The makers of Life Is Strange and Jusant return with a new science fiction adventure that’s been made with the help of actual scientists.

It’s 2062, Earth’s climate has broken down to the point that it’s starting to become unliveable, and the European Space Agency (ESA) has identified a potential lifeline in the form of Persephone, an icy planet nestling in the Kuiper Belt, right on the outskirts of the solar system. Apart from it being habitable, that’s not an entirely implausible set-up for a story, in what is a surprisingly realistic hard science fiction tale.

Aphelion’s developer, Don’t Nod, has been working closely with the ESA to make sure the game’s technology and setting are as close to our likely future as possible, and the fact-based possibility of a new planet in our solar system is one such prediction. You’ll also find authentic looking spacesuits, airlocks, and other hardware, only this time with a European provenance, rather than coming from NASA, which tends to be the basis for most games and films (Don’t Nod are French).

We got a hands-on preview of the first and fourth chapters of the upcoming game, which follows a mission to explore the newly discovered world. Its heroine, Ariane Montclaire is an astrobiologist tasked with gaining an understanding of its ecosystem. Unfortunately, the rest of the crew were killed when their ship crashed into the planet’s surface, leaving only her and an injured crew mate, Thomas Cross, still alive.

At the beginning of the game Thomas is missing, leaving Ariane to escape from the dangling, still burning carcass of their spaceship. The opening section is clearly inspired by Tomb Raider and Uncharted, as you slide down a lengthy portion of the ship’s tilted hull, avoiding obstacles and flaming debris, before desperately clinging onto a ledge at the end, clambering from one handhold to the next in search of somewhere flat to stand.

It provides a useful tutorial, which includes the need to grasp ledges when you leap towards them. Ariane doesn’t automatically latch on, which along with occasional QTEs, adds a small extra dimension to your precarious traversal. You’ll also discover her grappling hook and winch, which let you lock onto predefined points in the wreckage and landscape to hoist yourself up, avoiding tumbling chunks of machinery as you go.

Although best known for Life Is Strange, Don’t Nod’s first release, well over a decade ago, was Remember Me, an action game with a strong preference for platforming and melee. They also made Banishers: Ghosts Of New Eden, an emotional action role-player with notably stylish combat, so they’re no strangers to games that go well beyond conversation and decision making.

That said, in this pre-release build Ariane’s movements and interactions with the environment can feel a little wooden. That’s mitigated by some beautifully observed and animated close-ups of her face, as she strains her way past obstacles, her voice betraying the stress and emotion of those moments. She’s a highly trained professional astronaut, but this was not the mission she signed up for.

Not knowing whether anyone else is even alive at this point, she records voice logs in case someone finds them, something her colleague, Thomas does as well, each unwittingly keeping the other in the loop about their activities, even though to start with they both think they’re the sole survivor of the disaster. Earth is so distant, their only hope of living through this is to help themselves.

There’s a clear intent to make ice planet Persephone the third – if not the main – character in Aphelion. Its stark beauty and craggy depths providing a distinctive backdrop, framing its heroes’ orange and grey space suits against its snowy reaches and black rocky promontories. It also helps to establish a lonely, frontier atmosphere. Jumping straight into Chapter 4, it becomes evident that Ariane is not alone on Persephone, and it’s not Thomas who’s quietly stalking her.

Falling through a melting sheet of ice, she ends up beneath the planet’s surface, where she first encounters Nemesis, a life form that, as it name implies, does not want to be friends. It’s a massive, wispy snake-like entity with pointed jaws and a glitching, discontinuous motion like something from a horror movie.

When it’s close to Araine, the screen gets lines of digital interference, like a visual representation of Silent Hill’s radio static, which also warned of the proximity of monsters. She soon discovers that Nemesis is blind, and that it’s drawn to even the slightest sound, leaving her to try and escape to the surface as slowly and silently as she can.

It’s spooky in the depths, and she soon finds herself in an ice maze, picking her way through narrow gaps in the glacier, seeking handholds and winch points in its creaking depths. It’s the very last place you’d want your suit’s head torch to start cutting out, plunging you into total darkness, and that’s of course exactly what happens.

Given the current trend amongst publishers for creating live service games, with so many trying and failing to launch the new Fortnite, it’s great to see smaller publishers still making ambitious single-player narrative driven games. Even a brief glimpse of Aphelion is enough to see the incredible care and attention that’s already gone into its development. We look forward to exploring more of Persephone later this year.

Formats: Xbox Series X/S (previewed), PlayStation 5, and PC
Publisher: Don’t Nod
Developer: Don’t Nod
Release Date: Winter 2026

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After becoming a cult classic on PC, strategy game Death Howl mixes elements of Soulslikes with turn-based battles, in this demanding but rewarding new console release.

Polish developer and publisher 11 bit studios make fascinating choices in the games they design and publish. From Frostpunk and its sequel’s austere politics, where there are no right answers and plenty of unintended consequences that spring from trying to find them to The Alters, an offbeat sci-fi base builder in which your operation is staffed by increasing numbers of subtly divergent clones; their output is thoughtful, often tactically demanding, and always hard to predict.

