The first full week of the year is in the books, and if this is means to carry on… well let’s just say that video games will continue to provide a good bit of escapism. So let’s continue escaping with a quick look at how this week in the games industry has gone.
Dom also strapped a big rumbly Woojer Strap 4 to his chest. Again. He quite likes these things.
Beyond that, I previewed Code Vein 2, and its time-hopping soulslike adventure, and I had an early look at how The Elder Scrolls Online is changing with a new seasonal roadmap.
Rounding out the week, What We Played featured the Dragon Quest VII Reimagined demo, Warhammer 40K Darktide and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.
We’re entering the hallowed ground of the Top 10, the territory of listicles across countless topics, as we search for our very most desired games of 2026. This batch of games has some galactic and not so galactic racing, a bit of revolution in the air, a much wanted sequel, and an experience that might leave you shaken but not stirred.
10 – Star Wars: Galactic Racer
PS5, XSX|S, PC – 2026
In a galaxy far, far away an Empire has fallen and a New Republic is forming. However, this is a time of great upheaval and uncertainty, which means there is space for some sci-fi motor racing. A spiritual successor to Star Wars: Episode I: Racer, Star Wars: Galactic Racer introduces us to the undergroung Galactic League, where racers from different backgrounds and disciplines come together to prove who the best pilot is in the galaxy. Podracer Sebulba is just one of those characters.
There is also a new character called Shade, and that is who players embody. Shade is a racer starting at the bottom who has two goals; glory and revenge. Glory in becoming the best racer in the league, and revenge against rival Kestar who wants to run the league in his own way. Racing just makes up one part of Star Wars Galactic Racer, as players will have to navigate alliances and rivalries with other racers to come out on top. There will be race tracks across familiar planets as well as new ones being added to the Star Wars universe.
9 – Clockwork Revolution
XSX|S, PC – TBA
inXile Entertainment has steadily built itself up as a studio that can deliver fun and interesting RPGs, from The Bard’s Tale series, through Torment: Tides of Numenera and most recently Wasteland 3 each showing depth in ideas and execution. But since their acquisition by Microsoft they’ve been able to push on towards full AAA territory. Clockwork Revolution is the time-bending RPG coming out of this ambition, and it’s high on our list following a great looking gameplay reveal that showcased fun gameplay, comedy, and a world that can be changed by player actions.
Clockwork Revolution is set in the year 1895 in the steam powered city of Avalon where humans and clockwork people live and work together side by side. It is also a world filled with criminals and a powerful ruling class that can time travel to craft Avalon in their image. Unfortunately for them, your character has also found a way to time travel and shape the city to their own ends. We know the main character is a scoundrel who appears they will do anything to get ahead. The character creation alone is integrated into the game as someone giving the police a description of you after you have robbed them.
8 – Forza Horizon 6
XSX|S, PC (and possibly PS5) – 2026
The announcement for Forza Horizon 6 had some of its impact taken away after the Forza Horizon social media accounts posted the teaser ahead of the official reveal at Tokyo Game Show. The teaser pans across items from different parts of the world before settling on a Japanese license plate and a white Neko figure. It then pans up to show Mount Fuji, confirming Forza Horizon 6 will be taking place in Japan.
Not much is known about Forza Horizon 6 right now, beyond the fact that it will carry on in the traditions of the open world series. Seasons will be returning, and the map will have be landmark-filled approximation of Japan, including Mount Fuji, Tokyo, and rural areas. This map is being developed with Japanese consultants so more is shown of the country than just the touristy bits. Expect to see an awful lot more of this game, and likely a release date announcement during the Developer_Direct stream on 22nd January.
7 – 007: First Light
PS5, XSX|S, NSW2, PC – 27th May 2026
While we still wait on the news on who will be the next James Bond for the films, we don’t have to wait much longer for IO Interactive’s take on the most famous of spies, even if the game has been delayed to May. 007: First Light is IO Interactive’s most ambitious games, taking on the mantle of crafting a new Bond story while using lessons learned from its highly acclaimed Hitman games.
Bond is not yet the globe trotting super spy we all know, but a young agent still earning his reputation and having to work as part of a team. The mission is to take down 009 who has gone rogue, using MI6’s own tactics against them. Bond is a loose cannon who will do things his own way to get the job done, even if it doesn’t please others in the organisation. The game will feature spycraft, shootouts, and driving ( a first for IO Interactive) with each taking inspiration from the 007 books and movies.
Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun was heralded as a great return to form for the boomer shooter form, getting critical acclaim and commercial success. Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 has already got high expectations placed upon its shoulders, and what we know of it so far seems to promise a lot more action without sacrificing much of what made Boltgun great.
Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 gives us two protagonists to play as, Sternguard Veteran Malum Caedo and Sister of Battle, Nyra Veyrath. Each has their own playstyle so you can try new ways of taking on enemies as you travel through a hive city and mangrove swamps. The story will also have a branching narrative with each choice taking you to different levels, meaning you may have to play through a few times to see everything. On top of that there are new enemy units to engage in combat with including Bloodletters ,Juggernauts and other new enemies from different factions. Boltgun 2 is going to be a bigger and louder experience than its predecessor, but we will have to wait and see if it is better.
That’s it for today, and we’re going to take a day off tomorrow to catch our breath and then blitz through out top five with daily posts. What’s going to come out on top?
The Nintendo Switch 2 version of Rogue Trader is not the best version of the game. We might as well make that the starting point for a review that puts me in a very difficult position. How do you rate a game that’s as good as Rogue Trader, but which runs here, somewhat inexplicably, like a bag of spanners? You could just skip right down to the bottom of the page, but here’s the thing, Rogue Trader on Nintendo Switch 2 defies whatever score I finally settle on, because even when it’s running badly, it’s one of the best tactical RPG experiences you’ll find anywhere.
Load times are not good. That starts with the tone-setting creep of a loading bar that laughably shoots to 41% before taking a loooonnnng rest, searching around for the energy to make it to the end. Any movement from major area to the next brings about another lengthy wait, but the central sections themselves don’t incur any loading at all, so there is that. Travelling in your Voidship across the map also causes various stops and starts as different narrative moments are played out, a fresh load cycle happening every time despite those moments taking place in the same bridge section, and it serves to sap a lot of the game’s momentum.
You’ll be slowed down further when the game autosaves, pausing the action for at least ten seconds while it sorts itself out, and if you run quickly back and forth through a new area, the game will hang as it loads the required assets in. It’s then absolutely fine once it’s finished doing so, so it’s almost worth having a run around for a few moments to settle things down. All of this doesn’t sound very good, and… it’s not, requiring players to have rather more patience than most games should given that we now have SSD speeds for storage on Switch 2.
However, Rogue Trader is the kind of game to attract the patient. This is a role-playing game in the purest sense. From the first moments spent creating your character, where you’re choosing their background and backstory as well as selecting their visual design, you’re then drawn ever deeper into the world of Warhammer 40,000 thanks to some of the best writing and storytelling you’ll find in gaming.
If you’ve been a fan of the Warhammer 40K universe, and perhaps read some of the many novelisations, Rogue Trader feels utterly authentic, perfectly capturing the language, lore and feel of Games Workshop’s sci-fi series. It’s intensely literary, with a great deal of excellent writing, and the size of the text has thankfully been enlarged for the Switch 2 edition, so it’s still enjoyable whether you’re playing in docked or handheld mode. There should definitely be a toggle or a slider for this, mind you, but I can live with it as it is.
That writing is enhanced by the excellent voice acting that’s prevalent across the entirety of the cast. Each character feels unique and fully formed, and as your crew expands, you’ll find yourself coming to know each of them in exceptional detail. It’s at a level that you’ll consistently marvel at, and despite the many performance issues in this version of the game, you can definitely look past them thanks to the quality of the actual game itself.
