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There are few places that can match the modern history of a city like Berlin. The past century has seen regimes rise and fall in a massive way, due to which we often forget that the city was inhabited by regular people like ourselves. These are stories of victims, of those who refused to let these huge events stop their lives, of survivors. They are also tales of the beauty of the human spirit. The Berlin Apartment is a beautiful testimony to the perseverance of the people of Berlin and to human kindness itself.
A confident and compelling Early Access build with standout music, addictive loops, and engaging dungeon design. A little unfocused at times, but never enough to dull its shine. If this is the foundation, 1.0 is poised to be something special.
This cosy crafting survival game has a charming storybook art style, but its gameplay and associated systems turn it into somewhat of a slog. The fiddly inventory management, the lack of a map, the painful combat, the repetition, the less than compelling characterisation, and the general grind of it all eventually wore me down over my 14-hour playtime. However, for those who love the world enough – and there’s certainly plenty to love – and who enjoy its mode of storytelling, these elements might be much easier to forgive. Unfortunately, this wasn’t quite the case for me, and I’ll content myself with the never ending toil of my own household drudgery back in the real world.
Having not been all that good at video games for most of my life, I fell in love with games that focused on great stories, usually with interactions a bit more limited than in fully fledged RPGs and the like. It’s why I still adore series like Life is Strange and (most of) the Telltale games. AdHoc Studios takes the foundations of those games and brings them up to the next level. The polish is astounding, with perfect performances, brilliant art and music, and fantastic, thoughtful writing hidden underneath a heap of swear words. Dispatch is brilliant, and you should play it.
Gigantic swords are unwieldy and therefore unrealistic. Gigasword takes this truism to heart in the most creative way in its Metroidvania puzzles. Gigasword recalls the game design of an older time with all its fist-pumping, hard-won victories but with all its baggage too. There’s little exposition for mechanics, or they remain unexplained, leaving you to trial and error to make progress. However, smartly designed boss fights, beautifully interwoven levels, and powerful abilities make Gigasword an easy game to recommend to Metroidvania fans searching for the latest and greatest in the genre.
Windswept is a charming, nostalgic love letter to 90s platformers, packed with personality, collectables, and thoughtful mechanics. Its visuals, music, and fluid gameplay hit the sweet spot between homage and freshness. The difficulty spike in later stages may frustrate casual players like me, but for enthusiasts and completionists, it offers a rewarding challenge.
Goodnight Universe uses its innovative camera-tracking technology to continue to break the barriers between the player and the narrative, resulting in a truly immersive and emotional experience that is let down at times by the goofy turns the story takes and some frustrating timed gameplay sections. But despite its flaws, it still made me feel something I’ve never felt in a game before – unconditional love – and for that, it is a treasured and recommended experience.
Relatively minuscule nitpicks aside, consider Absolum a must-play for any fan of not only beat ‘em ups but action games in general. Its build system is masterful, offering near infinite replayability, and if 2025 is the year of fantastic parry systems in video games, Absolum stands tall with the best parries of them all. This is the follow-up to Streets of Rage 4 that I’ve been waiting half a decade for, and it just so happens to have arrived in the form of a roguelite; arcade-styled games don’t get much better than this.
Fading Serenades gracefully does not shy away from contemporary issues. It wraps the conversations we’re having daily about pollution, AI, and human connection in a candy-coated treat. The art direction, music, and general moment-to-moment play never cease to tire the player. However, optimising routes through fetch quests made the world go stale quickly.
Ball x Pit might just be the most addictive game I’ve ever played. Whether that’s a good or bad thing is up to you to decide, but I can at least attest that it did not turn me into that lizard-brained, slack-jawed caveman living purely off of instinct and the desire to watch numbers go up that other games of this ilk do. Put that quote in your accolades trailer, Devolver. I dare you.
In spite of some minor visual issues, Bye Sweet Carole manages to excel in all aspects of design, storytelling and characterisation. Gameplay is forgiving and well-paced without becoming irksome but largely plays second best to the game’s narrative prowess.
There are so many builds to try and so many ways to get points; it’s addicting, and it scratched my love of gambling without any real-world consequences. It’s been a while since I’ve gone to bed after playing a game and woken up with the itch to jump right back in. I really think that with a few tweaks and a way to permanently have its amazing music play, CloverPit could stand alongside the games that it was inspired by.
Rarely do I get so invested in an ongoing, long-running story and lore-based series like this, but the mix of interpersonal melodrama and larger-scale politics was handled immaculately here, to the point where I’ve had to fight myself from looking up what happens to certain characters on fan wikis in the hopes that I won’t be waiting too long until a hypothetical 2nd Chapter. Pair that with one of the most interesting, fluid, and fast-paced battle systems I’ve experienced in the genre, one which was constantly introducing new wrinkles and tools to play with, and you can consider me a full-on Trails fan now
Hades II is a rare example of a game that takes the best of its previous entry and morphs it into something spectacular. Combat remains sleek and responsive, while the story and the various twists that present themselves throughout are refreshing plays on a well-established mythos. You can also smooch people, which is always appreciated.
Translating an actual life into a video game is not an easy task, but Jenny Jiaso Hsia and her colleagues have managed it beautifully here. Through a collection of fun and short minigames, we get to dive into the soul of young Jenny and discover that our experiences might be more universal than we had thought. Carrying the pressures of your parents along with your own is not easy, and it’s just delightful to see how she has handled it all.
Cosy and creepy, Strange Antiquities is a solid and satisfying puzzle game. While it doesn’t push any boundaries and the narrative lacks the punch of its predecessor, it’s still a highly enjoyable experience for fans of the genre.
There’s much reward to be had for successfully navigating the game's many obstacles, but it’ll take a strong level of patience and determination to complete them, especially with the unconventional controls. There’s plenty to love with Baby Steps, but the potential for much frustration by the controls and hazards made it all one step too far for me.
Whether you choose to experience Blippo+ in all its 1-bit glory on the Playdate or either the Steam or Switch versions, it’s impossible to ignore the amount of love and care that has gone into what is one of the most unique titles of this generation.
Arctic Awakening is a beautiful walking simulator that clearly takes inspiration from those that made the genre great to begin with, and while it makes valiant attempts at creating its own mysteries and forging its own connections between its characters, it just fails to land the final punch. Choices don’t feel impactful enough, with the game remaining very linear despite the dialogue options on offer, and the game’s bugs do enough to sour the experience as a whole.
Sharing only a name and a concept, Frostpunk 2 does a great deal to distance itself mechanically from its precursor, a choice that is both bold and a little bit disappointing. A polished veneer and interesting gameplay interactions do very little to make up for a marred UI and a host of visual glitches. In time this could become an incredible sequel, but in its current state it remains lacking in substance.