Half-Life: Alyx isn't quite as revolutionary as you might hope, particularly if you're already well-versed in virtual reality, but it's undoubtedly one of the best games on the platform and hopefully the start of a resurgence for both the series and the hardware.

With Tekken 8, Bandai Namco takes everything that was good about its predecessor and ups the ante on most things. While it’s not a revolutionary sequel, all the improvements make Tekken 8 a must-have for fighting fans – whether you play to be the best or just for fun.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a magical, gripping, and technically impressive RPG that delivers a rich story, clever gameplay, and enchanting atmosphere—despite a few rough edges from its small-studio origins. Fans of complex fantasy and mystery-laden role-playing games will find much to love.

I also wish Disco Elysium were shorter, if only because I’d love to play through it as a completely different character on a completely different trajectory. Pick up a smoking habit! Tell everyone I lost my memory! Beat people up! I rarely get to replay games, especially ones that are 50-plus hours long. It’s hard to imagine seeing everything Disco Elysium has in store. Maybe that’s a good thing though. After all, what I’m getting is mine—something Jon Ingold told me when I first demoed Heaven’s Vault, the idea being that you can only have such a unique and personal connection to a game if it’s also possible to miss out on other parts. And hey, I have a loooooooong way to go in this first playthrough. That’s worth celebrating as well. I can’t wait to see what’s still in store. I think I might even find my gun soon. If I’m lucky.

Full of emotion and high adventure, Final Fantasy XIV's Shadowbringers expansion brings MMORPG storytelling out of the shadows. Two great new combat classes, two cool new races, and a nifty system for running dungeons solo round out the experience of FFXIV's best expansion to date.

Tetris Effect is more than a Tetris game. It's a work of art that you just happen to interact with by stacking blocks and clearing rows.

Hi-Fi Rush is a pop-rock breath of fresh air, a rhythm-based beat-em-up with all the color and attitude of a post-Pokemon kid’s anime...I should also point out that the game runs great, much more so than you might expect from a title that launches on PC and Xbox at the same time. It animates smooth as butter on my RTX 3070 desktop, and supports my ultrawide monitor’s 21:9 resolution without complaint. After playing several iffy cross-platform releases — looking at you, Elden Ring — it’s a nice change of pace. [Review-in-Progress]

It’s very good. Addictive, too.

Narrative is the most sophisticated video game of recent years, blurring the genres of horror, psychological thriller and art house in an artistic way and never playing it safe, but always taking full creative risks. A masterpiece.

Resident Evil 2 isn’t terrifying per se, but it oozes atmosphere and there’s a thrill to slowly discovering its setting even 20 years later. Ironic, that a very old game might breathe new life into a series, but it’s made a fan out of me at least.

Like Asura’s Wrath, like Revengeance, Devil May Cry 5 is a game that delights in setting the bar high up front and then continually one-upping itself until, 10 hours later, you can finally catch your breath.

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth builds on what made its predecessor so good — which is a long and exciting story, accompanied by hysterical side quests. The latter stands out even more this time, with deep side adventures inspired by Pokémon and Animal Crossing, among others. Don’t be put off by the fact that Infinite Wealth is the eighth instalment in the series; this is a must-have for all fans of story-driven action games.

Unlike the Xbox, the PC version looks great without compromising performance. I’ve been pushing the game at maximum on my GeForce GTX 980 Ti and it’s generally maintained a steady 60 frames per second, though I’ve noticed a few loading stutters occasionally. Never anywhere important.

Phantom Liberty is CD Projekt RED’s masterpiece. Not only is Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty graphically easily three generations ahead of the entire industry and redefines how we experience video games with pathtracing, it’s also written even more thrillingly and staged even more explosively. Anyone who doesn’t enjoy this several times in different play styles has never loved video games. A clear must-play.

A unique art style and a fantastic puzzle hook make Return of the Obra Dinn a detective story worth experiencing, especially if you can do it all in one go.

Kerbal Space Program isn't just a fantastic space game. It's one of those games that makes you glad you play on PC, because it could only come to exist on PC.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps is more than the sum of its parts. Is it just another Metroid homage, one among many? Absolutely. I think it’s one of the best-playing, sure, but it’s still well-trod territory of late. I found myself gripped by it though. As I said earlier, I wish it was longer. That’s usually the sign (or at least one sign) of a good game, in my experience.

