From the titles that helped shape the genre like The Sims to newer releases such as Pokopia that have pushed things in fresh directions, these are the best cozy games of all time.

But, I will offer you some great stories that appeared on the website this week, and we've got some recommendations for games you can play this weekend.

Another argument for Olden Era is that there aren't many directly comparable games, even though it's been 10 years since the last proper HOMM – Songs of Conquest, I guess? Heroes of Might and Magic is very much its own style. I'd say Unfrozen are off to a good start with this comeback project.

I hope it's clear how much I love Heart of the Machine. It might be peak Arcen, and the game that tells a whole new audience what that means. How complex doesn't have to mean tedious or demanding, and "strategy game" can mean not work or contest, but play.

For a game where much of the entertainment value comes from watching semi-autonomous avatars live out their semi-independent lives, Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is a surprisingly addictive experience. While the repetition in the writing really underscores just how much of the game’s substance comes from you personally, the offbeat humour leads to some truly hilarious moments, and the scope for creativity makes the world a canvas limited only by your imagination – and your Miis’ pseudo-free will.

Tomodachi is back, and it’s never been better. While the character creation is so nearly perfect, Living the Dream is a welcome trip down memory lane for fans of the original. It builds upon everything that made the 3DS original so special, creating an upgraded adventure that’s filled with even more odd interactions, silly situations, and laugh-out-loud lines that will have you coming back to view this microcosm of the weird and wonderful for countless hours to come.

Like its predecessors, Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is an entertaining collection of ridiculously random set-pieces, tied together in an easy-to-play life sim. It does start getting repetitive after a few weeks, but the exceptionally localised dialogue and the scope for heavy customisation makes it a game the entire family can enjoy regardless.

GamesRadar+ Verdict Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is a worthy sequel that I can't put down. It's weird, surreal, and a great evolution for Nintendo's iconic social simulator - even if it feels repetitive at times.

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream provides you with the constant feeling of seeing something really funny happen, but not being able to tell anyone about it. Not only has Nintendo removed the ability to share Miis via QR codes, but the developer also blocks players from sharing screenshots and videos you take from the game using the native Switch capture functionality. This is a game that is built on its oddball moments, and not having an official way to share those is massively shortsighted.

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but its wackiness, creative design, and silly gameplay still make this adventure stand out against the cozy competition.

On paper, Tomodachi Life is something like Animal Crossing mixed with The Sims, perhaps with a bit of Tamagotchi thrown in. But that doesn't really convey just how wonderfully oddball the series is. And after blasting through Living the Dream's demo on Switch last night, I'm ready for more of its weird.

It’s this enjoyment my 7-year-old has had playing the game with me that makes me think Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream could be an even bigger hit than the 3DS game if Nintendo markets it properly.You’ll occasionally be asked questions about various topics, which will then be brought up during conversations.This is the most she’s been excited about any game we’ve had in the house so far – she sits in eager anticipation every time she gives a Mii a new food to see if they like it, she bursts out laughing every time a weird cutscene plays out, and she loves picking clothes for each character.

Final Thoughts If I’m to look at Mouse’s individual parts, all pinned up on my corkboard, I’d see more than a fair share of grizzly crime scenes of padded length, one-note gunplay, and wonky progression. But sometimes you need to step back and take in the full picture for the truth to reveal itself. While you can’t outright ignore the valid criticisms, the outstandingly charming rubber hose style, awesome movement mechanics, and campy noir tale lift enough of the weight to make Mouse a case worth taking on.

Part-chaotic retro shooter, part-stylish cartoon noir, Mouse P.I. for Hire goes beyond its stellar artistry to land an invigorating, imaginative hard-boiled romp.

MOUSE: P.I. For Hire absolutely oozes charm in its narrative and gameplay, even if it gets caught in a mousetrap or two of the FPS genre.

I’m surprised to tell you that Mouse: PI For Hire is the best shooter I’ve played in ages. Not because I’m especially down on rubberhose animation, or rodents, or monochrome Unity engine environments, but because I hugely underestimated how well those disparate elements could be combined. This is a luxurious, maximalist game that commits equally hard to making you feel like a detective solving a case as it does making you feel like a gun-toting hero.

