tell their own interpretations of the memories and this is a pleasant trip that often feels soothing and wholesome, but you feel Rage has quite a bit of work to do to stick the landing.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is a true sequel in almost every regard. Bigger, bolder, more expansive, better story and characterisation with a world brimming with stunning visuals and detail. But it maintains many of the original systems and mechanics that proved divisive last time and in case of combat, saving, and lockpicking, doubles down on them to the point where they become even more frustrating. What Warhorse have accomplished here is astounding and in many ways have raised the bar for Open World RPGs across the entire industry, yet you can’t help feel the game’s often times obtuse, unintuative systems and tutorials hold it back from its full potential.
Citizen Sleeper 2 is a very special game indeed, a rare indie sequel and an even rarer one that betters its predecessor in almost every single way. From its writing, to its characters, exploration, contracts and surprisingly deep systems, it is a total package. I could not put my pad down, even if I wanted to, and adored the challenge right from the word go. While it definitely won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, you simply must see and experience to truly believe how damn good it is and why it’s the first must-play game of 2025.
Donkey Kong Country Returns HD is, unsurprisingly, the definitive way to play this platforming gem. Its difficulty is going to be off-putting for some and there are questions around how much this adds from previous iterations of the game. But despite some slight frame rate dips and it not quite being to the same quality standards of Tropical Freeze, Donkey Kong Country Returns HD is a fantastic platformer that you should absolutely add to your Switch library, especially if you’ve never played it before.
Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol 1 comes complete with the same world class, incredible games but sadly doesn’t feel like a worthy collection of this world-class franchise. The presentation causes unnecessary confusion and the preservation is surprisingly lacking across all the featured titles. There’s some great optional extras in here, such as screenplays for all games, a compilation for the franchise and a fan-dream of being able to play the different MGS 1 territorial variations along with playing some games on respective platforms for the first time. But nothing has moved on for MGS 2 and 3 since the HD Collection and without Twin Snakes or any major, noticeable tweaks to MGS1, there feels like a lack of desire to really maximise the potential of today’s platforms. This should have been a huge moment, bringing the original trilogy together like this, but you can’t help thinking this could and should have been more.
Gargoyles Remastered is an absolutely incredible reinvention of 1995 aesthetics with a beautiful style that feels like it’s been ripped out of the original cartoon and a stunningly recomposed soundtrack that tugs at those nostalgia strings. Unfortunately, it does still feel like a game trapped in time with clunky controls, sharp difficulty spikes and underwhelming boss battles. It’s also a bit limited in new features for this remaster, but at a fairly attractive price, the mechanics offer something a bit different from other games of this era and the style and setting has an atmosphere most platformers can only dream of.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage has gone right back to stealth-focused basics which seems destined to split the AC community down the middle. It’s as close to a remake as we may ever get for the original and sometimes it’s to a fault. Despite its stunning visuals and seamless parkour, the combat is really iffy, the environments soon become samey and mechanic repetition set in pretty quickly. While it’s welcome to see the hard-focused return on stealth and the Assassin’s Contracts actually make you feel like an Assassin again, the change in pace between games is really breakneck and it’s probably not going to be to everyone’s tastes.
Wargroove 2 is the perfect example of how to do a sequel. Stick with what worked the first time, logically add in new mechanics and ideas that add to the experience, offer a whole new mode that will keep you playing past the campaign, all while offering robust tools to expand your own experience and share with the world. There’s a few teething issues here and there, but nothing to detract from one of the better turn-based strategy games in recent memory.
Gunbrella has a wonderful chaotic energy that translates to truly satisfying combat and platforming moments, helping to facilitate an unorthodox, yet compelling story. The difficulty can trip some people up and a few sections do border on frustrating by making you re-fight through several screens to get back your progress. However, the challenge is mostly enjoyable, there’s some great writing in here, and it all comes together in a well-presented, finely tuned package that you’ll find really hard to put down.
Under the Waves is a strong start for Spotlight, Quantic Dream’s new publishing label. It carefully manages several deep, meaningful and important themes, while allowing us to explore a vast ocean to wave at seals, pick up trash and take photos of sharks. Some build instability, repetition and mechanical frustrations aside, this is a very well told story with a wonderful sense of pace, a surprising amount of atmosphere, complete with a series of enjoyable activities that also manage to bring a sense of calm and relaxation.
The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood is a deep, affecting story that is personalised every step of the way. Layered characters, impactful decision making, great writing and powerful aesthetics really make this one stand out for all the right reasons. A must play.
Wonder Boy Anniversary Collection is a brilliant homage to a fantastic slate of games with some great options that really optimise it for modern platforms. The controversy of it following a stripped back version, plus containing content originally designed as an exclusive for a physical collection cast a bit of a dark shadow over this collection and mean it probably won’t make for an attractive purchase for people who already own it. However, what we have here is a great selection of products that have aged well and are treated with great regard and respect.
Gord has some surprises under its hood, notably cutscenes, a few mechanics and setting, but none of them stand out enough to hold your interest for very long and the rest weighs the game down pretty considerably, especially with the weak story and overly cluttered, shrunken UI. There’s just much better options out there that you won’t bounce off and ultimately, will feel more satisfied playing.
Atlas Fallen toys with some clever ideas and comes close to making a breakthrough on a few of them, but between its dull story, characters, world, and frustrating, unbalanced combat, the game just can’t achieve its true potential. The full campaign co-op seperates it from other titles and can alleviate some of the frustrations but the good elements just take too long to get rolling and aren’t quite interesting enough to help you stick around.
Remnant 2 takes the typical Souls-like formula, blends it with many other fantastic games, while also giving you a surprisingly deep, customisable experience that matches a dynamic playstyle with its ever-evolving environments. Throw in some solid co-op, epic battles, and an intriguing story that blends gritty post-apocalyptic warfare with high fantasy and you have something really quite special. PS5 performance issues, cheap boss tactics and slow-burning ability growth aside, Remnant 2 is the game you probably weren’t planning to play this year but one you absolutely must.