Belief in brevity helps an infectious passion shine through well-worn locales and plotting.

Derelict Star has the chunkiest pixels I've seen since the '80s and a 1:1 aspect ratio, but it's one of the best action platformers of the decade.

Gothic 1 Remake may have made concessions for new players, but remains an RPG for people who think Daggerfall was the last good Bethesda game.

IO's Bond-iverse story shines, but not enough to compensate for the very familiar game around it.

Mechanicus 2 is a decent strategy game, but the original was a vibe, as the kids say—if the kids spent a lot of time playing turn-based tactics games where cybernetic zealots fought robot mummies.

Mina is a gloriously gothic combination of ferocious combat and beautiful scenery, with enough secrets and modifiers to keep the game fresh and fun for a very long time.

Despite a beautiful world and some clever mechanical flourishes, Zero Parades doesn't commit to its espionage concept enough to be convincing.

There are a couple of Arkham games better than this, but also a couple that are worse.

Subnautica 2 is a decidedly well-balanced survival game. In a handful of hours of pre-release play, I've never found the scavenging and crafting grueling, but neither have I found it so easy that the expansion of my underwater base feels unearned. [Early Access Impressions]

It's another Forza Horizon, for all its faults, but also its many, many triumphs. Forza Horizon 6 isn't an ambitious sequel, but its version of Japan is still a joy to race through.

Lovely, beautiful, heartwarming, and unable to convince me it needed my input as a player at all.

Directive 8020 is everything you could want from a sci-fi horror game: Body horror aliens, the unwavering dread that all of us are insignificant when set against the great expanse of the universe, and fun QTEs.

More a novelty than your next roguelike obsession, but it has enough creativity and left-field ideas to be well worth experiencing—especially if you're still pining for the lost potential of Spore.

I haven't been too blown away by what I've seen of it so far, but if Masters of Albion could help revive the god game genre, at least a little? That'd be fine by me. [Early Access Impressions]

Titanium Court is a brilliantly singular roguelite with a surplus of style, but you're going to need to love match-three to want to stick around.

There are moments of fun, especially towards the end, but too often I just wanted to ram a garlic-flavoured stake through Vampire Crawlers repetitive, grindy heart.

A slick, accomplished shooter that’s more than just an eye-grabbing art style.

Pragmata's confidence in its punchy shootouts and old-school cool pays off, and the two leads roved their way into my heart despite a predictable plot.

While the learning curve might be steep at first, Xenonauts 2 offers incredibly rewarding tactical action for those willing to ascend it.

It's such a disappointment that I'm worried this will kill any chance of us getting a meatier Legacy of Kain game—but at the same time, given how Ascendance sets up Elaleth's further adventures, it might be better if Kain and his pals go back into their coffins.

Despite occasional stalls, this combination of tactics and talking has plush-leather depths worth sinking into.

Some of Blizzard's best work in years wrestles with bugs and design issues, but still comes out on top.

Marathon is a brilliant distillation of what makes extraction shooters great, and a glimpse at where they could go next.

Prizing immersion and effort above all, this is a demanding, but very rewarding, RPG.

An immaculately presented arcade racer with a thousand good ideas, but the twin-stick drifting wasn’t one of them.

By turns sentimental and ridiculous, Death Stranding 2 nonetheless offers best marriage of mechanics and meaning in Hideo Kojima's storied career.

Vast and obtuse in a way that is going to frustrate some and exhilarate others, Crimson Desert is a fascinating journey, even when the destination isn't all that.

Monster Hunter Stories 3 delivers deep build crafting and battle systems, but they're wasted on a war story that's barely there.