Hollow Knight is a new classic, with a dense and detailed world full of secrets to discover.

A less dramatic reimagining than it pretends to be, but hopefully enough to breathe new life into the coolest MMO universe around.

Deeper and more refined than the original, but there’s still room to improve its game.

Slight in form, but deep and consistently satisfying. Nex Machina is a gem of a shooter.

A varied, challenging platformer that's adept at forcing improvisation and punishing mistakes.

A messy, unfocused mishmash of genres with a few smart ideas.

Stormblood’s rousing tale of rebellion and exceptional boss fights aren’t just exquisite by MMO standards, but rival even the most beloved Final Fantasy games.

A fiery test of awareness, speed and accuracy which upholds the series' devotion to teamwork and authenticity, but doesn't nail the asymmetry of modern era combat.

A stylish and creative adventure with a clever time-rewinding hook.

A great repository of nostalgia-heavy stories, but it doesn’t make the most of being an MMO.

An accessible, customisable off-road racer let down by a half-hearted career mode.

I like Ultimate Epic Battle Simulator's conceit—I used to love creating AI skirmishes in Garry's Mod—but here any potential drama is squandered by the poor execution. UEBS is good at the moneyshot—the ridiculous joy of seeing an unreasonable number of chickens swarm over some Nazis, or a super-powered turtle take on a cavalry brigade. But the joke soon wears thin, and, outside of that single gag, Ultimate Epic Battle Simulator fails to entertain.

A smart, blisteringly fun experience at its core, Tekken 7’s limited singleplayer campaign and poor tutorials marr an otherwise resounding win.

At $40/£30 it definitely isn't a steal, but for chatty entertainers who enjoy multiplayer storytelling over technical perfection, Friday the 13th can be thrilling, stupid, and hilarious.

Interesting classes, engaging melee gameplay, and an exciting arena mode have the wind taken out of their sails by deserted servers.

A savage, sometimes frustrating space exploration game that succeeds because of beautiful design and a compelling universe.

An intricate, beautiful playground for some enjoyably open-ended assassinations.

Disappointing campaign aside, Steel Division: Normandy 44 is a compelling and challenging real-time wargame.

Perception offers a decent set of horror stories, but exploring this house gets dull pretty quickly.

A great port of an entertainingly subversive cover shooter. It's short, but the core loop never gets old.

Rime is a middling puzzle platformer with some genuine narrative depth, but the latter doesn't quite justify the former.

An interesting story with some beautiful scenery, but let down by half-hearted puzzling and some derivative story beats.

Gorgeous grand strategy with atmosphere, depth and replayability—but it needs more time to reach its potential.

A bright, fun and surprisingly substantial racing experience that does interesting things with Forza Horizon 3's core design.

The Surge isn't the same as Dark Souls but comparison's inevitable. Like that cyborg whose torso I severed, it struggles to stand on its own.

A satisfying, moreish take on the roguelike formula, and one that's most likely to appeal to genre naysayers.

Half enjoyable adventure, half clunky mess, Beat Cop is a talented rookie in need of a long talk with HR.

It's let down by lacklustre combat and some annoying enemy design, but Prey is still a compelling, beautiful immersive sim.

Strafe skillfully recaptures the look and experience of a full-tilt twitch 1990s shooter while faltering at building upon its potential.

What Remains of Edith Finch is a masterful piece of storytelling: gorgeous, skillfully told, uplifting in places, and devastating in others. Avoid seeing too many spoilers— seriously, I can't think of a game more in need of being unspoiled than this one—and play it.

Dawn of War 3 has overly dominant elites, and a merely serviceable campaign, but it captures the power of mass battles well.

Funny, philosophical, and deeply, deeply weird, there’s nothing else quite like Everything on PC.

A beautiful but short-lived expedition that left me wanting more of its best ideas.

Some solid puzzles can’t rescue what is an otherwise terrible adventure game.

An okay platformer but a deeply imaginative horror game, Little Nightmares is worth playing for its array of disturbing imagery.

Stealth and pursuit haven’t changed much in Outlast 2, but it excels as a beautiful, brutal journey through extreme spiritual anxieties.

A cinematic, high-octane, but short-lived adventure, lovingly remastered for a new generation.

A blissfully fluid action game with a compelling twist, let down occasionally by tedious encounters.

Smart without being overbearing, Zero Escape: The Nonary Games continues to set the bar for its genre.

Guardians of the Galaxy's story may eventually get someplace interesting, but it's a poor fit for Telltale's simple quick time events and stiff dialogue sequences.

Updates are planned, but this needs too much work under the hood to be worth your time or money. [May 2017, p.89]

There's a good story here, but it's marred by carelessness. [May 2017, p.89]

A great port of what is still one of the best action games around. Bayonetta is the essential hack-'n-slash.

The Signal From Tölva is easily Big Robot's best game yet: a lean, intelligent sci-fi shooter with a watchmaker’s eye for detail that knows its strengths and plays to them beautifully.

Paradox’s biggest expansion yet brings Stellaris closer to its original promise with a stellar rework of internal politics and new endgame goals.

Don’t let some clunky inventories scare you off from this excellent strategy RPG.

A decent revival of the N64-era 3D platformer, but with all the flaws that carries, as well as some new ones of its own.

At times the difficulty and dreary landscapes are enough, but overall The Ringed City was one hell of a soft note for Dark Souls to go out on. As a surface level thematic experience, the finale is a fitting way to end the series, leaving the faintest glimmer of hope amidst all the ash. I had fun descending through a visual collage of the series’ history—it's much more interesting than Ashes of Ariandel—and I can appreciate the symbolic significance of its ending, but this is Dark Souls design at its most uninspired.

