A handful of improvements and overhauled physics make this audaciously exciting bike sim easy to recommend.

Trails From Zero might be late to the scene but even now, Nihon Falcom's JRPG remains one of the best Trails games yet. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Witty, observational writing and a hands-off approach to deduction elevate this excellent period murder-mystery to a singular work. [Eurogamer Recommended]

A rare balance of playfulness and genuine strategic depth, plucked from the margins of history. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Don't let the cuteness fool you, Kine is one of the cleverest puzzle games around. [Eurogamer Recommended]

The setting is elegantly eerie, but this Gone-Home-inspired first-person mystery struggles to overcome its tired, melodramatic story.

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

Yakuza continues its good run with a fine - if a little lumpy - retread of a modern classic.

Mixed multiplayer and a depressing grind can't dim the light of a superb new Gears campaign. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Warhammer 3 is Creative Assembly's most maximalist, chaotic, and arguably best game to date. But it'll ask a lot of you in return. [Eurogamer Recommended]

I almost have to admire the audacity of how blasé Square Enix is with its own history, and wonder how much of Stranger of Paradise was intended as comedy. Is it irreverence or just laxity? If you thought Final Fantasy 7 Remake took liberties with its source material, at least there seemed to be a purpose and intent behind it. Stranger of Paradise meanwhile feels like an ill-thought fanfic, given free rein to ransack the back catalogue.

Visually, then, Pop-up Pilgrims is a hit, providing something unique to look at in a shooter-obsessed world. Unfortunately the gameplay proves to be paper-thin and veteran VR users will absolutely find the package to be an underwhelming experience.

Dorfromantik is sunshine on the screen, with a puzzling heart that will keep you busy for days. [Eurogamer Essential]

Thimbleweed Park is what would happen if you moved Nightvale into Monkey Island, and gave everyone too much rum. [Recommended]

Polybius, for all its ranginess, its generosity, is a game about tight confines. And it is magical. [Recommended]

Dome Keeper merges digging and base defence but struggles to make either a success in their own right.

Sumo Digital ditches the wider world of Sega for its latest kart racer, but for all that's lost a new focus and inventiveness is found. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Where Sifu most earns its seriousness, for me, is in that largely unspoken marriage of combos and counters with questions of perception and synchronicity. This is a game about the punch-drunk unevenness of time, and the way that unevenness depends on the mind you bring to bear. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Photography opens up a complex world of timely, timeless narrative. [Eurogamer Recommended]

In truth, I loved Road 96 from the start and I loved it at the end, my ending, which probably isn't yours. I loved it at first for its bounty of possibilities, and by the end I loved it for its intricate web, its sometimes goofy animations and cartoonish characters, its Road Runner depiction of the South West, its occasional procedural muddling, and its unwillingness to really represent the 1990s as anything more than a veneer slapped on present political concerns. Like John, this is a game with a good heart, along with a few missing fingers. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Competent strategy pastes flat-footed, surface-level sci-fi over a genre that lives and dies by its nuance.

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

An exquisitely thought-out tactical shooter that's instantly a PSVR great. [Recommended]

Sokoban and coding collide in this clever puzzler. [Eurogamer Recommended]

You can build anything in Minecraft, something this fun dungeon-crawler from Mojang ably proves.

Super Mario Party gets an enjoyable reinvention for the Switch, though it introduces as many problems as it fixes.

Ancestors is ambitious and clunky and not much fun - and it's often quietly thought-provoking too.

Disparate parts pull together to form a beautiful game that's only more potent for its awkward adolescence. [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.

The apes are charismatic and the storyline is passable, but this interactive drama tie-in forgets to find a role to cast the player in.

Blending solitaire with role-playing, combat and a racy, buccaneering plot, Shadowhand is a delight - and a true British eccentric. [Recommended]

It's hard to overstate the courage and conviction with which producer Eiji Aonuma, director Hidemaro Fujibayashi and their team have rewritten their own work, and the size of the risk Nintendo has taken with a beloved property. Breath of the Wild isn't just the most radical departure from the Zelda tradition in its 30-year history, it's the first Nintendo game that feels like it was made in a world where Half-Life 2, Halo, Grand Theft Auto 3 and Skyrim happened. It's inspired by those greats and others, but it doesn't ape them any more than it rests on its own laurels. [Essential]

Light on action but humorous and made with love, Knights and Bikes holds something for adults and kids alike. [Eurogamer Recommended]

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

The diminutive size of the controllers, combined with their tactile precision, makes the games feel fresh and contemporary. Switching between a specific game and the selection screen is quick and responsive, minimising the load-time lulls that can scupper any game-party.

