The second game from Disco Elysium studio ZA/UM, this text-heavy, dice-driven RPG is an exquisitely constructed take on consumerism, empire, nostalgia and beyond.

Playground Games does it again: equal parts adept teacher and artisanal tour guide, Forza Horizon 6 takes the lessons from 14 years of series history and applies them with panache.

Mixtape, from The Artful Escape studio Beethoven & Dinosaur, is a delight. It's a celebration of teenage life that makes its point, aptly, just as a teenager would.

This genre blend revels in its own sense of imagination and excess.

Saros' narrative often feels at odds with the kind of experience it wants to be, but there's no denying this is another top-tier action game from Housemarque.

Part-chaotic retro shooter, part-stylish cartoon noir, Mouse P.I. for Hire goes beyond its stellar artistry to land an invigorating, imaginative hard-boiled romp.

Emboldened by years of success, Capcom's risky 360-era shooter dares to tackle sci-fi shooter convention in a proudly experimental gamble.

Weaving Terry Pratchett, Terry Gilliam and more, Esoteric Ebb is a comedic D&D adventure where a waylaid Cleric is tasked with solving a crime, days before the world's first election.

With spellbinding combat and high-concept maps, Marathon is far more than a cool aesthetic draped over the bones of an extraction shooter.

Pokopia succeeds in capturing the spirit of Pokémon's past without sacrificing its uniqueness, as one of the best spin-offs the franchise has ever seen.

Capcom marks Resident Evil's 30th anniversary with a stellar return that's both a masterful bit of suffocating horror and a nostalgic, fan-thrilling victory lap for the legendary series.

Styx: Blades of Greed isn't quite as well cut out as a fine piece of quartz, but it's easily the best stealth game in years - and so utterly compelling you'll be desperate to get back to it when you have to do boring un-murdery things like, I dunno, going to the shops, or feeding the cat.

Tarsier returns to horror with a rich, meaningful evolution of its familiar Little Nightmares formula. And while it could perhaps be a little more radical, Reanimal remains utterly compelling; bleak, nasty, and full of menace.

Innovation is the ki to success for Team Ninja and Koei Tecmo, as Nioh 3 iterates on the formula once more to take an already great 'masocore' series to new heights.

The fact that RedLynx then has the gall to put mountains of tracks, skill levels and modes into a technically impressive package is likely to mean you'll gorge on DrawRace 2 for so long you'll want to send the developer more money out of sheer embarrassment. 69 pence, for goodness' sake!

It's not every day you get to roll a decapitated dominatrix robot head around in the name of quality mobile entertainment.

2XKO is a tag fighter like no other, with a bold aesthetic and superbly crafted core gameplay experience. Beloved League of Legends characters are revitalised in a new light in a truly stunning free-to-play experience.

Inkle mixes archive-surfing and audio drama to create a surprisingly powerful story of obsession and a machine.

All round, it's a compendium of disappointment, and something to which only super-hardcore Ridge Racer fans need subject themselves.

Identifying clues is now a more intuitive process. While before you might mistakenly think an adjoining picture was part of the same hint, the game now highlights the clue in question so that there's no ambiguity.

The rest you probably know about already: the fantastic visuals, the cracked humour, the five contrasting chapters that keep you transfixed right to the end. If a better game ever comes to the iPad, you might well spontaneously combust.

Broken down into its base mechanics, Spirits probably doesn't sound especially exciting, but in practice, its charming hand-drawn aesthetic and calming pace make it a perfect game to unwind to on a lazy Sunday.

You can smash through Terminator 2D: No Fate's story mode in less that the runtime of the movie, but that doesn't stop this side-scrolling action platformer from being a perfectly presented tribute to 90s nostalgia.

Can't sleep? Moon too bright? Want to eat it? It's a simple goal for a demon in the underworld, as you'll find in this gorgeous, extraordinary narrative adventure that just so happens to require skateboarding.

Santa Ragione delivers a subversive, sometimes shocking, often funny first-person narrative horror that, while perhaps a little insubstantial, remains an engagingly unconventional exploration of some timely themes.

While racing is at its core, Kirby Air Riders channels the chaotic energy of Smash Bros. to deliver a deceptively deep one-button gameplay experience - and tops it with absolutely oodles of things to do, see, and unlock.

These games have always come with oddities, but the central mode is so staggeringly joyous and compelling that it draws my eye and my attention and leaves me powerless to do anything else. Unlike Tetris, Lumines didn't need a borrowing from Lumines to become even better. All it needs - and this may just be me, and I know we have the Steam Deck - is a release on Switch 2, where that glorious panoramic screen that you hold in your hands is waiting to take this absolute dazzler back home to its portable origins.

