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More than a decade after its original release, Slender: The Arrival remains a distinctive horror experience, sustained by an identity that has endured even as some of its underlying mechanics have begun to show their age. Rather than relying on mechanical depth or an elaborate range of gameplay systems, it builds its appeal around a handful of fundamental principles: first-person exploration, the absence of meaningful combat, the player's vulnerability, and, above all, the unsettling presence of Slender Man. With his stark silhouette, featureless face, and unpredictable appearances, the creature remains the game's defining asset, a reminder that horror can be remarkably effective without revealing too much. Atmosphere is where Slender: The Arrival continues to make its strongest impression. Dense woodland, isolated houses, derelict buildings, and dimly lit interiors establish a pervasive sense of isolation, turning even routine exploration into an exercise in apprehension. The threat need not be immediately visible to exert its influence; often, the mere possibility of encountering Slender Man is enough to keep the player on edge. By favouring anticipation, uncertainty, and the fear of the unseen over outright spectacle, the game still delivers moments of genuine unease, demonstrating the enduring effectiveness of its original approach to horror. The 10th Anniversary Update gives that vision a welcome technical refresh. Its substantial graphical overhaul and the addition of the Nightmare chapter enhance the overall package while preserving the foundations of the original experience. Yet the distinction between presentation and design remains clear. The updated visuals lend greater definition to the environments and bring the game closer to contemporary standards, but the underlying gameplay remains largely unchanged. Exploration, item collection, and sequences built around evasion can become repetitive, while some encounters no longer carry the same weight as they might have done upon the game's initial release. These limitations, however, do little to diminish its value as a point of reference in the evolution of independent horror. Slender: The Arrival is not particularly remarkable for its mechanical complexity or technical ambition; its significance lies instead in how effectively it translates an internet-born horror icon into a recognisable videogame experience. Its achievement is one of atmosphere and restraint rather than complexity. Brief, direct, and occasionally uneven, it demonstrates how a relatively simple premise can sustain an entire horror game when its setting, sound design, and central threat work in unison. Ultimately, Slender: The Arrival finds its greatest strength in the feeling that the player is never truly safe, never entirely alone, and never fully in control of their surroundings. The fear of being watched, the uncertainty of what might be waiting beyond the reach of the flashlight, and the inability to confront the threat directly remain central to its appeal. The 10th Anniversary Update gives the experience a more contemporary presentation, but it is the original design philosophy that continues to define it. Although its mechanics have not aged as gracefully as its atmosphere, the game retains enough of its unsettling character to justify a return. For those interested in revisiting the formative years of first-person indie horror, Slender: The Arrival remains an imperfect but worthwhile reminder that the most enduring nightmares are not necessarily the most elaborate, but those that leave the imagination to do the frightening.
Active Matter is not trying to reinvent the extraction-shooter genre. Perhaps it does not need to. Instead, it takes a familiar formula and gives it a personality of its own, using its setting, narrative framework, and supernatural elements to stand apart in an increasingly crowded field. It is a game that understands where its strengths lie, particularly when it steps back and allows the player to determine how much risk a raid is worth. There is rarely a definitive right answer. There is only the decision you are willing to live with. Do you search one more building for better loot, or leave while you still have everything you came for? Do you confront the creature blocking your path, or find another way around it? Do you enter the field with your best equipment, knowing exactly what is at stake, or take a more conservative loadout? These choices may seem small in isolation, but together they form the foundation of Active Matter’s identity. The game’s tension comes from more than the danger surrounding you. It comes from the value of everything you have already managed to secure. Loot matters because you can lose it. Ammunition matters because you cannot afford to waste it. And extraction matters because the closer you get to safety, the harder it becomes to justify taking one more unnecessary risk. Active Matter is at its best when it understands that the most effective source of tension is not always what is waiting around the next corner, but the knowledge that you could lose everything you have already earned. The experience is not without its weaknesses. The early economy can feel overly restrictive, some encounters lean too heavily into punishment, and certain supernatural enemies can demand an excessive amount of ammunition to bring down. The opening hours can also be a difficult introduction for players unfamiliar with the genre. These are meaningful shortcomings, and they prevent Active Matter from becoming a truly exceptional extraction shooter. What is encouraging, however, is how much progress the game has made since our previous experience with it. The current version is smoother, more stable, and more confident in its own design. Combat, exploration, inventory management, progression, and its supernatural threats now fit together with enough cohesion to give the game a distinct voice rather than simply another variation on a familiar formula. Active Matter is not going to be for everyone. It can be demanding, occasionally frustrating, and at times less generous than it should be. But there is a clear idea at its core, and when its systems align, that idea works. How much are you willing to risk before what you have becomes more valuable than what you might still find? That question sits at the heart of every raid. Active Matter does not answer it for you. It simply gives you enough to lose to make finding the answer matter.
Tiny Eden is at its best when it lets you forget about progression and simply lose yourself in the quiet ritual of tending to your garden. Its thoughtful soil and plant mechanics, beautifully crafted apartment, and striking contrast between nature and the grey city beyond give the experience a warmth and identity all its own. Unfortunately, that charm is gradually worn down by repetitive errands, sluggish unlocks, an unrewarding economy, and NPCs who never feel as alive as the world around them. Tiny Eden has a genuinely beautiful heart, but too many of the systems built around it feel less like natural extensions of its ideas and more like obstacles standing in their way. It has planted the right seeds; now it simply needs more balance, patience, and care to truly bloom.
Madbricks' Mexican Ninja is a light and fun 2.5D action roguelite, blending Mexican and Japanese imagery in a Nuevo Tokyo controlled by the Narkuzas. It does not revolutionize the genre and the plot is merely a pretext for the action. Still, the title is not afraid to show its intentions from the very start. What works is the identity: a 90s pulp aesthetic, irreverent and deliberately politically incorrect humor, a convincing envelope of visual and audio coherence, and it never makes the production's technical limits weigh on the experience. The build system of gods, Jutsu, synergies and costumes with buffs and debuffs is more interesting than one could have expected from the demo. Some limits remain: combat readability suffers when the screen fills with enemies and effects, the execution after the parry is not perfect, and paradoxically the levels prove more demanding than the bosses, the last one excluded. The variety of moves and Jutsu has clearly improved, as have the solutions against repetitiveness, from hidden forks to in-game quests. It is not an excellent title, but it succeeds in its intent: exaggerated, at times vulgar, with a precise idea that never tries to be reassuring. Even after completing the game, another run takes little time, and that matters in a roguelite. Worth trying for fans of the genre and of the politically incorrect.
