Deathloop is a tremendously stylish stealth-action game that builds on Arkane's strengths, even if some of its creative gambles fall flat.

After years of waiting, it pains me to say Final Fantasy VII Remake fails to truly impress. The classic storyline — or at least what’s on offer here — benefits greatly from generous and stellar voice acting, but how you extract the tale of a generation is nothing short of a slog. Running up and down corridors and staircases for dozens of hours is a drag, and while the combat system can, at times, offer up brawls that put MMO raids to shame, mountains of fluff and a combat system that can’t settle on a single style make this one feel like a slight step back from the already problematic Final Fantasy XV. There’s very little freedom of movement here. Just a linear campaign with not much else to offer.

Final Fantasy XVI delivers on the “action” side of its action-RPG formula. A fierce and fast-paced combat system makes for the series’ most exciting stab at real-time swordplay yet, while its blockbuster Eikon fights rank among some of gaming’s most awe-inspiring battles. But there’s a general flatness surrounding those exhilarating highs, as shallow RPG hooks and dated design leave a promising evolution for the series stuck in the past.

Neva may not be the most complex 2D platformer, but it still might make you cry.

If you can get around the obscene difficulty of having to survive brutally challenging, checkpoint-lite platforming gauntlets, creative level design still makes it worth confronting Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze‘s frustrations.

Dragon Ball FighterZ’ is the first Dragon Ball game everyone should play.

Dragon's Dogma 2 is an exhilarating, if occasionally frustrating, RPG full of dynamic player-driven moments.

Echoes of Wisdom’s best parts are the ones that break away from what’s expected. My favorite moments largely happen in Still World rifts, where I need to carve my own path through twisted snippets of Hyrule’s world using echoes. I’m attuned with Zelda most when I find a large gap I can’t pass, but realize I can get to the other side by grabbing hold of a flying tile with my bind ability and following its path. In clever puzzle platform moments like that, I feel like I'm tapping into her third of the Triforce; I’m using her wisdom to meet any challenge that arises. And I’m doing that by drawing on her connection to all things within her kingdom and communicating her eternal royalty through tangible play.

Lies of P makes it clear that developer Neowiz has a deep appreciation and understanding for FromSoftware;s games that goes beyond a surface-level copy.

Assassin's Creed Shadows finds peace and quiet amid a flurry of repetitive violence.

Dragon Age: Inquisition is BioWare’s strongest effort to date, but the massive scope of the world comes at no small cost.

Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector balances survival stress and transhumanist optimism, even if those ideas are sometimes at odds with one another.

A Plague Tale: Requiem is a fantastic sequel on several counts. It improves on its predecessor in just about every way by finely tuning its stealth and navigation systems, adding more gameplay variety, and delivering a visually stunning world that puts games with much larger budgets to shame. Its weak spot comes down to its messy storytelling, which exposes the thematic limits of a medium that’s over reliant on violence as its primary form of interaction.

While it commits its fair share of game design sins, Blasphemous 2 delivers a rewarding, unsettling Metroidvania that's worthy of some devotion.

Mortal Kombat 1's creative Kameo system helps reinvent the classic fighting series, but poor single-player offerings feel like a step back.

Hogwarts Legacy delivers a perfectly competent adventure, but its most unforgivable curse is its lack of imagination. Despite having access to an entire universe of possibilities, its sole trick is using magic to cover up tired video game clichés that feel entirely disconnected from the vibrant source material it’s adapting. The only unique aspect it brings to the open-world genre is franchise branding, making for a shallow experience that doesn’t offer much more than wish fulfillment for fans unable to let go of a dream.

Resident Evil Village boils all the best and worst parts of the franchise down into an eclectic, though uneven experience.

I hesitate to call Super Mario RPG an improvement over the 1996 version. It’s still the same whimsical adventure that I’ll never tire of playing, but it loses a bit of what made the original special amid a stack of tweaks that go both too far and not far enough. I imagine that a lot of players will stick to the original on future replays, opting to soak in its dense pixels and dark landscapes.