With its black-and-white rubber hose animation, lively jazz soundtrack, and gripping detective noir setting, Mouse: P.I. For Hire serves up a refreshing 1930s-inspired experience in the seedy city of Mouseburg – a name that makes perfect sense given its population of anthropomorphic mice. Here, players control a gumshoe named Jack Pepper (voiced by Troy Baker), as he unravels an increasingly complex missing persons case sporting all the usual suspects from crooked cops and slippery politicians to charming socialites and tenacious reporters. This tale's smart, humorous writing and enigmatic characters play into hardboiled fiction cliches in amusing ways that kept me hooked throughout the dozen or so hours it took to reach its high-stakes finale.

All that, though, you could probably tell for yourself just by watching the trailer. The real surprise, for me at least, is how Mouse P.I. plays. Yes, (in the demo at least) it's a largely linear first-person shooter with light puzzle elements, but it's built around an appealingly elastic sense of momentum.

Arguably, the most anticipated of the bunch over the last few years has been Mouse: P.I. For Hire, the noir first-person shooter that looks like a hyper-violent version of The Mickey Mouse Club. With its April release fast approaching, I was recently invited to go hands-on with the black and white boomer shooter, spending around 30 minutes playing through one of the game’s early levels. With it being such a small slice of the overall experience, there are plenty of questions left unanswered, but my brief time spent causing cartoon carnage did show some promise.

Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War is dull, uninspired, and devoid of the series' characteristic wit.

Minos is a roguelike tower defense game that starts strong but rapidly becomes too complicated to meet its demands for precision.

Each level of Minos presents you with a small section of Crete's famous labyrinth. At its heart is a lair where Asterion the minotaur has set up home. It is my job to reshape the walls of the maze and place traps to kill off any plucky Greeks trying to slay the beast at its center.

Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss is an ambitiously detailed Lovecraftian detective story that makes great use of its supernatural horror source material. Open-ended puzzles across each chapter challenge in all the right ways, giving you the tools to sort through the mountains of evidence. Sometimes overly fiddly, and with more than few technical issues, pondering can be replaced with bursts of annoyance, but this is more often than not a great chin-stroker.

As my preview played out its final moments in the city of R’lyeh, I concluded that although the game’s early moments hadn’t wrapped their tentacles around me, I was nonetheless incredibly intrigued about where Noah’s journey was heading. It’s less horror than I was expecting, but Big Bad Wolf’s rendition of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos is perfect for the studio’s investigation mechanics. And truth be told, Lovecraft would be proud of the vibe that the studio has created.

It does a commendable job at presenting these myths, but the various gameplay elements are simultaneously doing too much, not enough, and getting in the way of a good show.

Legends of the Round Table isn't just a turn-based RPG, it's an extravagant 13th century puppetshow with live medieval lute music and a boisterous, singing narrator you can all but visualise prancing around the stage, splashing mead over the less important courtiers. It's also a jousting experience in which you can juice up your charge with Love, one of the principle chivalric virtues, in order to clang a dude right off his horse.

Your task is to save all the hellbound Svangårds before the vigil is over, by defeating their devils over the course of nodular, branching roguelite campaigns. These campaigns don't consist of magical duels - they're characterised as a series of haggling matches while picking through a diabolical contract, which unfurls like molted snakeskin from the ceiling of Mariken's secret workshop. As you advance your blood-stained eyeglass from clause to clause, section to section, you'll beat the presiding demon in lawyerly card battles and add fresh packs to your deck, some of which harbour cursed cards that insist on being played, once drawn.

As much as both The Red Strain and Wicked Isle fall emphatically into the category of ‘more Atomfall’, rather than being radical departures from the base game, they’ve got enough narrative colour not to simply feel like a needless widening of a nimbly succinct survival jaunt. A year on from release and with its DLC grafted on, Atomfall feels a more complete being and one that’s lasted long enough for me to get properly into it the way I’d hoped to the first time around.

Although I can identify areas where Replaced falls a little short, I’m still walking away from the game impressed and satisfied. Its visuals are stunning, its story is risky and full of heart, and what its gameplay lacks in complexity, it makes up for in variety, never feeling complacent even despite occasional pacing issues. Replaced is a terrific experience, especially for the price and hopefully, it’s also just the beginning for Sad Cat Studios.

So, while I will get into more detail about all of that in a moment, if you will humour me for now, I want to talk about something which took me by surprise when I got to go hands-on with Replaced during a visit to publisher Thunderfall last month - the sheer amount of heart there is to be found in this dystopian and cruel world.