There are some neat new toys while Portal delivers the series at its best, but 2042 launches as the weakest Battlefield in some time.

High-scoring fun from EA Sports, but FIFA 18 is an unspectacular upgrade. [Recommended]

In summary, I'd say there's good news and bad news with Starfield on PC. The quality of the game is clear and unlike, say, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, we're not seeing disruptive problems that ruin the experience. However, there's clearly work to do. The options menu isn't descriptive enough or helps the user in any way in tailoring the game to their hardware. Basic features like field of view control, HDR, gamma and contrast controls need to be added, as well as official DLSS and XeSS support...Tackling the disproportionately poor Nvidia and Intel performance also needs to addressed, while there's the sense that the game isn't properly tuned for the major CPU architectures used in today's PCs. Optimised settings clearly yields large performance dividends though, suggesting some degree of scalability, while the DLSS mod is a must for RTX users and can help both performance and image quality for Nvidia owners - but let's hope to see some genuine improvements from Bethesda in Starfield's first major update. [Digital Foundry]

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 narrative-driven dice game from Cosmo D is packed full of his signature visual and musical motifs, and loosely picks up your pizzaiolo/secret agent journey from 2020's Tales From Off-Peak City Vol. 1. [Eurogamer Recommended]

The original Pokémon Diamond and Pearl were strange, uneven games. The remakes file them down to something still enjoyable, but textureless.

This is a game with meaningful, welcome changes on the pitch. This is a fun football video game made by developers who clearly love football and are well aware of community feedback. But FIFA 20 is also a video game made by a publisher that's seemingly incapable of changing some of the problematic stuff that comes with each and every FIFA game - at a time when the conversation has most certainly changed.

Fun at times but also scruffy and repetitive, Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthblood lacks a bit of bite.

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

Clever tweaks to a brilliant formula make this a tactics game just built for experimentation. [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]

Critically, True Colors' story is well-rounded, with a satisfying and definitive ending for both its central mystery and for Alex's personal journey (and as all good thrillers should offer, there is a resolution you can deduce for yourself if you are paying enough attention). It's not a failing to me that True Colors tells a lean story which prioritises quality over quantity, feelings over finer details, and a sense the series, like Alex, has come back to its roots after a period of absence and change. [Recommended]

A bullet hell barrage that wants you to be a better player, Gunvein brings a confident blend of thoughtful elegance and unyielding intensity. [Eurogamer Recommended]

A masterpiece of absurdist theatre, and a damn fine double-A mech game too. [Eurogamer Recommended]

A one-of-a-kind blend of blood-thumping martial arts, combo curation and grindy multiplayer set in a ravishing wasteland. [Recommended]

The original Pokémon Diamond and Pearl were strange, uneven games. The remakes file them down to something still enjoyable, but textureless.

As fanciful as the game can be, the technology feels unnervingly true to its period - right down to the inherent awkwardness of microfilm readers. [Recommended]

Every now and then I get a reminder that video games are magic. And weirdly, this collection of things that pre-date video games has reminded me just how magical video games are. This is a history of the world, in part. It's also a TARDIS of fun. It's wonderful. [Eurogamer Recommended]

An occasionally unwieldy but likeable adventure with a timely and resonant message.

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

If Infliction was a colour, it would be beige. If it was a biscuit, it'd be the tasteless disc of a Rich Tea. If it was a band, it'd play nothing but Coldplay tracks. Sure, they all have their fans and they all technically deliver on what's promised on the tin, but let's face it: you could probably live without them, too.

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]

Again and again, it's quietly thrilling to leap from the mountainside and the board beneath my feet, up to the overhead view of the entire mountain range, in which my rider is suddenly a dot, lost amongst the rumpled whiteness, and then instantly warp to a distant drop zone. As an extreme sports game, Steep is fine. As a place, it's frequently amazing. [Recommended]

Characterful fighters, a good skill ceiling, and a co-op emphasis with real depth makes Warner Bros. MultiVersus a very pleasant surprise. [Eurogamer Recommended]

An interesting battle mechanic can't mask Oninaki's storytelling and design faults.

