DOOM The Dark Ages is an unrelenting barrage of visceral hyperviolence that comes at you thick and fast, leaving you overstimulated and exhausted but thrilled and gratified.

Though imperfect and moored to indelible design traditions and gameplay rituals, Assassin's Creed Shadows fizzes with style, intention, and detail, curating the best parts of the series into a confident and deeply enjoyable journey through feudal Japan.

Despite an inviting, off-kilter world and quality writing, Avowed abides by an almost arcane dedication to process and formula that drains it of its weird, compelling marrow. It's good, easygoing fun, though it won't linger long in the mind beyond the credits.

Despite offering a gritty medieval RPG sandbox with a layered, dynamic open world stacked with detail, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 is haunted by the same demons as the original.

A middle of the road, B-tier serving of polygonal slop that, while decked out with some power fantasy-satisfying grand-scale combat, quickly turns into a repetitive slog with very little in the way of a meaningful pay off.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is one of the best and most welcome surprises of the year.

You already know if you'll like GSC's newest entry in the series. If you like Call of Pripyat, you'll like this. If you didn't, Heart of Chornobyl rarely hides any true improvements to the formula. It's exactly what fans expect, albeit with a fancy, oftentimes gorgeous, new lick of paint and some modern sensibilities, but it's Stalker through and through - for better and for worse.

Batman: Arkham Shadow is a stunning virtual reality game, and a damn-good workout. Yes, you feel like Batman, but the game is more than just a simulator for Dark Knight roleplayers. It’s proof that any game concept can be adapted to a VR platform with enough care and skill, and it’s proof that VR has the sauce many claim it doesn’t. If you have a Quest 3, you need to play Batman. If you like Batman, you need a Quest 3.

Micro-transactions aside, NBA 2K25 is one of the best sports games to date. With its variety of game modes and stunning realism, it offers more than its predecessors. This game is a true delight for basketball fans, and if you're willing to overlook a couple of flaws, you're almost guaranteed to get hooked.

FC 25 is the first genuinely good FC game in years. A complete tactical overhaul underpins the game’s quality, with sweeping and much-needed changes to Career Mode backing it up, unfortunately, somewhat at the expense of Clubs and Ultimate Team.

Frostpunk 2 is a worthy sequel that ramps up the grit and immersion, but sheds some of the original's magic in the pursuit of innovation.

Endlessly creative and playful, The Plucky Squire's effortless hop between intertwined 2D and 3D worlds is an ode to the illustrated delights of storybooks.

DeathSprint 66 taps into a deeply disturbed corner of your imagination and begs you to die over and over again. You can't help but play along - it's that fun.

A faithful remaster of a classic RTS game with many enhancements that improve on an already great game.

Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions’ simplistic gameplay and barebones content are fun for a couple of hours, but provide little more depth than it likely would have as a minigame in Hogwarts Legacy.

Astro Bot is special, a beaming reminder that bright, unfettered play is a truly wonderful thing.

Space Marine 2 is a solid successor to Space Marine, fits well into the Warhammer universe, and offers engaging and fun action combat and shooting mechanics. It is slight marred by a limited map pool creating repetitiveness in the game's multiplayer progression-based features.

Madden 25 is the latest game in a series that appears to have either run out of ideas or simply has no interest in coming up with new ones. Small new additions do little to inspire excitement and a major overhaul feels desperately needed, and is the least that fans deserve.

College Football 25 is exactly the return to the series that fans will have wanted. The gameplay is solid, and sets itself apart from Madden in a way that rewards dedicated players, and the Dynasty mode will alone will keep you engaged endlessly. A lack of depth in the other modes and some fiddly UI pull the experience down a bit, but never by enough to hinder what the game does best.

While Nobody Wants to Die is not a long game, that short length has allowed the developers to pack in a solid detective story and a beautifully designed world with surprisingly deep lore. The investigation mechanics aren’t the best, but don’t let that put you off this slick, quick love letter to old-school detective films.

F1 Manager 2024 is certainly the best game in the series to date thanks to the small improvements on last year's game, but with few significant changes and how hit and miss the new mentality system currently are, while it might be a good game in its own right, it's not a sizeable upgrade on 2023's iteration.

Flintlock The Siege of Dawn epitomises the 7/10. Sporadic performance snags aside, it’s the ideal summer game – approachable and fun. It’s the sort of thing you’ll play once. Inessential but still worth your time.

The First Descendant is a bland dish presented on exquisite plating, whose stunning boss fights and interwoven upgrade systems are overpowered by shallow missions and grim monetisation. Nexon doesn’t invite you to a power fantasy, it sells you one by letting you pay to skip tiresome progression mechanics.

Smaller in scale than HoYo's other gacha games, Zenless Zone Zero is off to a good start. While the game suffers from pacing issues and a lack of variety, the combat is excellent in ZZZ. It helps it's backed up by an intriguing story and solid gameplay.

Shadow of the Erdtree is a sensational companion to the base game that feels remarkably fresh and a subtly progressive evolution of the Elden Ring formula.

The Final Shape is Destiny 2 firing on all cylinders, balancing a story of overwhelming odds with expertly paced combat and puzzles, all set in stunning environments. Much of the earlier complaints about the barrier to entry have been addressed, making for a seamless entry into the latest campaign.

Don’t get me wrong, F1 24 is by no means a bad, or even average game, and if you’re a fan of the series, you will absolutely have a great time with it. The new changes there are meaningful, especially for veterans of the series who enjoy getting to grips with the deeper mechanics. But if you’re a casual player just looking to jump on and do a few races now and then, F1 24 may feel less like a brand-new title, and more like a $70 update to a game you already own.

Despite varied factions and excellent maps, XDefiant’s shootouts are let down by a lack of identity and sluggish weapon progression. Outside an emphasis on making skill-based matchmaking optional, the game plays like every shooter from the last decade, leaning into nostalgia over attempting a breakthrough. While technical pitfalls can be resolved with seasonal updates, XDefiant needs novelty to sustain a player base.