Whether it’s Morrowind, Oblivion, or Skyrim, a lot of us have very fond memories of the Elder Scrolls series of games. Yes, we know there are others in the series, but if we are all being honest these three are the cream of the crop. When it comes to the cream of the crop, the open-world RPG genre has a lot of excellent entries, but the specific vibe of an Elder Scrolls game is often solely reserved for the output of Bethesda Game Studios. Well, Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon is here and despite being in Early Access, it already feels like an incredible game that hits those Elder Scroll-esque vibes.
Set within a very grimdark version of the Arthurian legends, Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon – like any open-world RPG worth its salt – provides you full freedom (from character creation to playstyle to combat and more) as you embark on a myriad of quests across its open world. Kicking off with you in jail – a rather fitting homage – things take a twisted and somewhat unexpected turn upon your escape, as you come face to face with a zombie. Throw in the massively unsettling giant statue and red and black tendrils you encounter not long after, and it’s fair to say things aren’t quite right in the world of Avalon.
Whilst it’s nice to experience the high-fantasy settings of much of the genre’s fare – including the aforementioned Elder Scrolls series – there’s something deeply refreshing about this more horrifying depiction of might and magic. And it’s a depiction that continues to grow, as each major update to its Early Access state brings with it a whole host of new lore and content for you to sink your teeth into and just like any true RPG, it offers plenty of replayability – even in its current state – thanks to its morality choices and variety of character build options.
To top things off further, Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon even has a demo for you to download and enjoy – meaning you can get to grips with the controls, setting and combat without committing to a purchase. That being said, however, if you are an Elder Scrolls fan – or an open-world RPG fan in general – Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon should definitely be your next purchase, as it’s an excellent game with a unique and interesting take on a fantasy setting that is only going to go from strength to strength.
Even though 2024 was hardly lacking in Game of the Year candidates, it looks set to pale in comparison to the mammoth selection of seemingly certified bangers that 2025 is tipped to bring. From the looter shooter-flavoured, jet-black comedy of Borderlands 4 to the all-encompassing sensation that Grand Theft Auto 6 will surely become, here are our most anticipated games of 2025.
Borderlands 4
Gearbox Software’s bombastic looter shooter fourquel (that’s a thing, right?), certainly knows the audience it’s aiming for. Much like its super successful predecessors, players can expect a refinement of the wheel, rather than a reinvention of it, as Borderlands 4 once more entices players to murder all manner of evil-doers for fame, loot and more weapons than you can shake a hairy stick at. In addition to the return of the series black comedy, Borderlands 4 not only relocates the action to the all-new planet of Kairos, but the latest entry in the series also provides a roster of new Vault Hunters to wreak havoc with as well.
Crimson Desert
The long-gestating new effort from Black Desert developer Pearl Abyss, Crimson Desert marks something of a departure for the typically online-focused Korean studio. Though Crimson Desert takes place in the same universe as the online-only Black Desert, Pearl Abyss’ latest title is a resolutely single-player offline affair. A gargantuan open-world fantasy RPG, Crimson Desert not only looks like one of the most stylish adventures we’ve seen in a long time, but its action-packed combat and massive open world lend the game favourable comparisons with everything from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom to Dragon’s Dogma 2 and, of course, Black Desert itself.
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach
Hideo Kojima’s deeply esoteric, post-apocalyptic tale of connecting humanity will be getting a direct sequel in 2025 and, well, it’s every bit as mesmerisingly wild as you might expect. Sure enough, Norman Reedus, Lea Seydoux and Troy Baker all return from the first game, while special appearances by Mad Max director George Miller have also been confirmed. As to the game itself, little has been shown at this point other than some drop-dead gorgeous real-time cut scenes. However, we would be surprised if Kojima Productions didn’t build upon the whole UPS-man-at-the-end-of-the-world shtick that made the original such a pleasant surprise.
DOOM: The Dark Ages
Fans of DOOM will likely purchase DOOM: The Dark Ages sight unseen, but the devil (pun intended) is in the details. A full-throated, dark fantasy prequel to the demon-blasting phenomenon that we all know and love, DOOM: The Dark Ages turns everything up to eleven. Say hello to towering demonic kaiju, rideable hell dragons, Doomguy mechas and guns that chew up skulls and spit out razor-sharp fragments into your hapless foes. Doom Guy is very much back.
Elden Ring Nightreign
Just when you thought that Elden Ring was done with the release of 2024’s super Shadow of the Erdtree expansion, Elden Ring Nightreign has popped out of seemingly nowhere to hold your beer. Rather than go down the route of expanding the existing Elden Ring storyline, Nightreign is instead a standalone co-op adventure for up to three players within the broader Elden Ring universe. With all new challenges to face off alongside your closest allies, Nightreign is the Elden Ring continuation none of us knew we wanted but now we cannot wait for.
Grand Theft Auto 6
Holding up a socio-cultural mirror to our existence in a way that few studios are able to do, Rockstar Games looks set to utterly disrupt gaming and social calendars everywhere when the juggernaut that is Grand Theft Auto 6 takes over basically everything next year. Looking set to redefine our expectations for open-world games, Grand Theft Auto 6 whisks players off to current-day Vice City and puts players in control of Bonnie and Clyde-esque dual protagonists Lucia and Jason as they tear across the sun-bleached county. Boasting cutting-edge visuals and physics simulations together with Rockstar Games trademark satire-infused single-player campaign missions and world-beating online modes, Grand Theft Auto 6 is a one-game industry avalanche that will resonate far beyond its gaming demographic.
Killing Floor 3
With nearly nine years on the clock since the last Killing Floor title blasted its way onto the FPS scene, Killing Floor 3 returns to remind us just how much fun you can have with your mates in a cooperative horror FPS setting. With all new classes, progression trees and survival gadgets, together with a reworked M.E.A.T System that provides unparalleled levels of gore when you splatter your monstrous foes, to say that Killing Floor 3 is a highly anticipated and much overdue threequel for fans of the series would be quite the understatement indeed.
Mafia: The Old Country
Kicking up the dusty trails of the titular Sicilian old country during the 1900s, Mafia: The Old Country reframes the series both in terms of narrative and game mechanics. Casting players as the rebellious Enzo Favara, Mafia: The Old Country has players fighting against the emergence of the Cosa Nostra in a gritty tale of family betrayal and mob violence. Though its narrative still unfolds from a third-person perspective, in line with the previous games in the series, Mafia: The Old Country eschews the open-world design of the last entry in the franchise in favour of a much more linear world with a focus on cinematic moments and a welcome rejection of open world busywork. Look also for developer Hanger 13 making the most of the time period too, swapping out chunky saloon cars and Tommy guns for horses and tense knife fights.
Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra
Directed by Amy Hennig who cut her teeth on epic adventures with Naughty Dog’s Uncharted series, Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra looks set to follow in a similarly epic vein. A cinematic open-world adventure that pits Marvel superheroes Captain America and Black Panther against the insidious Hydra organisation during occupied France in World War II, Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra is shaping up beautifully, leveraging Unreal Engine 5 to craft arguably one of the best-looking superhero games ever made. Though details are light regarding gameplay specifics, Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra nonetheless looks like it’ll be a metaphorical catnip for fans of sprawling open-world adventures and superhero romps alike.
Slay The Spire 2
How do you follow up one of the very best deck-building games ever made? Well, you get the original developer Mega Crit to go and make another one. Set to make its Early Access debut in 2025, Slay the Spire 2 takes place more than 1,000 years after the events of the previous game and invites players to once again make the perilous climb to reach the spire’s peak and uncover its secrets. With all new heroes to choose from that each have their own mechanics, together with all-new relics, random encounters, new card types, a range of fiendishly designed boss encounters and so much more, Slay the Spire 2 is absolutely guaranteed to be one of the very best titles in 2025 by some margin.
Split Fiction
The next title from the supremely talented folks that brought us the stupendously excellent cooperative adventure It Takes Two, Split Fiction embraces a similar design philosophy but changes up the scenario entirely. Casting players as two writers who scribble tales that are set in sci-fi and fantasy settings respectively, Split Fiction envisions a topsy-turvy odyssey where each author is rapidly pulled between those fantasy and science fiction worlds, creating a veritable multiverse of insane possibilities as they struggle to escape with their memories intact. Eminently charming, funny and filled with innovative cooperative design, if Grand Theft Auto 6 wasn’t currently tipped to blot out the sun and snatch all the oxygen in the room next year, there’s little doubt that Split Fiction would find itself on a fast track to assured Game of the Year status.
The Outer Worlds 2
Obsidian Entertainment’s roundly excellent and darkly fun space RPG series returns and honestly we couldn’t be happier. In The Outer Worlds 2 players are unceremoniously plonked into the space boots of an agent belonging to the rather severely named Earth Directorate. Your overarching mission is to discover the reason why mysterious, civilisation-ending rifts are popping up all across the galaxy and naturally, there are a whole load of missions for you to complete and wacky-zany characters for you to meet, fall in love with or shoot in the face along the way. Boasting Obsidian’s typical razor wit and the sort of non-linear gameplay that made the original such a hit, The Outer Worlds 2 cordially invites us all to save the galaxy in 2025 and be an absolute mess in the process. Bring it on.
With Diablo IV releasing just a year and a half ago, it’s probably not too surprising to discover that a good number of players are already becoming somewhat tired of what Blizzard’s latest stab at the dungeon crawler genre has been offering up. Thankfully then, the long-awaited Path of Exile 2 from Grinding Gear Games has arrived at just the right time, providing Diablo players with the sort of alternative that hasn’t been around in a long time. If you’re sick of Diablo IV here’s why you should give Path of Exile 2 a shot.
Endless Customisation And Speccing Possibilities
Though Diablo IV isn’t particularly lacking in the customisation and speccing stakes – it has had three prior games and an avalanche of patches to get it right, after all – it arguably falls some way short of what Grinding Gear Games has achieved with Path of Exile 2. Certainly, just a glance at Path of Exile 2’s trademark passive skill tree which has been inherited from the first game, reveals an abyssal depth of character customisation that far outstrips any other entry in the dungeon crawler genre.