Vanguard, I suspect, will do well - Call of Duty does well! Its in-game store will sell silly outfits for its World War 2 operators. Pricey weapon skins will keep the money rolling in. As the Call of Duty menu screen swells, adding a new front to fight on even as we head into what's sure to be a difficult winter, Vanguard will do its bit for the war effort. But unlike the source material, Vanguard won't live long in the memory.

A commentary on games and players and a compulsive grind to boot. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Bugsnax is colourful, clever, and surprising - and you deserve to discover the deepest aspects of it for yourself. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Night School Studios follows on its excellent work in Oxenfree with this touching look at the absurdity of life and video games. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Where other RPGs are still content with a dragon or some apocalyptic end of the world boom, here the stakes are personal, as well as both asking and inviting far more interesting questions than how much fire you can fling from your fingertips. It's a far more welcoming game than the original Torment, though a slower burner as far as the main plot goes, and one that never quite has its predecessor's dark confidence. It is, however, as close as we've had in the last 15 or so years, and certainly doesn't invoke the name in vain. [Recommended]

A wonder of animation and AI smoke-and-mirrors, the beast in The Last Guardian is primarily a masterpiece of observation. [Essential]

Ambitious and sometimes overwhelming, Three Kingdoms does a great job of capturing the complexity of China's vivid past. [Eurogamer Recommended]

A weird, wry and wholesome underground puzzler with spellbinding art direction and music. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Dontnod takes a thrillingly Gothic perspective on early 19th century London, but squanders it in a dreary and indecisive adventure.

Dicey Dungeons constantly reinvents a simple idea to delightful puzzling effect. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Team Ninja evolves Nioh's formula in a Three Kingdoms-era action RPG where allies, flags, and stealth make its brutal challenges more manageable than ever. [Eurogamer Recommended]

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

It's a sensation I don't feel very often in games, and in that moment all the frustration, the annoying bugs, the torturous dialogue, felt worthwhile. Take on Mars isn't short of problems, but when everything works together, it really does feel like you're there.

A brainless, buggy open-world game that's forgotten the second you put down the pad.

Platinum's modernisation of the classic shoot 'em up form has delivered something thrilling, distinct ‒ and in need of a bit of a polish

Messy, boisterous, chaotic - Civilization 6: Rise and Fall is the antidote to the Enlightenment. [Recommended]

Halo Wars 2 does an incredible job of ensuring console players can enjoy the RTS genre and there's certainly a lot of content here, but it's difficult to get really excited about any of it. The campaign doesn't push any boundaries and the game's most exciting multiplayer mode, Blitz, is hampered by the feeling that players who spend more money are given an unfair advantage over their opponents. It's exciting to see another high-profile RTS game released, but this one doesn't do quite enough to move things forward.

In chasing that scale the bigger picture can sometimes get a little obscured, but importantly Final Fantasy 15 retains that love of smaller stories, the ones that often prove to be so much more memorable.

Bounding Box delivers an anachronistic high-wire act, and the perhaps the best shooter outright since Doom Eternal. [Eurogamer Recommended]

This puzzle-platformer lives in the shadow of Playdead's Inside, but its rage against Romanian Communism is authentic and raw.

Project Cars 2 improves upon its predecessor for a racing game of unprecedented scope - unfortunately hampered by a series of small issues.

If For Honor occasionally feels like a game at war with itself, its edge blunted by some less arresting modes and design-by-committee add-ons, the heart of the game beats strongly enough to overcome these blemishes. [Recommended]

Assassin's Creed returns and its vast and evocative Egypt inspires wonder - even if much in the game remains familiar. [Recommended]

A moody, well-wrought action role-player with striking, desolate landscapes and a couple of great dungeons. [Eurogamer Recommended]

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.

[Eurogamer Recommended]

I can't help but admit I'm having a smashing time - quite literally - with Saints Row. Yes, the story is trite at times and yes, much of where that story takes you can feel a touch ridiculous, but it's to the team's credit that this deftly side-steps the issues of its predecessors and rarely feels gratuitous or malicious. The Saints Row reboot is self-aware and self-deprecating and if you're able to move past its prior reputation, there's a fast and furious shooter here that's worthy of your time.

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

A promising conspiracy that's over before it's begun.

