Very few games I’ve ever played have captured that feeling, and even fewer have done it as masterfully as Expedition 33 does. It’s the kind of story I will always carry with me; its messages of loss, grief, and acceptance are second to none. Add to that incredible combat that mixes careful strategy with skillful reactions and unique mechanics, all wrapped up in a world that is a treat for the eyes everywhere you look, and you have a game that I will never stop praising.

While the roguelike elements can cause frustration, Blue Prince still manages to be a fantastic experience. It nails the sense of discovery and leverages the randomness to keep it going much longer than a traditional puzzle game does, all while constantly motivating you towards a grand objective that’s satisfying to solve.

It’s a little messy and definitely has a few missed opportunities, but the core gameplay is so much fun that I couldn’t put it down. It captures the thrill of exploration that made Odyssey so compelling while taking the gameplay mechanics in a completely unique direction that kept developing in ways I didn’t see coming, and that’s exactly why I love Nintendo’s fun-first approach to design so much. If you’ve been waiting for a reason to buy a Switch 2, it’s just arrived.

There may be dozens of indie metroidvania games released on Steam every month, but Hollow Knight: Silksong is the perfect reminder of why none of them ever got as big as this pair of games. Silksong pushes the genre to heights it has never known before, combining a fantastic aesthetic and narrative with extremely polished exploration and boss mechanics. While there are frustrations that can grate on you in those annoying moments, they quickly fade away when the game is viewed as a whole. It really does live up to the hype. I’d still like the next one in sooner than seven years though, Team Cherry.

Every single criticism I had of Death Stranding has been addressed, allowing this sequel to show the full genius of Hideo Kojima’s vision. His favourite music, the recurring themes he explores, his famous friends, the tribute to Low Roar’s late frontman Ryan Karazija, the nods to his previous work, the post-COVID anxiety imbued into the story, and even the Kojima-made trailers leading up to release – playing Death Stranding 2 feels like making a personal connection with the man himself. He’s reaching out his hand from the other side and there’s little you can do but grasp it. You can feel the brush strokes, and now and then, that wink. A Hideo Kojima wink.

Street Fighter 6 is the most popular fighting game of the generation, seeing almost seven times the entrants of the next most popular title at EVO Japan 2025. It supports an aggressive playstyle and in its first two seasons has introduced characters that feel more bold and daring than anything we saw in Street Fighter V until its final days. It is, undoubtedly, the best fighting game to play in 2025, and it’s shockingly good on Nintendo Switch 2.

Dispatch shows a lot of promise, but it remains to be seen whether it can hold attention through the busy games season while drip-feeding the episodes. I hope it can because if the first couple of episodes are any indication, Dispatch could be something special. I found myself laughing out loud more than once, which isn’t easy to do to someone who’s hunched over like a goblin watching something alone. The writing is sharp, the acting is excellent, the animations wouldn’t feel out of place in a premium TV show, and the interactive sequences tease some amount of depth. I just think it’d be better off binged because of how little you actually play during an individual episode. [Review in Progress]

Ten years on, Xenoblade Chronicles X is finally a complete game with the Definitive Edition, and it’s still one of the most bafflingly ambitious games I’ve ever played. It attempts and succeeds with so much, even if not every aspect is on par with the majesty of Mira. It can be slow and tedious at times, but even after more than 90 hours, a part of me didn’t want the adventure to end. We don’t know what’s next for Monolith Soft, but after this I’d be overjoyed to see more from Elma, Lin, and everyone in New Los Angeles.

Mario Kart World is a genuinely fantastic package, though it still feels as if it falls short of some of its open-world racing contemporaries. The open-world design isn’t being made the most of here, but the tracks are still fantastic and Knockout Tour is one of Mario Kart’s best-ever multiplayer modes. If you’re getting a Nintendo Switch 2, you need Mario Kart World.

Ghost of Yotei proves that most games deserve a sequel. The bones were there with Tsushima, but Sucker Punch has improved every area that was lacking. All the characters have depth and personality, including the villains, climbing feels better, missions are more varied and have worthwhile stories, it explores the indigenous Ainu people, their traditions and customs, and the impact Japan’s wars had on them, and the performances from the cast are excellent in Japanese and English (Erika Ishii oozes cool, and I’d go as far as to say this is Noshir Dalal’s best performance ever). Yotei is a massive step up and easily Sucker Punch’s best game yet.

From the cast’s detached, off-kilter performances – both in Japanese and the English dub – to the art, which contrasts beauty with horror, every aspect of Silent Hill f is calculated to enrich the story it tells. It trusts its audience completely, never spelling everything out in bold letters, allowing you to bring your own interpretation and making you feel like an active participant in the telling without resorting to dialogue trees with arbitrary choices and consequences. This is Hinako’s story, but just like the village gossips, in one final violation of her autonomy, everyone will have their own opinion on how it ends.

I honestly did enjoy my time with it, but for every bit of praise I can offer, a complaint comes attached. The combat is fun and has a strong sense of flow, but it isn’t particularly challenging, and the complexity doesn’t scale well. The platforming tools make for enjoyable and satisfying challenges, but the game infrequently uses them to their full potential. If you’re looking for a side-scrolling action platformer, then Shinobi will absolutely scratch that itch, just don’t go into it looking for a genre revolution.