That will depend on how sensitive you are to frame rate issues, though. While things have improved following the first major patch, Rogue Trader on Switch 2 still chugs along when you’re moving around each area, and it’s incredibly inconsistent. Frankly, it looks and feels pretty horrible, and that’s with an obviously reduced resolution across the board as well, which makes the character models and level design look considerably uglier than you’ll find on other platforms.
You might be disappointed to find that following the most recent patch, they’ve also broken the menus. You can access the main options, but none of the graphical or visual options currently work, which feels as though it’s a deliberate choice while they try to improve things. There were previously two different anti-aliasing options, as well as a film grain toggle, but right now, none of it works. I do expect Owlcat to continue working on this, but in its current form, Rogue Trader on Switch 2 looks and feels more like it’s running on the original Switch.
The shame of all this is that Switch 2 owners are going to experience the game in a way that they may find utterly off-putting. They will check out from one of the best sci-fi RPGs of recent years, and that is tantamount to being a crime. The storytelling, the character building and the tactical combat are some of the best in the genre, but right now, this version of the game is a mess. It is broadly playable – I’m still persevering as the game has got its hooks back in me – but currently, if you can play Rogue Trader anywhere else, you should.
I’ve been ill. Wallowing in a horrible flu-ridden morass, and sleeping a hell of a lot. I have had some companions through this Lemsip-flavoured fog, though, and I’ve especially loved my time with Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road. This is a football game that doesn’t feel like a football game, and it’s just a cracking JRPG that happens to feature kicking a ball. Besides that, I’ve been playing the demo for Dragon Quest VII Reimagined, and that’s just lovely, while I’ve been balancing things out with Avatar: Frontier of Pandora’s bombastic newest expansion, From The Ashes.
Gamoc was first up this week, and he’s played Ghost of Yotei, Borderlands 4, and also delved into Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, though he worries, “I’m trapped beneath countless open-world games!”
Jim has been revisiting a couple of his favourites after wrapping up his playthrough Mafia: The Old Country (which was also a great game). He says, “For the first time in many months, I stepped back into the sandbox realm of Calradia for Mount & Blade 2’s War Sails expansion. As the name implies, this DLC is all about naval gameplay, having also introduced a Viking-influenced faction. I’m learning the ropes of how to run my own ship while making lucrative trade runs between cities, hoping to save enough to buy a big ‘ol warship.”
He continues, “I’ve also been playing Warhammer 40,000: Darktide after picking up the post-launch character DLCs. The nimble, punk-styled Hive Scum is fun to play as though I’ve decided to main the Arbites class, channelling my inner Judge Dredd as I dole out justice beneath the Undercity.”
Meanwhile, Aran has played a bit of Star Wars Outlaws, but most of his time has been split between Big Hops and MIO: Memories In Orbit for review.
Ade “thinks” he finished Hades 2 this week. That’s not due to some Roguelike dementia, but rather the difficulty level, saying, “There’s a few challenges remaining but they are well beyond my abilities. All in all, what an incredible game!” He also played ‘real-life’ games, telling us, “My son and I had an epic battle of Warhammer 40k down our local games shop. His Tyranids versus my Battle Sisters, pretty much everyone died after an epic battle, with us drawing on victory points. It was great fun and we’re booked in again for a rematch next week!”
And finally for this week, Tef has been having fun with skirting board in his free time, so hasn’t really carried on from his holiday Switch 2 gaming. And the thing that he has played? He can’t tell you about it until Monday.
What about you? Have you played any New Year games?
Another five games make up our most wanted list today, and these ones are the last few games before we plunge into the top 10. On this list is a longstanding rival making the jump to pastures new, a couple of sequels, and the return of a long dormant franchise.
Halo: Campaign Evolved is a full on remake of the original Halo campaign with new gameplay tweaks and content. As the name suggests it will not feature any competitive PvP multiplayer, but Halo: Campaign Evolved will have two player local co-op and four player online co-op. It will also feature three new prequel missions, new enemies, more weapons including the Halo 2’s Battle Rifle, and more vehicles.
14 – Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War IV
PC – 2026
Nine years after the release of Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III, we are expecting Dawn of War IV to launch this year, coming from new developer King Art Games. It will be a big game in which players can play through a campaign of over 70 missions while playing as one of four factions, those being Space Marines, Orks, Necrons, and the Adeptus Mechanicus.
The campaign is not the only part of the next entry to the RTS franchise, with multiplayer also being a key component of Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War IV. Those multiplayer modes will include 1v1, 2v2 and 3v3 multiplayer, with players able to create their own factions using the Painter mode or established factions in the universe. Other game modes will also be included such as Last Man Standing.
13 – Saros
PS5 – 30th April 2026
When something works why change the formula too much? That seems to be Housemarque’s thinking behind Returnal’s successor Saros. A time loop roguelike third person shooter where progress is made by repeating runs and pushing forward each time as you learn more about the world. While the gameplay is similar the story and characters are all new.
Saros follows the story of Arjun Devraj, played by Rahul Kohli, a team leader of the Soltari Enforcers who have been sent to this planet. The planet is already hostile enough but the dying sun and time loop issue is stretching patience between the team. The story here will appear to focus on the stress of the time loop on Arjun and the rest of his team.
12 – Nioh 3
PS5, PC – 6th February 2026
Nioh 3 was revealed back in June which came with a timed PS5 demo. The third entry to the series refreshes things again with a new protagonist and updated combat. The main character for Nioh 3 is Tokugawa Takechiyo, the now former Shogun who was forced from the top of the Shogunate by his brother Tokugawa Kunimatsu. Tokugawa Kunimatsu hasn’t wasted time by transforming the country into a Yokai infested hellscape either.
Nioh 3 has two major changes compared to the previous games. First is the more open world structure, referred to as Open Field by Koei Tecmo, and the second is the Ninja combat stance that can be used alongside the Samurai stance. Where Samurai is all about is about facing off against enemies using high, medium, and low stances to attack and counter, Ninja is about a more hit and run approach to strike quickly and efficiently. Nioh 3 is shaping up to be a great third entry and we don’t have long to wait for its release.
It has been 20 years since the release of the last mainline Onimusha game, and Onimusha: Way of the Sword is going to bring that long absence to an end. While games have changed in 20 years, it looks like Onimusha: Way of the Sword will retain its identity as a third person action game where you face off against demons in Japan. You will be able to cut through enemies using your sword and absorb different orbs that can replenish your health, your energy attack, and give you experience. A new black orb will provide pivotal story points.
Onimusha: Way of the Sword will take place in Kyoto during the Edo period where peace is shattered as the demonic Genma launch an attack. The only one who can fight this infestation is Miyamoto Musashi due to being bonded to an Oni Gauntlet. If you are worried about having to catch up with Onimusha lore, don’t be. Onimusha: Way of the Sword is essentially a fresh start for the series, which ties into the story it’s shaping up to tell.
That’s it for this selection, but come back tomorrow, where we’ll be breaking into the top ten with one more five-some, before featuring our top five games individually through next week.
Having rattled off a multitude of our most wanted video game releases of 2026, let’s keep the train rolling. As we enter our top 20, we see the return of some familiar faces as well as some exciting new IP fresh out of Japan. Why don’t we kick off with our first Capcom game on the list?
20 – Pragmata
PS5, XSX|S, NSW2, PC – 24th April 2026
Originally thought to be a PlayStation 5 exclusive, Pragmata is a new sci-fi action adventure from the Monster Hunter and Street Fighter publisher. You play as Hugh and Diana, an astronaut and his android companion looking to uncover the mysteries of a lunar research station that has been overrun by hostile artificial intelligence. The protagonists have a symbiotic relationship that weaves its way into Pragmata’s combat, navigation, and puzzle-solving gameplay with Hugh doing the heavy lifting as Diana employs her hacking abilities right in the middle of battle.