Though, admittedly, expectations might have been a little low, Narcos: Rise of the Cartels is surprising in all the right ways. Its loading screens offer a stunning blend of animation and FMV straight from the show, and while the in-game graphics don't quite share the same slick polish and the combat can feel a little stale, Narcos: Rise of the Cartels is a thoughtful, unusual take on Escobar's legacy. Yeah, I'm a bit surprised, too.

A bold, atmospheric yet dissatisfying ensemble RPG shooter, full of untapped promise.

A brilliant central mechanic and a game of real craft and character. [Eurogamer Recommended]

A moody, well-wrought action role-player with striking, desolate landscapes and a couple of great dungeons. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Stripped of the context of time (the 1980s) and space (the amusement arcade, where every life has a financial cost attached), that spell has been severely weakened.

I've got a huge soft spot for Super Bomberman R; it's a gentle throwback to simpler times, and a welcome revival for a local multiplayer classic for what's set to be an outstanding local multiplayer machine. An effective slice of nostalgia, then, albeit one that comes at a considerable price.

A game that gives you the rare chance to kick back and do diddly squat. [Eurogamer Recommended]

A wobbly first-person horror whose moments of splendid unease are spoiled by clunky stealth, casual misogyny and warmed-over scares.

Children band together against the darkness of a collapsing France in this bleak and beautiful if somewhat rickety medieval fantasy.

A worthwhile, if familiar, successor to Super Meat Boy. [Recommended]

Stately, vivid and tragic, this brooding epic finally reaches its climax. [Recommended]

Arcane busywork leaves little room for genuine pleasure in this fascinating and frustrating genre oddity.

A microsurgical blending of genres results in a lovely balance of precision and chaos. [Eurogamer Recommended]

I feel for Immortals a bit. Blame Covid, blame budgets, blame Ubisoft, blame the paradoxically thrifty, endlessly repurposing way the publisher makes all its huge, expansive, generous games, but Immortals never really finds its own voice until the very end. It's a skilful, lovingly made product, but it is unmistakably a product, and the best games in this genre all feel like genuine adventures.

Overwrought, unsatisfying storytelling takes the shine off a gorgeous and ambitious finale.

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

Undeniably Islands sits to the far left of the sliding scale that runs between digital art installation and Call of Duty. That only adds to its transgressive appeal. It expands the definition of what games can and might be. [Recommended]

Eager to please genre fans, Sakura Wars delivers an old school experience with a hefty dose of drama. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Well, this turns out to be brilliant fun, tactical and knockabout, exactly as you'd expect if you combined Mario and XCOM. The roster of characters is colourful and quirky, encouraging experimentation, and alongside equipping items and sparks, each character has a handful of skill trees to plug points into as they level. (Characters also auto-level off the battlefield.) Throw in bosses, inventive victory conditions, deep cuts from Mario universe and clever battlefield design and you've got something pretty special. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Explore a toy-box cosmos governed by violent forces in this mesmerising adventure. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Outrageously pretty and newly refined, Frozenbyte's series finally strikes gold. [Eurogamer Recommended]

But let's not get carried away. Let's remember that one secret to WOW's success has always been its ability to modernise while staying true to itself, and never pretending to be anything other than the consummate old-school MMO. You can't have a dramatic reversal of fortune when you've actually had 16 years of consistent and smooth progress. You can't call it a comeback when you've always been the king. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Beneath Patrick's Parabox's minimalist surface are layers upon layers - a masterclass of simplicity and puzzling challenge. [Eurogamer Recommended]

A serviceable restoration of one of the best and strangest games in Squaresoft's back catalogue. [Eurogamer Recommended]

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

Rebellion has folded in the essence of stealth greats such as Splinter Cell and Metal Gear while keeping the characterful flavour of Sniper Elite itself, and for the first time it's not necessary to make any excuses on its behalf. Sniper Elite 4 is a really good video game. It's as simple as that. [Recommended]

An odd combination of Dead Space and Dear Esther, ICARUS.1 isn't particularly challenging to play through or exciting to conclude, but it does offer a premise and a pace to enjoy it that never feels that it has to rely on the obvious survival/horror tropes, preferring instead to evoke the spirit of classic science fiction, from a time before all astronauts were armed and the mysteries of the universe could be solved with a blaster.

A cult classic gets a fittingly strange remake whose patchiness can't obscure the original's brilliance.