It's the latest small-scale RPG from Outerloop Games, the same devs behind 2023's Thirsty Suitors. Where their previous game was all about battling off unsuitable suitors, food takes centre stage in Dosa Divas, pitting you as a pair of sisters and their trusty ancient spirit-mech who are "on a mission to defeat a rotten fast food empire and reconnect communities with their traditions." And it's out right now!

With its fusion of heartfelt narrative, giant robot combat and flexible flavour-driven cooking system, Dosa Divas serves up a hearty genre mashup that more than lives up to its ambitious premise. It’s a beautifully crafted journey where the only thing more satisfying than the snappy dialogue and deep character bonds is the undeniable joy of saving the world one home-cooked meal at a time.

With a skilfully written story in a small but immersive world filled with charm, emotion, and more than a few blush-inducing jokes, Dosa Divas takes a warm and meaningful approach to linking food, family, community, and memory. You'll be sweet on this.

Morbid Metal released into early access last week, and I finally got the chance to sit down and play it—and while developer Screen Juice's new roguelike needs some proper work on its secondary elements, the good news is that the bones are good. Really good, in fact.

Pokémon has persisted for decades for many reasons – cute characters, a popular anime, lucrative trading cards – but chief among them is the game series' consistently satisfying turn-based battles. Pokémon Champions captures this highly refined system, cuts out much of the grinding necessary to train a viable team, and puts a thrilling competitive battling system in the hands of players around the world. The features around those battles, however, are often confusing and uneven, and despite a solid core, Pokémon Champions fails to reach its full potential.

Pokemon Champions is a competent option for those that only care about Pokemon battles, but it doesn't offer much else.

At launch, Pokemon Champions feels a bit too much like a proof of concept. The onboarding process for players unfamiliar with the ins and outs of competitive battling is fantastic. That anyone trying out the game requires zero investment in the franchise to forge a meta team is its biggest achievement, bar none.

Champions does exactly what it sets out to do: consolidate Pokemon into one game without forcing players through the side systems of the core RPGs. The customization tools are robust, the rental system is a smart inclusion for onboarding, and the transfer model respects players’ past efforts without gating newcomers behind them. Whether you’re a longtime VGC veteran or someone who’s never touched a breeding guide in your life, Champions feels deliberately built to bring you into the competitive fold.

“I really want to take this element of the series, Pokémon battles, something that sticks around forever,” he told VGC during an interview at February’s Pokémon European International Championships. “Many people have played Pokémon games, they’ve played Pokémon battles, but haven’t really gotten into the PVP side, playing against other players. With this game, I hope to expand that accessibility to make it something that anyone can jump in and enjoy.”

Idols of Ash casts you as a bereaved spelunker who is trying to reach the bottom of a sunken, sandy megastructure, while avoiding the attentions of an unpredictably spawning giant centipede.

Posthumously asked by an elderly friend to give her cottage a tidy, you spend half your time in A Storied Life rummaging through her things in a kind of reverse Unpacking, selecting which bric-a-brac to throw away, which to keep, and which – with her blessings – to auction off for cash. The other half is spent taking inspiration from the objects you’ve kept to rewrite her water-damaged memoirs, a bittersweet series of word puzzles that still achieves a certain warmth – provided you can come to terms with the peculiar writing style.

Super Meat Boy 3D is a respectable and often fun translation of the series’ tight platforming, but its style of play sometimes clashes with the demands of a 3D world to frustrating degrees.

Pragmata, somehow, manages to take this concept to some sort of illogical conclusion. The core conceit of this game - outside of the weirdly beautiful story about loneliness in space, what it is to be human, and the perils of rampant, irresponsible usage of AI - is that you control a human and a robot, and must engage in action-packed skirmishes whilst shooting, dodging, and solving grid-based puzzles, all at the same time. A 'hacking grid' pops up when you aim at an enemy, and from there you must strafe, hit weak spots, jump or dodge attacks, and work out the most efficient way to disable robot foes in a melee of sparks, shells, and sabotage.

There’s something distinctly 2008 financial crash about Pragmata.Perhaps it could be down to protagonist Hugh, who simultaneously sounds like both Troy Baker and Nolan North, and wears armor reminiscent of Platinum’s Vanquish.Whatever it is, Pragmata feels like a remaster of an early Xbox 360 game that never existed – and that’s great.