Celeste’s optimism is refreshing, especially since it comes from within. It’s a call-and-response, a game that says Keep going! and waits for your next button press as confirmation, I will! You’re learning! and with every death, every obstacle stumbled against and overcome, you say I am! It’s a marriage of theme and mechanics so pure, so confident. And one hell of a platformer, too.

Civilization VI has room to improve (particularly the AI), but this is the most complete a baseline Civ game has felt in ages and a few smart tweaks on the formula distinguish it from its predecessor.

Battlefield 1's solemn campaign and over-the-top multiplayer may feel like polar opposites, but the complete package is all-around excellent.

Doom Eternal kicks ass. It's smarter than it looks, faster than it looks, and somehow even more fun than it looks. A triumph—except for the platforming.

Night in the Woods may be a pastiche of influences, but as far as video games go, there’s really nothing else like it, and there’s a lot to be learned from spending a dozen days in Mae’s life—about her and her friends, about yourself, about America and towns forgotten by time.

It took eight years for Jonathan Blow to create his follow-up to Braid. It was worth it. We're obsessed.

I’d like to see more of what worked in the first Total Warhammer, though. Less world-spanning disaster, more localized enmities and backroom politicking. I don’t just want factions to play differently in pursuit of the same goal—I want them to be different. That’s undoubtedly a hard trick to pull off, especially when it comes to balancing strengths and weaknesses, but I think it made Total Warhammer a much stronger game than this more traditional sequel.

The Forza Horizon series has long been the best arcade racer of the modern era, and this third iteration keeps that streak alive.

A magical adventure almost a decade in the making, Kentucky Route Zero is every bit as good as you've heard—and maybe more.

But it’s so much more than just Total War. Even with Attila making good on some of Rome II’s promise, I found myself dreading drawn-out engagements and increasingly bored with the Total War formula. Total Warhammer doesn’t tamper with much, but it injects enough personality to revive a series that’s been steadily collapsing under its own weight.

Gears of War 4 struggles with pacing issues and a bland protagonist, but it works well as a passing-the-torch installment bridging the old and new trilogies.

Dishonored 2 understands level design. That’s the takeaway here. Not much has been changed, especially if you’re playing Corvo. It’s just a bigger, bolder version of Dishonored, one mastercrafted stealth gauntlet after another paired with some excellent gimmicks. Oh, or it’s a shooter, if you want. But yeah, it’s mostly a fantastic stealth game that deserves better than its generic plot and terrible voice work...It’s a shame the game runs so poorly for so many people, as I just cannot justify giving the game an excellent score when seemingly half the audience (or more) is having issues.

Homeworld is just as revolutionary in 2015 as it was in 1999—and now it looks great too.

It’s not perfect. As I mentioned earlier, Blazkowicz could really use a bit more indication he’s being shot. Sometimes you’re dead before you even realize you’re in danger. And hey, Machine Games is great at disguising corridors, but that’s all there is here—endless corridors full of Nazis. I don’t want an open world game, but a bit more room to breathe would go a long way. But Wolfenstein II belies its dumb corridor shooter roots.The New Order was a silly game that occasionally got serious. The New Colossus is a serious game that sometimes cracks a smile. You’ll come off a heartfelt speech about the hidden dangers of America’s militarism, then seconds later you’re riding an enormous robot-dog through the streets of New Orleans lighting Nazis on fire, and you laugh because it’s all so gloriously stupid again. No other game could pull this off. No other game has.

Titanfall's second outing has more to offer than the original, but the novelty's worn off a bit and the singleplayer campaign waffles between brilliant and boring.

Day of the Tentacle is a classic, but not in the old musty way where you brush off a copy of some old SNES game and realize it isn’t as good as you remember. This is still one of the finest point-and-clicks ever made, with a witty story and some brain-bending puzzles. Also, a hell of a lot of dumb puns...As with Grim Fandango, the big news is that Day of the Tentacle’s on sale at all. The fact that Double Fine’s put in so much work as caretaker to bring it up to modern—or at least mostly modern—standards? Even better.

