The developer didn’t turn a blind eye to the shortcomings of its predecessor, Returnal. Saros has kept the best parts—the controls are wonderfully responsive, your character runs and jumps at a brisk pace, and the atmosphere is delightfully dark—and made adjustments where necessary. Still, you’ll inevitably die while playing; that’s just part of the genre. But with every session, you get better and stronger, and you’re better equipped for your next run. The dopamine rush this creates makes the game—at least for us—incredibly addictive. Saros plays it safe and, while challenging, is perhaps less daring and revolutionary than Returnal, but that makes the game more accessible to a wider audience.

The result is a fun whodunit, but really, the mystery is just a side note. Life is Strange: Reunion is above all a beautiful character study—one that could have easily gone on a bit longer. Our advice: make sure you’ve played the previous games first. Only then will you truly appreciate how beautifully Max and Chloe’s farewell is handled.

There are some games that make you think, “How come no one thought of this before?” Well, Pokémon Pokopia is one of those games. It’s a cozy game like Animal Crossing, with a touch of Minecraft—all mixed in with Pokémon. It’s cute, relaxing, and surprisingly deep. Pokémon Pokopia is a cozy game of rare quality. It almost evokes nostalgic feelings of a time when the world stood still and we all escaped en masse to a video game island for hundreds of hours.

Destiny of the Railforged adds a new playable faction to Monster Train 2, along with a new game mode that further extends the game’s lifespan: Monster Train 2 has always been about making your units stronger, and now you can take that to absurd extremes. All in all, we’ve easily spent over a hundred hours exploring new combinations between the factions and the cards. For ten euros—for the expansion; the base game costs around 25 euros—that’s a very nice return on investment.

A lot has changed under the beautiful hood, and the threshold has been significantly lowered. The original was an epic that you could easily spend a hundred hours on, but where you spent a large part of that time grinding: defeating the same enemies over and over again to slowly become stronger. That has been greatly reduced. Now you can defeat weak monsters with a single push of a button. Sacrilege? Perhaps, but the result is a streamlined game that respects your time and has a much faster pace.

Eighteen (!) years after its predecessor, Metroid Prime 3, and a console generation later, we can finally play Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. This game is once again brimming with the sci-fi, spooky, space shooter action that gave this iconic series its status, but where the developers try to innovate, they fall short.

They know their classics at Square Enix, that much is clear. Final Fantasy Tactics shines like never before. But whether this polished gem will reach a new audience beyond diehard RPG fans is something we dare to doubt.

News Tower is an original addition to the management genre, full of atmosphere and surprisingly addictive. Dutch developer Sparrow Night has made a clever debut with this game. Be prepared for some red numbers in the beginning, because the entry threshold is quite high. Apparently, it's not as easy as we thought to create a high-quality, profitable newspaper. Respect for our bosses.

The mini-games deserve a special mention. These are probably the most in-depth and complex we have encountered in our career. And it is precisely these that make the game so controversial. What is usually just an interlude becomes almost a craft that you have to learn and perfect. It is incredibly immersive and exemplary of the level of detail in the game. But the general public usually doesn't have the patience to immerse themselves endlessly in, say, medieval crafts. That excellent immersion slows down the pace of the outstanding game, making it seem reserved only for history buffs as passionate as the creators themselves.

If you ask us, we would place Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 in the same category as generational games such as Final Fantasy VII (1997) and Chrono Trigger (1995). It is in good company, as both games are classics and belong to the cream of the crop of role-playing games. Memorable games that still resonate with an entire generation of players years, even decades later. Fans of the genre, enjoy this. Because a debut game with these qualities, showered with superlatives, is a rare occurrence.

