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.

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.

It’s got an interesting world, and a creative puzzle mechanic hook that could be very interesting if expanded upon. I should mention I never got tired of looking at it either. The Bradwell Foundation’s Brutalist and Bauhaus influences are a gorgeous low-poly complement to what we saw in Control earlier this year, and I love the effort that went into the various posters and props. But even those elements are mostly front-loaded. I rarely say “I wish this game were longer,” but in the case of The Bradwell Conspiracy I think it could’ve used probably twice as long to tell its story, and twice as many puzzles to take advantage of the SMP.

Power through, and John Wick Hex can be incredibly satisfying though. That’s the flip side of the perennial difficulty argument. I’ve rarely felt more relieved than completing a segment of John Wick Hex on my last bullet and Wick’s last legs.

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.

For now, as I said, I’m (mostly) enjoying Ghost Recon Breakpoint. It’s mindless, and I’ve definitely listened to a handful of podcasts already while tooling around Auroa. But I’m at least pausing them whenever major story beats occur, because Bernthal really is that damn good. He’s carrying this entire game on his back, as far as I’m concerned. Whether I finish it? And whether we ever write a proper review? That remains to be seen. Destiny 2’s new Shadowkeep expansion released today, so it’s a big week for thousand-hour shooters—and quite frankly, I’d rather play Destiny.

Shadowkeep feels a bit thin at the moment I think, but that’s because Bungie no longer treats expansions like one-and-done releases. Sure, there’s a new campaign, but really Shadowkeep is just the appetizer for another year of Destiny 2.

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.

Man of Medan doesn’t tell the most unique story, and indeed you’ll probably unravel it long before the characters do. It’s unique in the telling though, and often that’s what counts more.

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.

Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is an impossibly ambitious game, attempting to summarize the whole of human evolution into the span of a few hours—and succeeding to a surprising degree.

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.

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.

Youngblood might not become your favorite, but a lot of what I like about Wolfenstein remains intact. The environments are beautifully detailed, with tons of bastardized (Nazified) nods to ‘80s pop culture, including a hilarious knockoff of Prince that makes me laugh every time I see it. The story’s entertaining as well, and I plan to see it through to the end despite the bits I don’t love.

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.

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.

The jump scares are a bit overdone, same as the original Layers of Fear, and there’s an abysmal chase sequence in the second act that could’ve been cut completely. Still, Bloober Team’s rapidly proved itself as a master of psychological horror, using symbolism in ways most games don’t even attempt, let alone achieve. So what if it’s not very scary? There’s more important work to be done. Great work.

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.

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.

I hoped for better. I’m still plugging away at it, and I’m not willing to slap a score onto Rage 2 this early. That said, it’s not doing much for me at this point in time. I’ve found myself wanting to reinstall Doom and replay that instead. It’ll take half the time, and I think I’d probably have twice as much fun.

Forager simply does away with any pretense. It’s incredibly successful at what it does, and by that judgment I’d recommend it. That said, I was relieved when I finally hit max level and the bonds broke. I Alt-F4ed and uninstalled it.

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.

It has potential. Imperator: Rome attempts to wrangle Paradox’s entire legacy into a single all-encompassing game. It hasn’t got there, not yet, but I know it can get there—and probably will, given Paradox’s track record. It’s just a matter of when.

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.

Heaven's Vault is rough around the edges, but its sense of discovery and self-fulfillment are unparalleled thanks to its commitment to player agency and its unique language-translation mechanic.

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.

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.

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.