Pragmata certainly starts strong, but it doesn't have quite enough to stay completely engaging all the way to the end credits. It's a highly-polished sci-fi game with fun combat and exploration, but its lackluster story and characters keep it from reaching its full potential. Still, it's exciting to have a completely original IP from Capcom, and while Pragmata doesn't live up to the high bar set by some of the studio's other efforts, it's a mostly worthwhile adventure.

Short and sweet, Pragmata is a snazzy late aughts throwback elevated by a terrific sense of feedback and momentum.

Pragmata is the kind of shooter you just don’t get anymore. It packs a lot into a relatively short runtime and makes the most of every single second. The combat is brilliant from start to finish and doubles down on the hacking gimmick to deliver fast, frantic, and tense fights that never get old.

Pragmata is nostalgia wrapped in a shiny new spacesuit with plenty of cool tricks up its pressurized sleeve. It's good to see Capcom returning to its quirky action beat, with an impressive host of weaponry, upgrades, combat hacks, and base-building as the sci-fi adventure moves through beautifully-conceptualized biomes. The visual and stylistic elements definitely give me deja-vu at times, and I could do without its heavy-handed themes battering me over the head, but beneath all that polished titanium sits a profound tale of humanity I'll not soon forget.

That’s what makes original IP Pragmata such an intriguing prospect. Everything we’ve played so far feels distinctly throwback, in a way that most other developers would attract scrutiny. But that’s OK: The idea of a simpler, linear third-person shooter, with a sprinkling of Sad Dad narrative, feels pretty compelling amid today’s abundance of online shooters and RPGs, especially with the Devil May Cry house at the controls.

Overall, this new experience with Pragmata solidified my impression that Capcom’s ambitious new game has firmly found its footing. They significantly amped up the difficulty, added more variety in how you can tackle enemies, and built an exciting new world to explore. It’s great fun, and I can’t wait to play the full game in April.

“Come back stronger.” By the end of my recent three-hour preview session with Saros, it was clear that this is more than a marketing beat; it’s the ethos that underpins the entire game. Housemarque’s latest swing at a roguelite bullet-hell builds on what made Returnal so special, but the progression, gameplay advancements, and stronger narrative focus make it clear that it isn’t just another entry into the genre; it’s coming for the crown.

“For us, it was about not diluting the Returnal experience and actually just making sure that it could be more approachable to more people,” said creative director Gregory Louden. “The game is still going to kick you down. But the difference in Saros is that you come back stronger.

Five years ago, I called Returnal the PS5’s first must-play exclusive. In 2026, Housemarque is delivering another can’t-miss roguelike with SAROS – Its intensity only rivalled by its addictiveness. The sum of its parts makes it one of the most impressive first-party games of the generation.

I'm happy to bring you the good news that the color orange, while important to Saros thematically, is not as present in the game as its marketing thus far would have you believe. I recently played Saros for about three hours, running through its first two biomes and taking down the big boss of each, and while I did see a decent amount of orange, the majority of my time previewing the game was painted in all manners of colors.

No-guns runs in GTA 5 are exceptionally difficult, but my latest has become impossible. Not through the lens of challenge, but through distraction and an obsession with power bombing hapless baddies for sport. That and screaming "wooooo" at the top of my lungs like an idiot.

Far Cry 2 breaks new ground. While there is a script and a story, the details of who does what, who lives, who dies, who's left standing at the end, really do lie in your hands. Far Cry 2 comes closer than any commercial game yet to a truly dynamic narrative.

Hello and welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little about the games we've been playing. This week, Kelsey battles a terrifying enemy in real-life letting agents; Marie breaks her personal Jack and Daxter best - bravo!; and Bertie decides to do something he never thought he'd do and focus.

If you're craving a classic turn-based RPG adventure filled color and so some so far fun music, take a look at People of Note. It's available now on most platforms.

Combining the exceptionally relaxing hobby of board gaming with the all-time favorite pastime of beachcombing, Sanibel swaps the usual heated competition you'll find in the best board games for warm sands and sea views. As a gently-paced game with Tokaido style movement and Tetris-like tile placement, Sanibel is a tranquil race up and down the shell-strewn sands to collect and collate the best set of treasures ever to be happened upon. You'll spend your turns building up your own personal patterns with the items you collect, working on tricky goals that will fall into place as time goes on.