To explain what that’s all about, we went hands on with Pragmata last year, writing in our preview of the curious blend of hacking and shooting gameplay, “Hacking enemies becomes a vital part of combat right away, as it’s used to open up their armour and expose weaknesses for you to blast away at with Hugh’s guns. This is far from a simple button tap, or even a button hold, but rather throws up a minigame for you to complete to launch the hack at the targeted enemy.”
There’s a demo currently available on PC, which will hopefully make its way to consoles ahead of its launch this Spring.
19 – Romeo Is A Dead Man
PS5, XSX|S, PC – 11th February 2026
The latest game to come from the wonderfully wacky mind of Suda51 and the Grasshopper Manufacture studio, Romeo Is A Dead Man knows its audience. Seriously, just go and watch the announcement trailer. For those who love the ultra-violent, super-stylish No More Heroes series, this feels like somewhat of an evolution, dialling the strangeness factor up to 11 as players assume the role of Romeo Stargazer, a reanimated space-time FBI agent tasked with hunting fugitives across the cosmos. The game already looks to have a memorably twisted cast of fun characters – let’s just hope that, amidst the on screen carnage, there’s a decent action game in there too.
18 – The Duskbloods
Nintendo Switch – TBC 2026
For the umpteenth time, no, this isn’t Bloodborne 2. Nintendo and FromSoftware certainly had us going there for a minute during their announcement of The Duskbloods for the Switch 2 Direct showcase. The gothic, Yharnam-like setting and haunting atmosphere seemed to suggest that Nintendo had somehow swept Bloodborne out of Sony’s clutches, but this wasn’t the case.
As a FromSoftware joint, The Duskbloods will naturally inherit some of that Bloodborne DNA, though there are some key distinctions. Firstly, there are vampires. Secondly, it’s a primarily multiplayer game, featuring online PvPvE. Following the success of Elden Ring: Nightreign, it will be interesting to watch FromSoftware continue to pursue its live service gaming ambitions alongside its more traditional brand of action RPG.
17 – Fable
XSX|S, PC – TBC 2026
Oh, to have the patience of a Fable superfan. It’s been 15 long years since the last main entry in this once-beloved Xbox series and while Fable wasn’t perfect (missing many of the lofty features promised by zany franchiser frontman, Peter Molyneux) it felt like a mainstay in the RPG. Until it completely vanished, of course, leaving behind a trail of half-baked spin-offs and the wisp of dream that one day we might see a Fable 4. The wait is finally almost over, hopefully, with a sequel or reboot scheduled to launch sometime this year.
Besides some pre-alpha footage we’ve seen very little of the game in action, though it looks to retain that familiar high fantasy vibe with plenty of witty humour and monster-slaying as players return to Albion.
16 – Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis
PS5, XSX|S, PC – TBC 2026
It’s hard to imagine that Shadow of the Tomb Raider will be celebrating its eighth anniversary later this year. It’s also hard to imagine that 2026 will see yet another reincarnation of gaming’s favourite gunslinging archaeologist, first appearing in a remake of Lara Croft’s original adventure.
Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis will offer a complete modernisation of the first game, rebuilt in Unreal Engine 5 and starring new lead actress, Alix Wilton Regan, who will also take lead in next year’s Tomb Raider: Catalyst.
Check in tomorrow for another handful of games from our Most Wanted list of 2026. We’re getting to the pointy end now, so there’ll be some pretty big hitters!
Seasons are coming to The Elder Scrolls Online on 2nd April, as Bethesda look to make the biggest shakeup to the MMORPG’s continued development in a long, long time. Chapters are out with quarterly Seasons coming in, bringing all new content and features for free to all players, and a new battle pass system known as Tamriel Tomes. Oh, and all updates will now be launched simultaneously across PC and consoles.
There’s a lot to cover, so let’s get exploring everything announced during the stream.
The New ESO Roadmap
Going from Chapters to Seasons will come with a transition period. Season Zero launches in April and will be followed by Season One and Two later this year on a three month cadence.
Compared to Chapters, this means you will still see quarterly updates for the ESO, but the team point to this switch to seasons letting be more fluid and reactive to fan feedback and game needs, as opposed to the strict annual roadmaps that the team had worked to previously with the one major focal point in June of each year. That the shift to seasons was announced in December 2024 and is only coming to fruition in early 2026 is a sign of how inflexible this could be.
What will a Season contain? Well it could be new zones and storylines, it could be new events, a new or revamped class, skill line or system, a broad range of quality of life improvements, or some mixture of all of these.
ESO Season Zero
Starting with Season Zero the team are looking to blend a mixture of new features and revisiting older content. Update 49 will release on 9th March and precede the main Season Zero launch on 2nd April. This will then run through to 8th July.
The first ever group event zone in TESO will be added in the form of The Night Market – running from 29th April through June as a trial run that could see this return or become permanent. This PvE zone in Fargrave is designed to be genuinely difficulty to overcome, and while you don’t need to be in a guild to head there, but it will help if you’re in one, while there are unique rewards such as a new house to earn.
This comes alongside a new PvP progression system and the first iteration of a new overland difficulty setting, to up the challenge of simply getting around the world.
Classic Content Revamps
Alongside new content is the focus on raising the bar of quality. Visual refreshes and balance updates are going to rollout across the classes and combat styles, starting with the Dragonknight and two-handed weapon skill lines, continuing with the Werewolf, Warden and Sorcerer through the quarterly updates. Each Season will come with one main class to focus on, but smaller improvements sprinkled throughout. The aim is to make a single class more viable without needing to multi-class.
Core quality of life improvements will make outfits possible account-wide, as well as making skill and attribute respecs free within the UI, back bar XP, faster rider training, increased furnishing limits, and plenty more down the line, including guild housing, hybridisation and cross-play.
OK, so where’s the battle pass, then?
Of course, all of this still needs paying for in some fashion, and so there’s the new Tamriel Tomes battle pass with both free and premium tracks of rewards for new armour, weapon styles, crates and more. Daily login rewards are out to help reduce some of the FOMO, and you’ll be able to progress through the ranks with a mixture of weekly and seasonal points from questing, trials, PvP, crafting, dungeons and more – you’ll be able to re-roll weeklies that you dislike, to some extent.
There’s also the Gold Coast Bazaar, which will let you buy rewards including some previously time limited ones, with a steady pace to the shop refreshes. This use the Trade Bars earned through the Tamriel Tome (mostly on the free track) and from some other in-game activities.
Curiously, ESO Plus remains, and will continue to feature all of the standalone expansion contents of before, but the appeal of this optional subscription will be reduced. The main bonuses are accelerated Tome Point earning, and you’ll be able to get a free premium plus upgrade once a year for the Tamriel Tomes.
Is this a good or bad thing for ESO?
All in all, this could be a really positive move for The Elder Scrolls Online. There’s always the fear with battle passes that they become all-consuming engagement traps, and compared to older expansion pack models, seasons can often feel much less significant – it’s already been confirmed that you won’t see big new landmasses, but that the game will have smaller additions and look to revisit areas.
The benefit, though, is that this change helps to reduce the mental burden of stepping into a decade-old game and understanding what you need to buy to get the latest experience. Now it will (mostly) just all be there. And for existing players? The developers getting to be more responsive to feedback and making game changes more publicly and speedily is only a good thing.
Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road is a football game that feels, almost wholeheartedly, like it’s not really about football. This is a sports drama through and through, focusing on the interpersonal relationships, the individual journeys, and the yearning for acceptance that epitomises our teenage years, rather than sporting glory. You play as Destin Bellows, a young man with a heart condition, who appears to hate football and attends South Cirrus Academy, a school where football is banned. None of this really screams the word ‘football’ – or ‘soccer’ if you’re so inclined – and yet, Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road also revels in the joy, the purity, and the companionship that football can bring. This juxtaposition also makes it one of the best sports RPGs you’ll find.
