An astounding open world unlikely to be rivalled until well into the next gen, saddled by a throughline from the last. [Eurogamer Recommended]

One of the most daring and influential game designs of all time makes a long overdue comeback in Mario's most madcap adventure yet. [Essential]

Elden Ring remains a glorious game, one that established fans are going to savour for some time to come, and one that may just welcome new fans into the FromSoft fold. Sumptuous visual design, dark and detailed lore and a vast-but-intricate open world are reason enough to venture out into the Lands Between. Add to that FromSoftware's unforgiving and unforgettable gameplay loop and this is something truly special. [Eurogamer Essential]

Great new gameplay features can't help the fact that Persona 5 Royal drags on even more than its predecessor.

Despite eye-catching changes, the heart of this series remains gloriously unaltered. [Recommended]

Much like its heroes, God of War: Ragnarök learns to love itself for what it truly is: gargantuan, excessive, and wonderfully absurd. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Can a slick, mainstream action game really reckon with the violence that drives it? The answer is yes - messily, but powerfully. [Eurogamer Essential]

City 17 provides the setting for a VR adventure filled with brilliant detailing. [Eurogamer Recommended]

A CRPG of unparalleled breadth and dynamism, Original Sin 2 is Larian's masterpiece. [Essential]

Persona 5 is unconscionably sublime. Every beat, every subtlety, every movement of the camera - it all translates into a kinetic masterpiece, strung together with the best visuals this side of Atlus. Persona 5 won't change your mind on JRPGs if you lack a taste for the genre, but if you're in any way a fan, well -Why the hell are you still reading this? Go forth and damn well purchase. [Essential]

Hades is a proper lark. I love it. But there is something else here, something that I have always felt about games but never been able to put into words. There is something about polished, smartly conceived Hades, about so many of Supergiant's games which, the joyous brilliance of Pyre aside perhaps, are always too rigorous, too responsibly conceived not to know exactly what spot they're going to fit into on the shelf, which pillars they're going to present to the press - there is something about these games that are so assuredly products that reminds me that games are never ever just products. Games are always a way of being. To play Hades, Roguelite aside, economy aside, loop aside, is to be furious and vengeful, to be driven by bitterness, self-hate, ennui, to be pulverisingly powerful and yet horribly efficient. This is the truth of it down to the controls, which encourage you to grip the pad by the facebuttons and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze like you're one stress ball away from telling your boss to shove it. This game comes from Hell, and it takes you back there, and it's brilliant. Get in. [Eurogamer Essential]

Keeping what works while reimagining what doesn't, this is about as good as remakes get. [Eurogamer Recommended]

A chaos of details and features come together for one of the Switch's most generous - and exhilarating - games. [Eurogamer Essential]

Forza Horizon 5 is an excellent title that is still one of the best-looking racing games ever made. Nothing really comes close to the level of raw environmental fidelity that Forza Horizon 5 so effortlessly accomplishes across its vast open world. Plus, the car models look great, lighting quality is excellent, and performance is typically impeccable across its target platforms. Panic Button's porting effort certainly does the job too, though the base PS5 essentially comes in exactly as expected. Relative to Series X, it's a near-perfect match. That's not a bad thing at all, as the port is consistently high quality and arrives without significant issues.

Playground Games delivers yet another gorgeous and enveloping pocket holiday, smartly restructured but reassuringly unchanged. [Eurogamer Recommended]

There's friction between the original and this lavish remake, but this is a scintillating launch title that shows off the PS5's strengths. [Eurogamer Recommended]

The detail, the care and the craft on show amount to a package that feels luxurious, a feeling only emboldened by this deluxe edition, and the few tweaks made here underline its brilliance. There was some debate when it originally came out about whether Mario Kart 8 was the best in the series - with Deluxe, that's now no longer in doubt. [Essential]

A technical marvel, as well as an education and exploration of the joys of flight. [Eurogamer Essential]

A suite of enhancements help bring the virtues of this staunchly traditional RPG into focus. [Eurogamer Recommended]

A melancholy masterpiece is reborn in this faithful and breathtakingly beautiful remake.

A verbose and rich psychological roleplaying game that doesn't offer enough choice in the role you play.

Capcom finds the perfect middle ground between old and new in this sterling remake. [Eurogamer Recommended]

A legendary game gets a legendary sequel. [Eurogamer Essential]

An impressive suite of improvements combine with a more clearly defined structure for Animal Crossing's finest outing to date. [Eurogamer Essential]

Stephen's Sausage Roll is a design masterclass. It's also a game about the joys of getting stuck. Don't savour the victories. This is about the precious moments of being absolutely lost, stumped and clueless within a tight, beautiful thing that defies any sense of how it came to be.

