Action games, RPGs, soulslikes, and atmospheric horror. Treats encounter design and combat readability as the load-bearing parts of a review.
The class system in Visions of Mana is a design argument, not a feature list. Equipping an Elemental Vessel does not simply add a new move; it reclassifies the character it sits…
Title Update 2 does not expand Monster Hunter Wilds so much as it refines the terms of the contract the base game established. The new flagship monster is not the largest thing in…
Eight months into its free-to-play lifecycle, skate. has accumulated something that most live-service games cannot build in twice the time: a trick vocabulary that earns the…
Monster Hunter Wilds launched with a combat system that earned its difficulty through staged encounter design: each new creature introduced attack patterns that built on…
Eleven months on from release, Deltarune Chapter 3 has clarified its argument. The chapter's central mechanic, a TV studio dark world governed by a host named Tenna who is…
The thing Phantom Blade Zero has been doing across eighteen months of showcase appearances is something the soulslike-adjacent genre rarely manages in pre-release footage: it has…
Eight years is a long time to hold a contract open. Bethesda announced The Elder Scrolls 6 at E3 2018 with a teaser that confirmed a location and nothing else, and in the years…
Pearl Abyss shipped Crimson Desert on 2026-03-19. Two months on, what the launch actually argued is easier to read than the pre-release signal ever was: a studio that changed what…
The Witcher 4 has been in full production for less than two years, which means every release window estimate is extrapolation dressed as reporting.
The job system in Final Fantasy Tactics does not teach itself through failure. It teaches itself through deliberate wrong choices, sustained long enough that the player…
Pokemon Legends: Arceus built its argument on distance, and Z-A builds its counter-argument on density. Where Arceus spread the player across open tundra and spent its design…
The stealth genre exists because a hardware constraint forced a designer to build something he had not planned. Kojima's MSX2 could not render enough enemies for a conventional…
Adaptation solved what a decade of origination could not. Bloober Team demonstrated this by remaking someone else's masterpiece, and the argument is not close.
The dual-protagonist design is the contract Assassin's Creed Shadows makes at the title screen and cannot afford to break. Naoe and Yasuke are not mechanical twins assigned to…
South of Midnight is a ten-to-twelve-hour Southern Gothic action-adventure from Compulsion Games that uses its spirit-transformation combat to carry folklore argument rather than…
Hi-Fi Rush is a rhythm-action character game from Tango Gameworks that constructs its entire design around one structural argument: that rhythm internalisation is a learnable…
Marathon is Bungie's first non-Destiny shooter in over a decade, and its structural argument is clear from the first session: gunplay is the load-bearing element, and every other…
Diablo IV has a loot problem it refuses to solve, and that refusal is the most important design decision in the game. Eight classes, a continent-spanning open world across…
Horizon Forbidden West is a machine-combat game wearing an open-world RPG's clothing, and the distinction matters. Guerrilla Games understood that the Tremortusk fight, the…
God of War Ragnarök is a large game that has learned to manage its own scale. The combat system inherited from the 2018 reboot is tighter here: the Leviathan Axe and the Blades of…
The quarantine zone does not explain itself. Atomfall drops the player into Skethermoor with a name they cannot remember and a landscape that has been doing something terrible for…
Elden Ring builds its difficulty into geography; FromSoftware's earlier games built it into enemy AI. That distinction is still the cleanest way to explain why this game works…
Scoring 8.6/10, The Last of Us Part I on PS5 rebuilds the 2013 classic from scratch with sharper character models, lighting, and sound design that heighten every emotional beat.…
Scoring 7.6/10, Hell Is Us builds its entire design around one bold idea: no minimap, no quest markers, just observation and your own notes. Hadea’s war-ravaged setting is bleak…
Scoring 7.2/10, Lost Soul Aside delivers the Devil May Cry-adjacent combat its trailers promised, with boss fights demanding real timing and restraint. Weapon switching and…
Scoring 7.4/10, Mafia: The Old Country swaps open-world sprawl for a tightly directed Sicilian crime drama set in the early 1900s. On PS5, the setting is richly realised, with…
Scoring 8.8/10, Silksong evolves the original Metroidvania formula around Hornet’s speed and flexibility. Hand-drawn presentation and atmospheric world design remain series…
Scoring 7.2/10, Gears of War Reloaded is a high-quality preservation job rather than a transformative remake. Crisp 4K visuals, near-instant loading, and thoughtful DualSense…
Scoring 8.6/10, Bloober Team’s Silent Hill 2 remake shifts to an over-the-shoulder camera and modernised combat without sanding off the town’s strangeness. Atmosphere is the star,…
Scoring 8.7/10, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II on PS5 Pro is a rare blend of old-school simulation and modern console comfort. Warhorse’s 15th-century Bohemia is harsh, funny, and…
Scoring 9.2/10, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach feels both bigger and more focused than its predecessor. The deliberate dance of weight, balance, and connection returns, now…
Scoring 8.6/10, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater rebuilds a stealth classic in Unreal Engine 5 with lavish jungles, cinematic lighting, and crisp 3D audio. Modernised controls…
Scoring 8.4/10, Forza Horizon 5 arrives on PS5 in near-definitive form. The handling still balances instant accessibility with genuine depth, and Mexico’s festival map remains a…
Scoring 8.5/10, The Outer Worlds 2 on PS5 expands Obsidian’s cult RPG with deeper choice-and-consequence systems, improved combat, and a richly sketched new star system.…
