Persona 5 – Royal or otherwise – is a beautiful thing. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if running your hands along the seam of a physical copy unveiled its inner workings like a watch's back being cracked open, with all its springs and ribbons ticking in unison. All the game's components mesh with one another to create a universe that just feels like it's meant to run alongside yours.

Regardless of the implements you use to battle your way through Hades 2’s beautifully illustrated regions, my favourite of which is a clever series of fights across the decks of ships in the Rift of Thessaly, as of 1.0 you can finally achieve Hades 2’s much-hyped true ending. How is it? Well, I’ll try not to stray too far into spoiler territory (though consider this your spoiler warning), but I think it’s one that might prove a bit polarising. On the one hand, Hades has always been a series about bringing families back together, and on that front the ending delivers no matter which way you slice it. On the other, given how often the motto "Death to Chronos" is repeated throughout, the manner in which he ends up defeated arguably isn’t as satisfying a form of retribution as is built up over all of those hours.

In such a crowded and accomplished genre, getting within spitting distance of these all-time heavyweights is still mighty impressive in my books, and I will absolutely be playing more of it in the months to come.

That's the thing about Elden Ring, its open world has your back, in its own - often painful - way. Souls has always been about inching through claustrophobic corridors and bashing your skull against whatever's in the way. You compare foreheads with friends, "Look at this bruise Barry, that's me five hours in". And Barry would probably peel his hair back and reveal the exact same bruise. Adventures in past Souls games tend to line up, as you're all wandering down the same pathways. But that's not the case with Elden Ring. You might show your bruise to Barry and he'll peel his hair back to reveal a scar or a massive indent or a tattoo of a mouse tustling with a skeleton. Both of may be five hours in but you'll be on totally different trajectories. No matter how hostile the game's world may be, it pushes you to succeed and carve out your own adventures. It is, by far, the most encouraging Souls yet. [RPS Bestest Bests]

Dwarf Fortress is a long-term investment. Playing it is a skill that you need to hone, it requires research and planning. It’s almost a hobby in itself, demanding time and effort. Even in this much more approachable form, it still isn’t a game for everyone, but for a particular flavour of colony simmer, it’s catnip. It’s massive and messy and beautiful, and now I can put it down while I’m hyper-fixating on Star Wars or the next big Marvel drop, and not have to worry about starting over from scratch again when I come back to it later.

But mainly I just yearn for more Half-Life, in whatever form Valve wants to deliver it. It was about three hours after reaching the game’s thrilling, won’t-spoil-it, can’t-wait-to-talk-about-it conclusion that a thought occurred to me: for a brief moment I had a new Half-Life game to play, and now, again, I do not. I hope I don’t have to wait for brain-computer interfaces to exist before the series returns again, because despite a handful of complaints, I still think Valve make the best first-person shooters around. [RPS Bestest Bests]

From its origin stories to its brief emergent narratives, few games let you take part in better tales than this one. [RPS Recommended]

God Of War feels like a game crafted from the ground up by a team of many people all pulling towards the same thing: to make you feel emotions about these two boys. But also, to really enjoy it. [RPS Bestest Bests]

Mostly good, sometimes bad, never ugly. A prequel to a story that never made it to PC and which, honestly, makes me jealous of people coming to it for the first time. But even as someone who has spent a huge amount of time in this world, it’s a trip I’m more than happy to be taking again. A staggering technical achievement; a deliciously gooey shooter; the most accurate mud simulator outside of actual mud; a great advert for the healing power of peaches. However you approach Red Dead Redemption 2, there’s something to impress here. And on PC, it’s at its most impressive. [RPS Bestest Bests]

It easily carried itself on the strength of its emotional impact. Which is great, for me. But I’m curious as to whether newer players will have the time to build up the investment necessary for it to lean on that before they’re thrown into the end game. It seems difficult to pace a story that will unfold radically differently for so many. Not only are players jumping in now getting a very different approach to Hades’ plot, so too does it depend on how good players are and therefore how quickly they progress through the various layers of hell.

I sank deep into Requiem when it was purposefully managing this tension vs purge dynamic. Grace’s elongated bouts of slow-paced stealth while hoarding ammo, evading ghouls and hiding from ceiling-dwelling abominations were like teetering on a precarious sheet of glass that I always just managed to scarper across. Leon’s brief symphonies of gory carnage were like taking a hammer to that glass. They complement each other so well. When Leon starts to dominate the game, there’s still fun to be had in spite of the dragging plot, but trudging through the darkest depths of Rhodes Hill is worth the price of admission alone. If that’s a glimpse at the future of Resident Evil, I want a bigger portion that I can really sink my teeth into.

Although the performance issues take the shine off things, I can still comfortably say Street Fighter 6 is the most fun I’ve ever had with any fighting game on release. After the disastrous launch that was Street Fighter 5, seeing Street Fighter back on top form again just feels right - and I’m extremely excited to see what the next year of content updates can do for a game that already feels this mechanically polished at launch.

If you hadn't gotten the message by now, Blue Prince is a marvel. [RPS Bestest Bests]

Me? I loved this expansion, I really did. But I'm happy Elden Ring is done and it's a reminder that I'd like FromSoftware to move Souls in a different direction. An even trimmer direction, perhaps. I can recall Bloodborne and Dark Souls as neat packages of horror, but Elden Ring and Erdtree? I'm unsure whether they'll stick with me quite the same.