Skull Horde, the dungeon-crawling, minion-raising autobattler from Bore Blasters devs 8BitSkull, is out today. I like, it, mostly – maybe not as much as Alice B (RPS in peace) appreciated its predecessor’s helicopter-mining, but then there’s enough meat on Skull Horde’s magic bones to distinguish it as more than just another Vampire Survivors reanimation. As the decapitated head of an expired necromancer, you won’t be doing the monsterslaying yourself: that’s what your growing army of equally gross minions is for.

Weaving Terry Pratchett, Terry Gilliam and more, Esoteric Ebb is a comedic D&D adventure where a waylaid Cleric is tasked with solving a crime, days before the world's first election.

It's only March, but I'm calling it: Esoteric Ebb is 2026's best RPG and the first worthy successor to Disco Elysium

As one among many heirs to Disco's throne, Esoteric Ebb has the advantage of being heavily championed by one of Disco's main writers. "If you enjoyed Disco Elysium, do yourself a favor and try Esoteric Ebb," Summer Eternal's Argo Tuulik wrote on MechaHitler.com last week. "It's *easily* the most exciting game Disco has inspired, one that transcends imitation and stands strong on its own."

The Occultist has a strong premise, interesting narrative, and engrossing atmosphere, but unfortunately it fails to capitalise on this with some pretty tedious gameplay, a lack of scares, a boring protagonist and out-of-place voice acting.

The publishing arm of Frostpunk developer 11 Bit Studios, which has built a reputation for releasing interesting games - such as Indika, Thaumaturge, and Death Howl - has unveiled a new farming sim-slash-narrative thriller called Crop. It's being made by small Norwegian team Carbonara Games and aims to blend a Stardew Valley farming experience with the eeriness and mysteriousness of iconic David Lynch show Twin Peaks.

That's not quite the case in Crop, the "gritty farming simulator" developer Carbonara Games described to me as "Stardew Valley meets Twin Peaks" when I saw a demo of it last month at GDC. First of all, you're not inheriting your farm from a beloved family member: you've just crawled naked out of the trunk of a crashed car in the woods, wandered onto some farmland, and found the previous farmer dead.

At its best, Samson feels like a GTA 4 roleplaying mod which puts you in the shoes of a random goon just trying to get by. The kind of thing you might install as an excuse to keep roaming Liberty City once the main story’s done. So, I’ll keep on living as a man far better with his floppy fists than Niko Bellic, but who feels similarly stuck in a 90s or 2000s movie about unforgiving urban underworlds shrouded in graffiti and cigarette smoke.

Samson sounds great on paper. But the recently published gameplay trailer left me unconvinced. The cars look fun enough to drive, as you'd expect from the director of 2015's underrated Mad Max spinoff.

If the rest of the game is as good as the small taste I’ve played, we’re potentially looking at one of the year’s best. We’ll have a review of the full game nearer to its release, but at this stage everything’s on track to give Forza Horizon 5 a run for its money and take over pole position as the best open-world racing game around.

But the heart wants what it wants, and it turns out that my heart wants a 1989 Nissan Silvia K's. Here is a slick urban delight, its body the colour of evening skies that announce the arrival of a summer storm. It's the car that I chose when the campaign started, and I quickly grew to love its air of 80s-tinged menace.

While not totally without its merits, Samson is ultimately a frustrating, hollow, and unpleasant experience that I can't recommend to anyone, regardless of personal taste. Its core gameplay loop wears thin almost immediately; its story, while barebones, ranges from yawn-inducing to laughably bad; and its shoddy technical state and baffling design choices only serve to exacerbate these fatal flaws.

Aiming to do for Scrabble what Balatro did for poker, Beyond Words gives you the same framework of a rack of tiles and a board upon which to make words, and also a set of ridiculous power cards that see your scores explode with each passing turn. As someone who has survived more than three decades of family holidays dominated by word games, I thought I would be more than ready to take on Beyond Words. I was sorely mistaken.

People of Note is an ambitious turn-based RPG which shines in many ways but ultimately fails to hit all of its high notes. While the soundtrack and turn-based combat are individually strong, there’s a persistent disconnect between the gameplay experience and the power of song that the narrative is trying to sell you, leading to a weird sense of musical emptiness that undermines the core selling point of the game.