I’m a sucker for sports dramas. Maybe it started with The Mighty Ducks, a movie that took a rag-tag team of unlikely players who went from being woeful nobodies to the best team in the league. With Emilio Estevez! While there’s no Young Guns alumni here, there’s that same sense of camaraderie and overcoming adversity throughout Victory Road, starting from incredibly meagre beginnings, before working your way towards rebuilding the school’s football club and setting forth on a path to sporting greatness. It’s the characters that pull you through this drama though, rather than the extraneous bumps in the road, and you’ll quickly embrace Destin and his myriad teammates wholeheartedly.
Level-5 have made this character focus easy, because you won’t be playing football any time soon, at least not in the central story mode. My save file had clocked up an oddly impressive 4 hours before I played my first 5-a-side game against an ageing group of shopkeepers, and I kind of love the investment that’s been built into Victory Road’s narrative. To a certain extent, you won’t care that there’s no football, and when it does arrive, with its quirky stop-and-start gameplay, special moves and occasionally clunky controls, you’ll want to persevere, learn and get a grasp of it so you can lead the team you’ve built to victory. It’s something that wasn’t ably captured in Victory Road’s early beta testing, and it feels a lot more natural within its proper context.
The original Inazuma games were mostly exclusive to Nintendo’s DS and 3DS, using the stylus to move your players around the pitch, and selecting special moves as you went. It was a system that I loved across multiple games, and I was sad to see it go, but Victory Road’s updated take does a good job of replicating and replacing it, with more action and reaction than you needed before.
It’s best to think of Victory Road’s matches as a series of RPG encounters, strung together in quick succession, rather than a football match. Every time your player meets an opposing player, whether you’re playing offence or defence, it begins an encounter. Depending on the player, you’ll have basic options like passing, shooting, or dashing past, but you may also have special moves available to you, each wilder and more unbelievable than the last. That can mean creating clones of yourself to confuse defenders, or unleashing a shot that’s the result of a thousand kicks, but, with the level of variety on offer, it makes matches continually action-packed and exciting. It’s definitely not regular football, but it’s a hell of a lot of fun.
Destin’s tale is easy-going, and occasionally a little slow, but it’s all so amiable, and the characters are so likeable, that I found I didn’t mind all too much. Destin loves to investigate and collect data, so there’s a fair bit of running back and forth, and that’s interspersed with funny turn-based RPG battles/conversations that use rock-paper-scissors mechanics as you try to argue your way to victory. I preferred the original Japanese voices over the English dub, but only marginally so, and if you prefer to play in your native language, it’s perfectly satisfactory.
While the central story mode strings you along without any matches, there’s a secondary story that gets you into the action much quicker. Chronicle Mode brings a time-travelling tale to the Inazuma timeline, sending you back in time to form the ultimate eleven, in the hope of preventing a world-ending apocalypse. Newcomers might raise an eyebrow at first, but returning fans have been here before. Chronicle Mode manages to perform a whole bunch of functions at once: introducing people to the series’ extensive history, getting into the football sections quicker, and bringing an Ultimate Team-like experience to the game to boot. It’s a winning formula, and one that shows how strong the revised gameplay formula is.
Level-5 have given players an absolute avalanche of places to play in Victory Road. From the two story modes, you can then set forth with your created team into a tournament, in either single player, multiplayer or online modes, or there’s another mode where you can play with full-powered historical teams from each of the previous games. If you need a break from all that, you can even create your own Inazuma Bond Town where you can meet up with friends online, filling them with all sorts of decorations, buildings, people, cats or giant statues of Mark Evans. To be fair, it’s probably the weirdest inclusion here, and yet, it feels thoroughly Inazuma.
All of this is wrapped up in a lovely 3D anime aesthetic that ties really well with the traditional cartoon cutscenes. It often feels like you’re playing an interactive cartoon – a fact heightened by the story modes’ many cutscenes, and chapter-by-chapter framing – with Level-5’s design department clearly working at the height of its powers. It definitely bodes extremely well for this year’s Professor Layton and the New World of Steam.
We’re back with our next batch of games that we are looking forward to in 2026, and you can look at them in two ways. Either they fell just outside the top 20 and failed to break into the upper echelons, or they made it into the rarified air of the top half of our list. It’s a classic glass half empty/full situation, but either way, keep on reading for another eclectic mix of games including horror, action, strategy, and Batman.
25 – Valor Mortis
PS5, XSX|S, PC – 2026
As if warfare of the 18th and 19th centuries wasn’t brutal and dispassionate enough, as columns of men just march headlong into volley and cannon fire, One More Level’s Valor Mortis twists it into an even worse situation. William is a soldier resurrected after death, only find himself confronting twisted versions of other soldiers as a plague descends upon Europe.
Valor Mortis is a first person roguelike so expect to die a lot. As resurrections occur, William will learn new abilities and skills that can be utilised to take on twisted versions of soldiers, including historical figures. Those skills include using a variety of melee and ranged weapons, as well as fire to push back against enemies.
24 – Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave
NSW2 – 2026
Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave was announced back in September, bringing a different tone for Nintendo’s much loved tactical RPG series. What we do know about the game, and it isn’t much as Nintendo keeps details scarce, is that Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave will centre around the Heroic Games.
The tone of this announcement indicates that this game is drawing inspiration from the classic Olympic Games of Ancient Greece along with the Coliseum and other influences of Ancient Rome. Then the name Fortune’s Weave lends itself to the image of the Fates weaving the Threads of Life, again from Greek mythology. We will have to wait to learn more about Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave, but it’s sure to be one of the biggest games for Switch 2 this year.
23 – The Sinking City 2
PS5, XSX|S, PC – 2026
Originally aiming for a 2025 release, Frogwares confirmed in October that The Sinking City 2’s release would be pushed to early 2026 with more time being needed. This primarily due to the war in Ukraine, where Frogwares is based, with the studio having to deal with power outages and missile attacks from Russia.
The Sinking City 2 changes up the formula from The Sinking City, changing the game style from a primarily investigative affair to a survival horror experience. The setting is the drowning city of Arkham which is being consumed by the waves, and you can explore its crumbling mansions and hospitals on foot and by boat. Horrors lurk in all parts of Arkham and players are going to have to try to deal with them with scant resources and a limited inventory.
22 – LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight
PS5, XSX|S, NSW2, PC – 29th May 2026
Arkham is likely to be a significant part of our next game on the list too, but any horrors here won’t scare our protagonist so easily. LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is going to be the biggest LEGO Batman game both in scope and depth. This is a celebration of all things Batman from the very beginning to his most modern iterations, with a Gotham City that moves with the times and is open to exploration however you see fit.
LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight draws from a history of Batman comics, shows, and movies to celebrate Batman, the Bat-family, and the villains that have all become iconic characters in their own right. The game itself will move through different generations, with key moments from the different eras providing a foundation for the game’s story. The story is not going to be the sole focus, with the open world Gotham City providing plenty of opportunities for Batman to stop criminals.
21 – Stranger Than Heaven
TBA – TBA
Originally going by its codename Project Century in 2024, it was back in June we got a new look at Stranger Than Heaven, one of the big new games from Yakuza/Like A Dragon’s RGG Studio. Again details are still rather scarce about the gameplay we can expect from Stranger Than Fiction, but the trailer really sets a stylish tone.
What we do know about Stranger Than Heaven is that it will follow the story of Mako Daito, and it will be set across different time periods. It seems things will begin in 1915, but 1929 and 1943 have been confirmed as the other years in which the game will take place. The location will be the city of Osaka too. Hopefully we will find out more about Stranger Than Heaven soon.
