Despite my irritations with flat writing and stereotypes in The Drifter, I was deeply impressed by its puzzle design, look, and deliciously eerie atmosphere. That’s why I’m disappointed I can’t recommend it whole-heartedly, because there’s a lot in here that’s truly special. But for a group of designers who claim to be heavily influenced by Stephen King, The Drifter is surprisingly superficial when it comes to the core traits of its ensemble cast. King doesn’t always manage to avoid stereotypes himself, but his best works are celebrated for including fully-realized characters who don’t fall neatly into expected roles. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on what the creators of The Drifter do next; I imagine that, much like Stephen King, they’ll continue to grow and make even more creative games in the future. But until then, I’ll be wishing that The Drifter had gotten just one more draft.

Shadow Labyrinth is a perfectly fine Metroid riff. The level design, the pacing of new power-ups, and the mechanical satisfaction of mastering its different forms of precision-demanding motion make it both very easy and demanding to play.

It’s hard to explain to people apathetic or ambivalent to sports games, but criticism that they’re annual roster updates originates from communities that love sports and want these video games to be as great as they can. There was a time Madden seemed to be actively getting worse every year. It took NCAA Football most of the PS3/360 era to find its footing. For all my concerns about tightening the screws around Dynasty mode, there’s clearly a lot of effort here, and the actual on-field gameplay is tremendous fun. Considering this series’ history, and how it went away for a decade, I’m often evaluating the new one from the perspective of “If they never make another one, will this be a worthy legacy for the work invested and for the passion the people have for the sport?” For College Football 26, despite some caveats, the answer is yes. They’ve definitely raised the floor and they haven’t hit the ceiling. After over 1000 hours in its predecessors, I put over 200 hours into College Football 25; I’ll be surprised if I don’t put even more into College Football 26.

Despite these annoyances, Everdeep Aurora still makes for an engaging five to six hours. Not only does it nail the little gameplay touches to make the most of its spelunking, but it also trusts the player enough to let them make discoveries for themselves. What starts as a game about a cat digging a hole to find their mom reveals itself to be something more compelling as you excavate the truths of the Everdeep. If you’re willing to go deep enough, that is.

As beautiful and engaging as the world that Bithell Games has built for Catalyst is, and as pleasant as it is to move around in it, there’s just a surprising lack of anything going on in it for Exo to do besides move and fight.