Doom: The Dark Ages delivers another dose of reliable thrills by building on the foundation established by its excellent predecessors. The power fantasy of it all is more potent than ever, but Id Software’s experiment in excess proves that there is such a thing as “too much” when it comes to video game spectacle.

Despite its rough edges, Hellblade is often stunning, and approaches mental illness with a unique blend of traditional storytelling and interactive mechanics. If you’re more interested in a stylish action game, there are certainly better options out there, but one thing is clear: No game will leave you feeling like Hellblade does.

Without the scads of small talk, Persona Q feels lost in the shadow of its parent series.

MLB The Show 20 is another home run thanks to its refined gameplay and many modes.

NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139… confirms that the original NieR was both way ahead of its time and far behind it. The story is tremendously captivating and it’s only gotten better with newly added content. On the other side of the coin, the repetitive gameplay feels outdated even by 2010 standards. Those who press through the 30-hour adventure will be rewarded with a bold narrative odyssey. It may even outdo NieR Automata in retrospect, but it’s hard to blame anyone who’d rather watch it all on YouTube instead of playing it for themselves.

Triangle Strategy delivers smart tactics, but battles play second fiddle to its dull political lore.

Starfield isn’t the generation-defining video game that overeager fans might be expecting; it’s a fairly typical, though impressively constructed Bethesda RPG where depth and stability often come at the expense of scope. The surprisingly limited base adventure isn’t so much the draw here, though. The enormous intergalactic playground feels custom-made for modders who want to explore the infinite possibilities of space just as much as Constellation and Bethesda itself.

Yes, FIFA 19 is largely the same game you got last year, especially if you don’t care about the campaign mode, The Journey. That said, it reliably delivers the excellent soccer simulation fans are looking for. While the new features don’t compliment what’s already there, they also don’t hinder an otherwise solid experience. Those who start playing FIFA 19 will find it very difficult to stop.

World of Warcraft: Shadowlands gets lost in its attempt to offer players more choice than ever before, ultimately forgetting to restock the reward machine needed to keep patrons invested.

Pokémon Legends: Arceus is a step in the right direction for the aging series, even if its technical limits can't always support its ambitions.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey features a rich, lush world lessened by its repetitive activities. Though the main story is compelling, completing it requires you to participate in a massive amount of level grinding through less-than-stellar side quests. There’s plenty to do in this world, but a lot of it feels like busy work that fights to stay exciting or compelling. Odyssey is yet another open world game that misinterprets the meaning of more content.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 offers story thrills, wacky movement, and a whole lot of microtransactions.

Lost Judgment is a mechanically sound Yakuza spin-off, but its convoluted story makes it feel like a TV show that's gone on a few seasons too long.

Project CARS 2 offers an incredible drive in spite of technical issues and broken AI.

Cult of the Lamb excels as a darkly comedic management game, though its roguelite component commits some cardinal sins.

Death Stranding is The Tree of Life of videogames. Some people will hail it as a technical and narrative masterpiece that pushes the medium forward. Others will simply be bored to tears by the slow, repetitive gameplay. Both takes are valid. Death Stranding is a bold project that’s sure to be as divisive as the political anxiety it’s commenting on. It won’t change the minds of Kojima detractors who think he should just make movies, but the game’s thoughtful social components showcase why he still plays such a vital role in the games industry.

Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon is a powerful mech flying with faulty thrusters. A fast-paced action game loaded with thrilling dogfights and stimulating mech customization is dragged down by all too familiar FromSoftware quirks like illegible UI and a headache-inducing third-person camera. It’s not enough to fully spoil an exciting ride, but it does leave me wondering how far a good tune-up would have gone.

Taken as a complete package, Sonic X Shadow Generations paints a full picture of the series’ long, hard journey. I started by dragging my way through a fun but shallow game that never quite felt right and arrived at a revelatory thrill that feels like the genuine future of the series. The takeaway from all this shouldn’t be to make a third Generations game, put Shadow in the starring role more often, or to even bow down to anyone with a complaint — lord knows that last one is a recipe for disaster these days. Rather, the most positive possible outcome is that it will inspire a moment of self-reflection. We do not grow by plugging our ears, running away from the past, and ignoring anyone who doesn’t say exactly what we want to hear. Growing up is about recognizing our imperfections, and knowing which are worth embracing and which are actually worth working on.