CD Projekt Red had the weight of the world on its shoulders, but Cyberpunk 2077 delivers. I can’t think of a single significant complaint. The game looks gorgeous, sounds luscious, and hits you in the feels just as hard as Witcher 3. The deep and incredibly flexible character customization options should provide ample replayability—something you couldn’t say about Witcher—especially when paired with the wide array of meaningful story decisions you can make. [Impressions]

Cities: Skylines somehow lives up to the unfair expectations heaped upon it, presenting one of the best city builders in years.

Bethesda has finally landed another hit. Starfield is the space RPG epic we’ve been wanting for so long. It has the incredible expansiveness and variance in design of No Man’s Sky mixed with the dialogue depth and creative quests of Fallout or even Mass Effect. The only thing that might bother some people is the heavy reliance on fast travel and that many planets only make sense when you build bases and production facilities there...Bethesda took its time, and rightly so: Starfield is currently the hottest Game of the Year candidate in 2023.

Control is the culmination of Remedy's entire oeuvre to-date, pairing a top-tier action game with a dizzyingly dense and layered story about the Federal Bureau of Control, and the everyday horrors within. It's so good, you might even stop asking for Alan Wake 2.

It may not be as influential or creative as either the original Doom or Doom 3—which, although it hasn’t aged well, ushered in a dozen monster-closet copycats. Still, Doom in 2016 is successful because it knows it’s dumb and leans into the fact. There are no pretensions towards artistry here, no delusions of grandeur. It’s a popcorn flick where the main character can only speak in gunshots.

Planet Coaster is an excellent theme park builder. Hell, it’s an excellent builder in general—probably the most player-centric one to date. It’s less about the developers giving you a bunch of stuff to build a theme park with, and more about you taking the stuff the developers give you and building a theme park with it.

80 Days is a modern take on the choose-your-own adventure novel, with a branching story that spans the entire globe. It's a game that practically demands you play it more than once.

SOMA is not the horror game I expected out of Frictional, but I don’t care and it doesn’t matter. This is an excellent work of science fiction, not necessarily unique but uniquely told through its skillful use of video game conceits. It’s System Shock 2 for a modern sensibility, BioShock freed of its AAA chains. It’s damn good and, for my money, the most cohesive and ambitious game Frictional’s made so far.

Thimbleweed Park is excellent, both as tongue-in-cheek homage and in its own right. It’s a LucasArts adventure game the way you remember them being, with the same witty humor and, yes, the same sometimes-asinine puzzles. The good and the bad.

This isn’t the step forward I expected, though. Here we are, the first Bethesda game on a new hardware generation, and I can’t help feeling like we’ve regressed—like Fallout 4 really is Oblivion-with-guns. A decade later, it certainly makes many of the same mistakes.

Assassin’s Creed: Origins grew on me. That’s worth noting up top, as I upgrade this review-in-progress to full review status—it grew on me, and it’s the first entry in the series to do so. Assassin’s Creed is mostly a what-you-see-is-what-you-get type of series, and generally within a few hours you’ve seen it all. AC II, Brotherhood and Black Flag were good early on. AC III not so much. The rest somewhere in between. But Origins starts slow and finishes pretty strong. Not that I’ve radically changed my mind about the game. Much of my original review-in-progress remains as accurate 40 hours in as it did at 15. Side quests vary wildly in quality, the RPG systems need some work, the map is overlarge for the amount of content, and the combat system is better but still no real challenge. The good stuff remains true too though. It’s a technological marvel, especially on PC. The setting is incredible, spanning ancient tombs and somber Hellenic temples, verdant oases and arid deserts, thriving cities and abandoned villages, and everything in between.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is a genuine epic-action single-player experience with a campaign that’s not only the longest in the series’ history at 10 hours, but also full of Constant surprises. In addition to its thrilling action, the strong acting and the sometimes truly congenial mission designs are also impressive. Ultimately, Black Ops 6 delivers what we’ve been missing in recent years, complete with intelligent, emotional, and smart storytelling, well-written characters, and truly epic action that could well be a Game of the Year candidate.

Life is Strange is flawed, but this paranormal coming-of-age story is nevertheless refreshing proof that small stakes can still feel important, given strong characters.