By the time Puppet House reaches its conclusion, its identity is difficult to mistake. This is a small, tightly contained horror adventure, built around a simple premise and an equally straightforward design philosophy: explore the villa, piece together its mysteries, solve the puzzles standing between you and the next room, and survive the presence of a puppet that should never have come to life. There is nothing particularly revolutionary about that formula. Nor does Puppet House need it to be. Its appeal comes from the consistency with which its individual pieces fit together. The villa provides the atmosphere and the context; exploration turns the environment into a source of clues; puzzles give that exploration purpose; and the puppet periodically breaks the relative safety of investigation. It is a modest framework, but one that remains coherent throughout its brief runtime. The villa is unquestionably the production's strongest asset. It is more than the backdrop against which Rick's investigation unfolds: it is the foundation on which almost everything else is built. Its neglected rooms, ageing furniture, documents, theatrical remnants, and scattered belongings create the impression of a place suspended between abandonment and memory. There is enough environmental detail to suggest the life that once existed there without overwhelming the relatively compact spaces. More importantly, the setting rarely feels ornamental. The player is constantly encouraged to examine it, search it, and understand it. A seemingly insignificant object can become relevant later; a document can provide context as well as a solution; a dark corner can conceal the next piece of progression. Puppet House consequently understands one of the simplest principles of environmental horror: when the setting matters to the gameplay, the player has a reason to look at it more closely. Lighting and sound do much of the remaining work. Darkness restricts visibility, while the flashlight creates a narrow boundary between what Rick can perceive and everything beyond it. Floorboards creak, electrical fixtures hum, doors move, and distant sounds occasionally disturb the quiet. None of these techniques is particularly novel in isolation, but their combination gives the villa a convincing sense of presence. It is an atmosphere built less on spectacle than anticipation. The house does not constantly frighten you; it gives you enough reason to wonder whether it might. The puppet is central to that uncertainty. Its exaggerated, artificial appearance makes it immediately recognisable, and there is something inherently unsettling about watching an object designed to imitate life become an apparently living threat. The contrast between its original purpose and its murderous role is one of the game's strongest ideas, and the creature remains the image most closely associated with Puppet House. Yet the puppet is also where the game's ambitions begin to feel restricted. As an antagonist, it is memorable without ever becoming particularly unpredictable. Its appearances are largely tied to predetermined encounters and specific sequences, meaning that its presence is governed more by the structure of the adventure than by the player's behaviour. There is no genuinely dynamic pursuit system turning every return to the villa into a potential confrontation. The puppet can interrupt exploration, but it rarely owns the space between encounters. That distinction matters. A more persistent or unpredictable threat could have fundamentally altered the atmosphere of the house, forcing the player to reconsider familiar routes and making even routine puzzle-solving feel dangerous. Instead, the creature generally arrives when the game decides it is time for danger, before giving way to escapes and brief reaction-based sequences. It works. It simply does not go as far as the premise suggests it could. The puzzles are a more dependable part of the experience. They are not particularly difficult, but they perform an important structural role: they turn the villa into something the player must understand rather than merely traverse. Keys, combinations, codes, mechanisms, objects, and environmental clues establish a steady rhythm of observation and progression. Their accessibility is likely to divide players. Those looking for demanding escape-room challenges may find many solutions too readily signposted, with relevant information often positioned close to the obstacle it resolves. There are relatively few occasions when several distant clues must be pieced together through genuine deduction. But that simplicity also prevents the adventure from losing momentum. Puppet House is a short horror game, and its puzzles rarely allow frustration to overwhelm atmosphere. The emphasis is on keeping the investigation moving, not on testing the player's patience. The same compromise defines exploration itself. The villa appears interconnected, but the underlying progression remains highly linear. One solution usually points towards the next, locked doors communicate future destinations, and the player is rarely required to make meaningful decisions about where to investigate first. The structure is clear, efficient, and accessible. It is also restrictive. The house looks like somewhere worth getting lost in; the game seldom lets you. That is perhaps the greatest missed opportunity in the environmental design. A little more freedom could have made the villa feel less like a sequence of carefully arranged puzzle rooms and more like a genuinely lived-in space that the player was learning to navigate. The setting already possesses the character required to support that approach. The progression simply does not give it enough room. Then there is the question of duration. Reported playtimes vary, with some players reaching the conclusion in under two hours and others spending closer to three or four depending on puzzle familiarity and how thoroughly they explore. That variation is worth acknowledging, but the broader point remains: this is a very compact adventure. That is not automatically a weakness. Horror often benefits from restraint, and there is value in a game knowing when its central idea has reached its natural conclusion. In Puppet House, however, the brevity draws attention to everything the premise might have supported beyond what is actually presented. Peter Hill's history. The villa itself. The disappearances in Field Town. The ritual. The puppet. Each suggests another layer waiting to be uncovered. Yet the game generally introduces these ideas without giving them the space to develop into something substantially more elaborate. That is where Puppet House ultimately becomes most frustrating: not because it lacks ideas, but because its best ideas repeatedly feel one step away from becoming something greater. More elaborate puzzles could have strengthened the investigative side. Additional areas could have given the villa greater narrative weight. More unpredictable encounters could have made the puppet genuinely threatening. A deeper exploration of Peter Hill and the events surrounding the house could have transformed a compact mystery into a more substantial horror story. None of those changes would have required a completely different game. They would simply have required more confidence in the ideas already present. From a production standpoint, the same sense of restraint is visible in the presentation. The environments and lighting establish a coherent visual identity, while some inconsistencies in texture quality and asset refinement reveal the limitations of an independent production. These shortcomings rarely interfere with the experience, largely because the game's strongest visual qualities are rooted in composition and atmosphere rather than technical spectacle. And that, ultimately, is what makes Puppet House easy to appreciate even when it is difficult to fully recommend without reservations. It is coherent. It is focused. It knows what it is. It simply does not always give itself enough room to become what it might have been. The absence of combat is a good example of that clarity. Rick is not transformed into an action protagonist, nor does the game introduce weapons, ammunition, or combat systems that would conflict with its investigative structure. Instead, the player observes, searches, solves, and reacts. That keeps the experience centred on the mystery of the villa rather than turning it into another conventional action-horror title. For that reason, I would ultimately describe Puppet House as a worthwhile small-scale horror experience rather than a landmark of the genre. It is at its best when it focuses on what it does naturally well: atmosphere, environmental exploration, accessible puzzles, and the unsettling imagery of its puppet. Its weaknesses are equally clear. The puzzles rarely demand enough. The progression rarely gives the player enough freedom. The puppet rarely feels dangerous enough. And the campaign ends just as its setting begins to suggest that there might be considerably more beneath the surface. Yet those shortcomings should not obscure what the game gets right. There is a genuine sense of place here. There is a coherent visual and sonic identity. There is a central horror concept that immediately communicates what makes the experience distinctive. And, most importantly, there is enough craft behind the simplicity to keep the adventure engaging from its opening moments to its conclusion. The problem is not that Puppet House feels unfinished. It feels restrained. And perhaps that is the most accurate way to remember it. Not as a failed attempt at something larger, but as a compact horror game whose strongest ideas occasionally seem to be looking beyond the boundaries imposed upon them. The villa could have held more secrets. The puzzles could have asked more of us. The puppet could have hunted us more aggressively. The story could have dug deeper. Instead, Puppet House chooses to remain small. For some players, that will be precisely its appeal. For others, it will be the reason they finish the game wishing there had been one more chapter, one more room, one more encounter waiting beyond the next locked door. And that may be the game's most telling achievement: it leaves you wanting more—not because what is here is empty, but because you can see how much further these ideas could have gone. Puppet House will not redefine horror. It does not need to. It is a focused, atmospheric, approachable little adventure that understands its own scale and largely makes that scale work in its favour. But somewhere behind the walls of Peter Hill's house, there is the outline of a more ambitious game.
