Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles

Anyone familiar with the concept of kitbashing is already halfway to understanding what Tomas Sala’s open-world builder is all about.

Dragon's Dogma 2

The road from Vernworth to Bakbattahl is scenic but arduous. Ignore the dawdling mobs of goblins, and duck beneath the chanting harpies that circle on the currents overhead, and even moving at a hurried clip it is impossible for a party of four to complete the journey by nightfall.

BLUE MANCHU

How enforced early retirement eventually led Jonathan Chey back to System Shock

Post Script

The pawn and the pandemic

Post Script

What does Rise Of The Ronin say for PS5 exclusivity?

THE MAKING 0F.... AMERICAN ARCADIA

How a contrast of perspectives added extra layers to a side-scrolling platform game

Children Of The Sun

René Rother’s acrid revenge thriller – an action game with its limbs broken and forcibly rearranged into the shape of a spatial puzzler – is at once a bonafide original and an unlikely throwback. Cast your eyes right and you wouldn’t blink if we told you this was a forgotten Grasshopper Manufacture game from the early PS3 era (we won’t be at all surprised if this finds a spot on Suda51’s end-of-year list).

Rise Of The Ronin

Falling in battle simply switches control to the next person up, and then quick revive fixes everything

Absolute state of the union

What this year's GDC says about the present and future of video game development

Here be Dragons

What does Poland's key game dev conference have in store?

VOID SOLS

This abstract indie Soulslike has some bright ideas

Star Wars: Dark Forces Remaster

The first-ever Star Wars FPS gets the remaster treatment

Penny's Big Breakaway

Spin it to win it

Bound by fate

Ys X: Nordics to get an English-language release this autumn

Stilt

A hopportunity for some silly fun

Brothers: A Tale Of Two Sons Remake

The remake proves this burning's still a fraternal flame

The Outlast Trials

Soon may the Skinner Man come

A Little To The Left

Ah, the cat's got into this puzzler

Host with the ghost

Surviving inside Celeste's hotel is tricky enough; try escaping with an enraged spectral manager in pursuit

Helldivers 2

This is an urgent communication from High Command

Pentiment

Peep out the manuscript, you'll see that it's a must

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

Call it a homecoming

Alone In The Dark

Needs more bright ideas

Morbid: The Lords Of Ire

Slash-happy soulslike loves slicing red bits out of bodies

WWE 2K24

Rock solid, yet wrestling itself into an annual headache

X BOX ON PS5

Exclusive no more. Xbox first-party games are making the jump to PlayStation. But what does that mean for theseconsole competitors, and the industry at large?

"Reduced offerings and a price hike make PS Plus essential a hard sell."

Ironically feeling less essential than ever, PS Plus is losing its appeal

"Jak II proves Naughty Dog doesn't need realism to make great characters."

Jak is every bit as real as later Naughty Dog protagonists

The Invincible

The planet Regis III is one of the most gorgeous videogame locations of the year. Its lush orange deserts look hand-painted, its starry skyboxes truly justify the word awesome, and the [SPOILER REDACTED] you discover there are truly, thrillingly alien. What an unmitigated triumph of art design and direction! Shame about the game.

Growing a backbone

Nekki's Dmitry Pimenov on how you're being empowered in cyberpunk superhero beat-'em-up Spine