Blackout is the best part of this year’s Call of Duty package, and might even justify the cost of entry even with no singleplayer campaign. It hews very close to PUBG’s mold, maybe a bit too close for those who already have battle royale fatigue, but it repackages those ideas in the most polished form I’ve seen so far.

Unfortunately Deus Ex: Mankind Divided falls apart at the end, and I don’t mean this in a “The ending is bad,” sort of way. It literally doesn’t have an ending, in the traditional sense.

The Elder Scrolls Online will never feel like a proper Elder Scrolls game for many people who flock to it, but while we wait for whatever comes after Skyrim, it’s a damn fine way of passing the time.

The simulator aspects are co-opted and somewhat compromised by a desire to simultaneously appeal to the arcade racer crowd—without actually being an arcade racer.

Destiny 2 is mechanically a fantastic shooter, but a threadbare plot and some odd choices after the campaign wraps up make it more of a foundation to build on. Expect it to take a year for Bungie to polish this one up again.

Quern – Undying Thoughts is an excellent first-person puzzle game that’s likely to be doubly special to anyone who spent hours with Riven in years past. Reminiscent of both that style of storytelling and of puzzle design, it’s an excellent homage in an era suddenly packed full of Myst homages...A few subpar puzzles and some ill-paced backtracking sometimes get in the way of Quern’s ambitions, but my standard adventure game advice applies: Just check a walkthrough if you really feel the need to. It’s worth seeing through to the end.

Prison Architect's genius is in translating a real-world debate into video game terms, forcing players to make tough choices with no good solutions.

The Forza Motorsport series finally makes a comeback, with completely new physics and graphics – a setup that is immediately noticeable with wonderful driving feel and control. Otherwise, the game feels, unexpectedly, content poor and unpolished. Forza Motorsport will get better and better over time, but here and now there is a lot to be desired.

This one’s for the fans, and the fans deserve it. Just don’t be surprised if you find yourself wishing for more from Command & Conquer Remastered. The RTS genre’s come a long way since 1995—and now that it’s finally showing signs of life again, maybe there’s more road to travel.

There's not much substance here, and certainly not enough for this game to stand on its own as a work of fiction. It's an episode, presented as not-an-episode. Judged on its own merits—not the plot lines it wraps up from the first game and not those it sets up for the last— The Banner Saga 2 is underwhelming.

Superhot's time-freezing antics are finally a full-length game. No plot. No nothing. Just killing red guys.

Mortal Kombat 11 is excellent if you’re in it for the story, and a solid fighting game underneath as well, but the experience is marred by rough edges. Given the state of NetherRealm’s last few games on PC, I’m not sure we could’ve expected much more. If anything, this is an improvement.

It’s a smooth, modern-feeling experience—more even than 0 and Kiwami, which already felt eminently playable, especially given the latter was a remake of a decade-old game.

Metro Exodus abandons the cramped corridors of the Moscow subway for wide-open expanses of Russian countryside, but Artyom's journey is still as bleak as ever—and as janky, though that should come as no surprise.

While it bears surface-level similarities to Fallout: New Vegas, Obsidian's created a deeper and more meaningful role-playing experience in The Outer Worlds, though it can still be frustratingly old-fashioned in regards to combat and exploration.

It just never hooked me. I’m not sure why Pyre feels padded while so many other games can use a similar structure and get away with it. Maybe—to add to the litany of reasons I mentioned earlier—maybe it’s the curse of being avant garde. Maybe we’re conditioned to accept the monotony of shooting hordes of faceless enemies, of swinging our sword at the same ten creatures for days on end. Maybe familiarity breeds contempt, but over-familiarity breeds acceptance.

Technobabylon's cyberpunk world isn't groundbreaking, but there's still plenty to love in this point-and-click adventure.

It's just another Gears game, but a more charismatic protagonist and a few experimental mechanics at least give the series a more firm footing going forward.

Sure, it doesn’t add much to the ol’ audiolog/email/locked room paradigm pioneered by its predecessors, nor does it reinvent the space station, but Prey and Talos I are so well-constructed I honestly don’t care. You’re given systems, you’re given spaces, you’re given a goal, and how you exploit the former to accomplish the latter is a source of so many surprises in Prey it makes up for the overfamiliar setting and story.