Stuffed to the gills with more than 1,900(!) unique skills that allow wannabe monster mashers to customise their character build, Path of Exile 2 also brings a new Dual Specialisation mechanic to the table as well, permitting passive skill points to be shoved into the entirely different skill types without penalty. In practice, if you’re switching between fire and archery attacks, for instance, the skill points that you have invested into those attack skills will immediately come into play, allowing players to simultaneously specialise and diversify their build at the same time.
Reaching past the framework of its sprawling skills matrix, Path of Exile 2 widens its commitment to near limitless customisation and build-speccing possibilities further still thanks to its Skill Gem system. With nearly 450 Gems in total, split between Skill Gems and Support Gems, players can use Skill Gems to enable powerful active skills that can be used in combat, while socketing Support Gems into those same Skill Gems modifies their behaviour, providing yet more creative latitude still for players to customise their build.
If all of that wasn’t enough, there’s also the concept of Ascendancy Class progression. With twelve character classes as of this writing, each of these classes has three separate Ascendancy specialisations that can be activated depending on your playstyle, providing unique skills, abilities and more that in turn provide a veritable bounty of choice for character customisation.
An Overwhelming Cast Of Varied Enemies And Bosses
With an absolute smorgasbord of character customisation and speccing possibilities at your disposal, it makes sense – for the notion of balance at least – that your opposition is equally formidable and boy, does Path of Exile 2 deliver on this front too. With well over 600 unique monsters and over 100 bosses at the time of writing that each have their own strengths, weaknesses, abilities and attack patterns to learn, Path of Exile 2 is filled with hordes of challenging enemies for you to test your mettle against. Further to that point, combat with Path of Exile 2’s many bosses feels much more akin to something like Dark Souls, rather than another dungeon crawler, as there is a real emphasis on developing strategies for each boss and generally staying out of their way whilst you (and maybe some friends) chip away at their gargantuan health bars.
A Much More Worthwhile, Content-Packed Endgame
Once you’ve carved a bloody path through Path of Exile 2’s six-act campaign you’ll find yourself in its endgame and certainly when compared to Diablo IV, developer Grinding Gear Games has gone the extra mile here. Boasting well over 100 endgame maps that each include their own boss battles and unique modifiers, Path of Exile 2’s endgame not only reaches back into the past leagues of the previous Path of Exile but also fashions entirely new challenges for veteran players to tangle with as well.
Acting as a hub of sorts for Path of Exile 2’s monstrous endgame, the Atlas entices players to unlock these new endgame maps to defeat the rare and very dangerous enemies that lurk within them. Much more than just a typical monster hunt, these specially curated endgame maps also include magical strongboxes filled with rare loot that when opened can trigger a deadly encounter, while special NPCs can also be discovered that can aid you in your monster-mashing endeavours.
Much more broadly, Path of Exile 2’s endgame activities are split between seven systems which include Breach, Delirium, Expedition, Ritual, Pinnacle Boss (essentially endgame bosses) and the Trials of Chaos and Sekhemas. Fans of the first Path of Exile will certainly recognise Breach and in Path of Exile 2 the implementation of it will prove familiar as players venture through an interdimensional portal and must quickly vanquish all of the enemies within, gaining precious Breach points that can be invested into the Breach section of the Atlas hub, increasing difficulty and potential rewards in Breach encounters as a result.
Delirium encounters meanwhile modify certain maps and fill them with mist, challenging players to tackle stronger foes as they venture deeper into the mist and eventually tackle the pinnacle encounter of that map to gain points for the Delirium section on the Atlas Tree. Ritual encounters task players with defeating certain enemies within special ritual circles which will then eventually result in the ritual being completed and a wave of monsters appearing that, when eventually defeated, provide Tribute Points that can be used to nab much more powerful gear and equipment. Once the King in the Mists himself is defeated in his new Pinnacle Boss form in Path of Exile 2’s endgame, Ritual points are then granted which, you guessed it, can be reinvested into the Ritual progression tree within the Atlas and will dish out greater rewards.
Expeditions are one of the more unique facets of Path of Exile 2’s massive endgame, as these encounters require players to use special explosives to open long-lost loot coffers. The problem, as you may have already guessed, is that all of this loud bang-bang attracts monsters and eventually the pinnacle encounter for this area. Managing to survive all of this means that you get to gain Expedition points which can be used to nab more impressive rewards and more difficult encounters from future Expedition encounters.
Though the Trials of Chaos and Sekhemas are largely what Path of Exile players have already experienced, it’s arguably the Pinnacle Boss encounters that are the marquee highlight of Path of Exile 2’s endgame offering. Here, players will occasionally stumble across a locked fortress which requires three keys to get inside that can only be obtained by overcoming bosses that belong to one of three powerful factions within the Atlas that are vying to get into the fortress. Once inside, Pinnacle Bosses presents a hellacious challenge that only the most veteran players will be able to overcome with Atlas points and high-end loot being the reward for those that do. To say that the endgame in Path of Exile 2 is a whole heap more satisfying and sophisticated than its counterpart in Diablo IV would be quite an understatement, to say the least.
Reactive And Transparent Developer Support That Shapes Everything Going Forward
Even before Path of Exile 2 dropped into early access this year, one key area where the game has sought to separate itself from Diablo IV is in how its creators interact with the community. Put simply, developer Grinding Gear Games has been responding to queries, issues and suggestions from the community on an almost daily basis. Whether it’s questions about the Path of Exile 2 roadmap, updates on server bandwidth or responding to low-level queries about balancing, loot drops and more, Grinding Gear Games always appears present, transparent and ready to help in a timely fashion as Path of Exile 2 barrels its way through early access.
The holidays are the perfect time to catch up on your favourite games or dive into new ones, and it’s fair to say that gaming visuals have never looked better. For those of us who grew up on 2D classics, we still remember the magic of jumping into 3D for the first time with Super Mario 64 during a snowy winter break. Moments like that are rare, but the holidays have a way of delivering gaming memories that stick with us. While virtual reality has made huge strides, traditional games are also reaching stunning new heights—thanks in large part to Nvidia’s RTX technology.
RTX brings an extra layer of magic to gaming this time of year, making light and shadows behave in ways that look as natural as the glow of holiday lights on a snowy evening. From lifelike reflections to breathtaking rays of light streaming through frosty landscapes, RTX transforms great games into unforgettable visual treats. If you’re looking to settle in by the fire with some truly eye-popping games over the holidays, we’ve got you covered as these RTX-enhanced games are perfect for creating cosy, immersive gaming sessions during the most wonderful time of the year. Let’s take a look at the best games to light up your screen this holiday season!
Star Wars Outlaws
Star Wars Outlaws finally lets players loose in an open-world Star Wars game filled with incredible things to discover, people to meet, and enemies to fight. You take control of Kay Vess, a less-than-squeaky-clean type who’s seeking a way to find their own freedom and start life anew. It’s a tall task, but if you’re smart and don’t mind making the most of the incredible tech available, you’ll come out on top. With RTX-powered lighting and reflections, the galaxy feels more alive than ever, from the glow of neon signs in bustling cantinas to the shimmering metal of ships under twin suns.
Diablo IV
Diablo IV takes the classic ARPG series into the modern age with all new tweaks and quality-of-life features that make it more approachable than ever. There’s an incredible story to get through, sure, but there’s also a wealth of post-game content to delve into that can help you create the perfect build and take on truly unspeakable horrors. You can even do it with friends along the way. Plus, with RTX-enabled effects, every dark dungeon and fiery hellscape is brought to life, immersing you in the eerie glow of flickering torches and the ominous shadows that lurk around every corner.
Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition
First things first, this is not the Cyberpunk that was launched back in 2020. Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition is a massive sprawling tech-dystopia for you to try and protect, destroy, or bend to your will. With a huge array of amazing characters to meet, fight, and even romance, as well as plenty of ways to carve your path through the beautiful neon city, you’ll not get bored in this dystopia. Neither will your eyes, as RTX-powered visuals bring Night City to life with dazzling reflections on rain-slick streets, immersive lighting, and vibrant neon glows that make every corner of the city feel alive.
Minecraft
When you think of Minecraft, the first thing you think of probably won’t be ‘stunning visuals’ but that’s because you haven’t watched rays of light as they crest over whatever blocky creation you’ve put together. Still the same iconic game about freedom and crafting, albeit with more creatures and experiences to uncover than ever before, the graphics are on an entirely different level, thanks to RTX. With ray-traced lighting and realistic shadows, the blocky world transforms into something breathtaking as sunlight filters through leaves and water reflects the beauty of your pixelated masterpieces.
Fortnite
Fortnite is an especially good choice because it’s free, making it perfect for holiday gaming sessions with friends and family. It’s incredibly accessible, so whether you’re a seasoned builder or a total newcomer, everyone can jump in and play together—whether that’s a good idea or not is up to you. Of course, if you’re the only one with RTX turned on, you’ll get to enjoy the stunning battle royale vistas in all their glory, with shimmering water, dynamic lighting, and realistic reflections making the island look sharper and more beautiful than ever.
Marvel’s Midnight Suns
Marvel’s Midnight Suns is one of those hidden gems that deserves a spot on your holiday playlist. It’s a unique and inspired take on the tactical turn-based genre, blending strategic deckbuilding with cinematic superhero flair. Between intense battles, you’ll spend time building relationships with iconic Marvel characters, chatting by the fire, or training in the Abbey to sharpen your skills. Positioning is everything in this one, and with RTX-enabled visuals, the dynamic combat comes to life as fiery explosions, shadows, and energy beams dance across the battlefield in a stunning display.
Ghostwire: Tokyo
Finally, we have Ghostwire: Tokyo, a hauntingly beautiful adventure that’s perfect for the darker, cosier nights of the season. While it doesn’t feature a sprawling open world, its meticulous attention to detail makes every street and alley of Tokyo feel alive—or perhaps eerily not. You play as someone who narrowly escapes death, only to find themselves at the center of a ghostly invasion. It’s a strange fate, but your spectral abilities and uneasy alliance with a spirit inside you will help you navigate a city filled with mysteries and otherworldly threats. With RTX technology, Tokyo’s rain-soaked streets shimmer with eerie beauty, neon lights reflect in puddles, and supernatural effects fill the world with an unsettling but mesmerizing glow.