Their latest is Death Howl, which is described as a Soulslike deck builder. Inevitably there’s quite a lot more to it than that, most notably that along with deploying cards from your slowly expanding deck, turn-based battles take place on a square grid, your positioning and movement on it having a powerful effect on the outcomes of attacks and defences. You’ll need to line-up shots and plan for areas of effect, while stabbing foes in the back proves more effective than frontal assaults.

The son of protagonist Ro dies in the opening scene, forcing her to confront the spirits of the underworld in an attempt to win him back. To do that you’ll need to work your way through the distinctive pixel art biomes – each of which comes with its own enemies, cards, and beasts to fight – in search of a way to free him. You’re assisted by your spirit animal, whose guidance is just as elliptical and mysterious as the environments you wander.

Like the Souls games, Death Howl refuses to spell anything out for you, and that includes how to play. First impressions are that it’s literally impossible, Ro dying quickly in only her second encounter with the magical creatures of the forest. What it doesn’t explain, but you soon learn, is that you can return to sacred groves, all of which are marked on your map, to heal after battle.

They behave like FromSoftware’s bonfires, returning hit points and letting you acquire new skills. They also resurrect every nearby enemy you’ve killed. That’s actually extremely useful because when they die, enemies drop crafting materials that you use to create new cards to add to your deck, making Ro incrementally more powerful in battle.

It’s a peculiar game to play, and we certainly spent the first few hours thinking we must be missing something significant. There are few games that force you to grind before you’ve even really figured out their systems, but Death Howl does just that. In the opening hours, the only way we found to make ourselves viable in battle, was to repeat the first few encounters multiple times, returning to a sacred grove to recuperate before heading back out to fight, gather loot and craft cards.

Combat has something in common with Into The Breach. Although that had a sci-fi setting, and a far smaller selection of units, both sides’ attacks had specific patterns to their firepower as it spread across its grid, along with after effects like knockback, or setting things on fire. Death Howl’s cards are similarly complex, with some working at range and others requiring you to make sacrifices. In your starter deck, that includes surrendering some of your shield capability for an instant boost to defence or disposing of a card from your current turn’s selection in return for a ranged hit.

It means every time you craft a new card, its synergies and demands need to be tested and understood before it becomes useful. Cards also interact with totems, which give Ro extra perks, up to four of which can be equipped simultaneously once you’ve unlocked all their slots. It’s a system that offers an expansive depth and range of potential approaches in any given encounter.

Enemies respawn in exactly the same places and configurations after each trip to a sacred grove, which lets you refine your strategies against them, as you gain new cards and learn how best to use them. Since battles are turn-based, there’s no need to hurry any part of the process, yet despite that lack of pressure there are many moments where you kick yourself for hastily making a play, realising just afterwards that there was a better option.

As well as providing inspiringly different looking backdrops to your exploration, the biomes that make up Death Howl’s world bring their own modifiers, providing cover or slowing down enemies in marshes. You’ll also find the game’s plot unfolding as you search. Unlike Hades and its sequel, which kept story beats safely fenced off from their roguelite gameplay, conversations and discoveries abound as you travel and fight.

It’s a dark place, both literally and metaphorically, the map boiling out of the blackness as the screen follows your motion. Its, also Soulslike in the way its lore is revealed to you in tiny pieces, each of which makes little sense on its own, but that gradually start to reveal a pointillist picture of what’s happening, and Ro’s situation within it.

Death Howl is no place for dabblers. Its complexity and refusal to reveal anything without extracting a high price for it, along with multiple interacting systems that jointly affect the outcomes of its turn-based battles, demand concentration and experience. Nothing comes easily, which makes victories all the sweeter in this strange and wonderfully idiosyncratic game.

Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S, and PC
Price: £17.99
Publisher: 11 bit studios
Developer: The Outer Zone
Release Date: 19th February 2026
Age Rating: 12

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Alien Isolation has a rival for spookiest retro sci-fi survival horror in this impressively atmospheric thriller from a new indie studio.

Sci-fi horror game Routine was originally announced at Gamescom way back in 2012. Since then, it’s popped back up a couple of times, only to head back into the thick fog of development hell, its tiny team attempting, and failing, to get it into a state where they could aim for a final release. The breakthrough came after signing a deal with Raw Fury, a publisher renowned for their supportive and collaborative attitude towards the developers they work with.

With more focus and a little more budget to work with, and after an almost unbelievable 13-year gestation period, Routine is finally here and while it’s clearly a first person survival horror, its look, feel, and puzzles are unlike anything else in its genre. That starts with the setting, which is a deserted moonbase in the near future. However, unlike most sci-fi milieux, this one’s free of any hint of glamour.

At the beginning of the game, you wake up from a distressing nightmare to find yourself locked in a windowless room, the quiet hum of machinery accompanying your confusion. There’s an old monochrome monitor built into the wall, where you can access a couple of email messages, along with an austere looking bed and lavatory. It’s more like a cell than a bedroom, a sense heightened by the fact that you can’t get out.