OlliOlli 2: Welcome to Olliwood is the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 of side-scrolling skateboarding games. And yes, that's a good thing.

Shadowrun: Hong Kong isn't the best RPG Harebrained Schemes has put out, but it's still a great game in its own right.

Jedi: Fallen Order borrows liberally from other games, but a strong supporting cast, clever level design, and a cute little droid companion make Respawn's Star Wars story more than the sum of its parts.

Unravel looks beautiful, but it's ultra-slick sheen with nothing much to say. Faux-emotional, if you will.

Firewatch is full of excellent dialogue, breathtaking moments, and stunning vistas, but ultimately amounts to nothing much at all.

Nostalgia will probably carry Halo: Reach and the rest of The Master Chief Collection even if the ports aren’t great. That’s the short of it. I’m hoping 343 can fix some of my issues, especially with the controls, but it’s a faint hope. As I said, 343 ran a multitude of beta tests this year, enough to delay the release by six months or so. The fact that these problems weren’t ironed out makes me worried they can’t be.

Anno 1800 will do for now. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before, and it’s a bit rough around the edges, but Anno’s still the most fun you can have with a glorified spreadsheet. Just be sure to build lots of bakeries.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare tries to be a serious commentary on present-day conflicts, but is mostly just another Call of Duty game by nature of the series's longstanding blind spots.

For all its problems—and there are many—Planet Zoo is one of the most satisfying builders I’ve ever played. Maybe not on the management side, which is still a thin and easily manipulated veneer. Guest opinions are weirdly arbitrary, as is cash flow. If you’re looking for a “difficult” builder, Planet Zoo ain’t it. I’m here to build my dream zoo though, and for that there’s no better option. After 30 hours I’ve yet to acquire some of the rarer animals—lions, orangutans, gorillas, rhinos. I’m also far from exhausting the themes, having barely touched the “New World” and “Indian” sets. There’s a lot here.

Bugs aside, The Fractured But Whole is another successful translation of South Park to video games. Conceptually I still think Stick of Truth was stronger—it managed to mock fantasy video games as much as the fantasy genre itself. Fractured But Whole is undoubtedly a better experience though, with deeper combat, the same engaging exploration, and a more cogent story.

Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair is one of those games that’s uniquely difficult to score. Is it bad? No. But did I enjoy it? Not really, and I don’t feel any draw to return.The Impossible Lair isn’t actually impossible, but it’s impossible for me, at this stage in my life. It could take a hundred more tries. It could take one. It doesn’t matter, because I’m just not feeling any draw to complete it. Maybe it’s just not my style of game. I definitely have more nostalgia for Banjo-Kazooie than I do Donkey Kong Country, and nostalgia’s seemingly what drives this series. Perhaps they’ll doYooka-Laylee-cross-GoldenEye next. Or Yooka-Laylee-cross-Myst. Then I’ll be right back on-board. But not this time.

A Plague Tale: Innocence would benefit from less busywork, but the grisly scenery and the sibling relationship at its core help make up for any shortcomings.

Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II is an atmospheric, intimate saga wrapped in a stunning setting, all at the expense of free and varied gameplay. If you don’t mind that playability takes a backseat, Hellblade II is a must-play for its exciting story and beautiful environments.

Age of Wonders: Planetfall has its issues. I confess I haven’t cared very much though. The jank is usually a result of over-ambition, of Planetfall trying to let the player do too damn much where another game would’ve gone for a simpler (or “more elegant”) solution. I can’t fault Triumph for that, even if the holes are obvious when listed out.

It’s a little less thoughtful than its peers, but the action is smooth and satisfying, and I love turning my squad into unstoppable death machines by chaining execution after execution. At one point I got five in the same turn, meaning each of my soldiers took seven actions. Relentless. As I said, I’m enjoying it more than any mainline Gears game this past decade.

Elsweyr is full of all kinds of wonderful things from the Elder Scrolls series—ranging from dragons and necromancers to Khajiit and assassins—but the main story doesn't pack as much of a punch as what we saw in ESO's previous two expansions. Fortunately, there's still plenty to love about the memorable side quests and the fantastic new Necromancer class.

Endless Space 2 is the rare 4X game where the writing is better than the strategy—though the strategy is still pretty decent.