And there you have it—seven stunning RTX-enhanced games to light up your holidays and give your eyes a visual feast. Whether you’re braving ghostly invasions, battling corruption alongside superheroes, or exploring blocky creations brought to life, there’s never been a better time to dive in. If you’re looking to explore even more RTX-powered experiences, be sure to check out the RTX Games section of our Holiday Sale. It’s the perfect opportunity to pick up something new and make this season shine even brighter.
With more than 10 million (count em’) players on the clock in just three days since launch, Marvel Rivals from developer NetEase Games has struck on some sort of magical formula to entice the masses. Yet, the reality is that Marvel Rivals just incorporates a lot of robust shooter mechanics extremely well alongside a stylish licensing of some of the most recognisable comic book characters in decades. So here are the four key ways developer NetEase Games has managed to fuse a legendary comic book IP with a resoundingly solid foundation that reflects the best the genre has to offer.
A Massively Varied Free Roster Of Unique Characters That Will Only Get Bigger And Better Over Time
Absolutely screaming in with a superhero-stuffed roster filled with 33 playable and entirely different characters at launch, Marvel Rivals certainly isn’t lacking when it comes to its selection of heroes for players to stick their metaphorical teeth into. The Marvel Rivals roster runs the full gamut of Marvel characters from the well-known to the obscure including the likes of Iron Man, Captain America, Bruce Banner, Thor, Venom, Rocket Raccoon and even Jeff the Land Shark (who has a very real set of teeth that he uses to sink into the flesh of his enemies).
Spread across the three broad classes of Duelist (damage dealers), Strategist (healing and buffs) and Vanguard (tank), each of the characters that make up Marvel Rivals roster plays appreciably differently from one another. From the defensive and stamina-focused capabilities of Captain America to the ranged abilities of The Punisher (which also include a handy turret that can be erected), to Spider-Man and Iron-Man, who can both use their trademark means of traversal to navigate their way across any given battlefield, the sheer uniqueness of the Marvel Rivals roster cannot be understated. After all, there’s nothing quite like watching Doctor Strange create a magical portal for Spider-Man who then leaps through it and ends up behind the enemy and in a position to inflict maximum damage.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Though a debut roster of 33 characters isn’t anything to be sniffed at, NetEase Games has committed itself to providing a steady stream of new characters in the coming weeks, months and years, fattening out an already sizable selection of playable heroes from every corner of Marvel fandom. Put simply, if you’re a Marvel fan with a thing for hero shooters, then Marvel Rivals isn’t looking like it will leave your social calendar anytime soon.
Heroic Synergies That Both Add Depth While Honouring Its Comic Origins
Cleverly building on the pre-existing and rather complex relationships that exist between the many characters of the long-established Marvel universe, Marvel Rivals allows specific combinations of heroes to enjoy special buffs and attacks that simply wouldn’t be available to solo heroes or other pairs of characters. With a current total of 15 very different synergy attacks, each of these collaborative specials has its own tactical benefit for each battle too. For example, pairing up Rocket Racoon with either the Winter Soldier or the Punisher, provides both of the latter gentlemen with faster firing and infinite ammo buffs. Meanwhile, putting Bruce Banner (Hulk) and Wolverine together, allows the not-so-jolly green giant to literally hurl Wolverine a lot farther than his leaping ability normally permits, allowing Logan to kick out much more damage than he otherwise could as a result.
Destructible Legendary Locations From The Depths Of Marvel Lore
In case you’re wondering, there is a sort of narrative setup that serves as the basis for Marvel Rivals scraps and, well, it’s pretty much as thin as it gets. A calamitous scrap between Doctor Doom and his heroic counterpart Doctor Doom 2099 results in a timestream entanglement which unceremoniously pulls both heroes and villains from across the multiverse to fight it out for supremacy. Hardly riveting stuff then, however what it does mean is that in addition to a sizable range of playable characters, Marvel Rivals also provides players with a massive range of fresh locations to duke it out in as well.
As such, this whole ‘timestream entanglement’ thing has resulted in some fairly gnarly mash-ups of Marvel locations in addition to some more pedestrian locales from the pages of Marvel’s comic books. Yggsgard for example, is a twisted amalgamation of Asgard and the Great Tree Yggdrasil, while the Kingdom of Wakanda has now spread itself far beyond the borders of Earth, having established itself as the Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda.
From a design standpoint, each of Marvel Rivals’ eight maps not only boasts the sort of intuitive layout one would expect from a hero shooter worth its salt, but each of them also boasts a number of embedded destructible elements to keep things interesting too. From crashing ceilings to tumbling pillars, Marvel Rivals’ generous arrangement of destructive scenery provides additional damage-dealing opportunities, allowing skilled players to unleash a chunky amount of AoE damage on a group of foes at any time. Much like the expected stream of free characters that will pop along with every future season in Marvel Rivals, players should also expect that Marvel Rivals will also be bringing shiny new maps for players to scrap across with each new season at no extra cost.
Battle Passes That Don’t Expire And Respect Your Time
For the longest time, the traditional battle pass has been something of a double-edged sword. Though the rewards obtained through these battle passes often appeal and tend to do a fairly effective job of encouraging players to grind the time away in order to unlock them, they very often tend to be time-limited, requiring players to compress all of that play into a set period before another battle pass is introduced and the previous one (and its rewards) become no longer available.
In Marvel Rivals, no such time limit exists, meaning you can take as long as you like to earn the rewards within each battle pass without the worry of that battle pass disappearing and taking those rewards, together with your hard-won progress, into the abyss. As a side note, this also ties into how microtransactions work within Marvel Rivals, too. Instead of making any material difference to the gameplay side of things, Marvel Rivals instead wisely channels its monetisation model into a massive range of skins for each of its characters which can either be earned through in-game currency or paid for real money.
Indeed, when you consider just how many different versions there are of each character across all of Marvel’s history, not to mention the variants for playable characters that will be introduced in future free seasonal content, it certainly appears that Marvel Rivals will have progression in spades and perhaps more importantly, respects your time to do so.
Dead Cells is arguably one of the greatest roguelikes ever made, with the only real downside being the lack of any co-op mode. Thankfully developer Motion Twin’s next game Windblown, rectifies that oversight. While it’s not quite as slick as Dead Cells (at least not yet, it is currently in an Early Access state) it has a lot of the same general flow, including dual-weapon and great movement systems, set in a more isometric world with some amazing synergies and build options.
In Windblown you – and up to two friends – must protect your peaceful village, The Ark, from the emissaries of the Vortex, the deadly force around which you orbit. How? Well with some incredibly well-designed combat that essentially sees you fighting off a huge range of monsters, including old robots and a Rat who’s been watching too much One Piece and can wield a sword in its mouth alongside one in each hand. As you can probably tell from that description alone, the enemy designs are wonderful but it’s the combat – and its co-op-friendly nature – that truly shines.
Staying with the combat, as well as your two weapons, each of which can have unique damage and effect modifiers, you can also combine special attacks from each weapon to create some truly powerful combinations. For example, if you’re using a sword and a crossbow and have been shooting at enemies from afar, you can use your special attack, if you get the timing right, to unleash an absurd combo from the sword before switching back to the crossbow. It not only looks as cool as it sounds, it is also seamless.
That’s not all, however, throw in some really cool upgrades, even with this being the first iteration of the game’s Early Access state, and you’ve got an action roguelike that feels amazing to play. There are plenty of different builds, challenges to face, and things to unlock too. Long story short: Windblown is everything I want it to be so far, and I can’t wait to see it grow.
With Call of Duty seemingly forever hogging the limelight with its Michael Bay-coded story campaigns and celebrity-endorsed skins, it can perhaps be a little too easy to forget that Activision’s contemporary FPS juggernaut was predated by EA’s Medal of Honor, a much more comparatively po-faced shooter series that emphasized historical conflict and theatres of war. Seemingly largely forgotten by gamers and apparently by EA itself, now is as good a time as any, on the series’ 25th anniversary, to ruminate on the history of Medal of Honor, its peaks, troughs, the major titles within its franchise and its impact on the FPS industry at large.
Medal Of Honor (1999)
Buoyed by Steven Spielberg’s landmark big picture foray into World War II with the Oscar-winning Saving Private Ryan, the first Medal of Honor for Sony’s beloved PlayStation console was a commercial and critical hit. Developed by Dreamworks Interactive (a studio that was founded by Steven Spielberg himself), Medal of Honor manifested during Spielberg’s work on Saving Private Ryan and was somewhat inspired by his son’s experiences playing Rare’s legendary James Bond FPS tie-in, Goldeneye 007.
With Spielberg’s newly formed games studio behind the wheel, together with an epic orchestral score by famed composer Michael Giacchino, and Dale Dye joining the project as a military advisor (Dye would serve in the same capacity in the HBO-produced Band of Brothers and Pacific television series, too), it was clear that such talent meant that Medal of Honor was going to be something quite special indeed. Casting players as an OSS agent amid Second World War Europe, Medal of Honor was a much more considered, stealthy first-person shooter that was dripping with atmosphere as players snuck behind enemy lines, brandished fake ID papers, assassinated enemies in the dark and punched a hole in the Nazi regime. It was simply fantastic stuff which not only wore its Goldeneye 007 inspirations proudly on its digital sleeve but alerted gamers to the idea that the Second World War could be as captivating in video game form as it was on film.
Medal Of Honor: Underground (2000)
Building on the foundations set down in Medal of Honor just one year earlier, Medal of Honor: Underground once again leaned into the subterfuge-laden gameplay that defined its predecessor by casting players as Manon Batiste, a commander in the French Resistance. Starting in 1940 and concluding in 1944, Medal of Honor: Underground unfurled an ambitious narrative that would whisk players from Western Europe to Northern Africa and back again in a globetrotting clandestine FPS that was every bit the full-fat continuation to Medal of Honor that players wanted.
Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault (2002)
With the proliferation of the PC as a powerhouse gaming platform, it wasn’t going to be long until Medal of Honor would make the leap from its PlayStation digs and that’s precisely what happened in 2002 with the PC-exclusive Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. Leveraging an early version of the id Tech engine that would ironically be the mainstay graphics technology used by the Call of Duty franchise later on, Allied Assault was the most epic Medal of Honor title to date, taking players from the hell of the Normandy beach landings through to a range of clandestine operations throughout Western Europe. A mammoth shooter in every way, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault would also lay down the framework that the early World War II set Call of Duty games would follow when that franchise launched in 2003. Not only that but Call of Duty developer Infinity Ward was also made up of developers who had worked on the Medal of Honor series, so the design throughline in this case is certainly clear to see.