The walls, ceiling, and floor are made of metal that’s seen better days. Scuffs, dents and missing flecks of paint make it look old and well used, and there’s a pile of bin bags in the corner. It perfectly nails the industrial space trucker aesthetic of Dark Star or the original Alien film, in its sense of being lived in but not cared for. That’s particularly important because you’re going to be seeing it from very close up.

The first thing you learn in your cell is how to stand on tip toe, crouch, lean, and lie completely flat. Each movement is accompanied by your character’s involuntary grunts as you make him stand, squat, and crawl about on the floor, the motion of your point of view and the stunning detail of the environment creating a gritty realism that extends to un-collected litter and detritus, that’s accumulated in the gap underneath the metallic wall-hanging cupboards and infrastructure.

As you find your way round the room, what initially appeared to be almost completely featureless actually turns out to be loaded with information. You’re an IT technician hired by Union Plaza’s lunar operation to debug their malfunctioning security system, and without further instruction you’ll need to work out what you have to do to find a way out of this claustrophobic little space. It’s perfect training for the rest of the game, which continues in its steadfast refusal to lead you by the hand.

If you’re weary of quest markers and HUD bloat, Routine is the antidote. Its entire overlay consists of a single tiny white circle that only appears when you’re pointing directly at something you can interact with. Apart from that, you’re on your own. Quite literally as it turns out, because other than a distorted, malfunctioning welcome message played over crackling speakers, the place is desolately empty.

Your only help comes from a C.A.T., or Cosmonaut Assistance Tool. It looks like a chunky plastic 1980s camcorder, complete with laggy analogue screen on the back that updates fractionally after you move it, delivering a flawless impression of dated technology. Initially it doesn’t seem to do much, but after a little experimentation you find out that it combines a PDA that’s only available near specific wireless access points, with the ability to short circuit electrical systems.

To make your way through the godforsaken depths of Union Plaza, you’ll need to pay extremely close attention to your surroundings, trying things out and extrapolating from subtle cues. In most games if you needed to find a fuse box to open a jammed bulkhead, you’d follow a waypoint to a brightly coloured box with a lightning symbol on it. That’s not how Routine works, making it feel far more like being stuck in an actual abandoned commercial facility. Progress feels hard earned and significant.

It’s also impeded by the security system you’re there to repair, which has erroneously gone into lockdown mode. Along with sealed doors and key code secured lifts, you’ll find the facility patrolled by Type-05s. They’re humanoid robots that look like the Terminator without its human skin, their aggressive metallic stomping signalling their approach and departure. They’ll often just stop and power down, sometimes facing a wall, before starting up again without warning and continuing their patrol.

If one spots you, they’ll walk towards you at that same brisk but relentless pace, leaving you to scurry away and try to find a hiding place. Pointing your C.A.T. at one and pulling the trigger stuns it, but only for a second or two, after which it simply resumes its pursuit. The other bad news is that at full charge your C.A.T. has three shots, and while you can find new batteries you have to search for them.

The atmosphere of dread it manages to create is enhanced by exceptional sound design. The clank of the Type-05s is accompanied by whining servos and humming clicks as they project laser grids on floors and walls, digitally scouring your last known location. Doors swish shut, their motorised travel accompanied by seals that lock into place, followed by a dampening of the soundscape in the newly constricted space you occupy. Along with your character’s ragged breathing, and the sensation of peeping around the weathered metal of a doorframe as you try and spot a pursuing robot, it evokes a real sense of being there.

Nervously making your way past the discarded VHS tapes, ‘Final price cut!’ banners, and tawdry ‘Megazone’ arcade in Union Plaza’s mall, you soon find out there’s far worse to come as you descend into the bowels of the facility. The elegiac email conversations you uncover reveal a spreading sickness amongst the staff and you wonder where everyone is, and why the head of security’s been drawing so many pictures of flowers. You soon come to yearn for the relative security of those early scenes.

Routine’s strength is the ambience its near photorealistic visuals and immaculately crafted sound design create. Its weakness is that the stubborn refusal to help can leave you stuck for longer than you might like. In a single room. with nothing trying to disembowel you, that’s an interesting conundrum but later on, in more open parts of the complex, it can be frustrating trying to figure out what tiny thing you’ve missed, and where exactly it might be.

Still, for a game so long in development this is a frightening, idiosyncratic, and impressively coherent slab of sci-fi survival horror. Announced just before Alien Isolation was released, you can see some of its inspiration here, but Routine’s more robust puzzles and multiple pursuers make it a more varied experience, while its mise en scène, glorious diegetic sound effects, and the humanistic motion of your character create an unsettlingly authentic sense of presence it in its terrifying world.

Formats: Xbox Series X/S (reviewed), Xbox One, and PC
Price: TBA
Publisher: Raw Fury
Developer: Lunar Software
Release Date: 4th December 2025
Age Rating: 16

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