With BrokenLore: DON'T LIE, Serafini Productions once again finds its most effective source of horror not in what lurks in the dark, but in what can quietly unravel within the human mind. Junko’s story is shaped by loneliness, repressed memories, deception, and fragile relationships, creating a psychological horror experience that understands the value of restraint. Rather than constantly reaching for immediate shocks, DON'T LIE builds its tension through an atmosphere of persistent unease, allowing discomfort to linger long after the initial scare has passed. Its relatively short runtime does little to diminish its impact. DON'T LIE represents a clear visual step forward for the series, while its use of liminal spaces becomes one of its greatest strengths. Familiar environments are repeatedly stripped of their sense of safety and transformed into spaces that feel increasingly alien, oppressive, and difficult to trust. It is in these moments that the game’s atmosphere is at its most effective. The connection to DON'T WATCH further expands the narrative, adding another piece to the increasingly intricate mythology of the BrokenLore universe without making the experience inaccessible to newcomers. Survival mechanics, dialogue, and player choices also point toward a more interactive approach to storytelling, giving the player a greater sense of involvement in Junko’s journey. Combat, however, remains the weakest part of the experience, lacking the same degree of polish and purpose found elsewhere. DON'T LIE is not a flawless horror experience, but its shortcomings never overshadow what Serafini Productions is gradually building. If anything, they reveal a studio still experimenting, refining its ideas, and becoming increasingly confident in its own creative voice. There is a clear sense that BrokenLore is still taking shape, and DON'T LIE feels like another meaningful step toward defining what that universe can ultimately become.
Celestial Return is not a game that can be fairly reduced to either its shortcomings or its successes. Its most interesting qualities and its most evident limitations come from the same source: an ambition to bring several different forms of interactive storytelling into a single experience. There are clear points of friction. Map navigation can occasionally disrupt the otherwise measured pace of the narrative, the game's many mechanics are introduced faster than they can comfortably be absorbed, and the launch version was affected by technical issues that required further refinement. Yet these limitations sit alongside a production with a distinctive artistic voice, consistently strong writing, an accomplished soundtrack and an RPG system capable of giving genuine mechanical weight to narrative decisions. The personality system offers perhaps the clearest indication of the project's potential. By making the protagonist's personality an active part of the gameplay, Celestial Return gives its conversations a greater sense of role-playing, allowing the character being shaped by the player to influence the way certain situations unfold. The dice system complements that philosophy in a different way, introducing resource management and uncertainty that can turn seemingly simple choices into decisions worth considering. Not every system receives the refinement it deserves. This is where the game's greatest sense of missed potential ultimately lies. Celestial Return repeatedly approaches something genuinely distinctive, but it does not always give its ideas enough space to work together with the same clarity. The foundations are strong, the identity is unmistakable, and the ambition is evident; what is occasionally missing is the final layer of cohesion that would allow all of those qualities to reinforce one another. Even so, Celestial Return remains an intriguing proposition for anyone drawn to cyberpunk fiction, visual novels, narrative RPGs and investigative storytelling. It is uneven, but rarely uninteresting. And when its systems finally align with its writing, artwork, music and atmosphere, the result offers a compelling glimpse of the game it is capable of becoming.
By the time the credits roll on The Alighieri Circle: Dante’s Bloodline, what lingers is less the amount of content contained within its relatively brief runtime than the sense of possibility surrounding it. ONE-O-ONE GAMES has chosen an unusually rich foundation for an independent horror game: taking the legacy of Dante Alighieri, weaving The Divine Comedy into an original mythology, and placing that inheritance in the hands of a descendant who must confront a responsibility carried through generations. It is an immediately intriguing premise, but more importantly, it gives the game a personality that is difficult to mistake for anyone else’s. That personality is most evident in its atmosphere. Villa Alighieri is a particularly effective setting, its quiet corridors, natural light, family possessions and traces of previous generations creating the impression of a house that has accumulated history over centuries. Exploration consequently becomes more than a means of moving the story forward. Looking through rooms, examining objects and uncovering documents gradually turns the Villa into a fragmented record of the family that once lived there. The Abyss takes the same underlying idea and tears it away from anything familiar. Its distorted architecture, surreal landscapes and imposing scale provide some of the game's strongest visual moments, while its strange combination of Dantean imagery and unexpected elements gives it a character of its own. The Abyss is at its best when it feels less like a recreation of Hell and more like a place that should not exist at all. It is also where the game's approach to horror becomes clearest: rather than relying on constant shocks, it uses space, silence and uncertainty to create unease. Dante's presence is equally well integrated. The Divine Comedy is not treated as a convenient collection of references, nor is the Inferno simply reproduced for recognisable imagery. The pages, the ritual and the Alighieri family's connection to Hell form the backbone of the game's mythology, turning Dante's legacy into something inherited rather than merely remembered. It is a strong foundation—and one that ultimately exposes the game's greatest limitation. There is simply more here than the game has time to fully explore. Gabriele is a good example. His position gives the story a naturally compelling human conflict: he has inherited an ancient responsibility he never chose, yet he must still reconcile that duty with the life he has built outside the Villa. His relationship with Dalila and their daughter Ginevra provides an important emotional counterweight to the supernatural events unfolding around him. Yet the game's compact structure means that these relationships are given only limited room to develop. By the end, Gabriele's circumstances are clear, but his journey could have carried considerably more emotional weight with more time devoted to the person behind the obligation. The same is true of the wider Alighieri family history. The diaries and documents scattered throughout the Villa are among the most rewarding elements of the exploration because they hint at generations of people who lived through the ritual before Gabriele. They create the impression of an entire lineage shaped by sacrifice, secrecy and duty. But much of that history remains something the player reads about rather than experiences. That is an understandable compromise for a compact production, and the approach works within the game's existing structure. Still, I found myself wishing that some of those stories had been brought to life through memories, visions or short playable sequences. Seeing even a handful of these events unfold directly could have transformed intriguing background material into some of the game's most memorable moments. The question of runtime therefore deserves a little more nuance than simply calling the game short. At roughly three to four hours, The Alighieri Circle is not excessively long or short by definition. Its length would be perfectly appropriate if its ambitions were contained accordingly. The difficulty is that the narrative repeatedly suggests a much broader mythology, and the game reaches its conclusion just as that mythology begins to reveal how much further it could go. It does not feel unfinished so much as deliberately compact in a world that seems anything but. The gameplay follows the same philosophy. Removing combat and conventional progression systems is entirely coherent with the experience ONE-O-ONE GAMES has set out to create. Gabriele does not need weapons, statistics or skill trees. His vulnerability reinforces the psychological-thriller framework and keeps the focus on exploration, observation, environmental storytelling and puzzles. That approach works best when the player is encouraged to read the environment rather than simply move through it. Some puzzles make excellent use of documents, symbols, objects and details discovered elsewhere, allowing the solution to emerge naturally from the world. Others are more forgiving, while the linear structure occasionally limits the feeling of discovery that the setting itself seems designed to encourage. Once again, the issue is less the underlying philosophy than the degree to which it is developed. With no combat loop or progression system to provide mechanical variety, the remaining systems need to evolve alongside the player's understanding of the world. The Alighieri Circle does this to an extent, but not always enough to match the scale suggested by its setting. And yet, despite those limitations, the game has something that cannot simply be designed into existence: a sense of place. Villa Alighieri feels distinctly Italian without turning its cultural identity into a gimmick. Dante's legacy is embedded in the narrative rather than pasted onto it. The Abyss translates that literary inheritance into something visual, spatial and interactive. Even when the experience falls short of the possibilities it introduces, there is a clear creative voice behind it. That matters, particularly within a genre where familiarity can quickly become repetition. The Alighieri Circle: Dante’s Bloodline is therefore not a game I would remember primarily for its length or mechanical complexity. I would remember it for the idea at its core, and for the moments in which that idea genuinely comes alive. Its strongest qualities (its atmosphere, art direction, setting and use of Dantean mythology) give it a character that many larger productions struggle to establish. Its limitations are real. The linearity can feel restrictive, several puzzles are less demanding than they might have been, and the compact runtime leaves important characters, histories and locations less developed than their foundations suggest. But those shortcomings never overwhelm the experience. If anything, they make its strongest moments more revealing, because they show what this world might have supported with a broader scope. That is ultimately where I land with The Alighieri Circle. It is an intriguing, atmospheric and distinctly personal game that feels less like a finished statement than the beginning of a conversation. ONE-O-ONE GAMES has taken one of Italy's most recognisable literary legacies and found a way to make it relevant to an original videogame narrative without reducing it to mere decoration. For players drawn to psychological horror, environmental storytelling and mysteries rooted in place and history, there is plenty here to appreciate. And for anyone interested in seeing Italian cultural heritage interpreted through videogames, the project is particularly worth a look—not because it provides the definitive version of its idea, but because it demonstrates just how much room that idea still has to grow. Perhaps that is the most fitting conclusion for a game built around inheritance. What The Alighieri Circle leaves behind is not the feeling that the journey was too short, but the feeling that there was more of it waiting beyond the final door.
Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy is not A Plague Tale: Requiem. That distinction is worth making from the outset, because Asobo Studio has little interest in retracing the path of Amicia and Hugo. Instead, it takes a character who was once little more than a supporting presence and places her at the heart of a story that is very much her own. Rather than living in the shadow of what came before, Resonance attempts to build a new identity from its foundations. Sophia is the reason that approach works. Her journey gives the game a clear emotional centre, while the writing surrounding her remains one of its strongest qualities. The narrative also takes greater risks with its structure, bringing past and present into increasingly close contact as Sophia’s visions begin to reveal connections between people, places, and events separated by centuries. What initially feels fragmented gradually takes shape as a larger mystery, giving the story a sense of momentum that extends well beyond the simple search for answers. The same willingness to change direction can be found in the gameplay. Resonance moves away from the stealth-heavy design of its predecessors and gives Sophia a far more direct relationship with danger. Its combat system is not sophisticated enough to compete with the genre’s dedicated action games, but it does not need to be. Parrying, dodging, and counterattacking are responsive enough to make encounters satisfying, while their relative simplicity keeps combat from overwhelming the broader adventure. It is a change that feels driven by the character rather than imposed upon her. Asobo Studio’s visual work remains equally impressive. The game’s environments have a strong sense of identity, from the crowded streets of Venice during Carnival to the quiet, enigmatic spaces of the island, while its lighting frequently serves a purpose beyond presentation. Strong art direction and confident cinematic staging allow some of Resonance’s most memorable moments to emerge naturally from the world around Sophia rather than simply placing spectacle on top of it. The experience is not without weaknesses. The island’s puzzle-heavy structure can become repetitive, particularly during its first half, where the frequency of environmental challenges occasionally works against the pace of exploration. Some combat encounters are more punishing than their mechanics justify, and not every escape sequence reaches the same level of direction or intensity as the game’s best set pieces. On Xbox Series S, there are also occasional frame-rate drops during the more demanding late-game sequences. More difficult to overlook is the runtime itself: just as several characters begin to develop into genuinely compelling parts of the story, the credits are already approaching. Even so, those shortcomings do not define the experience. What ultimately gives Resonance its value is the confidence with which it allows Sophia to exist independently of the characters who came before her. Her story is not about replacing Amicia, nor about recreating what made the previous games resonate. It is about confronting a past that has been deliberately obscured and discovering that the truth can be just as difficult to live with as the uncertainty that came before it. Beneath its plague, its rats, the Macula, and the lore surrounding them, Resonance remains interested in something much more recognisable: what people do with loss, guilt, fear, and the parts of their history they would rather leave behind. Its world may be filled with extraordinary forces, but its emotional core is grounded in people trying to understand what happened to them and deciding what to do with that knowledge once they finally have it. That is why Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy works best when it stops trying to answer the question of what comes after A Plague Tale: Requiem and starts asking a different one: what can A Plague Tale become when someone new is given the chance to tell its story? The answer is Sophia. This is not Amicia and Hugo’s journey. It is hers. And by the time Resonance finds its own voice, it has done more than continue a familiar story—it has earned the right to tell a new one.
Denshattack! is one of those games that reveals far more beneath the surface than its first impression might suggest. At a glance, it is colourful, charming and almost deliberately unserious: a game that appears to have little interest in asking us to take it too seriously. But sooner or later, one question inevitably comes to mind: is this really all there is to it? Thankfully, it is not. What initially looks like a novelty built around the simple absurdity of putting a train on the rails like a skateboard gradually develops into a remarkably cohesive gameplay experience. Denshattack! has far more depth than its premise would suggest, and it rarely misses an opportunity to push either its challenge or its sense of spectacle a little further. More importantly, it has a knack for leaving us surprised by what comes next, and wanting to play one more run simply to see how much further we can take it. That is no small achievement for a game whose entire premise could so easily have remained a one-joke gimmick. Turning a train into a skateboard is an amusing idea; building an entire movement system around it is considerably harder. Yet Denshattack! makes the concept work. Tricks, drifting, manuals and alternative routes come together to form a system that feels responsive, rewarding and, above all, fun to play. The more comfortable we become with its mechanics, the more freedom the game seems willing to give us. It is at full speed, when the train is hurtling down the tracks and the game is throwing increasingly outrageous ideas in our direction, that Denshattack! feels most confident. Speed, spectacle and absurdity become inseparable, and it is precisely in that combination that Undercoders finds the game's strongest identity. There are shortcomings, of course. The narrative remains relatively straightforward, some of the bonuses attached to individual carriages have less of an impact on our playstyle than we might have hoped, and the final stages leave us wishing the story had taken one last creative risk. None of these issues, however, are substantial enough to derail the experience. The adventure maintains a remarkably consistent sense of momentum, constantly finding new ways to challenge us, surprise us or simply make us wonder what the developers could possibly do next. More importantly, Denshattack! knows exactly what kind of game it wants to be. There is a clear confidence behind its absurdity, and it becomes increasingly apparent that Undercoders had a very specific vision for just how far this idea could go. The result is an adventure that fully commits to its shōnen-inspired clashes between rival trains and their eccentric riders, steadily escalating the spectacle without losing sight of the gameplay that holds everything together. That confidence extends to the game's interpretation of Japan. Its world draws heavily from Japanese landscapes, architecture, folklore, traditions and pop culture, but it rarely feels like a superficial collection of references. Instead, Undercoders takes those influences and filters them through a deliberately exaggerated creative lens, creating a version of Japan that is recognisable without ever attempting to be literal. The result is playful, eccentric and surreal, but also surprisingly cohesive and, crucially, respectful of the cultural influences that shape it. Ultimately, that is where Denshattack! finds its greatest strength: it embraces the ridiculous without ever losing sight of why the ridiculous is fun. This is a wild journey through a dystopian Japan where trains become skateboards, railway networks become playgrounds and almost anything can happen once we stop worrying about the laws of physics. Boss fights escalate into spectacle, detours become opportunities, and every stretch of track feels like another invitation to see just how far we can push the system. In a landscape increasingly crowded with games trying to impress us through scale, realism or sheer technical ambition, Denshattack! offers something considerably simpler: an idea that is completely its own, executed with enough confidence to make it work. For a few hours, it asks us to forget what a train is supposed to do, ignore what physics says should be possible and simply enjoy the ride – launching ourselves down the tracks at ridiculous speeds, chaining tricks, drifting around corners, taking on eccentric bosses and discovering routes that were never meant to be taken in the first place. And perhaps that is the game's greatest accomplishment. It reminds us that sometimes the most refreshing thing a game can do is forget what it is supposed to be and simply have fun with what it could become.