Pillars of Eternity turned 11 years old last month, but Obsidian just put out a transformative update for the venerable CRPG: A full turn-based mode alongside the game's original real-time with pause (RTWP) mechanics. The mode had previously been available via a Steam beta branch since last November. My verdict? I loved it, and this is definitely how I want to do my next playthrough.

And then there is Horse Magnifier. A game where you magnify horses. A game that I like quite a lot!

This week, Victoria strongarms her children into playing Super Mario Galaxy before they watch the rather ropy-sounding film; Bertie discovers a game as strange as he is; Marie reveals a wonderful Easter tradition that she's created for herself; and Connor's still absolutely hooked on Old School Runescape.

I’ll be spending a big chunk of this weekend leaping, dashing, and getting brutally killed in Super Meat Boy 3D. I adore Super Meat Boy – I think it’s up there as one of the best platformers ever made – and this three-dimensional follow-up mostly lives up to the tight gameplay and enjoyable challenge of its 2D predecessor with some caveats. Hopefully this issue doesn’t persist, because the game seems chock full of meaty potential and I'm in the mood for a good 3D platformer.

But Hunt isn’t like that, and nor is Marathon. In both games, you can think of your human rivals as the xenomorph in Alien: Isolation, or Mr X in Resident Evil 2 - a smart enemy that isn’t just looking for you but, more pertinently, listening as well. The presence of other players turns each Marathon map into one enormous alarm system - where even a swiftly resolved firefight with robots runs the risk of drawing the apex predator.

At first glance, Marathon may seem like a fundamentally solid game with a lot of potential, but one that simply feels too intimidating to invest in. But if players are willing to jump over the unnecessary hurdles in Marathon's opening hours, they'll likely discover that Marathon doesn't just live up to its potential, but it exceeds it, with the current version offering a host of replayable maps, an engaging progression system, and a core loop that should keep extraction shooter fans coming back time and time again.

With spellbinding combat and high-concept maps, Marathon is far more than a cool aesthetic draped over the bones of an extraction shooter. If Arc Raiders showed the world what an extraction shooter is, Marathon demonstrates, in unambiguous fashion, what extractions shooters are about. Whatever anomalous conditions coalesced to make Embark's game so oddly affable (at least in solos), they are entirely absent among the abandoned megastructures of Tau Ceti IV.

Marathon is a brilliant distillation of what makes an excellent extraction shooter, and a glimpse at where they could go next.

Like any good extraction shooter, Marathon is a game about the choice and consequences inherent within a run. Yet, it's more than just that. Bungie's excellent audio design and gunplay, paired with increasingly complicated level design borrowing from over a decade of expertise designing Destiny raids coalesce into something special.

It’s a shooter with a graceful visual presentation and the top-notch gunfeel that has come to be expected from a studio with a long-standing legacy in the genre. It’s also a shooter that is as alluring as it is unforgiving, pitting players against each other as they navigate hostile environments in pursuit of tantalizing loot, facing the ever-looming threat that death is always around the corner. The belligerent nature of Marathon reflects not only the past couple of years of Bungie but also the tumultuous landscape of other live service shooters that are also fighting for scraps of attention and a nomadic player base.

On the most basic level, Marathon’s core gameplay is best-in-class. Bungie has always excelled at gunplay, and the same rings true here. Each and every weapon currently in the game comes with a distinct feel and sound profile to accompany their unique characteristics.

I am currently intoxicated not by Marathon, then, so much as I'm intoxicated with its world, its art style. I don't think I'm trying to make progress in the campaign or come away with the biggest, newest weapon. Instead, I'm steadily trying to reverse-engineer the game's mood board.

Marathon captures the highest highs of extraction shooters, trims the finickiness that has kept casual players from engaging with the genre, and ties everything together with striking sci-fi flair. A firecracker wrapped in smoking silk, Bungie has created my favorite multiplayer shooter in years – and while I'll wait for Cryo Archive before putting a score down, I'm already staggered by the promise on Tau Ceti IV's surface.

Marathon feels different, even as it employs many of the same tricks as hero shooters. Each Shell has a distinctive appearance and abilities tailored toward a specific playstyle. Yet it openly acknowledges that the Shells are just vessels for the player to inhabit, which feels more honest about the relationship you'll have with this character in this type of shooter.

The cinematic may just not be a suitable storytelling device in this kind of game. Likewise, big chunks of text aren't something you can easily read while you've another player in your ear. I don't know what the solution is, but my overriding feeling while playing Bungie's multiplayer game is I need to be alone to enjoy it, and that can't be the result they're hoping for.

