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

Playing through Kingdom Hearts 2.5 HD ReMix, it’s hard not to hope that making this collection has shown Nomura how best to approach the final, still upcoming chapter in his unlikely opus.

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.

Splatoon is a beautiful new twist on the shooting genre, but lacks team chat and other modern norms.

Whether you love the high-octane spectacle of Final Fantasy XVI or the character collection of Genshin Impact, Granblue Fantasy: Relink has a little something for you. It’s a smart blend of ideas, even if it's a bit torn between console and mobile gaming philosophies. More importantly, though, it does all that without sacrificing the playful energy the RPG genre was built on.

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

WWE 2K24 finishes the wrestling series' comeback story with its best installment yet.

Advanced Warfare is extremely unfriendly to the newcomer, with busy, text-laden menus that aren’t explained well and speedy play that is difficult to keep pace with. The campaign is a worthwhile training ground, but it’s hard to apply lessons and feel progress being made when crack human snipers are gunning you down seconds after a respawn.

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.

No matter what I'm doing in Borderlands 4, I'm always earning something that offers a new way to strengthen my character's identity. Guns each feel more distinct than ever, making the loot grind that much more enticing. Each fight is an opportunity to flex my personality thanks to the movement system allowing me to approach and react in dozens of ways, with bosses acting as the exclamation point to it all. But most importantly, Borderlands 4 struck the best tonal balance yet. Borderlands 4 feels like the idealized version of what this series was always striving to be.

Replaying stages to get everything is part of Treasure Tracker’s pleasure, but it doesn’t come at the expense of variety.

This is the sort of game that people buy a new console for. It’s just that good. Sunset Overdrive celebrates the things that set us apart as gamers, and it draws strength from those differences. It never loses sight of the fact that fun trumps all in this sort of escapist fantasy.

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.

Venba delivers an elegantly nuanced story about cultural identity through sharply written dialogue and meaningful cooking interludes.

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

A rewarding experience from its start, Sifu delivers challenge after challenge, all of which are too exciting to turn down.

Civilization: Beyond Earth takes the best that Civ V had to offer and liberates it from the baggage of history repeating.

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.

Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin is a top-notch spinoff that cleverly distills the complexities of Monster Hunter into a friendlier RPG. Rewarding combat and a thoroughly entertaining story make up for repetitive map design and a stuttering frame rate. For those who found Monster Hunter Rise too intimidating, this is a better way to get a grasp on the basic ideas in a less demanding, turn-based format.

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.