Lost & Found: A This Bed We Made Story is the new self-contained episode from Lowbirth Games, available from August 5, 2026 on PC. Set in 1964, a few years after the events of This Bed We Made, it follows Sophie Roy in her new role as a ship hostess aboard the ocean liner Orpheus, dealing with a series of thefts that push her to put her nosy instinct back to work. Compared to the base game, the narrative stakes are lower – no murders, just missing objects – but the writing remains the real strong point: diaries, letters and vintage newspaper clippings (from the Gulf of Tonkin to the Harlem riots) build a solid historical setting without ever explaining it explicitly. The throughline, however, is Sophie's empathy: her relationship with onboard pianist Caleb Lyons and with some passengers confirms how good the character is at listening, a trait that counts as much as the theft investigation itself. The game also picks up the choices made in the previous chapter, asking at startup how your previous playthrough went, and offers its own ending based on how you resolve the investigation. On the technical side it convinces, especially thanks to the final soundtrack. Overall, a short appendix – about two hours – designed more for those attached to Sophie than for those looking for a sweeping mystery.
By the time we reach the end of REANIMAL, its greatest strength is impossible to miss: this is a horror game built on conviction. Tarsier Studios takes the sensibilities that have defined its work for years and carries them into an entirely new universe, once again finding fear in distorted imagery, oppressive spaces, grotesque creatures, and the uneasy feeling that the world around us has somehow gone wrong. REANIMAL is not interested in mechanical complexity for its own sake. Its priorities lie elsewhere, in the places where Tarsier has always been most confident: atmosphere, visual storytelling, exploration, and the emotional connection between its characters. For the most part, that focus pays off. The island is where that vision comes together most convincingly. It is far more than a backdrop for the story, functioning instead as a constantly shifting expression of the nightmare itself. Flooded facilities, ruined structures, forests, open water, and decaying interiors each possess their own visual language while remaining part of the same unsettling whole. Tarsier's creature design is every bit as effective. The monsters are grotesque without becoming excessive, and their impact often comes from the way they are revealed rather than simply from what they look like. A distant silhouette, an unfamiliar sound, a movement glimpsed at the edge of the frame: REANIMAL understands that what we imagine can be more frightening than anything placed directly in front of us. That confidence extends to its two protagonists. The relationship between the Boy and the Sister is never reduced to exposition; it is communicated through the way they move, react, help one another, and refuse to face the island alone. In co-op, that relationship becomes even more tangible. The shared camera can be awkward, particularly when the pace accelerates, but the underlying design philosophy is remarkably coherent. REANIMAL does not simply allow two players to inhabit the same world. It asks them to inhabit the nightmare together. Solving a puzzle, navigating a dangerous space, or escaping a creature becomes a shared act of survival, giving the cooperative mode an emotional dimension that many horror games never manage to achieve. If there is a clear gap between REANIMAL's ambitions and its execution, it is found in the depth of its mechanics. Exploration, puzzles, stealth, combat, and chase sequences are all handled with a strong sense of pacing, and the campaign benefits from knowing when to introduce an idea and when to move on. Nothing is given enough time to become particularly exhausting. The downside is that very little is given enough time to become genuinely sophisticated, either. The puzzles rarely demand more than careful observation, stealth remains relatively straightforward, and combat never develops into a substantial system in its own right. That is a limitation, but not necessarily a contradiction of the game's design. REANIMAL clearly does not want us to spend hours mastering a combat system or solving elaborate environmental puzzles. Its mechanics are there to keep the journey moving, to make us interact with the world, and to shape the rhythm between moments of discovery and moments of danger. The problem is simply that the extraordinary richness of the world sometimes makes us wish there were more beneath our feet mechanically. Tarsier has created a world we want to examine; the game does not always give us equally compelling reasons to engage with it on a systemic level. The story occupies similarly uncertain ground. Its reliance on imagery, symbolism, and environmental storytelling is one of its most appealing qualities, and there is genuine pleasure in being trusted to interpret rather than being handed an explanation for everything we encounter. Some of REANIMAL's most memorable moments work precisely because they leave questions hanging in the air. They encourage us to look back, reconsider what we have seen, and search for meaning in recurring images and seemingly insignificant details. Yet not every unanswered question feels equally purposeful. Some mysteries deepen the world; others leave us wishing the narrative had gone one step further. The issue is not ambiguity itself, but the balance between suggestion and development. REANIMAL is at its best when it gives us enough material to form our own interpretation. It is less successful when an idea feels introduced only to disappear before it has had the opportunity to fully resonate. The result is a story that can be haunting and thought-provoking, but occasionally frustrating in its refusal to provide the context certain moments seem to deserve. Still, those shortcomings are ultimately secondary to what Tarsier accomplishes so consistently well. REANIMAL is a game with an unmistakable voice. It does not need elaborate systems to establish its identity, nor does it rely on constant shocks to maintain its horror. Its environments, creature design, lighting, sound, pacing, and character relationships are all working toward the same objective. Very few elements exist simply for spectacle. Almost everything serves the mood. And that is why the experience works as well as it does. REANIMAL understands that horror is not necessarily about making the player feel powerful, nor is it about constantly asking them to overcome increasingly complex challenges. Sometimes it is about making a place feel wrong. It is about hearing something before we see it, entering a room we immediately want to leave, or catching a glimpse of something that our mind continues to reconstruct long after it has disappeared from view. Tarsier remains exceptionally good at creating those moments. There are imperfections, of course. The occasional technical hiccup and camera issue can disrupt the otherwise meticulous presentation, while the relative simplicity of the gameplay and the openness of the narrative will not satisfy everyone. But none of these issues obscures what REANIMAL is trying to achieve. This is not a horror game built around depth for depth's sake. It is a tightly authored journey through a world designed to unsettle us, and its greatest achievements come from the precision with which that world has been designed. We went into REANIMAL with high expectations. Tarsier Studios had already shown us how distinctive its approach to horror could be, and the prospect of watching that sensibility evolve within a completely new universe was more than enough to make us curious. Now, having reached the end of the journey, we can say with confidence that those expectations were not misplaced. REANIMAL may not have the depth to match the extraordinary richness of its presentation, and its story occasionally leaves us wanting answers that never arrive. But those are not the things we are most likely to remember. We will remember the island. We will remember the creatures moving through the darkness. We will remember the sound of something approaching before we could see it. And we will remember two children trying to hold on to one another while everything around them falls apart. That, ultimately, is where REANIMAL finds its greatest success. Tarsier Studios has not created the deepest horror adventure on the market, nor has it delivered a flawless one. It has created something more specific: a carefully authored, visually extraordinary nightmare with a voice all its own. And after spending hours inside it, that nightmare is difficult to shake.