A quality adventure game with challenging puzzles, oddball characters, and an intriguing, mystery-laden plot.

Few will see the more remote corners of Rain World’s relentlessly dire stretch, but those who do are unlikely to forget the experience.

Mainlining is mostly a success. Even though many cases are simple to solve, how to solve them remains satisfying throughout [April 2017, p.91]

As a free-to-play game it's reasonably generous. [April 2017, p.91]

A quirky, overly saccharine life sim that quickly descends into a dispassionate grind. [April 2017, p.90]

A competent shooter, but lifeless. You could spend many hours mastering Desync, but it does nothing to earn your time.

A beautiful, melancholy action RPG that’s effortlessly stylish and utterly unpredictable.

Boasts some beautiful, convincing countryside to hunt in, but the glacial pace will challenge the limits of most people’s patience.

Marred by inconsistency and in need of a polish pass, this vast new sci-fi frontier nonetheless rewards dedicated exploration.

A deep, and potentially rewarding alternative to Hearthstone that suffers from underwhelming art design and desperately needs an injection of players to grow the scene.

A mean-spirited character leads a big-hearted game; you’re unlikely to dwell on its lore but its features combine well to create a satisfying stealth experience.

Not worth it as a solo adventure. In co-op, Wildlands is an enjoyable stealth romp that too often gets in its own way.

A well-designed level that forces you out of your comfort zone and fills in some of Adam Jensen’s backstory.

An atmospheric collection of clever, surprising interactive short stories with a gorgeous retro aesthetic.

A beautiful, heartfelt coming of age story that says something about life, and cracks a few jokes in the process.

A slow start gives way to a thought-provoking adventure in a remarkable setting. A fitting follow-up to a beloved RPG.

Quality racing with lots of challenge. But it misses out on some of what makes Forza Horizon so audacious and fun. [March 2017, p.86]

Halo Wars 2's cutscenes are pretty, but the controls remains too console-focused for PC and the strategy is a little thin.

A varied, atmospheric space simulator with beautiful Martian sunsets, challenging survival, and frustrating controls.

Outside of the fighting, however, For Honor is a needlessly bloated game. There’s a lot of tediously granular customisation, a tacky free-to-play-style storefront selling in-game currency for real-world money, and a tangle of ugly, confusing menus to wrestle through before you can get into a battle. And as time goes on, and those stalwart, hardcore players continue to hone their skills, it’ll be even more unwelcoming to newcomers. Stick with it, though, and you’ll find a rich, tactical fighting game with wonderfully weighty combat and hidden depths to uncover. But if you want something accessible you can easily dip in and out of, you may want to swear fealty to another lord.

A hearty improvement on Sniper Elite 3 that embraces freeform play, gets better in co-op, and most importantly lets us shoot things from very far away.

The basic combat is fine, but WWE 2K17 botches everything, from performance to presentation.

An interesting setting let down by frustrating checkpoints and rough UI.

Fun and frantic, with plenty of challenge. GoNNER is weird and beautiful, despite its lack of depth.

Not the dramatic reinvention I expected, but this is tense and refined survival horror with a brilliantly bleak, grimy atmosphere.

Shadow Tactics’ impressive missions, laden toy box and likeable cast make it one of the greatest stealth games of the last decade.

Problematic in some areas, but overall a really good, thoughtful move towards better sex games.

Ties That Bind makes a surprisingly convincing argument for it to keep shuffling onward.

A promising, assured start, and a welcome return to form for Telltale.

An unsatisfying, forced march through the source material.

An accomplished piece of fan service, but the excitement fades fast and performance problems spoil it for some.

A novel perspective on totalitarian surveillance. Orwell may not make you think, but it should keep you entertained.

If you want to make Total War: Warhammer harder, the Wood Elves are here to ruin your peace of mind.

Though much too easy, Dead Rising 4 is sandboxy zombie-killing adventure that recaptures the series' fun.

Steep’s freedom is exhilarating and it looks stunning, but clunky, imprecise controls tarnish the experience.

A great PC port and lovely open world don’t give depth to Watch Dogs 2’s shallow combat and stealth design.

Hitman is back. Confident design and a willingness to experiment produces some of the best missions of 47's long career.

Repetitive but fun, a hellish challenge or a relaxing, spectacular gore bath depending on how you approach it.

Better than RollerCoaster Tycoon World, but doesn't do much to innovate on the formula.

It's easily as good as its predecessor, and frequently better. As much as I've delved into the specifics of each individual system, what makes Dishonored 2 so exceptional is how it's all connected. The writing sheds light on the world, which sheds light on the systems, which sheds light on the environments and characters. For everything that works in isolation, the real trick is that Dishonored 2 feels unified—a powerful piece of world building where everything happens for a reason.

A beautiful adventure platformer with a cheerful pixel art veneer, but with very modern themes.

Repetitive combat and an abrupt ending spoil what is otherwise a remarkable feat of worldbuilding.

A beautiful action movie that punishes improvisation, with under-populated multiplayer that can’t compete with a nine-year-old game.

Hokkaido is a confident and experimental end to a great season.

It’s far from revolutionary, but it is a very well refined version of Football Manager that empowers the player by putting all the information you need at your fingertips.

The dangers of the abyss are well worth facing for Zubmariner’s bounty of fantastic stories and strange adventures.

Persistent bugs, a convoluted interface, and incompetent colonists hold back a great premise.

A brilliant singleplayer campaign married to inventive, skill-intensive multiplayer that calls back to FPS classics of old.

A decent enough expansion, but it doesn't reach the great heights of previous post-launch outings.

By returning to the past, Battlefield 1 feels renewed. The best game in the series since Bad Company 2.