The first Powerwash Simulator was my guilty pleasure. I spent many hours playing it on the Nintendo Switch. I was so hooked that it almost convinced me that such a job would be something for me in real life. Until I borrowed my in-laws' pressure washer and realized that the simulation is more fun after all. Fortunately, the game now has a formidable successor. The fun of Powerwash Simulator 2 lies in the simplicity of the game. This game is surprisingly satisfying and, above all, a great way to relax. Unfortunately, the sequel is not available on “older consoles” such as the first Nintendo Switch. That's a shame.

Five years ago, Ghost of Tsushima pushed the PS4 to its limits and left a lasting impression with its historically inspired open-world epic. Visually, narratively, and in terms of gameplay, this interactive love letter to the work of director Akira Kurosawa, the grand master of the samurai genre, was so good that it rightly earned the status of “classic.” There were some flaws—perhaps inherent to the open-world genre—but the result was an open-world game that you'll happily lose yourself in for 100 hours. For Ghost of Yotei, all of the above still holds true, but you'll want to put 200 hours into it. It sounds disrespectful, but Ghost of Yotei is a sequel by the book and therefore, in essence, more Ghost of Tsushima, but ‘better’: with more weapons, more variety of enemies, and even more beautiful grass – because what an incredibly beautiful game this is.

After previous hits such as Bastion, Transistor, and of course Hades, Supergiant Games has perfected its tried-and-tested formula. Hades II is a triumph that is both funny and accessible, yet brutally difficult and complex. Honestly, we wouldn't want to be in the developers' shoes. How on earth do you top this?

A lot of thought has clearly gone into the tracks —after all, they are the most important part of a racing game. A casino, a ghost ship, or a valley full of dinosaurs, they make an impression. There are quite a few paths that you only discover after a few games. Sometimes there is so much going on that it is difficult to stay focused on driving. Apart from the classic coins, you can also search for five red coins. These small additions keep you playing longer. Designing your cars and ‘unlocking’ all the soundtracks will keep you entertained for hours.

Battlefield 6 means a bit of a return to basics. The code word for its predecessor, Battlefield 2042, was ‘big’, but the latest installment is more intimate—as far as that's possible in a world war. Whereas Battlefield 2042 was solely a multiplayer game with no fewer than 128 players at a time, Battlefield 6 usually has 64 players competing against each other in the many different modes. The campaign also makes a comeback. This high-stakes power struggle plays out like a blockbuster movie, complete with explosions, cliffhangers, and a rousing soundtrack that amplifies the epic battle of your elite unit. We still have to wait a little over a month for the latest Call of Duty, but as far as we're concerned, Battlefield 6 currently has more than a few advantages.

EA Sports FC 26 is a step up from FC 25: everything runs more smoothly, especially dribbling, tackling, and heading. Otherwise, little has changed: Ultimate Team still overwhelms you with challenges and rewards. Career Mode has received a little more attention and is once again worth investing time in. So if you ask us whether FC 26 is different enough from its older siblings to justify spending $70 on it, for the first time in years we say: yes, we think it is.

Borderlands 4 is bigger and grander than its predecessors. But with the addition of new ways to move around, an extensive system to make your character stronger, and challenging boss fights that require more than just button mashing, it's also the best Borderlands game to date. Essentially, it remains the king of all looter-shooters: you blast enemies to get better equipment, which allows you to shoot enemies even more efficiently. A highly addictive and satisfying gameplay loop that you gradually get caught up in.

What if you combined the work of James Ensor with "Where's Wally?" The answer: one of the most entertaining puzzle games of recent years. Now the game—made in Belgium!—is also available for the Nintendo Switch.

Hollow Knight: Silksong is, just like its predecessor, relentless. It's not a gentle adventure for beginners. Although this can make it frustrating at times, the game is exactly what fans had hoped for. Exhausting, yes, but also incredibly atmospheric. The game exudes mystery. The creators took their time making this sequel and worked out every detail meticulously. And my god, their world is beautifully designed. Hollow Knight: Silksong is a big challenge for a small price. It was well worth the long wait. But let me say it one more time: this game is not for everyone.

