Lysfanga: The Time Shift Warrior's time-bending combat hook is so smart, you'll want to show it to everyone you know.
Whether you love the high-octane spectacle of Final Fantasy XVI or the character collection of Genshin Impact, Granblue Fantasy: Relink has a little something for you. It’s a smart blend of ideas, even if it’s a bit torn between console and mobile gaming philosophies. More importantly, though, it does all that without sacrificing the playful energy the RPG genre was built on.
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is the most emotionally impactful chapter in gaming’s best soap opera. It struggles to stay fully engaging from start to finish due to a supersized runtime filled with exhausting exposition dumps, but developer Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio delivers a deeply personal story that’s serious without sacrificing its heart. If any video game could leave you with a new lease on life, it’s this.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora can't put its human nature aside long enough to properly honor the Na'vi.
A Highland Song successfully brings the awe-inspiring freedom of Breath of the Wild to the Scottish Highlands.
Super Mario RPG isn't necessarily an improvement over the 1996 version, but it's at least a more approachable experience for kids.
American Arcadia turns The Truman Show into an interactive indie thriller you don't want to miss.
The Talos Principle 2 excels at giving players a suite of brain-busting puzzles built around strong eureka moments, even if it can feel as long-winded as a philosophy professor with its wandering existential monologues. Only the most determined genre experts may see the end of its super-sized story, but those who brave its gauntlet of mysterious islands are sure to walk away with newfound confidence in their ability to accomplish the impossible.
WarioWare: Move It! is a much-needed reset for a series that’s long struggled to hit the creative heights of its Nintendo Wii entry. A return to the physical fun of WarioWare: Smooth Moves is just what the doctor ordered, making for one last must-own Switch party game that’s not afraid to cut loose. Though it takes two steps forward, it's a step back from Get It Together’s most ingenious modes, leaving more space for Nintendo to perfect its wackiest series.
Like its hero, Thirsty Suitors is a charmingly messy game that juggles a little more than it can handle. Its multipronged gameplay loop wobbles between inventive and repetitive over the course of its eight-hour story. What it lacks in polish, though, it makes up for with a nuanced narrative about how the past isn’t always a haunting specter to hide from.
Save for a few odd gameplay quirks and frustrating tech issues at launch, Alan Wake 2 is Remedy Interactive’s most confident, fully realized creative vision to date. It fully pays off the long-simmering potential of the studio’s interconnected universe to create a densely detailed, cerebral experience about the nature of horror – both in the nightmares we face in everyday life and the scary stories we create to cope with them.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder is both a return to form and a delightful transformation of the classic 2D series.
The 7th Guest VR is haunted by clumsy motion controls, but satisfying puzzle design keeps this 90s PC remake alive.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 delivers a personal story about two busybodies struggling to find balance in their lives, while all webbed up in larger-than-life comic book arcs. That’s a perfect match for Insomniac’s winning action-adventure formula, which is improved in almost every conceivable way here. Its expansive narrative and open-world checklists may feel overwhelming at times, but that effectively drives home its ultimate point: Great power isn’t a cure for great responsibility.
Sonic Superstars nails the fundamentals of 2D Sonic design, but its new features don't add much to the retro formula.
Saltsea Chronicles is a poignant nautical adventure about the distances between us and what we gain from crossing them.
Detective Pikachu Returns works as a charming interactive cartoon, but its simplified deduction takes some of the mystery out of it.
Cocoon is a mesmerizing debut for Geometric Interactive that's filled with ingenious puzzles that will unlock your animal instincts.
Payday 3 doesn't shake up its predecessor's formula much, but a strong batch of initial heists sets the live service shooter up for success.
The Teal Mask contains your average monster catching fun, but it doesn't do enough to address Pokémon Scarlet and Violet's biggest problems.