Gamers are always looking for the next level. A bigger sword, a more powerful gun, magic that turns your foes into globs of pink mush. But what about levelling up your gaming setup? A headset would always be my first call, and then maybe a pro controller or high end mouse, but what then?
Woojer have their own ideas on that, and they’ve been toting their haptic-infused devices for several years. While the Woojer Vest – now on its fourth generation – is the headline grabber, the Woojer Strap is the more accessible option, giving gamers and music lovers an extra layer of immersion by strapping a single device to your body, its haptics shocking, rumbling and thumping in time with the action.
Priced at £124 – with a healthy holiday season discount down to £95 – the Woojer Strap 4 is the latest iteration of the single-unit device. In the box, you’re getting the Woojer Strap 4 central unit, an elasticated strap to wrap around your body, a USB-C to USB-C charging cable, and a double-ended 3.5mm cable to physically connect your audio devices.
As gaming devices go, the Strap 4 is pretty straightforward. The unit itself has some weight to it and feels incredibly robust in your hand, crafted from solid plastic throughout, and available in a series of different colours. To the front, there’s a customisable LED ring with rubberised physical volume and intensity controls within it.
The top edge features the power button and Bluetooth pairing button, while the bottom includes a USB-C charging port and two 3.5mm audio sockets, one for input and the other as a dedicated output. I thought the older model’s copper finish looked great, but the addition of RGB allows the Strap 4 to match your gaming setup, and the extra layer of customisation gives you some individuality too. If you’re not an RGB fan? You can just turn it all off.
You’ll need a mobile device for the Strap 4 setup, and it proves pleasingly simple to connect the device to the Woojer app, where it takes you through pairing to your device, and then the secondary pairing of your headphones to the Strap 4. This all worked first time, which almost never happens, and you then find yourself with the main control page, which gives you an input and output display, as well as power remaining and the current latency setting, which you can alter if you find that the Strap 4’s haptic output doesn’t quite match up with whatever visuals you’re looking at.
Besides that, you can directly control the volume and the intensity, though there’s physical buttons for these as well, and, if needed, you can dive into the haptic sensation mode, which alters the behaviour of the haptics through Broad, Focused and Gaming settings.
The app also gives you decent control over the LED lights. There’s a full spectrum colour wheel to dial in the exact tone you want, adjust the brightness, and choose between a series of different effects to keep things interesting. While you’re playing, it’s not exactly something that adds all that much to the experience, but it’s certainly more futuristic, and if you’re out and about listening to music, you’ll certainly turn a few heads.
The Strap 4 experience is definitely easier to get into than the Woojer Vest. It’s small and portable, doesn’t take up much space, and requires minimal setup. You can just throw it on, and start watching, playing or listening to whatever you want, and I really liked how simple it felt. In turn, it immediately lifts your experience, with the added haptic feedback from your audio immersing you deeper in your content than ever before.
You can wear it in a variety of ways, though Woojer seem to recommend particular setups for particular input types, so for music you’d wear it around your waist, or horizontally while playing VR . Fundamentally, you can go for whatever feels best and most natural to you, and I gravitated most towards wearing it across my body, with the strap over one shoulder and the unit in the centre of my chest. This makes the haptic sensation fire directly into your chest, and explosions and heavy hits thump and rumble straight into you. Just like the rumble motors in a controller, it brings the action to life that bit further, and I find it hard to go back to playing without the extra layer it provides.
I loved using the Strap 4 for regular flat-screen gaming, listening to music and rewatching the most recent Star Trek movies, but VR is where it truly makes a major difference. With your senses cut off from the outside world, the rumble feels more nuanced and powerful, and whether you’re playing Beat Saber and throwing yourself directly into the music, or going for something more action-heavy like the new Deadpool VR, the Strap 4 brings a new level of immersion for a relatively low entry price.
While it can’t compare to the full experience you feel with the Woojer Vest, in terms of value for money, I think the Strap 4 hits the sweet spot between what it brings to your experience and the asking price. If you’ve already got a great headset, a pro controller, and a VR setup, the Strap 4 is practically a no-brainer as the next step in your gaming setup.
The only limitation, and this goes for all Woojer devices, is that this is a physical representation of audio output. That means your experience relies on how the audio is delivered, getting the levels right, and it will change on a game-by-game or song-by-song basis. It means there’s a certain degree of variation and inconsistency that some users might find disappointing, and hopefully Woojer can find a way to tap into the rumble and gamepad haptic signals in future. Once you’ve become accustomed to that abstraction, though, I still don’t think you’ll look back.
We are now in the top 30 of our Most Wanted Games of 2026 and here we’re hitting a mix of sequels, prequels, a much anticipated horror, and what could prove to be the ultimate mashup that will dominate 2026. Scroll down to find out what games have got into our top 30.
30 – Slay The Spire II
PC – “A secret Thursday in March 2026”
It was in early 2024 when we learned that smash-hit rogulike deckbuilder Slay The Spire would be getting a sequel, and it’s safe to say it has big shoes to fill. Slay The Spire II is separated by 1000 years from the original game, which means new slayers, new cards, and new potions to use in the challenge to beat the Spire, which will contain new challenges.
Slay The Spire II was meant to be released into early access in 2025, with Mega Crit envisioning a year to 18 months before a full release. However, development delays meant early access did not take place when initially planned, instead now penned in for March 2026. We can only hope that Slay The Spire II is more worthy successor rather than the difficult second album.
29 – Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy
PS5, XSX|S, PC – 2026
It was in mid-2025 when Asobo Studio revealed Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy, giving us a new game in the A Plague Tale universe, though setting it 15 years before the events of the main games. This spin-off sees a new main character in Sophia, a plunderer who finds herself on Minotaur Island fighting and trying to evade an army that is chasing her, with the possibility that the Minotaur will also make an appearance.
The description for Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy references two heroes as players will switch between the ancient Minoan civilisation and Sophia’s time. The gameplay will consist of fighting various enemies as they come for Sophia and solving the puzzles across Minotaur Island to discover answers to why Sophia is there.
28 – Pokémon Pokopia
NSW2 – 5th March 2026
Pokémon Pokopia could easily end up as one of the most popular and best selling games of 2026 when it comes out in March. Take the popularity of Pokemon and blend it with the life sim vibes of Animal Crossing, and you have something that very few fans of both franchises would be able to resist.
In Pokémon Pokopia, you play as a Ditto that has taken on human form who has decided to create a little slice of paradise for fellow Pokemon. Just like any other Ditto, Pokopia’s Ditto can learn moves and abilities from other Pokemon allowing it to find ways to craft the cosy little getaway. For example, Ditto can transform into Lapras to swim around the world or sprout Bulbasaur vines for some bush slashing. Ditto will have friends to help with the crafting of paradise with the likes of Professor Tangrowth, and as more spaces are created more Pokemon will be attracted to join your little commune.
27 – Reanimal
PS5, XSX|S, NSW2, PC – 13th February 2026
There is a lot of expectation behind Reanimal. Coming from Tarsier Studios, the original developers of Little Nightmares and with a good long wait for their latest game since Little Nightmares II (Little Nightmares III was not developed by Tarsier but Supermassive Games), and Reanimal looks like it could scratch that horror adventure vibe that made Little Nightmares so popular.
Reanimal looks familiar to Little Nightmares but this a new universe, a new story, and an emphasis on partnership as a brother and sister search for their friends and look for a way off the island that was once their home. The pair explore the remnants of their home by land and sea, going to once familiar locations that have been twisted and have their own horrifying stories. Reanimal has been designed to have the siblings experience things together, which means it is fully playable either solo or in co-op. We don’t have too long to wait as Reanimal is out in just over a month.
26 – Gears of War: E-Day
XSX|S, PC – 2026
Since its reveal in 2024 we have not heard much about Gears of War: E-Day, the prequel to the entire Gears of War franchise that will take us to the very start of the war with the Locust on Emergence Day. The game is being co-developed by The Coalition and People Can Fly, with the teams putting players in the boots of young Marcus Phoenix and Dominic Santiago.