Windrose sets sail with a deceptively simple premise: what happens when the freedom of survival is brought to the open sea? Kraken Express turns that idea into a pirate adventure where exploration, building, combat and sailing are woven into a single, seamless experience, with land and sea constantly opening new possibilities. The result is a surprisingly cohesive and enjoyable survival game that captures the thrill of discovery and the fantasy of life as a pirate with remarkable ease. Yet beneath its accessible design, Windrose is still searching for the depth needed to match its ambition, as simplified systems and uneven balance occasionally hold back what could otherwise be a far more accomplished adventure.
Mortal Shell 2 shows real growth over the original, both in writing and in the overall presentation of its world. The circular map, small but packed with dungeons and points of interest, still carries the experience, and it delivers enough variety even where the surface setting sticks close to genre conventions. The build system now offers more freedom thanks to full respec options for weapons and Shells, letting players experiment without wasting resources, even though certain elemental stones still lock into a handful of specific weapons. The game's biggest weakness sits in the second half's balancing. Difficulty spikes sharply, bosses lose their identity next to regular enemies, and the stretches between checkpoints turn punishing rather than engaging. Several serious bugs compound the issue, from a Shell that stopped working entirely to a broken teleport that caused accidental deaths. Despite these flaws, the combat system holds up well, and the level design in the opening hours alone justifies picking this up if you already love the genre. It suits returning fans far more than newcomers taking their first steps into soulslikes.
The Sinking City 2 understands something its predecessor occasionally struggled to recognise: more is not necessarily better. Frogwares could have answered the original's shortcomings with a larger map, more activities, and a greater commitment to its open-world structure. Instead, it has made the more difficult choice of cutting back. The sequel is smaller in scope, but considerably more deliberate in how it uses that scope. That restraint is the foundation of a much stronger game. Exploration, investigation, and combat no longer feel like separate ideas competing for the player's attention; they now support a common rhythm. Combat remains conventional, but its precision, readable enemy design, and weak-point system give encounters a welcome degree of tactical depth. Boss fights build on those foundations effectively, demanding greater awareness of patterns, timing, positioning, and resources when the difficulty is raised. The biggest improvement, however, may be found in the spaces themselves. The open-map structure gives Frogwares greater control over density and pacing, allowing locations to be built around meaningful routes, secrets, resources, and environmental storytelling rather than simply providing another stretch of world to cross. The sequel understands that an environment does not need to be enormous to feel expansive; it needs to give the player a reason to explore it. Investigation has undergone a similarly measured transformation. Frogwares has reduced the complexity of its puzzles without stripping away the investigative core of the series. Evidence still needs to be examined, connections still need to be made, and the player is still encouraged to participate in the process of uncovering the truth. The result is less demanding than before, but arguably more consistent with the game's broader survival-horror structure. It is the writing, though, that ultimately gives these systems their context. The Sinking City 2 understands that Lovecraftian horror is not simply about monsters, forbidden rituals, or ancient entities. It is about what happens when the pursuit of knowledge begins to undermine our ability to make sense of what we discover. Calvin's search for Faith gradually opens onto the Slither and a much larger cosmic conflict, with each revelation providing answers while simultaneously making the world less comprehensible. Frogwares is particularly effective when it resists the temptation to explain everything. The final act leaves several questions unresolved, allowing uncertainty to remain part of the horror rather than treating every mystery as a problem that requires a definitive answer. The journey to Antarctica, drawing directly on the imagery and ideas of At the Mountains of Madness, takes that philosophy even further. Away from Arkham's familiar streets and institutions, the game places Calvin in a landscape where isolation and scale themselves become sources of unease. The sequel still has weaknesses. Its technical performance is the clearest blemish, particularly on PC, where frame-rate drops can occasionally interfere with combat and shader compilation can produce unwelcome interruptions. Some loading times are also longer than they should be, while ammunition management is not always ideally balanced. A handful of puzzles, meanwhile, feel less developed than the stronger investigative sequences. None of these problems is catastrophic, but they are enough to keep the game from achieving the level of consistency its best moments suggest is within reach. What matters is that these shortcomings exist within a fundamentally stronger vision. Frogwares has not tried to solve the problems of The Sinking City by making the sequel larger or more elaborate. It has solved them by becoming more selective. The result is a game that knows what its different systems are for, how they should interact, and – just as importantly – what they should leave out. That makes The Sinking City 2 more than simply a better version of its predecessor. It is the point at which the series' two defining identities finally become compatible. Investigation gives the horror context; horror gives investigation consequence. Exploration creates the opportunity to discover something; discovery creates the reason to fear what comes next. There is still room for Frogwares to refine the formula, and the sequel's technical shortcomings prevent it from reaching the highest tier of the genre. But as a statement of direction, The Sinking City 2 is remarkably clear. This is a series that has finally found a shape capable of supporting its ambitions. And perhaps that is the most fitting conclusion for a game so concerned with forbidden knowledge. The greatest horror is not necessarily what waits in the darkness. It is what we discover when we decide to look into it, and the growing suspicion that some truths are frightening precisely because they can never be fully understood. The Sinking City 2 knows that the search for answers is not always a path towards certainty. Sometimes, it is the path towards madness.
