Valorant is not original. Rather, it's a successful interpretation of and expansion on its inspirations, with impeccable gameplay, well-designed maps, and a dev team eager to refine it further.

Fall Guys’ ingenious game show royale formula is a recipe for success, and its gameplay is full-fat unadulterated fun.

Both its greatest strength and biggest weakness, the precision that Broken Arrow demands often chokes its more abstract qualities. It's a stark spectacle with nasty, legitimately cynical overtones, but its unwillingness to compromise aesthetically and tonally almost makes it mechanically inflexible, to the point that the player often doesn't feel included in the strategy making whatsoever.

Infinity Nikki takes all the best bits of Genshin Impact to deliver the definitive dress-up game for girls. With a vast wardrobe of exquisite outfits to collect, its whimsical open world is a treasure trove of activities that distract from the gacha grind.

Updated systems, fleshed out characters, and, yes, higher fidelity graphics, all mean that this original gangster epic can sit proudly alongside the rest of the family.

Dungeons of Hinterberg is a wonderfully captivating trek through the gorgeous lands of its magical alpine setting, where a world of adventure, challenges, and intrigue stands at odds with the political machinations of a greedy government.

Successfully brings an icon into the modern era, and the underlying gameplay still shines. But while Resurrected does a better job than Warcraft III: Reforged, it leaves similar questions unanswered over its feature set and long-term community support.

Simple in almost all respects, Luftrauser is one of Vlambeer’s biggest triumphs because it strips back everything in the name of exposing the fun at the centre of the game. It’s almost as if the designers were engineers of the rauser itself; reducing weight and tweaking fuel lines to ensure the most effective deliverer of death possible.

It’s the best that Age of Wonders has ever been.

Some creaky design concepts that don't hold up well and a slipshod PC port hold Nier Replicant back from greatness on PC.

Last Epoch is an ARPG that puts mechanics first, and does so with a resounding sense of class identity. Its player-friendly design ensures you have all the tools you need for the job, and rivals such as Diablo 4 and Path of Exile 2 would do well to pay attention to some of its smartest innovations.

It integrates the fighty and the talky enough to make Rapture feel a more dangerous and believable place, discards the impenetrable conceits with which the first DLC began, and brings an almost seven year old series full circle and to a satisfying end. What a wonderful trick, and a fitting note for one of PC gaming’s best loved studios (as we know them, at least) to bow out on.

It is, across the board, an improvement on Rome II, despite some issues that have been carried over.

The best Three Kingdoms DLC so far - a stirring rendition of the final days of the Han, the people who rose against them, and the humble heroes whose ambitions would change China forever.

There’s endless hours of enjoyment in ArcheAge for just about anyone. If you can stomach a slightly stale questing experience, and get your head around the quite innocent labour system, it’s an MMO with near endless potential for player driven, organic content. And to be quite honest, it’s the closest thing to a true fantasy sandbox experience on the market, and will be for a good time yet.

Oblivion Remastered proves that The Elder Scrolls 4 has withstood the test of time. It’s the perfect opportunity for new audiences to discover why it’s so beloved, and a nostalgic throwback to Bethesda’s golden years for older fans. However, its extensive quality-of-life features aren’t enough to excuse the endemic performance woes of Unreal Engine 5.

While the starring wayward sons of A World Betrayed offer flavourful and dynamic new campaigns, neither quite manages to leave the shadow of the dramatically different playstyles in the Mandate of Heaven DLC.

After such a long wait for a successor to X-Wing and TIE Fighter, Star Wars: Squadrons feels like a lucky shot with a proton torpedo.

Immortals Fenyx Rising's open-world is a constant delight to explore, even if it struggles to balance history and humour.

Quality of life and balancing changes set the stage for the next ten years of Rainbow Six Siege X, forging strong foundations that bring the FPS game roaring into 2025, but retreading old ground with map and operator remasters feels like it’s running out of mileage. Fortunately, the 6v6 Dual Front mode breaks the mold with something new, and a reworked sound system will have you relearning the game as if it were Year One all over again.

Earth Defense Force 6’s quality of life improvements make for the strongest gameplay in the series to date, but an annoying intro and the same glitches as usual leave it as a diamond in the rough.

Final Fantasy 14 Dawntrail introduces some of the game’s best dungeons and trials yet alongside a compelling story that, while slow to ramp up, delivers resoundingly in its second act, setting a promising precedent for the future of the MMORPG on all counts.

While Amerzone - The Explorer's Legacy is a loving tribute to its source material, its gameplay remains trapped in the past. The world is more realized than ever before and, at points, almost feels real, but the addition of a few new puzzles doesn't quite inject the excitement that I'd hoped. Amerzone is a must-play for fans of Benoît Sokal, but is unlikely to wow the new generation of point-and-click adventurers.

The shooting is sharp and impactful, and the slow and snipey set pieces feel as slick as they did all the way back in All Ghillied Up, but it feels like the ratio behind this tried-and-true formula is a little off this time. It’s more stop-start than any COD in recent memory, and the highlights are diluted by a few too many drab stealth missions. It’s not one of the best Call of Duty campaigns, but it’s far from a bad one. [Campaign review]

While its open world is stunning, its combat is robust, and its dual-protagonist design is somewhat novel, Assassin’s Creed Shadows proves too repetitive and dramatically flat to wholeheartedly recommend taking its trip back in time.

While it won't appeal to every shooter fan out there, Hell Let Loose's complex interplay of FPS action and real-time tactical planning rewards communication, coordination, and genuine leadership in a way few other games even attempt.

While there is a lot of potential in House Flipper 2, it hits too many stumbling blocks that prevent it from achieving greatness. If you don’t bother with sandbox mode, at least in its current state, and opt to rush through the restrictive story mode quests, house flipping itself is good fun. So perhaps House Flipper 2 should just stick to its name and what it does best.

Dying Light: The Beast is a serious gore-fest that, when you dig a little deeper, turns out to be a rather silly playground teeming with ingenius ways of dispatching the undead. The fun, for me, was finding them all, and while it may not stick with me for long, this is still the best that Dying Light has ever been.