Control feels like the first step in a bigger project for Remedy Entertainment. While it doesn’t reach its full potential in storytelling and there isn’t enough variation in the combat, the powers that are there are great and the creepy atmosphere complement the action well. Traditional single-player games that aren’t bogged down in level-gating or unnecessary role-playing mechanics are a rarity these days, and that alone makes Control worth paying full price for.

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is the most engaging Lego game in years, thanks to its deeper gameplay and all of the faithfully recreated Star Wars locales that players can explore. But like the protagonists of each Star Wars trilogy, The Skywalker Saga has an identity crisis. It always feels divided between being an accurate retelling of the Star Wars series and an ambitious galactic sandbox where players can go anywhere as anyone.

Super Mario Party Jamboree’s core board game is still as fun as ever, and made even better thanks to some clever new maps. Its signature minigames, though, are a little more inconsistent as some of Nintendo’s best ideas are almost exclusively saved for hit-and-miss side modes. It’s a multiplayer package that spreads itself thin, but there’s enough fun content here to keep the dice rolling for another turn.

MLB The Show 18 makes some missteps this time around, and if you’re most interested in building up a star in Road to the Show, it’s an especially weak year. That said, with fantastic online play and the expected stellar hitting and pitching, it is still an incredibly fun game, and the best baseball simulator coming out this year.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is a return to form for this once-lauded RPG studio that should satiate Dragon Age fans quite well after a decade-long wait. But returning to form and perfecting form are not the same thing. BioWare has plenty of room to regrow as it gets back on track making the kinds of games RPG fans want them to create.

WWE 2K23 is another successful chapter in the wrestling series' comeback story, but the red flags of annualization are starting to appear already.

Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores is a light, but crowd-pleasing DLC chapter that sets the stage for Aloy's next adventure.

When the brunt of your game consists of slamming buttons to fight off beasts, you better make it feel good to distract us from the repetitive nature of it all.

Live A Live is a high-effort remake from the presentation side, though the base game remains an uneven RPG experience.

Saltsea Chronicles is a poignant nautical adventure about the distances between us and what we gain from crossing them.

The Creative Assembly’s game, however, is cooked; left to boil so long it loses all flavor and texture. For 10 hours, Isolation is one of the best horror games ever made, until a second, poorly made game bursts out of its heart.

There isn’t an easy way to recommend Life is Strange: True Colors. It, like the rest of the Life is Strange franchise, isn’t a typical game. It’s more akin to a visual novel or point-and-click adventure. The game is a slow, enjoyable experience, perfect for when you want to wind down for the night or get up in the morning. More than that, though, it’s an emotional triumph. Experiencing Alex’s adventure and seeing the world through her excellently crafted perspective is a joy that hit me harder than I expected it to.

Children of the Sun stumbles on story, but its unnerving hyper violence hits its mark.

Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero delivers thrilling fights, but its disjointed story mode doesn't hold up its end of the bargain.

Assassin’s Creed Origins is what happens when you make a game without a vision for how players are supposed to engage with it. So many of the changes made to the game feel as if they were made in a vacuum, without a question as to whether they make sense together in the context of a long-running series. Not all games need loot. Not all games need RPG mechanics.

Ultros is a bold and beautiful artistic vision, but a convoluted Metroidvania.

Shovel Knight Dig punches above its spin-off weight class, even if its roguelike elements are a little modest.

Ubisoft set a high bar for itself in 2017 when it presented a thoughtful concept that turned Far Cry’s outlandish and often politically charged lens on the United States. The game ultimately settles something closer to the devil-may-care attitude of past Far Cry games. While not devoid of fun, the game feels hollow. Four previous Far Cry games — 3, 4, Primal, 5 — were built this way, and the formula has grown stale.