Scoring 8.1/10, Miles Morales refines Insomniac’s open-world formula into a shorter, character-focused tale set in a snow-covered New York. Venom powers and camouflage give combat…
Scoring 8.6/10, Astro Bot transforms Sony’s tech demo mascot into the star of a confident, full-length platformer. Team Asobi constantly introduces fresh ideas without losing…
Scoring 7.6/10, Silent Hill f is the series’ boldest left turn in years. Set in 1960s rural Japan, it transplants psychological horror with sharp social themes and a level of…
Scoring 8.6/10, Jurassic World Evolution 3 is the definitive dinosaur park builder. Juvenile dinosaurs, family breeding, and vastly improved modular construction tools deepen the…
Scoring 8.7/10, ARC Raiders distils extraction shooters into tense, approachable PvPvE raids where smart AI and proximity chat turn strangers into temporary allies. PS5 Pro…
Scoring 8.2/10, Anno 117: Pax Romana brings the series to its earliest historical setting, Rome in 117 AD. Familiar production chains meet improved planning tools and light…
Scoring 8.6/10, Ghost of Yotei shifts the series to 1603 Hokkaido with a harder-edged revenge tale. Atsu wields five distinct weapons in a fluid combat system demanding constant…
Ori and the Will of the Wisps 8.6/10 Buy on Amazon Price and availability from Amazon TL;DR: Score: 8.6/10. Ori and the Will of the Wisps is a metroidvania built around a single…
Resident Evil 4 Remake Buy on Amazon Price and availability from Amazon TL;DR: Score: 8.4/10. Resident Evil 4 Remake is a remake that understood what it was remaking. Every…
Red Dead Redemption 2 is one of the greatest open worlds ever made, running on PS5 via backwards compatibility at 30fps with no native enhancements. At the current sale price it…
The deepest combat system on PS5 belongs to a game most people will never finish. Nioh 3’s dual Samurai/Ninja combat is the best melee action on PS5. Nothing else comes close. It…
A 2D Metroidvania has no business being the most emotionally honest game in the God of War franchise. Sons of Sparta earns its name through story and score, not combat. Bear…
Nvidia has now delivered three distinct flagship architectures in roughly three years, which is an unusual pace for an industry that spent most of the 2010s moving on five-year…
The best-feeling shooter of 2026 launched with three maps, a hostile UI, and a battle pass that insulted its own audience. Marathon’s gunplay is flawless. Everything around it is…
Capcom rebooted Resident Evil Requiem, internally the ninth mainline entry, during development, scrapping a multiplayer open-world concept to refocus on what the franchise does…
The dual-protagonist decision was Assassin's Creed Shadows' loudest argument before launch; a year on, it's the one that has settled cleanest. The Assassin's Creed Shadows review…
Tempest Rising channels classic Command & Conquer energy with modern production values, asymmetric factions, and a chunky two-campaign package. Our full PC review and verdict.
Crimson Desert is Pearl Abyss's ambitious open-world action RPG set on the fictional continent of Pywel. Combat is deep, combo-driven, and deeply rewarding on PS5, layering melee,…
The Dragon Age Veilguard review that launch reception could not write was always about encounter design. BioWare released a direct-control action-RPG in October 2024 into a…
Opening A $49.99 RPG should not be embarrassing its $69.99 competition. Avowed is the best-written RPG on PS5 this year, and the humblest. A year after its Xbox debut, with the…
Legacy of the Forge is the KCD2 expansion that gives Henry roots. At £11.49, the blacksmithing system, guild progression, and forge restoration loop deliver the most content-rich…
Brushes with Death is a side story that knows its scale. At £4.99, Warhorse delivers a ten-quest arc carried almost entirely by the strength of its writing and the charm of its…
Baldur’s Gate 3 (9.4/10) is the more polished, accessible RPG with superior graphics and D&D-flavoured storytelling. Divinity: Original Sin II (8.7/10) offers deeper tactical…
Silent Hill 2 (8.6/10) is the stronger package, pairing a devastating psychological story with modernised over-the-shoulder gameplay. Silent Hill f (7.6/10) takes a bolder…
Mysteria Ecclesiae is the KCD2 expansion that takes the biggest risk, and it is the better for it. At £11.49, Warhorse strips Henry of his armour, locks the monastery gate, and…
The stagger system is Khazan's argument: every other mechanic exists to make it legible. A year on, the question isn't whether Neople built something competent; the question is…
Wuchang's first boss teaches a multi-phase contract: the player learns the spatial vocabulary by failing the second phase before they have learned to read the first.
Monster Hunter Wilds does not rebuild the contract; it sharpens it. What Capcom's Production Studio 6 has constructed across the Forbidden Lands is the clearest argument the…
The route through Animal Well is the work. Billy Basso's solo-developed puzzle-metroidvania arrived on 9 May 2024 with a deceptively simple premise: explore a luminous,…
The transformations are not a feature. They are the argument.
Scoring 8.7/10, Divinity: Original Sin II on PS5 remains a high-water mark for turn-based RPG design. Rivellon’s reactive world rewards curiosity and creative problem-solving…
The AAA metroidvania should not work. The form's economy is indie-shaped: small studios with strong design discipline, tight scope, and the freedom to refuse padding.
Scoring 7.4/10, Black Ops 7 on PS5 is saved by its side modes. Multiplayer is fast, polished, and built on a strong launch map set, whilst Zombies remains an easy co-op…
Nightreign does not ask whether FromSoftware could compress Elden Ring into a forty-minute co-op loop. It answers that question, stages the encounter between session design and…
Scoring 8.2/10, Borderlands 4 on PS5 refines the series with sharper gunplay, agile movement, and a more balanced tone that lets character beats land. Kairos’ seamless world…
Scoring 8.8/10, The Last of Us Part II Remastered is more than a visual upgrade. No Return, a roguelike survival mode, transforms the stealth-action into endlessly replayable…