All we really know is that will see a Sera in the immediate aftermath of invasion rather than a fallen planet suffering from years of conflict. It’s also currently only announced for Xbox Series X|S and PC, even if last year’s Gears of War Reloaded remaster brought the series to PS5 for the first time with a day and date release. Anyway, for now, enjoy looking back at the reveal and its Mad World trailer above.
Did any of these games resonate with you? Come back tomorrow and we’ll have five more as we break into the top half of our list.
We shouldn’t be surprised to discover that an Assassin’s Creed game is good. Admittedly, Assassin’s Creed Shadows was beset by development problems and missed its release date any number of times, but as a series, Assassin’s Creed has earned its place as one of gaming’s key tentpoles. Shadows was originally released earlier in 2025, and proved to be another excellent action-adventure, its Japanese setting opening up a new set of features for the long-running series. Now, it’s arriving on the Nintendo Switch 2, and we’ve had the opportunity to discover whether Ubisoft have managed to stuff the huge experience onto Nintendo’s latest hybrid console.
There’s no getting away from the fact that you can immediately tell Assassin’s Creed Shadows is running on less powerful hardware, but what has been achieved with this port once again shows the level of polish that Ubisoft are capable of delivering and the adaptability of the Anvil engine. Just as with Star Wars Outlaws, Ubisoft have managed to bring across the core experience across in a deeply playable form by making smart decisions with regard to the visual nips and tucks they’ve had to make.
Clear signs include less-detailed floor textures, simplified water effects, static bodies of water, and mild pop-in, which seemed particularly prevalent in shadows. There’s also the tell-tale sign of anti-aliasing shimmer, and at times there’s a distinct line a few feet away from your character where it almost seems to present as screen tearing. That’s only visible under certain circumstances, though, and only when you’re not in motion.
All that considered, Assassin’s Creed Shadows still looks great on Switch 2. When the sunlight is shimmering through the trees, fronds of grass sway in the breeze, and fallen leaves shuffle underfoot, you can’t help but be impressed by the organic, vibrant world that Ubisoft have created. There’s baked in puddle reflections, which still carry a real sense of quality despite losing the ray tracing of the beefier consoles, while birds and beasts populate every scene, albeit with less definition than elsewhere. It looked incredible elsewhere, and still looks arresting here.
The real key is the frame rate. Assassin’s Creed Shadows aims for 30fps on Switch 2, and that does feel clearly slower and less immediate than its 60fps brethren. Depending on how sensitive you are to such things, that, in itself, might ruin the experience for you. It can dip from there at times too, especially through night scenes with an excess of burning flame effects such as in the opening battle, and even some of the cutscenes struggle to maintain a locked frame rate.
However, it mostly sits at or around 30fps, and in this context, that is a strong start. Given the continual patches we’ve seen for Star Wars Outlaws, you have to assume that Ubisoft will be refining the experience further in the coming weeks, but overall it’s absolutely playable at launch. It feels hugely impressive to have Assassin’s Creed Shadows in the palm of your hand, especially given the size and scope of the game, and I’ve really enjoyed returning to the world, even with the reduced graphical fidelity and lower frame rate. It was a good game originally, and it remains a good game now.
Of course, if you have the option of playing elsewhere, whether on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S or PC, Assassin’s Creed Shadows does look, play and perform better. That said, you can’t carry those out the door, and the core experience remains in place on Switch 2, whether you’re playing docked or handheld.
If anything, this is a game that works remarkably well in handheld, as you complete the odd mission here or trek across the map there, breaking the game’s huge number of quests and side missions down into something more manageable. Thanks to Ubisoft Connect, you can also carry saves over across platforms, so if you want to double-dip, grabbing the game to continue on the go is well worth considering.
There is one underlying issue here at launch, and that’s crashes. I experienced a series of hard crashes after the first couple of hours with the game, but at intermittent points, so there was no clear trigger for them happening. Restarting my Nintendo Switch 2 seemed to remedy the issue, but I made sure to perform manual saves afterwards, just in case. Here’s hoping that a day-one patch will wipe out the issue, especially as I’ve not been the only player to experience them.
Role-playing video games have been around almost as long as D&D itself, but for every step they take towards modernity, many of the fundamentals remain the same. Octopath Traveler 0 is a game that’s more aware of that than any other AAA release this year. It readily leans on RPG fundamentals like turn-based combat, grinding for experience and epic storytelling, while aping the 16-bit visuals of classics like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI. It’s also a reworking of the mobile title, Champions of the Continent, but, for all of that, Octopath Traveler 0 looks and feels every inch the modern RPG.
Admittedly, we’ve been here before. The first two Octopath games took eight separate characters, and interlinked their eight narratives to great effect, but it was the HD-2D visuals that instantly won them an avalanche of pixel-art admirers. Octopath 0 immediately pulls the same trick by being undeniably stunning to behold, updating the look of the classics with a shimmering, living filter that brings every scene to life in remarkable fashion. I don’t think I could ever get bored of this art style, and three games in (and with a bunch of other HD-2D games alongside) that looks likely to pan out.
While the visual style remains the same, the overarching structure and narrative framing have changed, this time putting a created character at the centre of everything. Your silent protagonist gets their own name, look, and even a favourite food, but they don’t say much of anything at all, while other characters readily monologue through conversations to their heart’s content. You get used to it, but I did miss the individual characters of the last two games.
That said, the teams at Square Enix and DokiDoki Groove Works have crafted an interesting and companionable bunch of characters to surround yourself with, and there’s a huge number of them, and their backstories, to involve yourself in. Whether touched by tragedy, or seeking knowledge and influence, there’s hundreds of narrative threads to pull on, some of which go nowhere, while others contribute to your own, world-altering quest.
Outside of the thirty recruitable characters, virtually every person you come across can be spoken to, investigated, bartered with, or hired, whether through your persuasive talents or by beating them in combat. It’s an enjoyable, and often productive, diversion, and it makes every town and village feel as though it’s brimming with life and character, even when these backstories are often just a few lines.
The core narrative is split into three strands: Power, Fame and Wealth. At the outset, each of these is headed by a particularly hateful lead antagonist, from the murderous playwright Auguste – who’s definitely stolen the Guardians of the Galaxy’s Collector’s schtick – to the beautiful Herminia whose drug cartel stands to corrupt half the population of the continent. You can tackle these in any order, with the other strands remaining frozen while you work your way through the others.
Your hometown, Wishvale, finds itself decimated at the hands of these evil-doers, setting you and your friends off on a quest to collect the eight divine rings, and you find yourself chasing each of them down, enacting your revenge while also rebuilding your homestead.
Town building is a big part of Octopath 0’s gameplay, and it’s well done, even if you might find it a little limited and straightforward. You can build various homesteads, shops and facilities and gain certain boons by inviting people to live there, while the layout and expansion of Wishvale is up to you, albeit within the framework that you’re given to work with.
You’ll find yourself decorating and tinkering for hours, and getting to see your creation in the beautiful game engine is well worth it. There’s a small fly in the ointment for Switch 2 players, who don’t get to use quite as many objects as PS5 or Xbox Series X|S owners (400 compared to 500), but there’s still enough customisation to truly make this place feel like your own.
Octopath Traveler 0 evolves the series’ turn-based combat, though it does feel fundamentally the same as its predecessors. Boosting attacks and breaking enemies is the key to success, wearing down their defences by discovering what weapon types they’re weak to. This time, you can have a massive 8 different characters in your party, with half of those in the back line providing support, while you can also recruit helpers to throw in with you.