A brilliant narrative adventure that is filled with intelligence and heart. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Great tactical fun nestled in a sweet-natured superhero dollhouse.

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]

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

If Ark and Rust are the flaccid alpha males of survival gaming, Conan is the cocksure challenger angling for an advantage. [Recommended]

An ungainly but hypnotic exploration of worlds in the making and unmaking, and a fresh spin on the ethos of Team Ico's games and Journey. [Eurogamer 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]

Why it truly sings, I think, is because the game has created such a perfectly irritating place: a place where photocopiers won't fit through doorways and wi-fi routers miss huge swathes of the office. Good Job weaponises your frustrations with the real world, and the glory here, of course, is that you can do things about it all. You can fire photocopiers through walls and push docile colleagues around on their chairs until they have the signal their devices require.

Fresh presentation and admirable dedication to its big idea can't save this two-player adventure from mediocrity.

A deft and heartfelt journey through nostalgia. [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]

Whether or not these are the end times for survival gaming or the onset of a necessary period of hibernation, despite the dead weight of dozens of unfinished games and the fact that there's not a great deal left to pick from now that Conan has taken his leave, perhaps it's just as well that the genre has saved one of its best till last. If there's half the life left in it that other survival games have enjoyed, it'll be a life worth living. [Recommended]

A brutal but graceful and comprehensible mix of ideas from Warhammer, XCOM and Gears Tactics. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Played on a busy PvP server, while Exiles often comes across like the Ark/Rust clone it so clearly is, it has the setting and combat mechanisms to set it apart. Play it as a single-player experience and it will evoke memories of Minecraft, while as a co-op game, with its respawning mobs, thinly spread content and raid-like endgame, you might just catch the glimmer of an old school MMORPG, reminding you, just a little, of when the genre was a metaverse of uncharted promise. [Recommended]

Don't be fooled. Rollercoaster Tycoon World is Dismaland without the irony, a machine designed to fleece your pockets and offer the bare minimum in return.[Avoid]

This is good nostalgic fun, in other words: a platformer where you can collect coins and buy better loot and work out the various nooks of the hub world before jetting off on a series of pretty adventures that all build pleasantly to a final boss. Asha is a decent platformer, handled with love and attention to the details, and it's a part of one of console gaming's most interesting lineages. [Eurogamer Recommended]

The only sane reason to invest in Valkyria Revolution is to send a message to Sega that this series should live on, and to hope that somehow it leads to the revival the originals deserve. Given the state it's left in after this turgid affair, though, that time may have already been and gone. [Avoid]

A remaster of a remake - or something along those lines - this is an exceptional beat 'em-up experience. [Eurogamer Recommended]

It's not without its problems, but Planet Coaster is the finest park construction simulator yet. [Recommended]

Ape Out is a beautiful and bloody game that's given surprising depth by a tremendous soundtrack. [Eurogamer Recommended]

There's a confidence to Manor Lords that belies its one-person development, and what's there can be spellbinding, but it's a pastoral idyll that still needs significant development. [Early Access Review]

Golf is reduced to its rich essence here, but there's still room for plenty of secrets. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Well shot, well acted, well crafted - Erica is a high-class FMV game for a new age. [Eurogamer Recommended]

The Layer of Fear devs deliver some effective horror with a side of smart ideas, though it's not without its faults.

Myst's spiritual successor offers a lot of the same delights as its 1993 forbear, but is hampered by litany of technical issues.

Motorsport Manager's a couple of tweaks away from greatness, then, but it's far from a disappointment.

Retro charm can't hide dull design in a game that, almost impossibly, has no clear audience.

A winningly nasty turn-based cult sim with beautiful monochrome art and surgical orchestral audio. [Recommended]

Last Day of June is a touching story of love and loss, its emotional weight cemented by eerie visuals and a spine-tingling soundtrack.

Mario Golf and Earthbound combine for one of the most delightful games you'll find on Nintendo's Switch. [Recommended]

The master of the 80s arcade spectacular returns to familiar stomping ground for a game that's fascinating if not exactly finessed.

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

This is an art toy to savour, and a time-waster of great power.