Persona 5 Strikers is as flashy as Persona 5, featuring the same gorgeous artwork and animations, great dialogue, and brilliant music. It unfortunately lacks the meat on the bone that made the original such an addicting experience to its loyal fanbase. It also provides little incentive for newcomers to play it despite its egregious length being drastically cut down.

Steamworld Heist 2 is a strong sequel, even if it may test both your skills and patience.

Battlefield V fails to impress the same way Battlefield 1 did. By all means, give it a try if you’re a fan of DICE’s previous work, but know that you’ll have to put up with some pretty glaring faults.

Stellar Blade is a masterclass in style, but it's lacking substance.

Bayonetta Origins tells a cute coming-of-age story about an initially powerless girl discovering herself. The game itself almost mirrors that, beginning with some simplistic, repetitive play but slowly evolving into something complex with its own distinct identity. It’s not just an origin story for Cereza, but for a new spinoff series with promising potential. The little witch we see in the game’s final moments isn’t the fully formed angel of death we meet in Bayonetta; there’s still some growing she needs to do to fully get there. Bayonetta Origins ends in the same place, leaving me excited to see where the adventure goes from here.

Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy has some rough edges, but its solo team play mechanics are a perfect match for the dysfunctional superhero family.

In its own way, Wanderstop is the perfect mission statement for a bright-eyed studio starting its path to self-discovery. It is a sincere celebration of our struggles and imperfections. They are not problems to run away from, but stones to sharpen our blades upon so we may win the next fight.

While its creative gameplay ideas are spread thin, Thirsty Suitors offers a charmingly nuanced coming of age story about messy adults.

Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves is a slick fighting game with an uncomfortable catch.

Infinity Nikki is the stylish open-world game that players have been begging for.

WWE 2K25 could be the series' last babyface moment before a heel turn in 2026.

Planet of Lana makes up for some repetitive 2D puzzling with a gorgeous art style and a good-natured tone.

Paper Mario: The Origami King is a charming Mario adventure marred by a difficult and tedious battle system.

The First Berserker: Khazan will frustrate you to no end, but it's still worth its weight in broken controllers.

Escape Academy is an endearing puzzle game that just wants to share the unique pleasure of escape rooms with everyone. Each well-designed level brings a set of clever logic puzzles that are always satisfying to solve, especially with a pal. It has a harder time bringing players a meaningful sense of failure, as the meaningless time limits suck the tension out of the room. Despite its struggles to nail down the energy of real-world escape rooms, it’s one of the most fun ways you can spend a Saturday gaming night this summer.

Whether you’re fighting, crafting, or gathering, your actions always serve a purpose in the Burning Crusade Classic campaign. Anyone can feel like they’re contributing either to their own guilds and groups or to the server as a whole. Leveling can feel sluggish at times, but talent points, meaningful gear upgrades, and a clear endgame goal create an RPG experience that still manages to make it a game worth experiencing if you have the time, even if it’s more demanding than we typically tolerate from games like this.

South Park: The Fractured But Whole isn’t an even experience. Some moments are fun and pretty funny, but others feel pretty uninspired. Exploring the town of South Park isn’t as novel this time out, and it largely isn’t as funny. RPG systems like combat, looting and crafting are just involved enough to make them interesting, but the firm emphasis is on the story and humor of the show. With the plot taking a while to develop and with so many jokes just feeling played out, loose on their landings or easy and obvious, it’s tough to really get excited to head back down to South Park.

Dynasty Warriors: Origins is thrilling fun so long as you don't overthink its hollow story.

After seven years, with myriad studios steering the ship in different directions, LittleBigPlanet 3 feels torn between wanting to be a toolbox and a colorful little platformer. If it wants to just be a platformer, it needs to think bigger and expand what it lets you play with. And if it wants to just be a toolbox, it needs to either think of a better way to teach how to use those tools or stop breathing so hard down the player’s neck.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows almost feels like what it would be like if Ken Burns was tasked with making a video game. It’s exhaustive in how it depicts Japan’s feudal era even in fiction, crafting its world with the eye of a historical documentarian. It’s not quite the in-depth slice of life that Red Dead Redemption 2 goes for, but it approaches that same idea with fewer systems. Some of my favorite moments came when I just got bored of stabbing people and got on my horse instead. I didn't stop every few feet to complete a puzzle. I didn’t stop to open another chest. I just rode, breathing in nature and listening to my own exhale intertwine with the wind.

