Crimson Desert can feel messy and overstuffed, but it’s also a fascinating, visually impressive, sprawling, and often brilliant sandbox that rewards patience and curiosity in equal measure.

Big Hops is one of the most original non-Nintendo 3D platformers you'll play that makes the most of its tongue and veggie-based mechanics, leaping just short of greatness to the genre's highest bar.

A game that weaves in Yoko Taro and Fumito Ueda influences, and still feels unique, only the occasional camera friction can dampen Motorslice's brilliance.

While it's flawed and limited, Project Songbird is also a personal, distinctive, and engaging horror game that bends familiar ideas to its tune.

Ember Lab's visually enchanting debut showcases its animation expertise that translates well to Switch 2, even if its Pixar comparisons are superficial at best, wrapped in a competent but safe 3D action-adventure title.

VR headset or not, The Midnight Walk is an exquisite debut from MoonHood with fantastic hand-sculpted designs, with room (or a house rather) to let you gently admire that handiwork, and a story that warms the soul.

There's genuine charm in Promise Mascot Agency that will definitely appeal to audiences already into Japanese culture and crime drama. Just be prepared to wade through the busywork of the management sim side to enjoy it.

Yakuza Kiwami 3 is the best remake so far in Sega's crime epic. As the entry that excelled at showing a different side to Kiryu, it's been greatly expanded with new, meaningful actions and activities. Even if some of it is familiar and repackaged, it's still full of heart.

Avowed may not reinvent the RPG wheel or be the next game that takes over your life but it still does a good job of giving the Pillars of Eternity universe the AAA treatment. With flexible action-packed combat, vibrant world and characters, and engaging moral dilemmas, it's a blast while it lasts.

A racing reboot dripping in anime style, with unrelenting (but adjustable) speed and an exhilarating system between speed and combat on the race track. Even with an unevenly paced campaign, Screamer nonetheless succeeds in reigniting action-packed racers I thought had burnt out decades ago.

A clever and pulpy cosmic mystery, Call of the Elder Gods is at its best when the focus is on puzzles, because its world never feels quite as deep as the ideas driving it.

A bit uneven, but when it’s in motion, swinging, flipping, doing its weird alien thing, it’s hard not to like ChainStaff.

As enchanting as it is dark, South of Midnight elevates an otherwise conventional action-adventure game with a tightly woven and empathetic 10-12 hour story that does justice to its Southern Gothic influences and Black characters and striking art direction.

A pitch-perfect recreation of the Aliens universe that balances a claustrophobic atmosphere with tense combat and authentic, analogue design. This is the kind of game you bought PSVR 2 to play.

A surprisingly fast and aggressive Soulslike with enough creativity to excite, but fundamentally, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers doesn't subvert the genre or offer enough to break free of its inspirations.

Clever, organically evolving game design mixes with retro period detail, along with a nod to Stalker, to create one of the year's more rewarding open worlds.

It’s a game that constructs a glorious playground, in which you can always find entertainment that suits your mood. It’s bleak, but never forbidding.

Offroading, massive hordes, and synth-driven tension create a unique Carpenter-inspired experience, even if the grind can feel punishing.

A stylish, tightly focused horror game with bold ideas and striking art direction, Crisol: Theater of Idols may not push every theme far enough, but its cohesion, world design, and confidence impress.

A visual upgrade on Sniper Elite 5, a new game mode that offers immediate fun and an engaging new campaign, Sniper Elite: Resistance is always fun but rarely reinvents the gameplay set by the series.

The game delivers believable virtual actors and a sci-fi horror that's at once familiar and fresh, but Directive 8020's focus on lacklustre survival-horror gameplay over a meaningful, choice-driven narrative dilutes what originally made the studio's brand of cinematic horror stand out.

A relentlessly nostalgic, often rewarding showcase of '90s games, Marvel MaXimum Collection relies on its arcade classics and hidden gems to paper over the cracks made by its duo of Spider-Man & Venom releases.

It’s ambitious, can be occasionally ambiguous, but Blades of Fire is relentlessly original and delivers a fantasy world unlike anything else you've experienced. Blades of Fire is a glorious oddity.

TomorrowHead Studio's debut is technically impressive in its use of UE5's lighting. Will: Follow The Light's execution may be bumpier in other areas, while the story might not linger in the memory for long, but it still makes for a stunning and unforgettable trip to the north in all its desolate beauty.

Beautifully simple by design and executed just as deftly, The Cabin Factory is a genuinely creepy, occasionally terrifying, play on space, design and things that go bump in the night (and in weird factories). Chilling.

An ambitious, visually striking cosmic detective adventure that blends smart scanning mechanics with rewarding puzzles. While it rarely threatens, Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss is soaked in immersive detail that even rises above its bugs.

As the game plods on with quiet predictability towards its watery conclusion by the sea, I'm left with the feeling this horror adventure missed the boat.

A wonderfully realised, stylised world ripe for exploration, but what you find in Outbound's vibrant wilderness rarely surprises.