Medal Of Honor: Frontline (2002)
Marking the series’ return to PlayStation, Medal of Honor: Frontline swapped out the subterfuge of previous entries for a big old dollop of war-is-hell bombast, casting players as one of three different soldiers taking part in the American, British and Soviet theatres of war across a set of spectacle stuffed missions. One of the best-selling titles of its era, Medal of Honor: Frontline would set the tone that the series would follow going forward and which, somewhat sadly, drifted away from the more considered and slow-paced beats of the series’ earliest entries.
Medal Of Honor: Rising Sun (2003)
Switching to an entirely new theatre of war, Medal of Honor: Rising Sun was a measurable downgrade in every way from what came before it. Though the shift to the sweltering Pacific was welcome, the lack of polish, dunderheaded AI, poor visuals and a general lack of interesting mission design was not. Arguably, Medal of Honor: Rising Sun was the clearest indication that the once roundly impressive series was now firmly on the decline and a world away from the Steven Spielberg passion project it started as.
Medal Of Honor: Pacific Assault (2004)
Essentially the PC version of Medal of Honor: Rising Sun which was released on the consoles of the day a year earlier, somewhat surprisingly Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault turned out to be much better than its console counterpart and took full advantage of the PC platform. With many more levels, improved visuals and general shoring up of bugs and polish, Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault turned out to be a decent enough World War Two shooter, it just never aspired to be anything more than that.
Medal Of Honor: European Assault (2005)
By 2005 it was clear that Medal of Honor as a franchise was running out of steam and perhaps that was nowhere better illustrated than in Medal of Honor: European Assault. An utterly unremarkable shooter, Medal of Honor: European Assault puts players in the boots of an American OSS agent who finds himself whisked off to theatres of war in France, North Africa, the Soviet Union and Belgium. Though the return of more subterfuge-minded gameplay was welcome, such as stealing plans and sabotaging infrastructure, European Assault nonetheless felt shopworn to the point of tedium. We had seen it all before by this point and there was nothing new to keep players compelled – especially as Activision had launched its mega-successful shooter sequel, Call of Duty 2, in the same year.
Medal Of Honor: Airborne (2007)
With the series’ fortunes on the downturn, it’s clear that 2007’s Medal of Honor: Airborne needed to do something different for the franchise to stay relevant. Thankfully, Medal of Honor: Airborne did just that, even if it was somewhat underappreciated in its day. Taking ample inspiration from both the real-life airborne troops of the Second World War and HBO’s superb Band of Brothers television show, Medal of Honor: Airborne had players performing parachute drops into locations throughout the European and North African theatres of war. Where Medal of Honor: Airborne really separates itself however, is in how it allows you to land anywhere you like and pursue the completion of your objectives however you like as well, lending the game a sort of non-linearity and openness it had lacked up until this point. Throw in some impressively clever AI, a real sense of scale in the maps and some satisfying shooting mechanics which allowed you to lean around corners and cook grenades, it became clear that Medal of Honor: Airborne was the best thing to come out of the beleaguered series in years (and is long overdue a remaster in the opinion of this humble scribe).
Medal Of Honor (2010)
With Call of Duty embracing a more contemporary brand of war with its breakout 2007 effort Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, it probably shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise to see EA follow suit with its 2010 Medal of Honor title, either. Rooted firmly in the opening days and weeks of the real-life Afghanistan conflict of 2001, in some ways, Medal of Honor felt like a step back from Airborne as it reacquainted the series with the more decidedly linear trappings that it had left behind – and which Call of Duty was now actively embracing on a yearly basis. Still trend-chasing aside, the impressive Unreal Engine 3-powered single-player campaign visuals, coupled with an entertaining adversarial multiplayer mode (which ran on the totally different Frostbite engine, oddly), still made Medal of Honor worth the price of admission.
Medal Of Honor: Warfighter (2012)
Just two years later the Medal of Honor series once again found itself in dire straits, thanks to 2012’s deeply uninspiring offering. A direct continuation of the events chronicled in 2010’s Medal of Honor, Medal of Honor: Warfighter follows the same Navy SEAL unit as they face off against a terrorist threat that extends from Bosnia to the Philippines but manages to do absolutely nothing new or notable in the process. With a jumbled storyline, dunderheaded AI and lack of imagination in both its mission types and its cookie-cutter online multiplayer modes, Medal of Honor: Warfighter felt like a new nadir for a once legendary franchise that, at this point at least, seemed like it was about to check out for good.
Medal Of Honor: Above And Beyond (2020)
Thankfully though, Medal of Honor did not check out for good and its next major title would be something entirely unexpected. The first Medal of Honor title in nearly a decade and the first to be transplanted into the VR realm, Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond felt like a throwback to the earlier titles in the franchise, once again casting players as an OSS agent tasked with aiding the French Resistance to unseat the Nazi Vichy government. Though clunky in places and lacking in some production values, Above and Beyond should still be credited for attempting to return this once legendary series to its secret agent chicanery, rather than just falling in line and becoming yet another tonality schizophrenic, brain-voided shooter. Plus, blowing up bridges, sniping enemies and sneaking out key intelligence documents feels rather good in VR, too. Here’s hoping that Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond is the beginning of a resurgence for this once revered series, rather than symbolising its death knell. Over to you, EA.
Long beloved for its first-person survival horror trappings and stirring depiction of an apocalyptic, devastated Moscow dripping with atmosphere, the Metro series has made an overdue leap to VR and with it comes a range of all-new challenges for adapting such a beloved franchise into an all-new dimension. That said, Metro Awakening has ultimately done a cracking job in adapting many of the classic series elements into this all-new dimension and here’s how developer Vertigo Games has pulled off this rather significant feat.
Atmosphere So Thick You Can Cut It With A Knife
When you think of the Metro games you tend to think of a grim, ruinous world in which the last vestiges of humanity fight a hardscrabble resistance against both each other and an ever-expanding horde of irradiated creatures. With Metro Awakening, Vertigo Games has beautifully transitioned the atmosphere from the traditionally flat 2D stomping grounds of the series into the sort of full three dimensions of immersion that only VR can provide. Not only does Metro Awakening nail the bleak visual grime, shadowy tunnels and lived-in nastiness of the Russian Metro around which Awakening’s story unfurls but so too does the audio work pull you right in, making you jump at the sounds of unseen creatures knocking over pots, pans and other junk in the distance, while when the firearms begin to kick off the aural response is appropriately deafening.
Newly Immersive Physicality
In making the leap to VR, Metro Awakening also makes sure to bolster its toe-curling atmospherics with a sense of physicality that the 2D versions of the game simply cannot match. Whether you’re reloading each clip into your pistol, rejigging your batteries as your torch slowly blinks out in the darkness or putting on your mask and filters to protect yourself from harmful toxins, everything you do in Metro Awakening has a realistic sense of heft and physicality to it. Of course, being a VR title designed from the ground up with the platform in mind, there is an emphasis on performing the right gestures to interact with the game world. In practice, this means that you’ll be reaching over to your shoulders to nab a grenade or a primary firearm, instinctively reaching down to your waist to quickly grab a sidearm or a health-boosting medical syringe and grabbing at spare ammo clips that are fastened onto your chest for easy reloading of whatever gun you happen to have gripped in your virtual hands at the time. Though such control systems are hardly a new thing in the VR gaming space, in Metro Awakening they feel like such an essential part of being immersed in the world that pressing buttons to accomplish the same result just wouldn’t land the same way.
A Handmade Arsenal That Feels And Looks Great In VR
Another aspect of Metro’s long-coded DNA that has successfully made the leap to VR is the handmade arsenal that you’ll be using to dispatch your foes. From pistols that have been stuck together with duct tape to rusty AK-47s, nothing in Metro Awakening looks or feels pristine and that’s exactly how it should be. Additionally, being able to almost forensically examine each weapon and identify every imperfection further underscores the impressive level of visual craft that has gone into bringing every one of these weapons to virtual life.
An All-New Metro Story Steeped In The Series Origins
Rather than just merely adapting an existing Metro title or story into VR, Metro Awakening goes full bore with its own, entirely fresh narrative. Simultaneously both a prequel and a spin-off, Metro Awakening revolves around Serdar, a desperate doctor who must venture into the depths of the Moscow tunnels to locate his wife. Taking place roughly four years before the first Metro game, Metro Awakening’s choice of protagonist is no accident, as it is intended to be an origin story of sorts for series character Khan and ably sets the stage for what he will become in later games. Beyond its lore implications, the story of Metro Awakening also has a sizable impact on how the game plays. Because Serdar is a doctor and not a grizzled soldier, like the protagonists of the other Metro games tend to be, players must make the most of stealthy situations and a dwindling supply of ammo to stay alive. Doom VR, this isn’t and it’s all the better for it.
The Series Trademark Horror Has Never Been So Keenly Felt
Making the most of the immersive opportunities afforded by VR technology, Metro Awakening brings the horror that the series has been known for kicking and screaming into an all-new medium. With the world of Metro Awakening quite literally all around you, the myriad hallucinations coupled with some truly horrific beasts (including a range of grossly gargantuan spiders), all come together to make Metro Awakening one of the most terrifying VR games money can buy. Oh and if you happen to be an arachnophobia sufferer, worry not; developer Vertigo Games has confirmed that it is looking to in an arachnophobia toggle to resolve this in the hopefully near future.
Menus? What Menus
In the leap to VR, one of the biggest and most intriguing ways that Metro Awakening seeks to keep the player thoroughly invested and connected to the world of the earlier Metro games is by curtailing the UI to such an extent that in-game menus are now non-existent. One cool thing that Metro Awakening does is allow players to closely inspect the clip of whatever firearm they have to confirm how much ammo they have left. It certainly feels much more immersive than just staring at an ammo counter in the UI going up or down. Whilst this may sound fairly inconsequential, this is yet another example – and perhaps a prime example – of exactly how perfect the marriage of Metro and VR is and how well it has been accomplished in Metro Awakening.