Some fiddliness with controls and interface can't hold back Asobo's phenomenal creation from shining in its new context. [Eurogamer Essential]

A stern yet scintillating 2D adventure that makes a point of not holding your hand. [Recommended]

Artful animation and visuals combine with tightly designed exploration, though beware persistent technical issues.

Monster Hunter opens up for the most accessible, most detailed and most magnificent entry yet. [Essential]

The follow-up to FTL is just as punishing - and just as elegant. [Recommended]

Heart-stopping swordfights and deft, panoramic stealth waged across another vast, gorgeously rancid From Software landscape. [Eurogamer Essential]

A generous and thrilling exploration of the wonders of VR. [Eurogamer Recommended]

With airtight controls, smooth speedrunning and a big helping of anime-inspired flair, few games can keep up with Neon White's pace. [Eurogamer Recommended]

More an expanded re-release than a remaster, the quality of the original Xenoblade Chronicles shines out in this generous package. [Eurogamer Recommended]

The Metroidvania at its best: a swaggering role-playing beat-'em-up that's very easy on the eyes and dense with secrets. [Recommended]

If you can ignore the story, It Takes Two has some of the best co-op gameplay in years. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Genres combine with beautiful precision in a game that offers simple pleasures and terrifying depths. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Monolith Soft closes out its loosely connected trilogy of epic RPGs with its most adaptable, malleable and high-spirited adventure yet. [Eurogamer Essential]

It's the heady energy at the heart of every Super Mario 3D World level, pushed out across an entire map for what's a hugely entertaining, and very different brand of Mario action. There might be more polished Mario adventures around, and more coherent ones. But when it gets to the core of what makes these games so special - the inventiveness, the imagination and the eccentricity of it all - then this new pairing might well be peerless. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Taking a healthy dose of inspiration from Ridge Racer Type 4, Inertial Drift is a unique arcade racer with an exquisite core mechanic.

Tetris gets the Tetsuya Mizuguchi makeover, to dazzling effect. [Eurogamer Essential]

While a fine piece of craft and a sumptuous reworking of the setting, EA Motive's Dead Space remake sheds a little of the 2008 game's enchantment.

Fire Emblem goes back to school for the most epic, generous and dynamic outing for the series yet. [Eurogamer Recommended]

A rich and rewarding expansion to the Final Fantasy MMO, with a strong storyline, but a little inaccessible to less committed players. [Recommended]

Norco is a beautiful, surprising, human, and utterly magnetic debut. [Eurogamer Recommended]

The Papers, Please creator offers up an intricate and mesmerising puzzle game with a rich and detailed sense of place. [Eurogamer Essential]

Horizon Zero Dawn is a work of considerable finesse and technical bravado, but it falls into the trap of past Guerrilla games in being all too forgettable. For all its skin-deep dynamism it lacks spark; somewhat like the robotic dinosaurs that stalk its arrestingly beautiful open world, this is a mimic that's all dazzle, steel and neon yet can feel like it's operating without a heart of its own.

War of the Chosen is a generous expansion that's bustling with brilliant new systems that's a must for anyone who's completed XCOM 2. [Recommended]

An elegiac, memorable and affecting tale of the misfortunes suffered by the members of a deeply eccentric family. [Recommended]

Nier: Automata isn't the most elegant title on the market, but it's the most captivating game I've played in ages. You don't need to look far to find its glaring flaws, but those searching for an endlessly imaginative dreamlike journey will find Nier: Automata too mesmerising to look away from. There's nothing else quite like it - and that includes the original Nier. [Recommended]

This is it though, the character and the absurdity and the charm that Insomniac is all about, that the team kick-started with Ratchet and Clank in 2002 and continue to master with such faultless confidence in Rift Apart. It's just pure craft, pure fun, pure video games - all the brilliant, bizarre ideas this studio has just thrown at the wall and all of them sticking. The only thing it lacks - apart from maybe a tiny bit of restraint - is pretence. There's no self-seriousness, no po-faced melodrama, no insecurity about the form. A game that's happy to be a game, in a familiar, cuddly shape. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Cellar Door adds more depth and plenty of new ways to enjoy its charming roguelike formula. [Eurogamer Recommmended]

Arkane manages to better the already exceptional Dishonored in nearly every way, creating a masterpiece of open-ended design. [Essential]

A platformer aimed at speedrunners is also an adventure for the rest of us to savour. [Recommended]

While it's undoubtedly another accomplished game in terms of technical achievement and sheer visual spectacle - I'm reminded again of those incredible faces, and one particularly outstanding underwater level - I've enjoyed Forbidden West less than Zero Dawn. The main story has major issues, and the level design made it difficult for me to play the way I had previously enjoyed, while making a lot of the newer systems feel redundant. Beyond that, the sense is of a game where Guerrilla has cobbled together RPG building blocks often without making them work within the context of its own game, and in some cases actively worsening Horizon Forbidden West as a result. I don't expect groundbreaking innovation, but with using well-established elements there's always the danger of them having been done better elsewhere. Unfortunately, with Horizon Forbidden West that's often the case.

