Assassin’s Creed Shadows doesn’t feel like a step forward or a step back, it feels like a sidestep for the series. For every improved feature – like stealth or combat – there’s something that feels worse, like exploring the world and climbing to a high place for a vantage point. At the start, you’re embarking on a bold adventure, and in the midst of it all, it feels like trying to complete a shopping list in a new supermarket with no signs. It’s directionless, overwhelming, and tedious. You can’t even ignore the dozens of optional objectives, otherwise you won’t be high enough level to take on the main challenges. If you want a game that you can play for the next year, AC Shadows is it, but if you want a tight, narrative-driven stealthy ninja adventure, look elsewhere.

The simple fact is, if you played the first game, you know exactly what you’re getting with The Outer Worlds 2. There are some mechanical improvements, but the story doesn’t impress, and the side-quests lack enough bite or consequence to create a world I want to spend more time in.

Its own story is indeed almost negligible, but Sunderfolk shines in its ability to be a catalyst or stage for self-generated stories and connections between you and your fellow players that will resonate even outside of the game. In this way, the devs at Secret Door truly succeeded in creating a digital, more approachable version of the TTRPGs we all love, even if it’s one with room to improve. I’m very excited to see where they can push this concept in the future.

As it stands, Digimon Story: Time Stranger is a massive step up from Digimon Story games before it, improving on just about every aspect. Huge amounts of work have gone into streamlining frustrations seen in prior entries, and it mostly delivers in its presentation, combat, and storytelling, but it falls short of feeling like the triple-A game it’s trying so hard to be. It’s a step forward for the series nonetheless, and likely the best Digimon game to date, which will hopefully lead to better, more polished, and better-funded games in the future.

Even though I have my frustrations with the controls and I was left wanting more from the puzzles, I still very much enjoyed my time with Lego Voyagers. While it had potential for greater things, the puzzles are still good fun and strike at the elements that make co-op play uniquely enjoyable. At a tight three hours, it’s the kind of game you could easily play with your partner or kid to spend a cozy, lazy evening together.

RoadCraft is a great concept that needs at least another year of development. In a few patches, it’ll be the best game of its type, but it’s impossible to fully recommend with its sentient semis, borked physics, idiotic AI, and base technical issues.

I don’t dislike Cronos: The New Dawn, but the minor frustrations coupled with the overall tedium wear on you. It’s a polished game that works well, but shooting zombie mutants gets old, and raiding boxes for batteries isn’t that exciting in the first place. A decently atmospheric horror for the Halloween season, but not quite the new era of Bloober Team that I was hoping for.

Ultimately, Marvel’s Deadpool VR could use a few patches – or perhaps even a release on an entirely different platform – before it plays its best, but even if everything were perfect, it’s just fine. It’s a good game, but it doesn't feel like the best a VR superhero game can be, and it didn’t make me feel like Deadpool. It’s middle-of-the-road, inoffensive, and contains silly fourth-wall breaking references to everything from Cheers to One Piece. If that sounds like a good time to you, then there’s nothing else quite like Deadpool VR.

While the exploration didn’t give me the sustained sense of joy and wonder I was hoping for, Revenge of the Savage Planet keeps things light and brisk, making it an enjoyable survival crafting adventure you can charge through with a friend. It may not do anything revolutionary in the genre, but I certainly wouldn’t mind if similar games took some lessons from it on how to tighten up this kind of experience.

If you’re eager to get closer to the Onimusha series ahead of Way of the Sword, Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny is a great way to do that, but it’s an awkward action experience in 2025.

I quite like Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, but when I’m not playing it, I’m not eager to return. Soulslike games are a dime a dozen in 2025, and need a truly unique aesthetic or hook to capture an audience. I’m not sure Wuchang has enough of either, and the changes that are present don’t really elevate Wuchang’s combat and progression above its contemporaries. There are far worse Soulslikes than Wuchang, but there are better ones too.

2K did the right thing by launching it at a relatively budget price, and the release date means there’s little for it to compete with so I’m sure it’ll do well. Still, there’s something here. It’s a solid B game. It’ll keep you pushing through for its short runtime and then you’ll turn it off and you’ll fuhgeddaboudit pretty quickly.