The world’s pre-eminent snake-fearing archaeologist is making his long-awaited return to the world of video games soon but what if you can’t wait? Well, thankfully if you’re a big fan of hats, melting Nazis, and finding things that should be in a museum, then we’ve got good news because the world is full of games that could scratch those itches. Actually, did you know that if you took every game ever released and stacked them on top of each other, you’d have a lot of games? Fact.
With that in mind, we’ve chosen a selection of games below that, whilst all unique in their own ways, all hit on some of the main tropes and aspects of the upcoming release. Plus, there are also two games which are most definitely inspired by the original films. So without further delay, here’s our list of the best games like Indiana Jones and The Great Circle.
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus
If your main aim with Indiana Jones digital cosplay is fighting Nazis, then Wolfenstein is the series for you. Whilst the entire series is worth your time, if you’re looking for just one to jump into, then you’d do well to go with The New Colossus. A hugely cinematic FPS game filled to the brim with Nazi fighting action, it provides you with plenty of chances to just completely go wild with the violence. Oh, and it also happened made by MachineGames – developers on The Great Circle.
Thief
If your ideal Indy experience is one built around stealthy, where you love a plan and avoid getting caught, then Thief is for you. In Thief, as the name heavily implies, you plan heists and sneak around carrying out your perfectly made plans. While Indy tends to be a little louder with things, we think Thief channels the joy of the theoretical plan really well, and it’s also one of the best stealth games ever made.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor channels the joy of being a badass who roams around fixing things and puts it in the body of a Jedi. You have to journey across the galaxy swinging your fancy, light sword, meeting plenty of cool characters, and getting through some seriously tough fights. It’s a bit more action-packed than your average Indiana Jones adventure, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Tomb Raider Survivor Trilogy
Next on the list, we have the Tomb Raider Definitive Survivor Trilogy; the rebooted trilogy that gave us a grittier, more realistic Lara Croft experience compared to the somewhat lighter take in the original games. Don’t get us wrong, that isn’t a bad thing. The reboot games are sublime, and while the gritty tone is a little bit at odds with the general campness of the Indiana Jones films, it hits a very similar note, if you want games that fit the bill, you’ve got three of them.
Uncharted: Legacy Of Thieves Collection
Finally, we’ve got the Uncharted Legacy of Thieves Collection, which contains Uncharted 4 and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. Whilst it’s a little weird to hop into the series at the end, these are by far the strongest games in the series and offer slightly different takes on the action-adventure genre. Ultimately, Nathan Drake is quite literally video gaming’s Indiana Jones, so it’s not a huge surprise that this is probably the best shout if you want a game that will your Indiana Jones itch ahead of Indiana Jones and The Great Circle.
The best indie games in December are here to ease you through the impending Holidays. It’s absurd that we’re talking about the end of the year when we’re all very certain it was January just last week, but the march of time is an unstoppable and terrifying force, so here we are.
Anyway, existential crisis aside, we’ve collated a bunch of wonderful-looking indie games from the month ahead that we think are going to be worth keeping an eye on. There are plenty of art styles and genres among them, so you are sure to find something to suit your tastes,
First up, we’ve got ANTONBLAST, which has more than a little bit of the old-school Wario games in its DNA. It’s a fast-paced retro-styled platformer where you’ve got to try and steal your Spirits back from Satan. It’s a tale as old as time, truly. Expect more than a little bit of pure chaos, plenty of violence, and the kind of speed normally reserved for hedgehogs.
Entropy Survivors is a new bullet-hell roguelike set in the same universe as Shoulders of Giants, a game where you’re a little frog on top of a big old robot. Expect loads of weapons, plenty of skills to unlock, and some over-the-top action. Also, as it’s a bullet hell, expect to be dodging bullets by millimetres. The game also has co-op and a demo out as well, so you can go and try it now.
The Bridge Constructor series is an interesting one. At its core, it’s about you trying to build physics-based bridges from one side of a large gap to the other, but things get more complex the more you play. Sometimes, that means new limitations and sometimes, that means buttons to push along the way. The latest entry, Bridge Constructor Studio, has you doing all of the above in both virtual reality and mixed reality, which should lead to a new dimension of tactile fun.
Hoo boy this is a big one. Path of Exile 2 is the follow-up to the preposterously good and long-running Path of Exile. Set after the original game, Path of Exile 2 will once again be free-to-play, after around 6 months in a paid-for Early Access state. Offering up a co-op experience for up to six players, it’s an action RPG along the same lines as Diablo, and if it’s anything like its predecessor, it’ll likely have a frankly disgusting amount of customisation and builds available for you to play with.
If you are fan of 2D stop-motion animation, The Spirit of the Samuarai should be top of your most anticipated games list thanks to its stunning visuals. Those visuals aside, however, it should probably be on your list any way, as you play as a reanimated samurai taking on a bunch of Japanese monsters in a bid to save tiy Japanese village. Yes, that is as cool as it sounds.
In slightly unusual fashion, we are finishing this list with our second VR entry of the month. The Knight of Nephiart is an old-school RPG, complete with some wonderfully retro N64-style graphics, that has you taking part in turn-based battles in first person against all manner of classic enemies. There’s a story to follow, companions to meet and get to know, and a world to undoubtedly save – the nostalgia is overflowing with this one.
Black Friday is upon us again and we are offering some incredible deals on the latest and greatest PC games. From highly-anticipated AAA titles to indie gems, there’s something for everyone in this year’s sale and as if that wasn’t enough, customers can grab a sweet Black Friday Bonus Pack with select purchases of some of our biggest and best deals.
But we get it, sales can often be overwhelming and it’s often difficult to find the best deals. That is why we have compiled a small selection of some of our favourite deals from our Black Friday Sale, including, most importantly, when you can grab them. Let’s dive in.
Deals Live Right Now
With over 4,000 deals already available, there is no shortage of options in our Black Friday Sale but we have picked out four of our favourite deals for you to snap up right now.
Released a little over a month ago, this horrifyingly beautiful reimagining of the iconic survival horror game delivered a haunting atmosphere, disturbing imagery, and psychological horror in spades. For a limited time, you can grab our first-ever discount on this modern, horror classic.
Hot off receiving five nominations for this year’s Game Awards, you can save on one of this year’s biggest indie surprises. A unique blend of deckbuilding and poker, players must build powerful hands, discover game-changing jokers, and trigger explosive combos in this fast-paced roguelike
The long-awaited sequel to the critically acclaimed action RPG, Dragon’s Dogma 2 serves up a vast open world filled with mythical creatures, challenging combat, and a deep character customization system and is currently available at our best-ever discount during the Black Friday Sale.
It may have taken 14 years to arrive on PC, but thankfully, you haven’t had to wait quite as long to grab our first-ever discount on the critically acclaimed predecessor to one of the greatest open-world action adventures of all time, Red Dead Redemption 2.
Upcoming Deals
The discount fun doesn’t stop there, however. With Black Friday itself still a few days away, we have over 500 deals dropping into the sale over the next week – including the standout games below!
Embark on an epic adventure in the first-ever Star Wars open-world action adventure game with our first-ever discount! Risk it all as scoundrel Kay Vess and explore locations from across the galaxy when you pick up your copy in our Black Friday sale.
Relive the thrilling adventures of Nathan Drake and Chloe Frazer in stunning 4K and experience the series’ signature visuals, action, and storytelling with our best-ever discount on the UNCHARTED Legacy of Thieves Collection during our Black Friday sale.
This long-awaited entry, the first fully-fledged action RPG in the mainline FINAL FANTASY series, made its PC debut earlier this year. Now, experience this epic dark fantasy and take on the role of Clive Rosfield for less with its first-ever discount as part of our Black Friday Sale.
Embark on a journey to the stars in Bethesda Game Studios’ acclaimed galaxy-spanning single-player RPG. Explore vast, procedurally generated planets, encounter diverse alien life forms, and build your own spaceship when you pick up Starfield on its best-ever discount.
Explore a stunning post-apocalyptic world filled with majestic machines and ancient ruins in this second entry in the acclaimed Horizon series. Grab the Complete Edition – which includes the base game, all DLC and a trove of PC-specific features – during our Black Friday sale and save with our biggest discount yet.
Immerse yourself, and your friends, in the enchanting world of Quidditch with our first-ever discount on the 2024 release, Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions. Take to the sky of the Wizarding World in a variety of game modes in this magical sports adventure.
We often long for the good old days when polygon counts were like, three, and the internet was something we didn’t have access to because it was too expensive. We also have a painful nostalgia for games we played in simpler times, and two of the best of those were Dark Cloud and Dark Chronicle. These games were RPGs where you had to go out and take pictures of things, beat up baddies, and then build up a hometown or two. The disparate ideas fit together perfectly, and no game has come close to hitting that specific target like Lynked: Banner of the Spark.
Lynked has you taking up resistance in a world overrun with robots. Thankfully, you are not alone as you have a friendly robot called Buddy, who can become different weapons, plus the friendly robots you rescue and whoever you decide to play co-op with. You go out on mini-roguelike missions to fight the Combit threat – upgrading your gear for that particular mission – before returning with new materials, friendly bots, and weapon blueprints.
As you get into it, you get more and more abilities. You can start to use your Wyre – a sort of grappling hook – to grab an enemy, pull yourself towards them in a slide tackle, fly kick them, or swing them around you before slamming them down. As for the weapons themselves, there are ten different classes, each of which has multiple variations for special attacks and unique mods. It’s just a lot of customisation and makes Lynked: Banner of the Spark feel awesome.
Not only is Lynked cute and a lot of fun to play, but it also has a nice mix of downtime, with the base building and chatting providing a perfect breather between the fast-action sections and some surprisingly challenging bosses and enemy types. It’s a great little game, and as it has only just been released in Early Access, it’s surely only going to get better over time.
Metal Slug is a classic run-and-gun series that’s all about over-the-top action and completely absurd guns. It’s a classic for a reason, but it’s sort of been non-existent in recent years outside of a cross-over outing in Vampire Survivors. Well, that’s all changed now, thanks to Metal Slug Tactics, which takes the game from its run-and-gun roots and puts it into a tactical roguelike. Wait, what?
That’s right, Metal Slug Tactics is a completely different kind of game, and while it takes a little bit of time to wrap your head around the change, it still manages to channel the classic series impressively, leading to a deeply engaging and entertaining tactics game with plenty of replayability, and some really good music.