A sublime blend of Metroidvania and Lovecraft with beautiful hand-drawn art, tarnished a little by the element of repetition. [Recommended]

The only thing that's missing here? That Data East logo in all of its desert chrome glory, something that's been unceremoniously cut from the title screen. It's an excision I can live with, I think, in what's otherwise a gloriously handled port of a 90s arcade masterpiece that's every bit as dazzling today as it was back then. It's been polished up, but at its heart this remains a slightly scratchy, bluntly simplistic sports game that still exudes a magic of its own.

A half-interesting game is buried by a mess of its own making - and represents an industry conundrum that will only continue to grow.

An addictive mix of combat and commerce. [Recommended]

This wonky crossover is the unlikely source of a superbly designed tactical combat challenge as well as a charmingly silly adventure. [Recommended]

As the journey shifts and becomes a bit darker, there's a real flash of steel at the core of it all. If you've played the SteamWorld games, you'd probably expect this, but it's still a delight to see a game like this built with such craft and obvious humanity. I started The Gunk worrying about how one of the great 2D design teams would cope with three dimensions. The truth is they cope so effortlessly that I just spent the next four or five hours gloriously lost in what they had built. [Eurogamer Recommended]

inXile's old-school RPG is the Fallout game we've been craving. [Eurogamer Recommended]

The thing is, weird as all this is, I suspect that nothing in Mile 0 is as weird as totalitarianism in the first place. I'm tempted to say that Mile 0 can get away with any flights of fancy in a world that has seen a president's attorney give a press conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping, an establishment which is located, inevitably, next to a sex shop and a crematorium. Is Mile 0's stranger elements a reaction to that, and to the strange shapes that authoritarianism contorts people into? I don't know. But I will keep puzzling away at what I've experienced, I think, and trying to make sense of what I've witnessed here.

Where Watch Dogs 2 leads the field is in closing the thematic gap between our world and the open world, and in offering players more ways to hit their targets than those delivered down the barrel of a gun. [Recommended]

New tricks will make the headlines, but Sports Interactive's best move is to breathe new life into the brilliance that's already there. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Daniel Fortesque's tale is retold with style, but the fundamentals frustrate.

This is a beautiful game. It scared me. It moved me. Most of all, it made me stop what I was doing and think. [Recommended]

Running between shots can be chaotic fun, but Mario Golf truly lives in its ever-soothing standard mode. [Eurogamer Recommended]

There's a wonderful depth of tactics in this cyberpunk charmer. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Two designs collide gloriously in a Zelda variation that rivals the greatness of the core games themselves. [Eurogamer Essential]

Navigating a tonal minefield with just enough confidence, Company of Heroes 3 is a big, refined, and beautifully textured addition to an already brilliant series. [Eurogamer Recommended]

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

The Dark Alliance revival lacks finesse, and local co-op, but give it time and it's not without its own charms.

Inkle's follow-up to 80 Days is an archaeology adventure like no other. [Eurogamer Recommended]

A sapphic, sci-fi fever dream that finds horror and beauty among the stars, Signalis is dense and alluring to the last. [Eurogamer 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]

There's much to love in this colourful free-to-play Switch exclusive, but it's obscured by some clumsy design.

An ambitious and mysterious puzzler that's ultimately as frustrating as it is fascinating.

An earnest and impactful adventure, written within the margins of an homage to 80s cinema. [Recommended]

The dark cousin of Pillars of Eternity may not be as polished or comprehensive as Obsidian's standout RPG. But I think, in the end, Tyranny has far more of import to say, and it'll make you listen whether you like it or not. [Recommended]

Relic has had the audacity to launch it into an unexpected frontflip, and what a glorious, inventive somersault of design Dawn of War 3 is, even if it doesn't completely stick the landing. [Recommended]

Omno offers a dreamy blend of platforming and puzzling with a feel for player freedom. [Eurogamer Recommended]

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

A winning premise of cleverly combined genres let down by a series of irritating design issues.

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

Sega's spin-off has a few ideas of its own as it takes a detective's perspective on Kamurocho, though it all ends up feeling a little flat.

So, here's to another FIFA 22, much like the last one, and the one before that, and the one before that - a game that would be so much better for the soul were it not dragged down by the clawing hand of capitalism. Much like real football, I suppose.

An insidious, combat-free horror escapade that works marvels in a tiny space - and an intricate portrait of family and superstition. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Velan Studios transposes the sport of dodgeball into what's a fun, friendly shooter that bears no arms, though it currently lacks legs.