Admittedly, we were rather skeptical when we started playing the game. We associated publisher Nacon with annual sports games (Tour de France, Pro Cycling Manager, WRC) or gaming-related peripherals, and developer Rogue Factor had only two smaller Warhammer games in its portfolio until now. But with the intriguing ‘Hell is Us’, they have together released one of the most surprising games of the year.

Don't expect profound dialogues or a layered story. Shinobi: Art of Vengeance relies on its challenging mix of fighting game and platformer. It is a successful homage to the series and to the 80s and 90s, when ninjas, just like today's superheroes, were omnipresent in popular culture.

Thanks to Donkey Kong Bananza the Switch 2 has landed its first five-star game. Adding new layers on top of the 3D platformer genre (only to tear them down again) this games proves to be a better selling point for the Switch 2 than launch title Mario Kart World.

The action is not the only point in which Death Stranding 2 surpasses its predecessor. For one, the story is a lot easier to follow (thanks to the new Corpus feature where you can easily catch up on reading), and the world looks much more diverse. Last time you wandered for hours through a barren moonscape, but now you encounter forests, snowy mountain peaks, beaches and other environments. Originality and good stories seem quietly in danger of extinction in the gaming world, which seems to be more and more about profits and shareholders. But as long as the occasional game like Death Stranding 2 passes, stubbornly doing its own thing, there is hope.

F1 25 is a fine racing game, worthy of the queen class of motorsports. But as you often see with sports games, not that much changes from year to year. So do you already have a version from, say, 2024 or 2023? Unless you really care about being able to race against newcomers like Kimi Antonelli, or necessarily want to see Lewis Hamilton shine for his new patron Ferrari, feel free to skip this one. Next year, quite a few rules of play are changing in Formula One, and hopefully it will also inspire Codemasters to innovate a bit more. Because just as an F1 team must constantly innovate to keep up, standing still here equals going backwards.

Whereas in previous Mario Kart games - as befits the genre - you raced around tracks, in Mario Kart World you can drive so-called Knockout Tours. These are rallies through the open world with checkpoints where a few racers drop out each time. This game mode is not a reinvention of the wheel, but it is a welcome twist. It proves that in its genre - the arcade racer - Mario Kart remains in a league of its own. And this is the best Mario Kart Nintendo ever made.

Visually, everything looks top notch, the environments are stunning and the accompanying heavy metal adds another layer of hell. Although there is also sad news: you cannot play against others. Fortunately, this is not a huge loss, as the campaign lasts more than 20 hours and there is a lot of variety. You can even fly on dragons - though we think those are the weakest parts of the game. The game also feels different from the 2016 reboot and Doom Eternal: the environments are wider and you're a little less mobile. We can imagine that some fans might be turned off by that, but not us: Doom: The Dark Ages is a lovingly made game with a lot of new elements, and we can heartily recommend it for anyone who wants to fight demons from time to time.

Nightreign uses the same stone-good foundation, plays smoothly and puts its own twist on the modern classic. And yet it lacks a touch of the magic that makes Elden ring Elden ring. An overarching storyline is completely absent, the fantastically designed environments full of lighting and gold details have been replaced with murky fantasy environments of thirteen-in-a-dozen variety, and the sense of being able to explore at your own pace is completely gone due to the ever-shrinking game world. Beforehand, however, we never thought we would keep returning to Nightreign. Despite its many misgivings, the cyclical structure and fast-paced attempts to make your character stronger is still intriguing enough to make us want to start it over and over again. After Elden ring, expansion Shadow of the erdtree and now Nightreign, the conclusion is: more Elden ring is always good.

Admittedly, ideally we wouldn't write this review. Blue prince is a game best experienced without any prior knowledge. Unfortunately, we don't get paid for blank pages, and honestly: this is a masterpiece we can't and won't shut up about. Underneath the seemingly simple concept lies one of the most intriguing, clever, surprising, frustrating but at the same time best games of recent months.