By the time Hell is Us reaches its conclusion, its greatest strength and its most significant weakness have become one and the same: Rogue Factor has made a game unwilling to compromise on its vision. This is not an action-adventure designed to remove every obstacle between the player and the next objective. It deliberately steps away from the conventions that have made modern exploration increasingly frictionless, placing observation, memory, and discovery at the heart of the experience. The result is distinctive, occasionally frustrating, and, at its best, remarkably rewarding. The decision to dispense with a conventional map is perhaps the clearest expression of that philosophy. Hadea has to be understood rather than simply traversed. Conversations become directions; landmarks become reference points; seemingly incidental details can acquire significance much later. The player is not asked merely to follow information, but to retain and interpret it. When that design clicks, even something as mundane as finding the right road becomes meaningful. You are not reaching a destination because the interface told you where it was. You are reaching it because you understood the world well enough to find it. That sense of ownership is one of Hell is Us’s most compelling achievements. It also exposes one of its more persistent weaknesses. The game occasionally mistakes withholding information for creating mystery, and there are moments when directions are too imprecise to provide a meaningful path forward. Retracing an area because you genuinely missed a clue can be satisfying; retracing it because you cannot determine what the game expects you to have noticed is considerably less so. The line between encouraging curiosity and creating unnecessary friction is a narrow one, and Hell is Us occasionally crosses it. Combat is more conventional, but it provides a reliable counterweight to the slower pace of exploration. The different weapons, dodges, parries, and enemy patterns create a system that is straightforward without being entirely superficial, while the drone adds another layer to both combat and traversal. The Chimeras are most effective when encounters require the player to understand their behaviour rather than simply overwhelm them with attacks. The combat rarely feels as distinctive as the exploration, but it rarely needs to. Its role is to support the wider adventure, and for the most part it does so competently. The boss encounters are where that system comes closest to matching the ambition of the rest of the game. They give individual mechanics greater purpose, demand a better understanding of enemy behaviour, and create some of the adventure’s most satisfying confrontations. But if combat is the foundation, atmosphere is the soul of the experience. Hadea is an unusually evocative setting, balancing melancholy, unease, and beauty across landscapes shaped by war, abandonment, encroaching vegetation, and the presence of the Chimeras. Rogue Factor’s art direction gives these spaces a character that extends well beyond their technical construction. Even during quieter stretches, there is a persistent sense that the landscape has a history: that something happened here, and that the environment has retained traces of it. That atmosphere is reinforced by the narrative, which is similarly interested in what can be left unsaid. Rémi’s personal journey is intertwined with Hadea’s history, and the story gradually reveals itself through conversations, discoveries, and fragments of information rather than constant exposition. Some threads are more successful than others, and the volume of material can occasionally make the narrative difficult to follow, but there is a clear confidence in allowing the player to assemble meaning rather than simply receive it. This is also where the relationship between story and exploration becomes particularly effective. Hadea is not simply a backdrop for Rémi’s journey; understanding the country is part of understanding the story. The places you visit, the people you meet, and the details you uncover gradually change your perception of the world around you. Exploration consequently has a narrative function of its own, allowing the player to uncover context rather than merely collect it. The experience is not without its weaker material. Some secondary activities lack the focus of the main journey, and certain puzzles can become frustrating when their intended logic is not communicated clearly enough. Combat would benefit from greater enemy variety, while the technical presentation is occasionally uneven, particularly in character animation and some secondary visual details. These are tangible shortcomings, not merely concessions made in pursuit of ambition. They prevent Hell is Us from reaching the consistency of the genre’s very best examples. What saves the experience from feeling uneven as a whole is that its strongest elements are united by a remarkably coherent creative identity. Hell is Us does not feel as though it is borrowing a familiar formula and adding a few unusual ideas on top. Its design choices speak to one another. The lack of a map reinforces exploration; exploration reinforces environmental storytelling; environmental storytelling reinforces the narrative; and the atmosphere gives all of it a distinct emotional character. Hell is Us is willing to let the player become lost, to leave a question unanswered, and to allow a discovery to remain a discovery rather than immediately turning it into another objective. Sometimes that makes the experience less comfortable than it needs to be. But it also makes its best moments feel more personal. And that, more than any individual mechanic, is what stays with me.
Lunarium is one of those debut titles that deserves attention and, above all, to be played. Not because it is a revolutionary ARPG or because it manages to reinvent the genre, but because it demonstrates a surprising level of maturity for a team working on its first major project. Its influences are evident, particularly when it draws from the world of souls-like games, Sekiro, and more traditional ARPGs, without falling into the trap of approximation or artificially inflating the difficulty. One of its greatest strengths is undoubtedly the relationship between Ave and Lune, which is not confined to the narrative but becomes an integral part of the gameplay. The stagger-based combat system, simultaneous control of the two protagonists, and a progression system rich in options give the game a well-defined personality. On the other hand, Lunarium still shows some of the limitations of a debut project. Encounter balance is inconsistent, as is the pacing during the second half, which tends to lose some of its momentum. The progression system also reaches its limits a little too early. These shortcomings become more noticeable precisely because the rest of the game works so well. Ultimately, Lunarium is not a masterpiece, but it is a genuinely strong game. It is an excellent calling card for Lunarium Game Studios and a solid foundation on which to build something even more ambitious. If this is the starting point, it will be interesting to see where the team can go with its next project. I am confident it will not go unnoticed among fans of the genre.
STALKER 2: Cost of Hope is an uneven expansion, but an undeniably fascinating one: perhaps the most revealing direction GSC Game World could have taken the series at this stage. Its greatest strength is, without question, the writing. The Duty storyline is the clear highlight and arguably the finest piece of narrative content in the expansion. Zulù is compelling, Voronin is a welcome surprise, and Tkachenko leaves a genuine mark. More importantly, the campaign succeeds in giving the Duty something the series has rarely afforded them: a deeply human identity. Brotherhood, loyalty, sacrifice, and conviction are no longer simply ideological concepts; they become relationships the player can actually feel invested in. Mavka's campaign is more uneven, but it remains thematically ambitious. Its exploration of freedom, ownership of the Zone's miracles, and the increasingly blurred relationship between those who inhabit the Zone and the organisations operating beyond it adds meaningful weight to the expansion's broader questions about who should ultimately control this extraordinary and dangerous territory. The new locations are impressive. The boss encounters provide some welcome escalation. And the train sequence with the Duty is one of the DLC's most memorable set pieces, precisely because the spectacle is grounded in relationships and stakes that have been carefully established beforehand. The problem is that the gameplay does not consistently match the ambition of the writing. The platforming is frequently frustrating rather than rewarding. The puzzles can struggle with clarity and balance, with the centrifuge sequence standing out as one of the expansion's least convincing stretches. The AI remains inconsistent, while A-Life still does not deliver the fully autonomous, reactive ecosystem that has always been one of the defining promises of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.. Technical issues have also not disappeared entirely: crashes, performance drops, and lengthy loading times can still surface, making it increasingly difficult to dismiss these problems as remnants of an early build. Yet none of this represents the expansion's most significant weakness. Its real problem is that it keeps expanding the story without allowing enough of it to move forward. Zulù's new position. The signal. The Untold Stories. The new Consciousness. The mercenaries. The world beyond the Zone. Every one of these threads has the potential to become crucial to the future of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.. But the more the Zone expands, the more apparent it becomes that some of its mysteries need to start paying off. Mystery has always been fundamental to the series. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. understands the power of withholding information, of allowing players to piece together fragments of a world that rarely offers straightforward answers. But mystery is only compelling when it creates the expectation of resolution. When every revelation simply opens another question without meaningfully advancing the ones that came before it, intrigue can gradually give way to narrative inertia. That is ultimately where Cost of Hope leaves us. The Zone is richer. Its lore is deeper. Its characters are more compelling. Its future feels more consequential than ever. But it still does not feel complete. GSC Game World has proven that the Zone is nowhere near running out of stories to tell. The next challenge is considerably harder: to give some of those stories an ending.