Some subtle improvements to the grind and flexible turn-based tactics mean Honkai: Star Rail's off to a fine start. [Eurogamer Recommended]

With a beautiful handling model, much-improved visuals and a savvy use of the official licence, WRC 8 is a triumph. [Eurogamer Recommended]

The Ascent's arcology setting is splendid, if heavily derivative - shame that all you can do here is gun and grind.

If you were looking for a sequel that would shake up the series and bring about a gameplay revolution, you're going to be disappointed, but if you enjoy that classic Far Cry collect-em-up grind and simply want a brand new sandbox to explore and explode, you're going to be far from bored with all that Yara has to offer.

A powerfully grim, fleet-footed cyberpunk action odyssey that is caught in the spell of its own nihilism.

An adorable platforming adventure that steadily finds it own voice. [Recommended]

A limited and simplistic pirate adventure, but one with an abundance of character and a thrilling conviction in its own ideas. [Recommended]

Much like its endless enemies, Darktide's many small issues add up to a real nuisance - but stupendous atmosphere and vicious action just about prevails.

The Division 2 manages to improve upon the original formula in almost every way, but its tale and tone are frequently awful.

I've been walking around all week thinking about east and west and how to tell the difference between the two when I haven't got a compass to hand. I have been thinking about reckoning. This allows the game's fiction to create compelling moments - I have been genuinely lost in Sea of Thieves at times. But it also allows it to do what every game like this truly hopes to do - to cross over, to seep into your everyday life.

Back 4 Blood is a strange mix of old and new, but it works. The result is a delightfully scrappy hang-out shooter.

Gameplay wise, I think it's a marked improvement over FIFA 18. I love the new modes, the new quality of life touches and even tiny changes such as being able to quickly sort cards you get from packs.

The Resident Evil 3 remake, like the original upon which it is based, is inferior to its predecessor.

A folk horror spectacle turned score-attacker that will give you nightmares in a matter of minutes. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Yakuza: like A Dragon is a good game - sometimes it's okay, sometimes it's great, sometimes it made me groan. It runs the full gamut of emotions, from boredom to disbelief. The will to reinvent itself is there, and that means not everything works - whether you'll enjoy it or not depends on what aspects you care about the most.

South Park: The Fractured But Whole is an RPG with tangible qualities and enjoyable passages, but without the bite or imagination you'd expect of the name.

Dawn of Ragnarök is a generous new course for Valhalla's already enormous feast - but one which earns its place at the table. [Eurogamer Recommended]

There's plenty to admire in this smart and adventurous horror, though you'll have to endure some missteps to get there.

An ambitious, stylish and savage takedown of British hubris, but clunky crafting, collecting and combat make for a somewhat dull game.

A devastating story unfolds across text messages in this unforgettable piece of interactive fiction. [Eurogamer Recommended]

An exhilarating, fluid, incredibly broken mage-‘em-up set in tortured procedural worlds.

I'm glad the launch version has tweaked the balance slightly in favour of the player, giving you a bit more health and replenishing it more readily, because I was banging my head against Atomicrops a bit in the version before. And it was only really that which made me hesitate in recommending it to you. But now, upon release and with some fine tuning, it sings. And a very jaunty song it is too. [Eurogamer Recommended]

This ambitious survival game emerges from Early Access fully featured but just as in danger of toppling in on itself as ever before.

Like its many buried riches, Nintendo's Pikmin series remains a treasure ready to be rediscovered. [Eurogamer Recommended]

A masterly racer that gets to the very essence of motorsport's magic. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Robert Louis Stevenson used to play with his stepson's soldiers when he was sick in bed, an act that seems impossible to disentangle from his rangy, childlike, often febrile imagination. The Pathless is a little chillier than that - there are clear reminders throughout that key people from the team that made this also made stuff like Journey, with its cold poise - but it retains something of that dream of play. Speed and imagination and great beasts burning in the trees. I had fun.

Swery's brand of wonky mechanics underlined with impeccable writing and atmospherics proves just as effective in the 2D platformer field. [Eurogamer Recommended]

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

Wattam would be a simple little delight, if it weren't for its technical issues.