Tyranny is flawed, but more in the vein of a future cult classic than a failure. It's got great ideas, just not the depth to let them shine.

The Evil Within II is just a smoother experience all around, though. Better pacing, better mechanics, better design, and just some of the craziest psychological trickery I’ve seen a game attempt. It’s so good I’m again tempted to go back and finally finish The Evil Within—but, well, maybe I’ll just stick with the sequel for my own sanity.

Dropsy isn't an amazing point-and-click, but it's clever and it's weird and it stands out—both artistically and thematically. I'm impressed with the game and doubly impressed with the amount of weird mysteries hidden below the surface. Expect to spend four or five hours actually playing and then another hour reading weird theories afterward.

EA Sports WRC is not for those who want an easy-to-digest rally race. But for anyone who wants a rally game that ranks realism and challenge a few notches higher than accessibility and flashy racing, EA Sports WRC is the best thing to happen to the genre since Dirt Rally 2.0.

A tense one-on-one respawn mechanic and excellent level design make for the best battle royale since Apex Legends. Now all it needs is a solo mode. [Impressions]

With its unique 1940's monster movie aesthetic and excellent voice casting, Wilson's Heart feels like the first "can't-miss" VR game. Too bad it's a Rift exclusive.

This massive expansion refines Dying Light's yummy formula, though it still suffers from some of the main game's faults. And at just $20, it's a steal.

I don’t think it’s very good, especially if you’ve a mind to play by yourself. It’s certainly addictive, and it certainly has plenty of stuff for you to do. That goes doubly for people who plan to roll with a squad of friends. As in Borderlands, the general tedium of loot-grinding is more fun when you’ve got people to chat with. If you’re looking for a mindless way to kill a few days/weeks, The Division exists...But don’t expect to remember much of it when it’s over.

Murder by Numbers isn’t perfect, but I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it and hope there’s a sequel. Honor, Scout, Detective Cross, and the gang deserve a second outing, ideally with more of a focus on the detective work—and perhaps a few headache-inducing 25x25 Picross puzzles as well.

The White March's second half salvages the slow pacing of the first and ultimately redeems Pillars of Eternity's expansion.

Deserts of Kharak achieves its goal: It’s made me tentatively excited for a forthcoming Homeworld 3. By staying largely faithful to the aesthetic of the originals, by recreating the harsh lived-in realism of that universe and the do-or-die exodus and the vast scale of the classics, Deserts of Kharak manages to feel like a proper part of Homeworld canon—even though it’s set on the surface of a planet.

Observation is grander than Stories Untold, more ambitious by half, but equally fascinating and inventive. It’s a pastiche of science fiction new and old but knows when to lean into expectations and when to subvert them, and its approach to mechanical realism is so uncompromising it becomes an artistic statement instead of mere mimicry. I’m already curious what’s next.

It’s not that anything Siege does is particularly new—tactical play (Counter-Strike, Arma, et cetera) mixed with a bit of destruction physics (Battlefield, Red Faction). But by taking these two aspects and expanding them to a scope supported by current hardware, Ubisoft has created a compelling game that feels unique.

Battle for Azeroth follows many of the same patterns we saw in Legion, but in some respects it feels like a minor reboot. It reminds us that Azeroth alone is a powerful reason to visit, much as it was in earlier years, when WoW wasn’t quite as focused on a major endgame baddy. The complications with the Azerite gear and the occasional tedious dungeons prove it’s not perfect, but there’s such a wealth of things to do here that the rough spots never detract from the whole.

Improvements to combat and a raft of new visual gags don’t make up for Shadow Warrior 2's flaccid story and aimless levels.

If VR survives I don’t think Fallout 4 VR is a game we look back on in 10 years and herald as an essential breakthrough, as a game that added to our understanding of the medium. It’s not. Those experiments are happening along the periphery in studios and engines and games that are much more flexible than Bethesda and the Creation Engine and Fallout 4. But as something for existing owners to pad out their libraries with, and as a demonstration of how expansive our worlds can get, and lastly as an ambassador from the world of bigger-budget projects? Let’s just say I expect quite a few of you will have those “Oh damn, it’s already 4 A.M.?” moments.