Beast of Reincarnation is most compelling not because it reinvents the action RPG, but because of what it represents for Game Freak. For a studio so closely identified with Pokémon, stepping into a darker, more mature and mechanically demanding world is a meaningful creative departure in itself. The game does not always match the ambition of its ideas, but it consistently reveals a studio willing to experiment, to question the boundaries of its established identity and discover what might exist beyond them. At the heart of that experiment are Emma and Koo, whose relationship remains the game’s defining achievement. Game Freak could easily have treated Koo as a conventional companion, but instead makes him inseparable from both the emotional and mechanical structure of the adventure. The player does not simply watch their bond develop; they learn to depend on it. Emma’s attacks, Koo’s abilities, defensive options and opportunities for coordination gradually become part of a shared combat language, giving their relationship a tangible presence that few narrative partnerships manage to achieve. That philosophy carries directly into the combat system, which is at its strongest when it asks the player to understand rather than simply overpower. Timing, positioning, parries, evasive manoeuvres and Koo’s abilities all contribute to a rhythm that becomes increasingly satisfying as its rules reveal themselves. The Nushi encounters are the clearest expression of this design. These bosses are not simply larger enemies with more health; their behaviour, attack patterns and visual cues demand observation and adaptation. The most satisfying victories therefore come not from numerical superiority, but from understanding how an encounter works. Progression complements that approach without overwhelming it. New abilities, equipment and powers acquired through major encounters provide a clear sense of growth, while the ability to shape Emma’s build gives the player room to experiment with different approaches. The system is not particularly revolutionary, but it serves the combat well, ensuring that progression feels connected to the challenges the player is overcoming rather than existing merely as an external reward structure. The same confidence can be found in the game’s visual identity. Japan in 4026 is one of Beast of Reincarnation’s most convincing ideas because Game Freak understands that a post-apocalyptic world does not have to be defined by destruction alone. Here, civilisation has been gradually absorbed by the world that followed it. Trees split apart abandoned structures. Vegetation overwhelms infrastructure. Waterways reclaim spaces once controlled by humanity. Technology remains scattered throughout the landscape, but increasingly resembles the archaeological remains of a vanished age. This relationship between decay and renewal gives the setting a personality of its own. Some of the game’s most memorable images emerge not from its largest set pieces, but from quieter moments in which Emma and Koo move through landscapes where human architecture and natural growth have become almost impossible to separate. The world often feels as though it has continued living after humanity stopped being its dominant force. The irony is that the strength of this world also highlights one of the game’s greatest limitations. Beast of Reincarnation frequently creates the impression of an environment that should invite deeper exploration than its level design ultimately allows. The landscapes suggest hidden histories and possibilities, yet the structure remains relatively controlled, with exploration generally serving the forward momentum of the campaign rather than challenging it. There are optional discoveries and resources, but rarely the kind of systemic freedom that makes a world feel genuinely unpredictable. The narrative follows much the same pattern. Its strongest material is found in the personal journey of Emma, particularly in the relationship between memory, identity and loneliness. Her inability to fully understand her own past gives the story a natural reason to investigate the world alongside the player, while Koo provides an emotional constant as she gradually learns how to connect with others. These ideas give the narrative genuine weight, even when some of its broader developments fall back on more familiar science-fiction and JRPG conventions. For all its narrative ambitions, Beast of Reincarnation is therefore most effective when it remains intimate. Emma and Koo are more compelling than the mythology surrounding them, and their relationship often communicates more than the larger exposition ever could. The game has plenty of interesting ideas about humanity, technology, memory and the natural world, but it is the emotional simplicity of two characters learning to rely on one another that gives those ideas their strongest foundation. The soundscape reinforces that intimacy. Environmental audio gives the reclaimed wilderness an almost constant presence, while subtle details – from insects and vegetation to distant wildlife – make the world feel active even when nothing is happening on screen. Combat sounds provide equally important feedback, helping the player read impacts, parries and successful actions, while the vocal-driven soundtrack gives key moments a distinctly emotional character. Audio rarely feels like decoration; at its best, it becomes another way of communicating what Emma cannot always express herself. There are, however, moments when the experience loses that sense of cohesion. The pacing occasionally becomes uneven, with narrative interruptions breaking the momentum established by exploration and combat. Some secondary activities feel noticeably less developed than the game’s central encounters, while the RPG systems provide meaningful progression without offering the depth that more systems-focused players may expect. Technically, the move to Unreal Engine 5 demonstrates the scale of Game Freak’s ambitions, but it also reveals an uneven level of refinement across environments, animations and secondary details. These shortcomings ultimately prevent Beast of Reincarnation from reaching the level of greatness its strongest moments occasionally suggest. Yet they do not diminish the importance of what Game Freak has attempted. In fact, the contrast is revealing: whenever the studio embraces its new ideas, the game becomes considerably more distinctive; whenever it falls back on familiar structures, that individuality becomes less pronounced. That is ultimately why Beast of Reincarnation works best as a statement of intent. It is neither a flawless action RPG nor a genre-defining reinvention, and judging it by either standard would miss what makes it interesting. What Game Freak has created instead is something more valuable at this particular stage: a clear indication of where the studio might want to go next, and of what becomes possible when it steps beyond the enormous shadow of Pokémon. Beast of Reincarnation may leave some of its potential unrealised, but what it does accomplish is difficult to dismiss: it proves that Game Freak’s creative identity extends far beyond the world that made its name.
Now that we’ve reached the end of The First Berserker: Khazan, what stays with us most is the feeling of facing a game that knows its own strength extremely well. Neople hasn’t built a soulslike that’s flawless on every front, but it has built an experience where combat takes on absolute centrality and, in most cases, manages to keep engagement running high. This very specialization is what makes Khazan an interesting title even beyond its ties to the Dungeon & Fighter universe. Personally, I consider the combat system the most convincing element of the entire production. The need to learn enemy movements, manage stamina, alternate attack and defense, and exploit the right openings makes every fight particularly satisfying. The game almost never hands out its victories: when players finally manage to get past a boss that took numerous attempts, the satisfaction mostly comes from knowing they’ve sharpened their own skills, not simply from picking up stronger gear. The boss fights, as a result, mark the moments where Khazan shows its potential at its best. Some fights run extremely demanding but also deeply rewarding, since they force players to genuinely understand the game’s mechanics. Facing a boss turns almost into a kind of dialogue built on movement: the opponent throws out an attack, the player learns to recognize it, responds with a parry or a dodge, and waits for the right moment to counter. It’s a system that asks for patience but pays off handsomely once mastered. I also appreciated the art direction. Cel shading isn’t just a distinctive aesthetic choice; it gives the game an immediately recognizable identity. The characters, and especially the bosses, come with real craft behind them, while attack animations help make fights spectacular. Some settings feel less memorable and lean on fairly similar tones, but the overall result still lands convincingly. The mission-based structure, on the other hand, ranks among the aspects that won me over least. On one hand, it keeps the experience focused on action and makes it easy to jump into different activities; on the other, it cuts down the sense of discovery that often ranks among the most fascinating elements of soulslikes. Players explore the game world through separate, relatively linear levels, with few moments where they truly feel lost inside one huge interconnected environment. The narrative, too, could have hit harder. Khazan’s story has an interesting premise and touches on potentially powerful subjects, but some characters and some situations don’t get the room they need to fully develop. The protagonist mostly works as a warrior and as the central figure of the action, while his more emotional side could have used more depth. Even so, the story still manages to hold enough interest to carry players through to the end. Difficulty, finally, is bound to split the audience. Personally, I see it as a positive that the game demands effort and precision, since that’s exactly what gives real value to victories. That said, some difficulty spikes come across as particularly sharp and can make the experience frustrating for players unfamiliar with the genre, especially when they reach a boss fight without having had enough chances to properly prepare for its mechanics. Either way, The First Berserker: Khazan left me with an excellent impression. It’s not a game trying to compete on every single front with the best soulslikes, but it carries a strong enough identity to stand out. Its strength lies in the precision of its combat, the quality of its boss fights, the variety of its weapons, and a recognizable art direction. I can only credit a production that shows just how well Neople has adapted to a genre completely different from what it’s known for, and I can only call this title a soulslike that looks great, plays solid, challenges players, and above all entertains — one worth recommending to anyone who puts the combat system at the center of their experience. Players looking for a massive world to explore or an extremely complex narrative might come away less satisfied. For everyone else, Khazan’s journey stands as convincing proof that even a series born mainly in the territory of online action RPGs can find a new dimension through a single-player experience built with ambition and personality.