It’s a shame that the difficulty level often bounces between ridiculously easy and teeth-gnashingly tough, but it does even out the further you go. If you’re a fan of turn-based combat, Octopath 0’s rendition remains interesting throughout, with the multiple characters bringing some of the mobile-centric chaos and carnage that you’d expect with multiple effects and attacks going on, while failure means you often have to strategise and plan to progress.
If you head into the menus, there’s plenty of the traditional levelling and equipping you’d expect to find, and you can unlock skills in the order you want, which is a nice touch, although you have to bear in mind how much SP they cost to cast when you’re starting out. There’s a huge amount of customisation available, with characters able to learn others’ skills, while your central protagonist can also change jobs – choosing from eight, obviously – learning new skills and improving their stats as they do, and letting you experience some of that variation the previous games had with multiple characters.
One of the biggest worries with Octopath Traveler 0 was whether it was going to feel like a mobile port, and thankfully, it doesn’t. From the huge cast of voice actors, through the multiple quests and asides, to the town-building and exceptional production values, Octopath Traveler 0 feels every bit the full console game. It definitely has a different flavour to the previous titles, and I can see some fans struggling with the shift, but in many ways, it feels fresh and unique when placed alongside its predecessors.
After being caught in the middle of yet another Space Pirate scuffle with the Galactic Federation, this time a mishap with a strange artefact sees Samus zapped away to the planet Viewros. There, she’s enlisted by the holographic ghosts of the Lamorn to help preserve and release their dead civilisation’s knowledge into the wider galaxy. To do this, you must reach and retrieve five teleporter keys from five different biomes and regions on this planet.
Stripped of her equipment, as is tradition, Samus is given the beginnings of a brand new set of gear, almost all with a slick new purple hue… because they’re pretty much all psychic. A gemstone is embedded in her helmet, so the scanning visor also allows for a variety of telekinetic manipulations, the beam cannon can now fire guided bolts, and there’s barely visible platforms and grapple points that you need the psychic view and psychic grapple to manipulate. The nomenclature is pretty ham-fisted, but it is an effective blend of the old and the new, successfully adding a new layer on top and around the core gameplay. It can be a little confounding at times, when confronted by a puzzle that leans on a less commonly used mechanic. I often forgot that I could turn a morph ball bomb into a grab-able psychic bomb to trigger raised nodes, for example.
You have that same blend of old and new, from a Metroid series perspective, for the controls and combat. The fundamentals are now those of a modern first person shooter, though you still lock on with the left trigger and automatically circle strafe around enemies. This means you can easily keep moving and evading incoming attacks thanks to this, and then move your actual target point on screen using the right stick or with motion controller after touch. Alternatively you can drop in and out of mouse mode when playing with detached Joy-Con 2 on Nintendo Switch 2, getting more of a PC FPS control scheme, which certainly has advantages for quick and precise aiming.
Personally, I kept things very vanilla, playing purely with controller, no motion controls, and then regularly re-aiming with a snap as needed. This generally worked very well for me, though it’s fair to say that it does struggle a bit when trying to target certain enemies in a crowd – some of the combat-heavy sections really throw a lot of enemies at you – and for targeting weak spots during the larger scale boss battles. Those moments aren’t common, and you can overcome them with a little patience, the game generally feeling quite forgiving in these most frantic and frenetic moments.
Through the opening biome of the adventure, the mixture of nature and sandstone-like ruins ably demonstrates the downfall of the Lamorn civilisation and how nature was corrupted around them. From here, things get far more heavy metal, from lighting powered factories to facilities deep in a volcano and beyond – are the Lamorn actually Bond villains?
They’re typical elemental archetypes, but I rather enjoyed how the Lamorn facilities and technology have more than a hint of H.R. Giger, Alien and Prometheus to their look and feel. It’s obviously not wholly original, but this biomechanical style absolutely works for me.
Instead of linking these regions together directly, they’re instead joined up by the barren desert of Sol Valley, a wide open expanse that you need Samus’ new Vi-O-La motorbike to cross in any sensible amount of time. It’s a pretty slick addition and it’s fun to zip up and over the sand dunes, crashing through green crystals and searching for the handful of secrets and points of interest between locations.
You can be attacked during these moments by a few different types of fast-moving enemy, and thankfully things are kept quite light, thanks to a locking homing disc attack… or you can generally just avoid them. The only issue is that there’s not that much to do here. There’s a handful of Breath of the Wild-like puzzle temples to seek out, and green crystals that you need to power up your Power Beam, but it’s largely just connective tissue between the regions.
And you will be going back and forth plenty. Backtracking and exploring newly accessible parts of the world is a key part of the Metroidvania formula, and in some ways Metroid Prime 4 does this very well, and in others it makes it a bit of a chore. Actually getting back to previous locations isn’t fast travel fast, but thanks to the bike, it’s also not actually all that time consuming. It does still feel like dead time, but the actual time you spend trekking back and forth isn’t too bad when you feel focused on an objective.
The real problem with this, though, is the game simply doesn’t leave you alone to soak in the atmosphere and figure things out for yourself. Early on in the adventure you meet Specialist Miles MacKenzie, who fights alongside you for a brief period, before setting up a camp for himself and any other Federation Troopers that you find along the way, putting together a rag-tag team of survivors. They’re a contrasting group of characters, but MacKenzie stands out for his… quirky dialogue, when compared to the more by-the-book nature and tone of some other troopers (who I inevitably liked more).
I have mixed feelings about this and how it affects the storytelling alongside the stoically silent Samus. The vast majority of the game, is spent on your own with rare interjections over comms when exploring a region, but once you’ve completed an area, beaten a boss, found a new tech part, it feels like MacKenzie helicoptering in like an overbearing parent to make sure you don’t get lost. That’s even more annoying on the handful occasions where he’s actively misleading, “helpfully” suggesting I visit one locale or another only for me to hit a familiar dead end and double back again. If I’d done this on my own? Fine, but for it to be because the game effectively lied to me is annoying. I know this handholding is important for the game’s accessibility, but there really should be an option to turn this off.
For the overarching story, I really liked the drip feed of learning what happened to the Lamorn and how their civilisation died, picking up the journals and logs, and finding their psychic statues. The broad team of Federation Troopers did also grow on me for their key moments and narrative payoffs.
The original Outward was well received by players with its offering of an RPG with survival elements, where the world was dangerous and you had to use your wits to survive and make progress. Outward 2 looks to continue on and build on those foundations, making for a more densely packed and more dangerous experience as a result, and still without the compromises of fast travel or quest markers. We sat down with Guillaume Boucher-Vidal, the CEO and creative director of Nine Dots Studio, and producer Natasha Collin to play the alpha build of Outward 2, and find out what is in store for players.
“One of the four pillars of what we wanted to improve in Outward 2 was character creation, increase the the role play opportunities and like being who you wanted. And part of it is that we have three starting areas and they all come with a very different Quest that explains how a regular person ends up living a life of an adventurer.”, said Guillaume as we checked out the creation screen.
Players of Outward will be happy to know there are a lot more options available when designing your character to allow you to make them more personal, from body shape, skin colour, hair colour, styles, and various body markings. Once you have crafted how your character looks you then pick their base skill set and attributes. For those of you who really want a challenge, Deadbeat will provide you with the weakest and most vulnerable character build. While it is Guillaume’s favourite, he steered me away from that, so I settled on a book loving brute instead. Your choices will impact the dialogue options open to you and how some quests may play out, as well as your general survival skills in the world. When it comes to factions, you can only join one out and that is your faction for life. You can also not become an expert in every ability, so the decisions you make on which skills to learn need to be carefully thought through so you focus on a particular playstyle.
