Elsewhere, there's a mission to reach the stratosphere, as well as five "high-speed, low-level" challenges that are also focused on navigating tricky, mountainous terrain without crashing and exploding and dying.
Combining moody and gratifying ship-on-ship combat with shallow live service trappings, Skull and Bones is great within the claustrophobic parameters of what market forces allow it to be.
A prickly 2D Metroidvania with a curious twist, Dandara admirably finds something new to do with the genre, but it's tough work to get onboard.
The pixel-art is faultless and the gameplay is pleasingly reminiscent of the classics, but Timespinner doesn't offer much that feels new.
A blissfully fluid action game with a compelling twist, let down occasionally by tedious encounters.
A decent enough expansion, but it doesn't reach the great heights of previous post-launch outings.
A challenging and atmospheric platformer with a remarkable sense of tension, occasionally let down by finicky controls and unfair fail states.
Easy going in tone but frantic and stressful by nature, Screencheat seizes on a single novel idea and builds an enjoyable couch shooter around it.
A bizarre, confronting and darkly funny descent into hell, Indika takes a lot of risks and mostly sticks the landing.
Gory and moody, The Callisto Protocol doesn't mess with the survival horror formula, instead embracing all its beats and clichés to tell a grim sci-fi tale that drips with menace.
A satisfying, moreish take on the roguelike formula, and one that's most likely to appeal to genre naysayers.
An engaging, vibrant and challenging platformer that adds narrative to a genre often shy of it.
Few will see the more remote corners of Rain World’s relentlessly dire stretch, but those who do are unlikely to forget the experience.
Kalimba is a beautiful, cheerful platformer that finds a neat middle ground between reflex-oriented running and taxing puzzle solving.
A beautiful adventure platformer with a cheerful pixel art veneer, but with very modern themes.
A satisfying, self-contained adventure that plays to the series' strengths, but doesn't add anything novel outside of its storytelling.
Spelunky 2 doesn't advance the original's formula, but there's more stuff to sink your teeth into.
A sleep-destroying puzzle metroidvania of baffling depth, Animal Well may go down in history as one of the genre's best.
A masterful distillation of classic action-platforming gameplay, doling out tension and elation in equal measure.
A big, beautiful, sprawling action RPG full of rich stories, and suffused with an oppressive darkness.