I think it's harder to impress people a second time around because repeated ideas aren't, by their very nature, fresh and exciting any more. But I feel confident now in saying that Slay the Spire 2, um, Slays better. It's prettier, the roster of characters is broader and more exciting, and there's multiplayer.

After being widely considered to have established an entire genre, Slay the Spire 2's devs were never likely to attempt to recreate the wheel with this sequel. Slay the Spire wasn't the first roguelike deckbuilder, but the modern ubiquity of the format owes much to the slow-burn popularity of MegaCrit's debut, so much so that a follow-up could have played things very safe. Instead, Slay the Spire 2 is as successful a sequel as its early access release could have allowed for: instantly familiar, but already bursting with new ideas.

Retreading these familiar grounds offers nostalgic fun and some effective emotional beats. However, Max and Chloe’s swan song also lacks the exciting freshness of its predecessor, and its core mystery takes some frustrating missteps.

because of how well Life is Strange: Reunion understands and explores guilt, trauma, and their lingering impact (most importantly), from Arcadia Bay to Caledon University, I found a resonant story that deserves to be told, that more than justifies the return of Max and Chloe, that could not be told by anyone else.

Life is Strange: Reunion wisely walks back some of Double Exposure's biggest eyebrow-raisers, and it's nice to see the return of Chloe Price and Max's rewind powers. An arson attack mystery initially compels, but so far Reunion has become bogged down with overly nostalgic lore. Obsessed with interrogating Max's time travel powers, character drama so far feels relegated to the sidelines in favor of never moving on.

I will say that I am pleasantly surprised with how Deck Nine has handled things. There were the little details in namely Max's actions that really made me feel how she was feeling to see her once dead friend back. Max, bless her, stayed up all night as Chloe slept in her bed, so worried that if she allowed herself to close her eyes for even one moment her friend may once again disappear.

While the learning curve might be steep at first, Xenonauts 2 offers incredibly rewarding tactical action for those willing to ascend it.

Collecting and celebrating older video games can be a challenging pursuit. Compilations that do so must balance the desire to preserve the original intent and structure of the games presented, while making them palatable and enjoyable to experience today. Marvel Maximum Collection mostly hits the mark, supplying fans a look at some of the most memorable and important comic book games of the ‘80s and ‘90s, and showcasing how Marvel’s position as a pop-culture juggernaut predated terms like the MCU.

And now, some time later, I've finally managed to set sail for Windrose's treacherous waters - and I can see why this slick seafaring adventure is already one of Steam's most wishlisted games.

Battlegrounds is getting a new PvE mode, entirely separate from battle royale, called Xeno Point. Technically this isn't the first PvE mode in the game - a previous collaboration with Gen Z's beloved viral sensation, Skibidi Toilet, was the first, along with various sort-of modes you could play involving bots - but in a sense Xeno Point feels the most significant take from PUBG on the genre so far.

At least The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is made with good intentions. This is the second big screen outing for this animated, Chris Pratt-voiced Mario, and I'm tempted to say it's quite a bad movie that's been conjured with enthusiasm and imagination. Its badness is therefore kind of fascinating.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is an action-packed visual spectacle with a loveable cast of characters and endless surprises for diehard fans. Largely, the same issues from the first movie remain - notably, a threadbare plot and rocket-powered pacing leaving characters disappointingly undeveloped – but Nintendo diehards and families are likely to have a stellar time.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie from Nintendo and Illumination is messy, magical, and an absolute blast. Although it leans into spectacle over story, the sequel captures the feeling of playing Mario at his very best, while balancing the lead characters with newcomers Yoshi, Rosalina, and Star Fox.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is still the joyful experience of the first movie and continues to respect the source material in ways most other game adaptations fall short, but it's the cinematic equivalent of a theme-park ride. You'll pay for your ticket, sit in the chair, and at the end of it all, you're likely to emerge with a smile on your face. But just like those theme park rides, the experience can feel fragmented, and the events therein can feel arbitrarily pieced together.

I've been pretty good this year and avoided flooding my Steam library with more games I don't have time to play, but Steam's latest themed sale got me. From now until April 6, Steam is running House and Home Fest. It's basically seven days of homey, cozy games that feel specifically targeted at me.

Despite occasional stalls, this combination of tactics and talking has plush-leather depths worth sinking into.