Great emphasis and great care - in many ways to already great success - has been placed on understanding and recreating the ineffable Bond-ness of the licence. That goes from the casting decisions to the story to the way Bond moves and talks; the way the game's mechanics are constructed; the tiny, missable moments of craft across animation, sound, music, lighting. The options available at any time. Even the type of game 007: First Light actually is. [3-Hour Hands-On Impressions]

An effectively eerie backdrop is undone slightly by frustrating stealth in this enjoyable indie horror game.

Generic and boring, Terminator: Resistance's only redeeming feature is its fan service. [Eurogamer Avoid]

For all the weirdness and fun it promises, Biomutant ends up a deeply conventional open-world action game.

PlayStation VR gets some much-needed support from Sony, but unfortunately Farpoint is a hollow novelty.

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]

Dontnod has crafted a brilliant narrative that once again puts teenagers and young adults at the forefront of today's big issues, never shying away from talking about our world. But this isn't just an "issues" game. It reminded me of the TV series Rectify, about a convict released from prison thanks to DNA evidence proving his innocence. There is similar poignancy and sadness throughout the story in Tell Me Why, as Tyler and Alyson discover the meaning of their childhood memories, while being unable to change the past, trying to reach a mother now lost to the world. Not only does it provide emotional depth, but the story seeks emotional justice, and it never fails to bring us along on this journey for the truth. [Eurogamer Recommended]

An eerie, hypnotic sleuther - and a cracking first effort from a miniature team. [Eurogamer Recommended]

There's quality within this intriguing time loop, though by the end you're left wondering whether the core idea is a good one after all.

Quotation forthcoming.

Given the circumstances that Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales releases into, it's heartening to have a tale that's so eager to see the best in everyone, and that strives for diversity in a world divided. In that way, Spider-Man: Miles Morales' message of hope feels like the right sentiment for this very moment. It's escapism with a social conscience, a timely, tremendous thing right now. Insomniac's second crack at Spider-Man retains the breathless energy of the original, but ends up a lot like Miles Morales himself - still fresh on its feet, a little awkward in places, but steadily growing into itself. It's a game that's full of character, and a tremendously likeable one it is too. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Despite some visual delights in its cybernoir, pixel-art vision of Singapore and some strong characters, Chinatown Detective Agency's let down by lightweight mechanics and bugs.

Occasionally turning subtext into text, Citizen Sleeper's real magic is found in the boundless warmth of its characters - and the humanity of its own design. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Not the charmer its predecessor was, but a jolly 40 hour epic with dashing combat and an engrossing empire-building subgame. [Recommended]

The Nintendo DS masterpiece is squeezed onto a single screen, with the improvements just about outweighing the compromises. [Eurogamer Recommended]

A dark RPG-strategy hybrid that's not without its pleasures, but tends towards numb repetition and becomes a slog.

The fact that I've had a good time with it even on half-melted servers demonstrates the strength of its emergent horror. Like the towering killer himself, Friday the 13th has come out of nowhere, and while it isn't invulnerable, it's more than capable of stealing your heart.

A smudge of systems from other Ubisoft games fail to coalesce - and sometimes are plain crippled - in this weak open world shooter. [Eurogamer Avoid]

Techland's vast blockbuster buckles under its own ambition and lacks in innovation, but makes up for it with outstanding parkour and combat. [Eurogamer Recommended]

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

Heat Signature is, in theory, another empire-building game like Far Cry or Assassin's Creed, in which you prise away nodes of geographical control, amassing plunder if not XP or character levels. It never feels like that, though. It cultivates an air of supreme disposability instead, its ships thrown together only to be picked apart as you'd pull the legs off a spider, its adventurers little more than loadouts with funky labels and an optional bespoke final mission. Inevitably, this framework rings a bit hollow after a few hours of continuous play (you could spend upwards of 20, I think, reeling in every last space station and beating every last Defector quest) - these systems remain charming to the finish, but there's a sense that Heat Signature is reliant on players being heartily sick of games that invest such acts of open-ended vandalism with broader significance. Forgive it that, however, and this is a piratical delight.

Enigmatic and unapologetic even in the face of its most absurd ideas, this is sometimes messy, sometimes boring, but always astounding. [Eurogamer Essential]

There's no big feature to point towards, but small improvements make F1 2018 stand out as a superlative racer. [Recommended]

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

Beautiful difficulty options open out a game of beautiful difficulty. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Aggelos treads a path many others have followed in recent years, but it does it all with a charm of its own.

A tense, imaginative thriller that buckles under the weight of its own ambition.