If Doom is a jam session that gives players space to improvise, Metal: Hellsinger is a high school recital. There’s only so far you can stray from the sheet music.

The beefy spinoff of last year’s Infinite Wealth is an act of cosplay. While most of the pieces that make the long-running series so beloved are there, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio trades in strong writing for pirate pastiche with mixed results. Majima’s nautical adventure is at its best when flashes of memory break through its amnesia, reminding me that there’s more to Like a Dragon than its memeable moments.

Skin Deep is a wacky slice of immersive slapstick that could have used a little more chaos.

Persona 5 Tactica's strategic elements are its highlights, but don't expect it to take your heart.

Horizon Call of the Mountain works as an impressive PSVR2 tech showcase, but overambitious ideas make it less appealing as an action-adventure game.

Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name satisfyingly ties up many loose ends in Kiryu's story, but it's one of the franchise's most tedious adventures.

Ghostrunner 2's intense action is a fun as ever, but the ambitious sequel overthinks a lean concept with messy new features.

The Journey is sorely missed in FIFA 20, as the story we get instead simply isn’t up to the high standard of its predecessors. The visuals also lag behind other AAA sports titles. Despite this, FIFA 20 remains the best way to experience soccer in a game. It makes a few minor adjustments to the formula without breaking what’s worked for the series over the years.

Islands of Insight is the modern reinvention the puzzle genre needs.

Everyone insists the stakes are high, yet they never feel high, because nothing you care about is at risk.

A solid, but safe expansion of the base game.

Like a Dragon: Ishin's timeless story and accessibility options make up for some of its outdated gameplay.

A Way Out is a better idea than it is a game. There’s something to its cinematic presentation, its parallel stories, and its bespoke cooperative gameplay. It just never comes together as the unique, exciting game it’s clearly striving to be. The plot simply isn’t that strong, the dialogue is never very compelling, and the characters don’t develop beyond their broadly drawn archetypes. Without those things, A Way Out never lives up to its potential.

Oxenfree II: Lost Signals is another narrative hit for Night School, delivering a slow-burn story that expertly weaves together supernatural horror with an introspective story of self-discovery. The sequel does find itself struggling with its own identity crisis though, as tedious interactivity leaves me wondering if the studio’s heart is more in movies or TV than video games.

Another Crab's Treasure utilizes its charming setting and assist mode options to become one of the most approachable Soulslikes ever.

WWE 2K22 is a robust wrestling simulator that gets the series back on track after its nearly career-ending 2020 installment. It’s filled with modes, impressive combat tweaks, and a truly phenomenal creative suite that turn it into a hoss of a game. There’s still work to do if 2K Sports wants to fully rehabilitate the series. Multi-man matches need a rework, its more promising modes need to be expanded, and there’s still plenty of gunk to clean up. But if this is how much an annualized series can turn itself around by taking one year off, then every franchise like it should consider an offseason.

Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader delivers a dream CRPG for Warhammer fans if you can get past its bugs.

Fortnite: Battle Royale is a fast-paced arcade alternative to PUBG, but it fails in the tension department. Its good fun when you play like you don’t only have one life, but that in and of itself makes it feel like an oddity that hasn’t quite found its identity yet.

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion looks like a modern game, but its aged PSP gameplay doesn't match the HD overhaul.

Pascal's Wager doesn't quite match the impressive standards of its inspiration, but Dark Souls fans should check it out.

Skylanders: Trap Team seems intent on forcing players to open their wallets if they want the full experience of what the game has to offer.

NBA 2K20 takes a step forward with its story, but is hindered by its uninspired gameplay.

Cat Quest 3 is a light but charming pirate adventure that'll make you feel like a kid again.

Everybody's Golf is limited in scope, but makes up for it with pure charm.