The Outer Worlds 2 is for better and worse still fluffy gaming comfort food, but it is significantly improved and better than its predecessor in almost every way.

PowerWash Simulator 2 opts for welcome refinements over big advancements, but it's as weirdly compelling and winningly daft as ever.

Psychonauts studio Double Fine returns with a surprising, shapeshifting adventure of captivating wonder and beauty.

Kenny Sun's new game is a voguish spin on an Atari classic - and it rules.

Battlefield 6 delivers a thrilling multiplayer reset and a decent, if derivative single-player. But it still displays nagging doubts about what makes Battlefield special.

Jenny Jiao Hsia's dazzling, semi-autobiographical tale of teenage life finds wit and warmth in its WarioWare weirdness, even as it deals with difficult themes.

Maybe it's witchcraft. Maybe it's magic. Either way, Supergiant manages to draw down the moon with its Herculean action and epic narrative in Hades 2.

The politically-charged 1997 PlayStation original is one of the finest tactics games of all time. This remaster offers a brilliant new reading of what was already a classic text.

Baby Steps walks a fine line between frustration and accomplishment to provide a walking simulator and climbing experience quite unlike anything else.

Silent Hill f's frustrating first-half is outweighed by a brilliant, delirious second that's well worth the initial slog.

As a short but sweet puzzle-adventure game, Lego Voyagers handles itself with an air of grace but no snootiness - a game so lovely it's hard not to feel sad when it's all over. Look deeper though, or simply from the privilege of age, and it'll leave a more lasting impression on those of us who know what proper friendship feels like. Sometimes a little "hello" is all you need.

Pretty and charmingly mean-spirited, this is a game filled with revelations and genuine personality.

Cronos: The New Dawn is Bloober Team's best original game yet. An immersive romp through a suffocating portrayal of 80s Poland, where your journey is far from what it first seems.

A powerful, memorable story told not with dialogue but with interaction, movement, and art.

A legend is brought back to life with Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, in a surprisingly sensitive remake from Konami featuring developers from the original.

Movement, meaning and mindfulness combine in Giant Squid's latest, a game of free-form expression and flow.

At its best this colourful racer has the power to improve your day.

A brilliant core mechanic and clever design twists make Bananza a delightfully sticky 3D platform adventure topped off with a sweet central character relationship.

There are cuts and alterations, but this remains a properly glorious collection of two classic games.

Still a classic, but a little of that vital weirdness is gone.

A busier, louder, and more emotionally resplendent take on this singular hiking sim.

Dune: Awakening is a harsh survival game, an intriguing RPG, and a fierce open world PvP game all in one. Somehow, it pulls it off.

A smart and inventive RPG-lite, and a worthy entry in the TRON canon.

The Alters achieves something tense and new by merging strategy base-building with third-person exploration and a sci-fi story about cloning yourself. But repetition and complicated busywork mar the overall effect.

Mario Kart World offers neat twists on the classic Mario Kart formula, but its open-world ambitions are somewhat let down by some classic Nintendo quirkiness.

FromSoftware's multiplayer spin-off is an exhilarating rush and a celebration of the studio's prior achievements Souls veterans will devour.

Blades of Fire manages to feel original, lovable, and born of genuine passion, despite the near overwhelming number of problems that could have extinguished it.

By turns minimalist and luxurious, this is a thrilling exploration of the art of photography.

Here's a more grounded Doom, but one that's as brisk and playful as ever.

Despelote's creators tell a remarkable, pseudo-autobiographical tale about football, Ecuador, and community - but also one about the act of remembering, and the creative act itself.

Ingenious and characterful, this immersive sim is an absolute delight - particularly when things go wrong.

Part management sim, part open-world adventure, this is both weird and familiar, and deeply comforting stuff.

Outstanding artwork and glorious combat bring Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's bold, painterly world to life.

Acclaimed point-and-click studio Wadjet Eye's gently paced, time-travelling genre-hopper blends elegant puzzling and intricate, affecting storytelling to beautiful effect.

A masterful sequel to one of the genre's most beloved games, but it carries an ink stain that's hard to ignore.

I wanted more strange possibilities from the spaces I lived around. With Blue Prince I get that. What an extraordinary game this is.

Majestic in scope, impressive in detail, Assassin's Creed Shadows honours the beauty of feudal Japan, even if its strongest moments are saved for the personal stories of two protagonists.

Not all its additions are for the better, but this excavation of Monolith Soft's alien opus remains as fascinating and enthralling as it was a decade ago.

