The crowning achievement of the series, offering a post-apocalyptic experience that's terrifying.
Wargroove is a brilliant turn-based tactics experience featuring memorable characters and lore.
Outer Wilds is a time-bending thrill ride that never ceases to amaze.
Hellmut: The Badass from Hell does the dungeon crawling genre proud.
Ashen is one of the best indie games of the year, drawing heavily from past RPGs like Dark Souls and Legend of Zelda.
Mortal Kombat 11 is the best fighting game in years, featuring polished combat and a ridiculously fun story.
Unruly Heroes is an exciting adventure platformer featuring varied combat mechanics and a fun story.
World of Warships: Legends features a lot of fast-paced, tense naval combat but too much focus on microtransactions.
Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia doesn't reinvent the strategy game, but it's a perfect representation of everything is does well.
These are minor design flaws, however, and most can be overlooked because the rest of The Persistence is simply astounding. It's not just a successful port from VR to console and PC, it's a terrifying and unique roguelike/first-person horror hybrid. And every experience will be a new one, which means there's nearly endless scares to be found within. The Persistence is horror gaming done right, and that has little to do with whether it's VR or not.
Hypercharge: Unboxed doesn't revolutionize the shooter market or offer anything new, but what it does provide is a highly polished, chaotic, and lovingly crafted experience for players who have an itch for retro games and addictive combat loops. There's certainly an argument to be made that this version is coming a little too late into its life cycle, but if Hypercharge: Unboxed can find a consistent and renewed audience with this long-awaited release on Xbox consoles, then perhaps the future is indeed bright for this zany, old school shooter.
Black Desert Online is highly addictive and layered but it does not offer much in originality.
LEGO Harry Potter Collection offers fun even if it doesn't offer anything new.
Just Cause 4 refuses to reinvent the series, but it still offers a thrilling, over-the-top ride for fans.
Damsel is a spirited, fast-paced platformer that is enhanced by its comic book inspirations.
Override: Mech City Brawl is a lot deeper in content than it appears and its multiplayer is incredibly entertaining.
Aftercharge's unique multiplayer is enough to overcome its lack of diverse game modes.
Astroneer is a fun, laid back space explorer sandbox that's nearly undone by frame rate and crashing issues.
Warlock's Tower puts a unique spin on the classic puzzler genre.
NASCAR Heat 4 is a fun and realistic racing game with tons of customization options.