Each run, did we mention it was a roguelike, has you picking three different characters and their loadout, which means there is a lot of customisation when it comes to playing style. You then have to complete different missions, most of which involve defeating your enemies, but some have other objectives too, such as escaping with your squad intact. Your job is then to survive and make it through a full run if you can.
What’s really cool though are some of the new systems the game implements, which feel refreshing not only for the Metal Slug series but for tactics games in general. For instance, the Sync system allows players to chain together attacks from two characters in a single turn, without using an extra action point, creating a satisfying and strategic combat flow. Metal Slug Tactics is a huge amount of fun to sink time into, and because it’s a roguelike, if it clicks with you then there are plenty of different unlocks and systems to play with and master.
Whilst not perfect, some of the writing can feel a bit sloppy, and there are a few bugs – as with any new release – but overall, Metal Slug Tactics is a blast to play, and should bring a lot of joy to anyone in their 30’s that has fond memories of the series, as well as newcomers who just want a solid tactics game.
LEGO-licensed video games have arguably been one of the most prolific series in the games industry for the past couple of decades. Truly getting its momentum with LEGO Star Wars back in 2005, the house that the plastic bricks built would soon bring other popular franchises into its fold such as Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, The Hobbit and many others. The latest attempt at this veritable kaleidoscope of tie-ins is LEGO Horizon Adventures, and though it might look like a typical Lego mash-up at first glance, LEGO Horizon Adventures is a fair bit more than the sum of its licensed parts.
The Best Looking LEGO Video Game Ever And It Isn’t Even Close
From the first time we set our eyes on LEGO Star Wars, it was clear that developer Travellers Tales knew precisely how to translate the look of LEGO into video game form. With LEGO Horizon Adventures, however, new outfit Studio Gobo has taken things up several notches and then some. Put simply, from a visual fidelity perspective Aloy and the worlds around her look like they’ve all been pulled directly from a LEGO CG movie, such as The Lego Movie, for example. Everything from the slightly goofy-looking animations to the light shining off the plastic of LEGO characters and even the individual details on each LEGO brick – all of it hasn’t looked as good as it does this time round. Make no mistake, LEGO Horizon Adventures sets a new visual benchmark for Lego video games going forward.
An Intriguing Glimpse At A Non-Open World Future For Horizon
Until now, every major title in the Horizon franchise has embraced a similar, open-world action RPG remit. As such, it’s extremely interesting to see LEGO Horizon Adventures go in almost entirely the other direction by prescribing players a decidedly more linear digital realm to explore, albeit with the occasional branching paths. With its welcomely bite-sized, isometric levels that clock in at a good twenty minutes or so, LEGO Horizon Adventures is ideal for time-sparse gamers in such a way that the hundred-hour-plus Horizon Zero Dawn and Forbidden West games might not be. Most interestingly though, this approach also opens the door to what a non-formula Horizon game might look like should franchise creator and steward Guerrilla Games decide to expand the epic series beyond its increasingly shopworn open-world trappings.
LEGO Horizon Adventures Maintains The Essence Of The Horizon Franchise With Verve
If there has been one common thread with many LEGO tie-ins, it’s that they are often LEGO games first and then whatever licence they have taken on second. The opposite is very much true here, however, as Team Gobo has done a fantastic job of infusing the very essence of the Guerrilla Games epic franchise into LEGO Horizon Adventures; veterans will immediately be able to recognise key mechanics and gameplay cornerstones, while newcomers can get stuck in quickly. Everything from Aloy’s trusty bow to the traps and gadgets she can use to tackle the machine horde, to striking from cover in thick grass and more besides – it’s clear that LEGO Horizon Adventures is a Horizon game first and a LEGO game second.
A Co-operative Horizon Adventure For Everybody
Of course, being a LEGO tie-in, LEGO Horizon Adventures brings cooperative play to the table and in a first for the Horizon series, LEGO Horizon Adventures allows friends (either locally or online) to collectively tackle the machine menace and uncover the mystery behind Aloy’s origins. In practice, this not only makes LEGO Horizon Adventures a much more sociable affair but coupled with the bite-sized stages and easy-to-grasp mechanics, it also makes Studio Gobo’s debut Lego effort a prime prospect for gamers of all ages.
Not Being Serious Is A Great Thing
Another part of the LEGO game DNA that is keenly felt in LEGO Horizon Adventures is the comic freewheeling and outright hilarious tone that can be felt in every single area of the game. Where LEGO Horizon Adventures feels different in this regard when compared to other Lego video game tie-ins, however, is when you consider the source material. Certainly, when you look at the likes of Harry Potter and Indiana Jones, there is already a degree of levity baked into those franchises. With Horizon Zero Dawn and Forbidden West however, both titles are arguably much more po-faced affairs and so being bombarded with constant slapstick, snappy comebacks and with many of the original Horizon actors reprising their roles in comic fashion (Aloy’s own voice actor, Ashly Burch, is clearly having a riot here), LEGO Horizon Adventures succeeds in crafting a Horizon adventure that is breezily amusing in ways that the franchise just has never been. Great stuff.
LEGO Horizon Adventures Succeeds In Bringing New Eyeballs To Both Franchises
Given the breadth of the Horizon games, as hundred-hour plus, open-world action-adventure RPGs, it’s reasonable to posit that such game design won’t necessarily appeal to everyone. Likewise, since the relatively high-profile release of LEGO Star Wars back in 2005, LEGO tie-ins have also suffered somewhat from a sameness which despite the relative uniqueness of its licences, likely has done little to entice people outside of its sphere. With LEGO Horizon Adventures then, it really feels like Studio Gobo has hit upon some sort of magical formula. Not only does LEGO Horizon Adventures brilliantly channel the essences of both the LEGO and Horizon franchises it’s also true that LEGO Horizon Adventures simultaneously feels much more than the sum of its parts. Certainly, if you’ve never played a Horizon game before or you’ve never indulged in a LEGO video game tie-in up until now, LEGO Horizon Adventures represents that rare beast which demands no prior knowledge of either franchise and yet will reliably create new players and fans for each on account of simply how downright fun and compelling it is. A proper best-of-both-worlds scenario which finds itself independently elevated as a result, LEGO Horizon Adventures is the most essential video game tie-in in years.
As a fan of the Life is Strange series you may have found yourself looking at the series and debating which game is the best and you would not be alone in doing that. After all, many of us like pitting the things we love against each other in a battle royale to see which of them comes out on top. Of course, you could also just be wondering which of these gold-standard episodic adventures is worth playing, if you were to only experience one.
No matter the reason, and your reasons are your own, we’ve ranked every game in this wonderful series, starting from “Least Best” to “Most Best”. We’re reluctant to use the word Worst here in any sense because they’re all incredibly enjoyable games. Without any further delay, let’s dive into it – remember, this ranking is just our opinion and opinions aren’t facts.
We feel a little bad about putting this adorable free game last on the list, but as the shortest entry in the series, it’s undeniable that it lacks the weight of the other games, despite it being incredibly sweet in its own right. Set in the broader Life is Strange universe, you take on the role of 9-year-old Chris, who’s trying to navigate life now that his mother has passed away. Leveraging his amazing imagination, you must help him to process his grief via a variety of fantastical adventures, mini-games and puzzles set in the mind of this super-hero-obsessed kid.
A prequel set three years before the events of the original game, Before the Storm earns its 4th place position due to the fact it doesn’t feel like a Life is Strange game. What do we mean by that? Well, although it has the same solid writing and relationship-heavy focus as the rest of the series, the departure from the supernatural superpowers just makes it feel somewhat disconnected from the wider world it’s set in. As for the story, you play as Chloe as she explores her relationships with those around her and forms a new, unlikely friendship with the popular girl, Amber.
Despite the name, our third-placed entry is actually the fourth entry in the series following the releases of Before the Storm and The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit, which actually served as the precursor demo to Life is Strange 2. Conceived as a ‘road trip’ game, Life is Strange 2 follows the story of Sean and Daniel, two brothers who have been forced on the run. As the older brother, Sean has to navigate trying to not only look after Daniel but also try to raise him whilst struggling with his brother’s new powers and his own emotions. It’s a game steeped in mystery, and while it doesn’t always hit the mark, the ending is certainly worthy of the Life is Strange name.
The latest entry in the series – well, until Double Exposure arrives – True Colors is a great entry in the series but isn’t quite good enough to top this list. In True Colors, you play as Alex who has the gift of Empathy, the ability to experience, absorb and manipulate the emotions of others and in true Life is Strange style, when her brother dies in an accident she must deploy these powers to get to the truth. It’s a fascinating tale that – like many of the best entries in the series – centres on the character’s tragedy to really pull at the heartstrings. Don’t let its place on this list dissuade you – it’s definitely worth your time and attention.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the best game in the Life is Strange series is also the one that kicked the whole thing off. Whilst not quite a lightning-in-the-bottle situation – although it’s damn close – the original Life is Strange earns the top spot simply for how significant it was. Demonstrating the Life is Strange concept in its purest form, you play as Max who, after witnessing her friend Chloe being shot dead, unlocks the power to rewind time to save her. Full of the small-town mystery that would define later entries, Life is Strange also packs an ending that is a thing of beauty and only achieavable via the medium of video games. It’s a game for the ages and not to be missed.
Looking for the latest entry in the series, Life is Strange Double Exposure? Why not head over to the Green Man Gaming store to secure your copy and embark on another quintessential Life is Strange episodic adventure.
With it being that time of year again (no, not that time of year, the other one), the temptation to find a particularly scary flick to get you in the mood for the annual spooky celebrations can be a strong one. Perhaps stronger still is the compulsion to take a more interactive role in such nightmarish scenarios, and what better way is there to do that than to carve your way through some of the best Halloween games to enjoy on PC in 2024 – so here we go!
Based on the hugely successful horror movie franchise of the same name, A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead is a spin-off that takes place during the first 100 days of the alien invasion chronicled in the terrifying big-screen flicks. Much like its famous cinematic counterpart, A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead knows how to weave an atmosphere of intense dread, as you creep through an apocalyptic landscape in silence as grotesque, sound-hunting aliens swarm around you. Exacerbating the terror further still is a special microphone mode that allows the aliens to pick up on your gasps and screams through the mic to discover your location. Have a clean set of underwear ready.