Okami is a delight from start to finish. [RPS Recommended]

The brilliance of Undertale, its delicate balance that it manages for most of the time you’ll spend playing it, is that it understands how to be scary and funny all at once.

Endwalker isn’t quite as tight of an experience as the previous expansion Shadowbringers and definitely suffers from a few pacing issues, but it’s still a must for Final Fantasy fans and exceeded all of my expectations. It’s also showing its age graphically now (the grapes memes attests to that), but if you love the main FF games and still haven’t tried this MMO yet, then you really need to fix that (when the game goes back on sale again of course) as you’re missing out on one of the greatest FF tales of all time. A genuine must play despite its flaws.

Despite my whining here at the end, I do genuinely believe Metaphor is a very good RPG and a grand adventure absolutely worth undertaking. It's slick in its presentation, in its storytelling, and especially in its combat. Everyone, no matter if you're a strategy god or a story hound will be served a good slice of both, perhaps spurring on more of an interest in the one side you hadn't explored before. And it's a better game than Persona, particularly Persona 5. But I think its focus skews more towards combat and less towards its characters, which makes it more of a thing that you'll put down and go, "that was really great", and not, "I want to exist here forever with my pals".

It’s not CD Projekt’s best work, but it’s worthy enough. It’s good story, a well told story, but simply nowhere near the excellent craft of Hearts of Stone, which used the increased space but tighter focus of its DLC for a character piece.

Against The Storm is designed to be returned to time and time again, except here a fresh start is always seen as progress. It makes for a construction game that wraps up at precisely the moment it begins to lose momentum. It is a wonderful, wonderful thing. [RPS Bestest Bests]

It really feels like Blizzard bet everything on Overwatch’s 21 heroes and it absolutely paid off. Overwatch already feels as timeless as Blizzard’s other games, and it feels weird to realize that this is the first time we’ve seen any of these heroes. I definitely have some concerns about where Overwatch will be headed in the future, but I’m not thinking about that as I teleport across the map as Tracer. No, I’m thinking about how I’m going to get behind that Bastion to take that asshole down. I’m thinking about how good it’s going to feel seeing him crumple into metal parts. I’m thinking about how much fun I’m having. The one thing I’m not thinking about? Going to bed.

My point is: YOUR favourites are probably still here. And if they are, you'll be content to kick and/or punch. There isn't anything revolutionary happening aside from the Heat meter and all that it entails. But a lot of the quality of life improvements and subtle design tweaks stack up. Practice mode alone has become an excellently robust training zone that clearly displays a lot of handy info about frame advantage and move properties. For pros, streamers and rank-chasers, the transfer to this sequel is therefore a no-brainer. And since little else quite like Tekken exists in the fighting game niche (don't listen, little Soul Calibur 3) the rest of us pugilistic rubes will only get FOMO if we don't follow. So when I face Death, I guess Tekken 8 it is.

Such player-driven drama, comedy, and action eclipses anything in the disappointing scripted narrative. The Phantom Pain is one of the worst Metal Gear stories ever told. It functions neither as a standalone narrative nor as worthwhile insight into the series overall. And yet, The Phantom Pain is the best stealth-action game ever made, one where playing flawlessly is just as thrilling as outright failure. And boy – what a thrill.

While Burnout Paradise Remastered still offers more involved gameplay on a second-to-second basis while still offering a similarly gleeful atmosphere there isn’t another open world racing game so exquisitely polished as this. If you’ve played a Forza Horizon game before then you might feel a slight sense of deja vu, but you won’t care as the formula has been perfected at last. The best sound and visuals, the most variety of gameplay, the best editors, superb car handling… it’s sheer class. And so, so big. Yes, it really is the best modern open world driving game, so get it. [RPS Bestest Bests]

I think I’ll need another year of playing it to work out exactly what I think of it, but that’s another way of saying I want to play it for a year, so it must be pretty good.

This is not a replacement of the original game. Far from it. In my mind, it occupies the same space as its (exceptional) VR version. A retelling of a classic crafted on its own terms. A brilliant action shooter that is big and daft and brilliant. When asked what my favourite game of all time is moving forward, my answer will remain the same, only richer and more complex as a result of this excellent remake. Resident Evil 4, I’ll say, and whatever interpretation they think of will be entirely correct. [RPS Bestest Bests]

Very occasionally, I'll play an RPG that makes me feel ten again. Rebirth. Cris Tales. Revisiting Suikoden. Years come, the big number ticks down, and comfortable appreciation replaces the spellbound enchantment of being told a story, of being swept off to a new world. Of playing Final Fantasy 8 in that special edition shirt that Ben Starr likes to wear that I wish I'd kept because I bet it's worth a bloody fortune now. You wait for a game to bring you back there, mostly certain you've moved passed the capacity to feel that way because you now have the sort of adult concerns that cause you ask how much a shirt might be worth on Ebay. I can't say if Clair Obscur will work its magic on everyone the same way, but it certainly did for me. I'm still not ready to leave, honestly. What a special and rare thing this is: a story that feels like someone wanted to tell it so badly it hurt. [RPS Bestest Bests]

A masterpiece, but flawed, and proof positive that if ZA/UM can do flawed masterpiece for their first outing, they might already be chipping away the flaws in time for their next.