While I wasn't aching for more bots capable of killing me faster than I can react, my understanding among Arc Raiders diehards is that this is exactly what they've been asking for. The current crop of Arc have become somewhat trivial for the folks who've been playing daily since October, so it tracks that a new bot that draws comparison to the dreaded Rocketeer would get their blood pumping again.

Arc Raiders is my favorite extraction shooter to date, surpassing its competition with incredible level design, a deep yet easy-to-navigate crafting system, stunning art direction, and an exciting suite of weaponry and gadgets to discover. Developer Embark Studios’ sophomore release also cultivates a surprisingly helpful community in a subgenre known for obfuscation and treachery. However, player-versus-player firefights still shine thanks to exceptional sound design: shields break like fireworks, characters yelp whenever a projectile hits them, and players can taunt or negotiate with others on the fly via proximity chat. Unpredictable player interactions and some of the most intelligent enemies I’ve seen in a shooter work in tandem to create a thrilling experience that rivals the market’s best multiplayer offerings.

Such encounters are at the heart of what has made Arc Raiders the biggest game of the autumn – a cultural phenomenon defined by its phenomenal culture. In this ruined world where everyone is out to smash and grab whatever they can, you will regularly witness organic displays of deescalation, armistice, and even jolly cooperation. Arc Raiders is not the first game to do this; displays of human decency have been a feature of survivalist shooters since DayZ. But it is the first in a long time to bring our better angels to the fore, and is perhaps the game where such behaviour is most prevalent.

I've found some wires and a volcanic rock. I have no idea how good these things are yet, but I've played enough Escape from Tarkov to know that living long enough to escape with anything is a win. 'Just enjoy yourself', they say, but I can't stop whipping the camera back and forth, trying to spot danger before it sees me. I lose the first vote to head back to Speranza via an extraction point, so I continue skulking behind my squad, muttering about lines of sight and being too loud.

"Don't shoot!" I called out to the raider from a nearby bush. "I'm coming out, but I mean you no harm." Clearly startled by my presence and reacting based on what was more than likely a combination of the Rocketeer hovering menacingly close and a history of earlier betrayals, the dusty raider pointed his weathered Ferro rifle my way. He'd already called for the elevator to bring him back to Speranza safe and sound, so it's no wonder that he'd be anxious. He was in danger of losing everything right at the finish line, just before those saferoom doors opened.

Ten hours into Arc Raiders, I felt betrayal's sharp sting for the first time. The round began with generosity. I met a fellow raider who had dropped me a rare shotgun as well as a damaged heat sink to upgrade my workbench. They asked nothing in return. It was one of many friendly encounters I've had roaming the surface of Arc Raiders' hostile maps, but I also felt my heart rate rise: when you die you lose everything you're carrying, so I knew I had to reach an extraction point quickly and quietly.

OK, it's not the most diabolical revenge plot in history—and may not even qualify as revenge at all—but the mod, called Merchant—Become a Shopkeeper is pretty cool anyway. You purchase a cash register from Robin, place it inside a building on your farm (shed, barn, etc), and that building becomes a shop. Set up tables and place items on top of them, then open your store and villagers will pop in to buy something.

Legacy of Kain is the kind of series where everyone needs to take a big hit of the bong before it can be unpacked. Time travel, alternate realities, paradoxes, a big magical sword, vampires and elder gods—it's a wonderful, tangled mess woven across five largely fantastic games. And now, unfortunately, a sixth terrible one.

South of Midnight’s second run on new platforms finds it just the same as the first – a stop-motion spectacle with a vibrant world of dark fables and killer original tunes. It may not match its own lofty aesthetic heights when it comes to gameplay, but it’s absolutely worth the journey.

Crafting in videogames is rarely this warped and enchanting, which seems ridiculous when you consider that much ‘realistic’ crafting is occult database management with a garnish of workaday plausibility created by scientifically-timed spinny wheels and tink-tink-tink effects. I have a stick, and I have a stone, and abracadabra, now I have a stone axe.

I was five minutes into the excavation of my very first, procedurally generated Lucid Blocks map when I struck Dogblock, Catblock and S'more, in that order. I didn't excavate them, actually. I conjured them by feeding gobbets of occult, dreamlike material into the "Apotheosis" magic circle that is possibly this sort-of-survival game's crafting screen, and possibly a gateway to some astral sphere.