That’s the biggest problem with Little Nightmares 3: it has a lot of nice ideas, but the execution is lacking. Sometimes it doesn’t do enough of the good things it does, and sometimes it does way too much of the bad things. It’s a game that, with a bit more time, a lot more polish, and a clearer direction, could be great — but as it stands, it’s just a little too janky, a little too underbaked, and a little too frustrating.

If I’d bought Indiana Jones and the Great Circle’s Premium Edition at launch solely for the eventual DLC, I’d be sorely disappointed. If you’re on the fence about The Order of Giants now, then just stay away. It’s a nice extra story to have, but unless you’re one of the Great Circle’s strongest soldiers, there’s no need to play The Order of Giants — especially for the high asking price. It’s more Indy, but not more of what made Indy great.

Unfinished Business is a bit of a weird one. It improves a lot of foundational stuff from the main game, but it also tries some new things that don’t quite land. It has better combat encounters, but its side missions aren’t as well thought out. Its lack of hubs is also a disappointment after watching Detroit and the PD change throughout the main game. Still, Teyon is the only studio doing these love letters to classic movies at this quality level, and there’s a lot to like if you go in with your expectations in check and your brain turned all the way off.

Nordcurrent’s Chains of Freedom isn’t an outstanding turn-based tactics game for me, but some of its core systems are genuinely good and – depending on your personal tastes – it might be one you will greatly enjoy.

Pax Augusta is incredibly authentic and detailed and anyone who loves historical dioramas will be utterly entranced by it, though its actual city-building gameplay has room for improvement — both design-wise and in technical matters.

FBC: Firebreak is a first-person PvE shooter that wears the skin of a game that people actually like. It’s not bad, it really isn’t, but none of my teammates want to play it again. I just hope that when Alan Wake 3 and Control 2 roll around the characters of FBC: Firebreak won’t be important, because I’m going to forget that this ever happened in less than six months, and it’ll just be another paranatural event for the conspiracy mags.

Despite its issues with underbaked sidequests, technical polish, and combat jank, I’m glad I played Bloodlines 2. It’s a game that shouldn’t exist from a publisher that’s never put out anything quite like it, and a developer best known for slow-paced experiential games, who salvaged a failed project and put its own spin on it. It has no right to be this good. When you’re playing your part and wearing your social mask, navigating murky alleyways and murkier politics, solving grisly murders and listening to the sounds of the street, Bloodlines 2 pulls you into its sharp embrace and refuses to unlatch until you reach its climax.

If you’re looking to get the most out of the Nintendo Switch 2 and want the kind of in-depth technical demonstrations that simply don’t exist on other consoles, Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour is absolutely something you should play. But pay for? Probably not. I do recommend playing the game, but you’ll enjoy your time with it much more if you manage to have a friend share their Virtual Game Card with you instead of paying money for it yourself.

Hunter x Hunter: Nen x Impact is more jank than janken. Maybe a definitive edition with DLC characters will become a fun distraction for Hunter x Hunter fans that also play fighting games, but in its current state it’s hard to recommend to anyone.

Fire Emblem Shadows is a fine enough game, but once you play it you can understand why Nintendo didn’t bother marketing this much. It’s not quite Fire Emblem enough for Fire Emblem fans, and non-FE fans probably already have a roughly equivalent game to enjoy on mobile. If nothing else, it does what it intends to do relatively well, and the monetization doesn’t actively try to pick a player’s pockets.

Shadowveil has the makings of something thoroughly enjoyable, but is hurt by a lack of polish and of a clear direction. It feels like the team wanted to make two different games, but had to glue them together, leading to lots of awkward mechanical contradictions under the pretty ink — it’s a testament to the individual systems’ strength that the game is quite fun regardless.

Giant Kings padded out some of Age of Wonders 4’s remaining weaknesses. Archon Prophecy, on the other hand, further honed the strategy game’s strengths — it’s a robust end to Expansion Pass 2, greatly increasing the game’s role-playing opportunities and variety.