Her Story is a captivating experiment in stripped down storytelling and the best use of FMV that I’ve ever had the good fortune to encounter.

Inconsistent performance aside, Dishonored 2 is a marvel. It’s a magnet for positive adjectives, setting a new and extremely lofty bar for future stealth games.

Riven's remake somehow achieves the impossible - all at once rewarding the nostalgia and support of long-time fans, embracing wild creativity, and fully realizing the needs of a modern audience. The 1997 classic is reborn as one of the year's best puzzle games.

The key takeaway is that Mass Effect fans will be happy; this is the same Mass Effect we fell in love with all those years ago, painstakingly polished and wrapped up in a neat ribbon. To those who have never played before, though, fair warning: for all its charm, Mass Effect Legendary Edition still plays like a game from the ’00s. But if you like RPG games with rich sci-fi settings then you’ll have a ball. [Impressions]

If you want a good shooter, play Wolfenstein 2. If you want an incredible single-player story, play Wolfenstein 2.

A triumphant step forward for Total War on almost every front, boasting not just the best and most diverse single-player campaigns ever, but a revolution in multiplayer too.

Sons of the Forest is an utterly engrossing game, and in losing myself in it, hours went by as I explored. For me, the main concerns are in content density, lack of direction, and a lingering feeling of being unfinished which, to be fair, is totally understandable from an early-access title. The building is a little clunky. There are visual issues with certain animations. It’s also given way to many hilarious glitches, including a physics issue that launched my character into the sky while chopping down a tree. If you can tolerate these issues, it’s absolutely still worth playing. [Review in Progress]

A well-judged modern adaptation of one of gaming’s all-time great adventures. The PC port doesn’t push beyond the PS5’s limits though, and who knows how many releases will conclude this remake.

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is without a doubt one of the best and most inventive multiplayer shooters of all time, and its persistent flaws have done nothing to detract from that, or its popularity. Perhaps it is not the first of its kind, but it is the purest distillation of what battle royale games are about: self-preservation by any means. And that, as 26 million people have now discovered, is endlessly appealing.

Sports Interactive has exposed more of the game’s workings to players than ever. It feels both fresh and familiar at the same time, while being the best FM has ever played on day one.

Odyssey is a better, and certainly bigger, Assassin’s Creed game than any before it. It’s an RPG to rival the likes of The Witcher 3 with a massive historical world that is consistently and astonishingly handsome. The sheer number of moving parts can be intimidating but this is a special adventure that must be savoured.

Groundbreaking, but not quite as much as you're hoping it is. Cyberpunk 2077 doesn't surpass its brilliant influences, but in Night City, Johnny Silverhand, and its chilling vision of hyper-capitalism, it claims territory of its own.

It’s fast, explosive and completely ridiculous, and it’s horribly frustrating when whole days go by without it working.

Much like the sport itself, the driving is as impressive as ever. But the worries about management’s business practices endure, too. Fundamentally, F1 2021 is worth it for the handling model.

While Portal was just a series of connected puzzle chambers it always felt that a developer was leading you through it. The Talos Principle feels like boxes within boxes, left by the developer for you to play in.

Cities: Skylines is absolutely the best city-builder I’ve played since SimCity 4. From macro to micro, from the sprawling transport networks and city-wide policies to the fine-tuned districts and street-level detail, it impresses.

Despite its shockingly short story, World of Warcraft: The War Within is the most confident and slick Blizzard's MMO has been in years.

Lurid characters, a deep RPG system, and captivating combat set in an unhinged apocalypse - inXile Entertainment’s latest shouldn’t be missed.

Starfield is a true behemoth of an RPG, and in many ways it’s the logical endpoint of Bethesda Game Studios’ well-worn formula. However, its massive scope pushes this formula to the absolute limit and the cracks begin to show, from feature creep to the stop-start nature of its exploration. Dedicated Bethesda fans are sure to get their fill, but this interstellar adventure never leaves the atmosphere.

Doom: The Dark Ages is a heavyweight shooter that, at its core, is lighter on its feet than its predecessor. However, id has at times gone too wide with its half-baked new features and open level design. Rip and tear, until it is done. But please, Slayer, get out of the damn robot.

Frostpunk 2 makes clever reconsiderations of, and expansions on, the first game’s design, offering a better rounded, even harsher follow-up to the original’s concept.

A gripping descent into something between alternate history and fever dream, realised beautifully in audiovisual flair, and lacking just slightly in the combat itself.

Solium Infernum regards strategy as a game of intellect, patience, and observation. Put into those terms, it might sound dry, but its visual flair combined with the ingenious ways it turns abstract ideas into tangible, comprehensible, and thrilling game mechanics make it irresistibly playable.

Where other South Park games have utterly failed to capture the crude, offensive, absurdly entertaining spark that has kept the cartoon running for 16 years, The Stick of Truth succeeds utterly. Not only is it series creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker - who co-wrote the game - firing on all cylinders, it’s Obsidian’s most polished RPG. Not just a great South Park game, the Stick of Truth is simply a great game.

Characterized by stunning visuals rooted in Japanese folklore, Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess' tower defense and hack-and-slash action is like nothing I've ever played before. While there are a few minor frustrations, Capcom's new adventure is a must-play and a ready-made cult classic.

Silent Hill f skillfully reinterprets the iconic horror series for a modern audience, acting as both a stirring homage and a strong vision for Silent Hill’s future.

Citizen Sleeper 2 is everything you could want from a sequel, building on its predecessor's strengths in storytelling and character design while also bringing new complexity to the dice and clocks that govern its capitalist dystopia.

Faith is a sterling beginning to what looks to be another feather in Telltale’s cap; a confident, slick opener to a mystery that begs to be explored. I wait with bated breath and sweaty palms for the next installment, where I’m sure to discover how my choices have only made things worse, at least if The Walking Dead is anything to go by.