Far from cribbing Overboard's homework, Expelled! is a tighter, more focused detective story that really makes the most of its replayable timeloop structure.

Fantastic from start to finish, Split Fiction is one of the most inventive and joyful co-op games to date, and a testament to the power of human imagination.

Alongside this stuff you get all the silliness and cute little extras you could hope for. This is a game for zooming in close. A museum curator will be scanning an alien pod with a PKE device. A ghost will be idly checking out the furnishings. A thief will be absconding with a fossil, while a kid then hangs from part of the frame it was once displayed on. In the aquariums, faces press up against the tanks. People clamber on the bigger exhibits and try to climb into them. What's that clown doing? Why are all those people suddenly running?

The most exhilarating and refined Monster Hunter yet, even if its attempts to balance the old and new don't always quite coalesce in its ongoing quest to please all audiences.

A fascinating new narrative adventure from the original Life is Strange team, this first slice boasts fresh twists that help move the formula forward, even if its story sometimes feels a remix of genre tropes.

A raucous, absurd spin-off that manages to still feel like a first-rate Yakuza game despite the leftfield setting and delightfully unhinged plot.

Aspyr's renovation project tackles the three lesser Crofts, with intriguing results.

What Avowed lacks in gloss it makes up for with charm, depth and a playful heart. It's one of this year's most pleasant surprises.

A soulful and gorgeous Metroidvania with exquisite hack and slash action.

With a new found sense of tension, and showpiece Contract missions, Citizen Sleeper is transformed. This follow-up has improved the RPG formula in every way.

For all the game's lighthearted sleuthing and slinking, it does not shy away from dreadful subject matter, concerning itself, to a large degree, with the Church's often monstrous real-world legacy. The most affecting story is that which occurs through the bodies and minds of its uniformly endearing characters. As they are beaten and maimed by fearsome monks and brutish henchmen, a slow accretion of hardship takes place. It is not the enjoyably flexible stealth action, nor the undercooked mystery, or even the lavish monastery that lingers in the mind, but their human suffering. Foregrounding this emotion is reason enough to tell such a story again.

An action RPG with magical powers that feel genuinely dangerous, married to level design that offers scale and prettiness.

Sniper Elite: Resistance may not innovate much on the series' standard blueprint, but it's still a challenging, rewarding, and deeply satisfying adventure.

LCB's latest shows a powerful control of the things that make true pulps great.

Naiad offers real pleasures and real frustrations - but always with a purpose in mind.

Densely imagined and as complex as you fancy, this roguelike RPG is brilliant.

It might not have quite the same wow factor second time around, but Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 builds on its astonishing predecessor with intelligence and precision - making an already impressive achievement richer and more welcoming.

Smart, fun and so very Indiana Jones, The Great Circle is a stealth action tour de force that marks a bold new era for MachineGames.

The cult classic mobile RPG finally gets its due, for lovers of mechanics over story who can rise to the demands of its extreme challenge.

A true step forward for open-world gacha games, Infinity Nikki finally brings some much needed competition to the miHoYo monopoly.

Short but powerfully unsettling, Threshold takes aim at the strange and horrifying helplessness of being a small cog in a giant corporate machine, and nails its execution brilliantly.

Instantly captivating and perpetually playful, this whimsical romp across a world of paper lanterns is utterly enchanting.

Two RTS classics that are still worth playing today, even if the greatest enemy of both Warcraft armies still ends up being the humble tree.

Two RTS classics that are still worth playing today, even if the greatest enemy of both Warcraft armies still ends up being the humble tree.

Bold, raw and effortlessly stylish, Sorry We're Closed uses the building blocks of survival horror to tell a compelling and hard-hitting love story to brilliant effect.

While the invisible hand of compulsion and in-game spending lingers, Pokémon TCG Pocket benefits from smartly interwoven systems and, crucially, just a darn good underlying card game.

A compelling modern mystery thriller that's bigger, better and more ambitious than its already brilliant predecessor.

It's natural. It's eternal. It's unnaturally natural. It's the game that someone, something, will be playing somewhere when the sun explodes. It's Tetris.

Fun, cheeky and irreverent, Death of the Reprobate prances through art history with a wicked twinkle in its eye, and is one of this year's most memorable adventure games.

A relatively minor instalment, but in a series this magical, that's still good news.

Slitterhead can be a slow-burn to begin with, but once its combat clicks, this is an action horror game like few others.

A taut, time-hopping horror game that playfully subverts expectations at every step, and is all the more refreshing for it.

A fantasy role-playing game of astonishing spectacle. This is the best Dragon Age, and perhaps BioWare, has ever been.