Representing a neat take on tales of the New World, Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden sees developer DONTNOD operating at the peak of its considerable powers. Set in an alternate, newly discovered America known as ‘New Eden’, Banishers is a third-person, action horror RPG that casts players as Red and Antea, a pair of supernatural warriors whose love for each other is as deep as the corruption that seeps through every pore of the land. Dripping with atmosphere, superb writing, great characters and some of the most imaginative monsters to come along in quite some time, Bainshers: Ghosts of New Eden is a Halloween adventure quite unlike any other.
Fully embracing its mid-1990s, PSOne-era aesthetic, Crow Country is a beautifully made, isometric survival horror effort. Throwing players back in time to 1990, Crow Country has players snooping around a spooky theme park and its darkened, wooded surroundings to find its missing owner, Edward Crow. Filled with terrifying creatures, a mountain of jump scares, some neat puzzles to solve and an eye-stroking visual presentation, Crow Country is an easy choice for anybody looking to spend Halloween with one foot in potent nostalgia and another in nerve-shredding terror.
Though INDIKA’s titular protagonist appears to be a meek, mouse-like nun, it turns out there is a lot more to our seemingly humble sister than meets the eye. Set at the turn of the nineteenth century in an alternate version of the Russian Empire, INDIKA unfurls the story of a nun looking to free herself from the confines of her harsh, puritanical convent and discover the world beyond its walls. The thing is you see, she has an imaginary friend called the Devil (yep, that one), who whispers amusing sweet nothings into her ear as she’s off doing her thing, resulting in a kaleidoscope of different gaming genres being offered up to the player as INDIKA’s grasp on sanity becomes more and more tenuous. Horror doesn’t get much more original – or just outright odd – than this.
A cinematic, audiovisual showcase with flair to spare, much like its 2016 predecessor, Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II is an effective representation of psychological trauma borne out as a hyper-violent, dark Viking horror tale. With her path of vengeance taking her to Viking-dominated Iceland, Senua forces players to face up against a horde of Norse mythological horrors as she must also deal with the horrors that lurk inside her soul. A third-person action-adventure boasting some of the best visuals of the year and some cracking binaural audio which brings Senua’s frail psyche to life, Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II isn’t just an effective sequel, it’s also a keenly made psychological horror with real verve, too.
It’s no secret that before the release of its SILENT HILL 2 remake, developer Bloober Team knew that the gaming public at large was split as to whether the Polish horror developer could do justice to one of the most beloved survival horror classics of all time. Yet, that’s precisely what the studio did. A full-fat, full-love remake of SILENT HILL 2, Bloober Team’s reinvigoration of Masashi Tsuboyama’s seminal horror sequel not only maintains the classic essence of its source material but also meaningfully builds around it by introducing new areas, new collectables, new voice actor performances and stunning, retina-searing visuals thanks to Unreal Engine 5. Proven to be both a roaring commercial and critical success, Bloober Team’s SILENT HILL 2 will not only go down as one of the best remakes ever but one of the very best survival horror titles of the year as well.
Framing a very different sort of horror scenario front and centre, Still Wakes The Deep puts players in the hefty overcoat and thick boots of an oil rig worker in the North Sea during an especially brutal storm in 1975. Played from a first-person perspective, Still Wakes The Deep tasks players with escaping said oil rig to reach their family and as you might well expect, such a feat proves easier said than done as it also happens that there are otherworldly horrors to deal with, in addition to the wildly chaotic whims of the sea. Filled with intense moments and the sort of thick creeping dread that you could cut with a knife, Still Wakes The Deep is the sort of North Sea, Scottish seaborne horror you never knew you wanted until now.
A proper evolution of the pants-wetting horror formula established in the previous Outlast titles, The Outlast Trials invites players to return to the Cold War where human guinea pigs are captured before being brutally tested on with cutting-edge indoctrination and mind control techniques in a black site facility. In practice, The Outlast Trials has you and up to three other unfortunate friends earn the right to freedom by avoiding terrifying enemies and crafting tools to stymie them, all the while locating evidence which proves the depths of malpractice that is being executed in the Murkoff facility. Filled to the brim with nail-biting, stealth-induced tension and toe-curling violence, The Outlast Trials is an easy recommendation for a spot of escape horror shenanigans with friends this Halloween.
Want the best indie games in November? Of course, you do. With so many games released all the time, both AAA and Indie, it can be a little bit harder to know which ones you should be paying attention to. To make things harder, Indie games do occasionally appear out of nowhere and take over the world, but we’ve got a pretty good feel for which ones look promising at this point.
So, to help pass that knowledge on to you, we’ve made a list of our favourites releasing in November, based on a mix of game concepts, who’s making them, and the general vibe they have. Without any further ado, let’s go ahead and jump into things.
Farmagia looks exceptional, and that’s in part thanks to its amazing character designs done by the manga artist Hiro Mashima, the powerhouse behind Fairy Tail and Eden’s Zero. An all-new action monster collector, you take control of Ten as you master farming and take part in incredible battles to survive in this strange world. Who knows, you may even save everything and everyone in the process.
Mind Over Magnet is an adorable-looking puzzle platformer where you must use the power of magnetism to escape a factory. You’ll need to work with not just physics, but also the colourful cast of characters you’ll meet along the way, and utilise everyone to the best of their abilities to escape this strange factory into the wider world.
Have you ever wanted to run a wholesome little shop filled with weird items from strange customers, all of which have been cleaned up by you as you live out your life as a loot goblin? We’re assuming the answer is “Yes” because even though that’s a very specific concept, it’s also a pretty endearing one. Well, luckily for you that’s what Trash Goblin is all about, and frankly, we can’t wait.
Slitterhead is a horror game that you’ll definitely want on your radar, not least because of the calibre of the team behind it, including developers who worked on both Silent Hill and Gravity Rush. The game has you hunting down brain-eating monsters known as Slitterheads, and harnessing the power of blood to fight them off and defeat them. It’s a really cool, unique concept and it looks truly stunning.
Luma Island is this month’s farming/mining sim and has you and other players working together to explore a strange new place filled with magical creatures, battle through hostile environments, and slowly build up your skills and your farm to make a living. It just looks really cute, and you can play it online with your friends which definitely helps in such a crowded genre.
This side-scrolling beat ‘em up looks to fuse the worlds of Devil May Cry and Castle Crashers into one incredibly slick action game. You can play as two different characters and can even capture creatures to summon them in battle for you. We think Spirit Mancer looks amazing, and the even better news is that it has a demo available right now!
Finally, we’ve got Critter Cafe, which has players seeking out magical Critters to help you renovate your home and cafe whilst helping them find their way home. It looks really cute, and seems as though the customisation of not just your cafe, but also your player character will play a huge part. If that isn’t enough, there are portals to go through, puzzles to solve, and plenty of friends to meet along the way.
With nearly a decade and a half on the clock between S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl and the last entry in the series, Call of Pripyat, everyone can be forgiven if they cannot remember the key story details from those previous games. Just in time then is this handy primer, aiming to fill in whatever narrative blanks you may have between the last entry in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series and its upcoming instalment. Although GSC has made a point to say that no prior knowledge of the series is needed, why not join us as we dive into the series’ irritated history.
NOTE: The following contains major spoilers for the entire S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series to date. Although we don’t know exactly how S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 will fit into the canon, if you haven’t completed the original trilogy and plan to, we recommend bookmarking this and coming back later!
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl
Taking place in the year 2012, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl depicts an alternate reality where a second nuclear disaster occurred six years prior, resulting in many of the inhabitants of Chernobyl, known as ‘The Zone’, being mutated or outright killed by the catastrophe. Emerging from this hellish scenario are Stalkers, a rugged sort of scavenger that roam across The Zone in search of treasures and abandoned artefacts. Players are cast as the Marked One, a Stalker who has a mysterious S.T.A.L.K.E.R tattoo on his left forearm (hence the name).
With no memory of his past, and trapped in a convoy carrying several unconscious and dead Stalkers, our protagonist is soon brought to Sidorovich, a seasoned Stalker who discovers a PDA on the Marked One with a simple message – kill an individual named ‘Strelok’. After Sidorovich awakens the Marked One, he is tasked with rescuing a fellow Stalker called Nimble who is being held captive by a conclave of savage bandits.
After liberating Nimble, it is soon revealed that Strelok and his followers were the first group of Stalkers to reach the centre of the Zone, where the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant is located and more pressingly, a mythical artefact called the Wish Granter that will give whoever finds it whatever they desire in life. Naturally, the Marked One is tasked with tracking down Strelok and so his true odyssey begins in earnest.
After working with other local Stalkers, the Marked One reaches an especially irradiated area called Agroprom. After exploring this area – including the Agroprom Research Institute – our protagonist discovers the location of a now-abandoned laboratory called Lab X-18. This, as it turns out, was the location where the aptly named ‘Brain Sorcher’ was developed, a terrifying device that uses Psi-emissions to turn humans into zombies. As if that wasn’t enough, it turns out there is another lab, Lab X-16, located under a factory in Yantar.
After obtaining a Psi-helmet which protects against these deadly Psi-emissions, the Marked One raids Lab X-16 whereupon he is given a vision of Strelok, which sets him on a path to the Agropom Underground in search of him. After being rescued following a near-death experience, it is revealed that the Marked One is actually Strelok himself and that the Wish Granter is a trap to lure people towards emitters like the Brain Scorcher.
After pushing through The Zone and the various fanatical stalker factions that worship the Wish Granter, Strelok arrives at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant only to find himself embroiled in a three-way battle between the army remnants and a special forces operation known as ‘Monolith’. Once the battle has concluded, Strelok discovers a massive terminal housing an intelligent entity known as the ‘Common Consciousness’ that tells Strelok everything about who he was before his amnesia kicked in and the history of the Zone.
After the Common Consciousness provides answers to all of Strelok’s queries, he offers the player a choice – stop the Common Consciousness from performing its experiments (such as the creation of the Brain Scorcher) on the denizens of the Zone, or, merge with it in order to maintain its existence. In the canon ending, Strelok kills the scientists who provide the Common Consciousness with its power and leaves the facility. Later, Strelok can be seen in a verdant environment filled with all manner of flora and fauna, as he falls asleep, wondering if the choice he made was the correct one.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky
A prequel that unfolds several years before the events of Shadow of Chernobyl – and recounting the events that lead to that game’s starting point – S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Clear Sky focuses on Scar, a mercenary with unusual genetic gifts thanks to the emissions of The Zone. After joining the Clear Sky faction, Scar is commanded by its leader, Lebedev, to stop a mysterious group from reaching the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and uncovering the secrets that are held within.