A brilliant timeloop shooter that gives Dishonored's best tricks and techniques more opportunity to shine. [Essential]

Capybara Games makes a triumphant return to colour-matching with this gratifying, tactical splatterfest. [Eurogamer Essential]

A stylish, visually sumptuous return for 2D Metroid, and an adventure that proudly sits alongside the series' best. [Eurogamer Essential]

A quirky and powerful construction toy that's fun to play with even if you aren't trying to make anything. [Eurogamer Recommended]

With smart additions that move the series forward, this is the most accessible, deepest and simply very best Monster Hunter to date. [Eurogamer Essential]

The Deadfire Archipelago is a bountiful tropical playground I will happily plunder again and again. How long this golden RPG doubloon shines I don't know, but for now it's worth savouring, for now it's worth celebrating. [Recommended]

Compact and terrifying, this score-attack shooter feels like it's come from the future. [Eurogamer Recommended]

For the most part, though, Night in the Woods is a triumph, comparable to Gone Home in mood and thrust, but with a delicacy and a humour that is all its own. [Recommended]

Primarily single-player games are on the decline right now, but Nioh is a strong argument for the merits of this withering form. [Recommended]

An oppressively beautiful portrayal of an undersea environment, and a well-wrought survival game with a vaguely eco-friendly message. [Recommended]

A modern indie classic on PC finds in Nintendo's Switch the perfect platform. [Essential]

Capcom returns to its trusted formula for something that plays like a outrageously pretty PS2 game - and that's a very good thing. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Despite annoyances with the gear system and the loot boxes, Injustice 2 is a huge amount of fun. There's tonnes of stuff to do, it looks the part and the new fighting mechanics serve a purpose while deftly avoiding adding complexity. Injustice 2 is also a game I thoroughly appreciate for the lovely little touches. [Recommended]

An expansive remake that treads carefully upon this most cherished of games, though some blunders will linger long in the memory. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Arcade Edition is a breath of fresh air for Street Fighter 5, which is finally the game it should have been at launch. [Essential]

Sprawling, varied and constantly stylish, Astral Chain is a very different breed of action game that ranks with Platinum's best. [Eurogamer Essential]

With Guilty Gear Strive, Arc System Works has made its famously complex fighting game series easier to get into, but no less rewarding.

The world of Pokémon is finally, exactly that: a world, with charming, textured characters not just in the named friends and foes you meet, but the random people on your journey, the region you live in, the music, the Pokémon themselves and the very soul of the journey. At long last, Pokémon is not just back. With Sun and Moon, it feels fresh again. [Essential]

The sun warms the scene and, for the first time, the world of Kentucky Route Zero feels tangible, whole, held together. After a week drifting through Cardboard Computer's elusive dream of a game, this was quite a moment. I can only imagine how it feels after seven years. [Eurogamer Recommended]

I can't help but feel that Naughty Dog could have unlocked the frame-rate on the existing PS4 Pro code and delivered a locked 1440p60 experience - in the way that the studio's PS5 patch for The Last of Us Part 2 worked - and much of the audience would have been perfectly content with that. However, the $10 upgrade does give you multiple modes, enhanced visuals and far better loading. And as a collector of physical media, I'm happy that we now have a complete version of both of these games, fully patched up and enhanced - it's basically an archive version of Uncharted 4 and The Lost Legacy, which I greatly appreciate. It's not unlike buying a deluxe 4K UHD Blu-Ray movie of a film you had on normal BD. I really enjoyed returning to these games and look forward to seeing how these upgrades scale when the remastered collection hits PC some time in the future.