Yakuza 0: Director’s Cut is the best way to play one of the best games in the series. It looks great, runs well, and the new English dub is very good — with a few exceptions here and there. It stumbles in a few places, but it rarely sullies the charm of the game that millions adore.

Doom: The Dark Ages is yet another hit from a series that can’t seem to miss. It keeps the core of intense, fast-paced shooter gameplay, actively enhancing it with new mechanics that alter the moment-to-moment action while keeping the pulse-pounding feeling the same. Like Doom 2016 and Eternal, I’m left craving another hit already, but I’ll happily wait another five years for it if this is the result, unlike CoD’s exhausting annual release cycle.

It’s classic Kojima stuff, overexplaining every aspect of the story and even things that have no bearing on the plot at all. You can seek some of this out by calling your handlers and having optional chats, but there are at least three hours of cutscenes here by default. Still, like many of the other best games of the time, this is designed to be played and played, looking for better times and results, so you’ll be skipping them all by your second playthrough anyway, which is arguably when the game comes into its own — when you work toward those no-alerts, no kills runs.

It may not revolutionize VR game design like Half-Life: Alyx, but Batman: Arkham Shadow is a great example of what the platform can be with a triple-A budget. All of the key mechanics that make the Arkham series what it is are translated brilliantly to this new format, leading to a game that fits right in with what came before while still feeling like a bold step forward.

So it’s a bit of a faff to find the right setup for you, but once you have it, Nintendo Switch 2 is a perfectly cromulent way to play Cyberpunk 2077. It’s by no means the best way, as it has performance issues and limitations that the other current-gen versions don’t have, but it’s still Cyberpunk 2077; it’s still one of the best western RPGs in recent memory, and the novelty I get out of playing it on a handheld device never ceases to make me smile.

From its philosophical musings to its management and exploration, The Alters pulls you in from the opening and refuses to let go. It has the same quality of a good strategy game where real life hours get sucked away as you tick off tasks and work towards goals, but it’s even more engaging because you want the answers to all of its mysteries, too. Minus some iffy technical performance – frames drop in certain areas, and there’s some strange flickering around character models occasionally – it’s brilliantly executed, completely original, and just the right level of stressful.

Ultimately, you already know if you’re going to like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4. If you played and enjoyed the last remake, it’s basically an essential game on any platform. While I don’t care for the litany of customization options, the core gameplay is fantastic and the classic levels have been recreated beautifully. 3 + 4 has almost everything you’d want from a remake of Pro Skater 3 and 4.

Europa Universalis 5 feels like the culmination of everything Paradox has done over the last two decades and if there’s ever been a game worthy of being called a grand strategy title, this is it.

Fortnite is better on Switch 2 than it’s ever been on a handheld device, and a night and day improvement over the original Switch version. It’s more than serviceable in both docked and handheld modes, and it’s almost certainly going to be my main way to play going forward.

Drop Duchy brings together city-building, tactical combat, and Tetris under a roguelite mantle and fits it together so neatly that you can’t see any seams. It’s one of those perfectly polished little gems that know what they want to be and do.

Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar is a faithful but ambitious remake of an overlooked Nintendo DS game, and it’s great. It’s a simple game that doesn’t ask too much of the player, but it’s incredibly satisfying to expand your farm, gather your produce, and make a massive profit at the Grand Bazaar. If you want a polished, cozy game to go into Autumn with, Grand Bazaar is a great choice.

Still, there’s nothing quite like this — especially since Ubisoft turned Rainbow Six into an online hero shooter. No one makes proper hardcore military sims anymore; that door has been closed for a while. Well, Ready or Not kicked the door right in and proved there’s still a massive audience for them on PC. With a few patches, I’m sure it’ll do the same on console.

How much you enjoy Legacy of the Forge comes down to how much you’ve played KCD2. If you’ve still got hours of quests to plough through in Kuttenberg, then Legacy of the Forge is the perfect accompaniment that gives you more to do. If you’ve already exhausted the game, though, then the quests here will feel a bit thin. It depends on what you’re looking for, but I enjoyed returning to Kuttenberg and becoming the most respected blacksmith in town. I just know Martin would be proud.

The result is about the most straightforward but successful sequel you could ask for. It takes the core gameplay of the first game, makes a few additions without changing anything of what people liked, and then just goes about making everything bigger and better. If you liked the first game, this is exactly the sequel you wanted, giving you more of the same while making the experience smoother in the process. You could argue that there was more of an opportunity to innovate, but I’d argue that if fresh ideas are what you’re after, PowerWash Simulator 2 isn’t the place you should be looking – unless you count the fresh smell of soapy water, of course.

Battlefield 6’s single-player continues the series’ tradition of not being very good, but the multiplayer is the best it’s been in a long, long time. [Review in Progress]

If combat design is all that matters to you, then Ninja Gaiden 4 is a fantastic entry into a legendary series, but the design of some enemies and areas become familiar far too quickly, and your hundredth time killing a haunted lantern or soldier isn’t going to get your blood pumping. The pacing might be slightly off, but the action is always on beat.