Believing that if the group is successful calamity will be brought to the world at large, Scar pursues the group to Yantar, whereupon he understands that a member of the group, Strelok, has obtained a special helmet which prevents him from being damaged by the emissions from the Brain Scorcher. After nearly catching Strelok, Scar battles through the newly activated Monolith forces that have arrived at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant as part of a three-way skirmish that also involves Strelok.
After the power plant releases an emission which disables everybody both in and around its perimeter, Scar’s fate is left unknown, while the ending shows a newly brainwashed Strelok accepting his new identity as the Marked One.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat
Kicking off after the events of Shadow of Chernobyl, S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Call of Pripyat pulls the veil back on the Zone as a massive number of Stalkers make their way to its centre in a bid to find whatever treasures and artefacts that they can. To capitalise on this, the Ukrainian government commences ‘Operation Fairway’, a broad helicopter recon mission, laying the groundwork ahead of a full-scale attack on the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. However, because nobody can have nice things in the Zone, all of the helicopters involved in the operation crash. The player, cast as Major Alexander Degtyarev, is dispatched into the Zone to investigate the crash sites to ascertain what happened.
After confirming that the helicopters were shocked out of the sky with bursts of electricity, Degtyarev realises that a number of the survivors from the various helicopter crashes have made their way to an evacuation zone deep within the seemingly sealed-off city of Pripyat. You set off in pursuit, hoping to find them alive and learn more about the events.
Sometime after arriving at Pripyat, however, Degtyarev encounters Strelok who explains in detail the secrets which lay at the heart of the Zone. Soon enough, Strelok, Degtyarev and other survivors that have joined the pair in Pripyat find themselves under attack by an overwhelming host of enemies. Though Call of Pripyat has multiple endings for each of its characters, they all allude to the fact that the Zone is actually expanding in size and could eventually reach beyond the borders of Ukraine and envelop Europe.
So whether that was a nice trip down memory lane or you simply needed a lore dump before jumping into the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. universe for the first time, you are now primed to venture into the Zone. The only thing you need now is a copy of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl and thankfully, you can grab one of them over on the Green Man Gaming store right now!
There are a lot of roguelikes out there, but one subgenre that’s been popping up recently is the Match-3 puzzle roguelike. Think Puzzle Quest, but with permadeath and different mechanics. If you’ve not played Puzzle Quest, then you can consider this a recommendation for that as well.
In the simplest terms, Witching Stone is a puzzle roguelike where you match gems in specific orders in order to cast spells. For example, a spell might require two upside-down triangles to cast, while another might require an upside-down triangle, a circle, a square, and then another upside-down triangle. If you manage to match just do the two upside-down triangles, you’ll cast the first spell, but if you manage to match the second one, you’ll get both spells.
So far so simple – that’s where the roguelike element comes in. As you fight through different battles you’ll get new spells, new passive buffs like more health or mana, as well as little badges which can alter your spells by allowing them to steal health, or inflict special statuses. You have to pick and choose where you’ll go to try and get new buffs or upgrades, and eventually fight a boss to get to the next level.
Boasting a cute pixel art style as well as a great soundtrack, which would be enough of a draw for some people on its own, the main draw here really is just the combination of the core puzzle gameplay and it’s roguelike elements. Managing to end up with six spells that are all cast in one five-match sequence is an amazing experience, and if you can build that around different abilities or badges, you’re in for a really good time.
All in all, I managed to unlock nearly everything in the game in around 10 hours, and I’ll definitely be jumping back from time to time purely because it’s such a great experience. So, if you’ve been looking for a bite-sized game, one that actually saves your runs too, then Witching Stone is the answer, and you’ll not regret it.
I don’t think it’s especially unreasonable to posit that if you’ve been a Dragon Age fan since the series started in 2009, the last ten years have not been easy. At all. With the previous game in BioWare’s ongoing RPG franchise, Dragon Age Inquisition, releasing back in 2014 and its successor flirting with the various circles of development hell during that time, it’s honestly something of a miracle that Dragon Age: The Veilguard is set for release at all. And yet, that’s exactly what’s going to happen – October 2024 will see Dragon Age: The Veilguard finally see the light of day and here is why we believe it is set to return eager adventurers to BioWare’s golden era.
A Direct Continuation Of Dragon Age Inquisition
Rather than kick off an entirely new story filled with new and unfamiliar characters, Dragon Age: The Veilguard is a direct continuation of the events chronicled in 2014’s Dragon Age Inquisition. Ten years after that game’s conclusion, Veilguard looks set to succeed as it welcomes players back to the fold to take up arms against Solas, the chief antagonist of both Dragon Age Inquisition and Dragon Age: The Veilguard. In addition to Solas, players can also expect to see more friendly, familiar faces, such as Varric and potentially others that BioWare have yet to confirm, such as Leilana. As such, Dragon Age: The Veilguard almost feels like the Avengers: Endgame to Inquisition’s Avengers: Infinity War, weaving together an almost seamless continuation of an already epic saga that fans have been deeply invested in for more than ten years.
Fresh Art Direction And Technical Sheen Coalesce To Create A Visual Showcase
Though Dragon Age: The Veilguard is indeed a direct continuation of Dragon Age Inquisition, you might not initially know it by looking at the various media for the game. With a shift to a more stylised, almost animated look that leaves behind the much more straightforward and relatively flair-free designs of previous games, Dragon Age: The Veilguard doesn’t just look appreciably different from its predecessor, but the shift in art direction has also resulted in many more colourful and vibrant environments that do a grand old job of showcasing the Tevinter Imperium like never before. Beyond the new art direction, Dragon Age: The Veilguard also makes the most of contemporary rendering techniques, boasting high-end ‘ultra’ ray tracing settings resulting in eye-stroking reflections, shadows and ambient occlusion. Another neat touch is that as your group accumulates damage, it will show on their faces and bodies within cutscenes too, adding a real sense of visual consistency to the whole affair. Put simply, Dragon Age: The Veilguard will be a treat for the eyes and then some.
Character Creation That You Can Lose Yourself In
Long before you take the first steps in your epic odyssey, Dragon Age: The Veilguard enshrouds players in its character creation suite, which I’m aggrieved to report, is horrendously in-depth and will likely sap a good chunk of time away from you. Known as ‘Rook’, Dragon Age: The Veilguard allows you to tailor its central protagonist in a dizzying number of ways. Once you’ve chosen your race from dwarves, elves, humans and qunari, followed by a class choice of mage, rogue and warrior, you can also specify which faction your Rook belongs to, diversifying them yet further still. When you get to the cosmetic side of things, this is where things can become obsessive, as you pour over every physical aspect of your hero’s appearance and Dragon Age: The Veilguard provides you with the tools to tailor Rook exactly how you want to.
New Specialisations Provide Long Missed Character Customisation Opportunities
Though Dragon Age: The Veilguard only provides a trio of classes to choose from at the beginning, newly implemented specialisations allow you to broaden your horizons further with a further three subclasses unlocking as you progress later into the game, tapping neatly into the lore of the Dragon Age universe to boot. Mages can become Death Callers, Evokers and Spell Blades. Rogues can become Saboteurs, Duelists, Veil Jumpers and Veil Rangers. Finally, Warriors can become Slayers, Reapers, Champions or a Darkspawn destroying Grey Warden.
Furious, Yet Thoughtful Action-Packed Combat
Furthering the real-time combat systems seen in Dragon Age Inquisition, Veilguard’s combat works similarly on first inspection, allowing players to pause the combat while fighting to target new enemies, use abilities from handy radials and generally get a good vantage of the battlefield to help galvanise their strategy. Pretty standard, yet satisfying stuff then. However, Dragon Age: The Veilguard also looks to provide additional depth via an expanded loadout system and viscerally satisfying execution kills, too.
A Magical Realm Overflowing With Stories And Lore
One of the most attractive aspects of the Dragon Age franchise since its inception is the notion that you were the main character in a fully fleshed-out, fantasy world where lore oozed from every nook and cranny. In Dragon Age: The Veilguard, that idea of a world that is overflowing with a sense of place, lore and stories continues as players find themselves once again drawn to the world of Thedas. This time however, the oppressive Tevinter Imperium serves as the primary backdrop to the proceedings, as players must navigate the complex geopolitical struggles that have marked the seat of Dragon Age’s longtime oppressive imperial force, all the while diving into the lore and personal stories of the denizens that choose to make a life there.
Companion Choices Help To Drive An Overarching Non-Linear Narrative
Of course Dragon Age: The Veilguard wouldn’t be a Dragon Age, or indeed, a BioWare game if it didn’t fully embrace companions and a nonlinear narrative. Thankfully, BioWare’s latest looks set to do both with aplomb. Not only will your companions have their own personal backstories, quests and, of course, ample romance opportunities, but so too will they notice things that are happening both within the group and in the world at large. With a total of seven possible companions that can be brought into your group, Dragon Age: The Veilguard also does a great job of tracking how your actions – in dialogue, combat and the choices that you make in key story events – will affect their perception of you. This is thanks to a Telltale style notification informing you what a companion thought of your actions and if they will remember it for later on.
The Lighthouse Marks An Overdue Return To Meaningful Hub Areas
One element of BioWare’s games that is often overlooked is how effectively it leverages downtime to strengthen bonds with both your companions and the events that are happening both to them and around them. In Dragon Age: The Veilguard, this approach is very much at the forefront of its design as its hub, an area called the Lighthouse, allows you to speak to your companions, further your relationships with them and even unlock new companion-centric quests. In addition to other incidental NPCs that can be interacted with, the Lighthouse also serves a second important purpose. The Lighthouse allows players to not just dive into the history of Veilguard’s primary antagonist Solas, but also play quests that form his lived experience, resulting in Rook talking to their companions about how these stories affect their perception of Veilguard’s shiny-headed, big bad. It’s a great way to make hub areas feel worthwhile again, as they used to with older BioWare efforts, and I’m absolutely here for it.