It's a sumptuous, arrestingly gorgeous thing that most importantly retains its enthusiast's heart under the graphical showcase, and that does its level best to make a car enthusiast out of anyone in its orbit. Is it the king of driving games once more? The genre's now too broad and too varied to make such a statement, though Gran Turismo finds itself a neat slot alongside the likes of Assetto Corsa and iRacing, presenting accessible driving that looks simply staggering. Is it the best that Gran Turismo to date? Of that there's no real doubt. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Dragon Ball FighterZ feels like playing a Dragon Ball game built by the anime's biggest fan. For me, Dragon Ball FighterZ is the best tag-based fighting game since Marvel vs. Capcom 2. I can't think of higher praise. [Essential]

A masterly remake that preserves Koholint Island for a new generation. [Eurogamer Essential]

The Apple Arcade classic comes to PC and is as glorious as ever. [Eurogamer Essential]

Sam Barlow's epic mystery of self-reference and cinema is an elaborate, ingenious enigma - one that would be even better if it didn't want to be solved.

A rare harmony of developer and licence makes Insomniac's open-worlder a total treat. [Recommended]

The world of Pokémon is finally, exactly that: a world, with charming, textured characters not just in the named friends and foes you meet, but the random people on your journey, the region you live in, the music, the Pokémon themselves and the very soul of the journey. At long last, Pokémon is not just back. With Sun and Moon, it feels fresh again. [Essential]

Psychonauts 2 is, once again, a universe of damaged teachers and teaching environments, a space for thinking through dark thoughts with varying degrees of earnestness and absurdity. Its worlds are works of matchless invention, its characters a joy to exist alongside. I might have missed it first time round, but I'm glad that games like this are still being made. [Recommended]

An even faster and bloodier but slightly wayward follow-up to a thunderous shooter reboot.

Just as it did with Two Point Hospital, Two Point Studios has combined neatly overlapping managmenet systems with an irrepressably oddball charm. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Beautiful, rhythmic, inventive and funny, Titan Souls developer Acid Nerve has delivered one of the best Zelda-likes in some time. [Eurogamer Essential]

The New Colossus is a game that straddles moods and periods, caricature and biting insight, cartoon villainy and insidious real-world malevolence. It is a well-wrought FPS caught on the rocks of some marvelous, horrendous discussions about race, gender, discrimination and complicity. It is frequently crude and half-baked, mixing fart jokes with oafish interpretations of trauma. But it is also both strikingly ambitious and a lot more intelligent than it often seems. What it needs now, I think, is a new lead and possibly even, whisper it, a change of genre. There is more to be said about a character like BJ Blazkowicz, but there is also more to be said about this universe - and our own - than is possible with BJ at the helm. [Recommended]

A thrilling leap forward for a magical skating series. [Eurogamer Essential]

All the verbal artistry of Sunless Sea scattered across a gorgeous steampunk cosmos that's a little easier to navigate and thrive in. [Eurogamer Essential]

No matter how good a Total War game is, the follow-up campaign is always better. Warhammer 2's is no exception. [Recommended]

There are missteps and a few bumps along the way, but this soft reboot of a long-running series emerges a triumph. [Eurogamer]

Hi-Fi Rush is unashamed to be loud and brash and playful, and it's confident in its execution. On the surface it might seem frivolous but there's a deep battle system here that rewards combo memory and, of course, rhythm. It's upbeat, wide-eyed and unpretentious, but that's all part of its inescapable charm, a game that appeased my inner teen and rewarded musicality in equal measure. I had a blast. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Somewhere between those map icons is tantalising mystery, and that's what Silent Cartographer was all about, wasn't it? Being on an alien world, not knowing the whys or the hows or the whos. Working things out while finishing the fight. Halo Infinite, underneath it all, is about just that. And, if nothing else, you can always rely on that golden triangle - Master Chief and his gun, grenade and Gravity Hammer - this time on your own terms, the best it's been in a decade.

Capcom shakes up the formula slightly for this enjoyable historical romp rooted in real-life events. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Codemasters delivers a detailed, deep and passionate take on motorsport's top tier that might be even more enjoyable than the real thing. [Recommended]

A brutal game that's equal parts frustrating and exhilarating, delivered in the mesmerising style of a prohibition-era cartoon.

Offering a beautiful canvas to work with, Unpacking is a calm and tactile little sim about something most of us would usually dislike. [Eurogamer Recommended]

I think about all this as I play. I think about what I'm going to unlock next, which evolution I'm aiming for, where the next treasure chest and coin boost is coming from. I think about garlic, my favourite attack, which creates a little circle of damage around you so you can just nudge yourself against enemies the way a cat nudges you with its head when it wants fuss. I think about popcorn, which is what Vampire Survivors sounds like, each monster death sounding like another bit of corn popping in the microwave until the whole thing reaches a buttery crescendo. [Eurogamer Recommended]