For this playthrough of Outward 2, we started in the new location of Haboob, a city which was cut off from the world for centuries surrounded by large flora and a persistent sandstorm. Only those who are exiled seem to leave the walls of the city, and for good reason. There is danger pretty much everywhere outside the walls for anyone unprepared. What you notice about Haboob is its distinct style of interesting architecture pierced with a purple lighting interspersed around, and a perpetual sandstorm above the vast cave system in which the city is located. This is one of three starting areas and depending on your choices you may not see Haboob until much later in the game.
You have your own apartment in Haboob, a market nearby where you can purchase items and weapons, and an opportunity to make a name for yourself, except that all comes crashing down after your first night because of Sebastian. In this story, you wake up to find a guard in your chambers looking for something only for Sebastian to kill him and place the smoking gun in your hands before disappearing. This is where the clock starts ticking as you only have 18 in-game days to track Sebastian down and prove your innocence or lose everything. Each day lasts an hour, so 18 hours seems like plenty of time to save your home, except Outward 2 is not forgiving when it comes to time. If you sleep, which you will need to, you will lose those hours. If you lose a fight and get knocked unconscious, you will lose time and have to deal with whatever situation you have woken up in.
There is no death in Outward 2, unless you play the Hardcore mode, where losing consciousness comes with a 20% chance of your save being permanently deleted. But for a regular playthrough, just because there’s no death doesn’t mean there’s no challenge. Depending on where you fall and your luck you may wake up in a friendly situation or in a dangerous one. In one situation I was found by the Menders, a group of helpers and healers that travel Auriel. They are also one of the factions you can join. They mended me up and even gave me information about Sebastian that I could use.
This was actually the first time Guillaume and Rebecca had seen this scenario play out, which was exciting for them too. I asked about how many different defeat scenarios would be in Outward 2. Guillaume responds, saying, “Hey, it’s a tough question. Like a lot, really? A lot. We need them because we die often and so if you keep seeing the same things it eventually gets frustrating. And we need different defeat scenarios for every dungeon as well. So like, that’s why it’s not a cutscene or something. It’s just a little bit of text.”
Two of the criticisms that were levied at Outward included combat being stiff and the world itself be relatively sparse leading to prolonged sections of nothing happening. Guillaume and the team took those comments to heart, and the world in Outward will be more exciting to explore while retaining a similar size to the original’s map. On map Guillaume says, “The emptiness is one of those four pillars. The first one was character creation. The second one is making a world which is more alive. And so to do that, it has to be a bit more filled. You need to have a bit more random events, to have encounters that are not hostile, to populate visually the world a bit more. It will never be as packed as, say, one of those Ubisoft type worlds where you’ve got, like, every 30 seconds you got something coming at you. We’re not trying to do that. But even as you walk around in the city, I feel like it’s luscious. It has lot of places to visit, and when you’re outside, it is more dense than the first. We’ve got it similar in scope, but because it is more packed, it feels significantly bigger.
“[There are] four regions, four cities, lots of dungeons spread across regions. Normally, we calculated we have a budget of about six to eight dungeons, like major dungeons per area, and then we have many, what we call micro dungeons, so interesting destinations that might not take you an hour to just go through.”
Combat in Outward 2 has been improved with weapons have a wider variety of moves depending on direction inputs, and you can carry different combinations of weapons to inflict damage on enemies. For my playthrough I had a small axe in one hand and an ice pick in another, allowing for quicker attacks. Later, I equipped a trident that allowed slower but more powerful attacks, while also providing ways to evade incoming attacks. Locking on to enemies and moving around them gives a fluid feel to fights, but for some fights you do need to prep.
At one point, we came across a ghost in a cave, which could not be defeated with conventional methods. Guillaume took old clothing, tore it into linen, attached it to a stick, doused it in oil, and set it on fire, as the ghost was susceptible to fire magic. Outward 2 is a game where you have to think logically to come up with solutions or suffer the consequences. I drank straight from a stream which gave my character indigestion, but had I boiled the water, I would have been fine. Magic is another viable combat route in Outward 2 with various spells to equip and learn, but is not something that I saw in the alpha build.
Outward 2 has had its development challenges with Guillaume saying that one of the biggest was switching engines from Unity to Unreal 5 partway through development – a decision made when Unity pitched the idea of the Runtime Fee which would have seen a charge applied to developers for game installs after a certain revenue point. “We were a specialist studio with 10 years of experience in Unity. Starting with Unreal was even worse, having to migrate the work that we had already done. So there is something that is lost in the process because the structure, the architecture of the game has to be thought of in terms of what are the strengths of the engine. So now we are kind of trying to massage it back into a shape that fits these strengths and weaknesses of Unreal Engine.”
Outward 2 is a project that clearly means a lot to Guillaume and the team at Nine Dots Studio, so I asked what kind of legacy do they want Outward 2 to have? Guillaume takes a moment to think before saying, “I want Outward 2 to prove that Outward was not a fluke and I want this game to be a complete expression of architecture. We’re not trying to be more accessible, but we want to attain a level of execution where the people who were not receptive to the first one. Now, we’ll know is it because we didn’t execute it well? Or was it because the vision is not for them?
“For Outward 1 I understand that some people like it was too rough for me – that’s valid. I want Outward 2 to be very tight. It’s the first game in a very long time that we are self-publishing. So it is a game that is about the emancipation of Nine Dots, and taking having more control over how we sell the game, how we communicate with players, how do we collaborate with other developers because we are acting as publishers as well.
“We were very successful with Outward, so we used some of that money to fund another studio called Ever Curious Entertainment and their game called Witherbloom. And we can just keep doing more of that if Outward 2 is successful, even a fraction of the success of Outward. Because we are self-publishing, we would keep so much of that success for ourselves and we would share that success.”
Outward 2 is a game that will appeal to those that want an RPG with survival elements, where no quest log tells you what to do, no markers to pinpoint exactly where you are, and where you deal with cold, heat, hunger, and thirst as well as the dangers around you. It is a tough experience but Outward 2 comes across as a game that will reward those who persevere. If it is successful it could also see more studios benefit as Nine Dots expands into publishing, allowing for a more varied game industry at a time when it is needed.
Marvel Cosmic Invasion is a nostalgia-soaked love letter to nine-year-old you. A side-scrolling beat ‘em up that looks like it just stepped out of a 90’s arcade, Cosmic Invasion features the character design of Marvel’s comic heyday, pixel-art visuals that ape Capcom’s Super Hero fighting series, and a tag team mechanic that is pure X-Men vs. Street Fighter. In short, with this much 90’s nostalgia powering it, how can Marvel Cosmic Invasion possibly fail?
Marvel big bad Annihilus wants to take over the universe and it’s up to you and three friends – either online or local in very slick drop-in drop-out multiplayer – to stop him. The story is suitably silly and slight. The, thankfully skippable, static cutscenes bracketing each level are completely incomprehensible scrolling beat ‘em up hokum, but the opening animated intro and accompanying theme-song is an unadulterated delight, perfectly capturing the essence of the iconic X-Men cartoon. You’ll be listening to it on repeat on your chosen music streaming platform of choice, let me tell you.
With an impressive character roster of 15 heroes, Cosmic Invasion certainly offers a stacked cast of Marvel do-gooders. There’s the expected A-listers like Spider-Man, Wolverine and Iron Man, but also a few more niche picks, such as Beta-Ray Bill, Cosmic Ghost Rider, and Phyla-Vell. Whilst I would have personally liked developer Tribute Games to delve a little deeper in the weeds of the Marvel character back catalogue – Marvel Rivals did this with Jeff the Land Shark, turning the diminutive hero into a fan favourite and star of numerous comics in the process – the overall depth and breadth of the line-up really can’t be faulted.
What can be faulted is the variance in how much fun the characters are to play as. Flying characters suffer the most, the cost of being able to hover around the place a bit is seemingly being lumbered with a vastly reduced move-set. Storm is a total snore-fest, with only a handful of attacks on offer, whilst Silver Surfer, Iron Man, Phoenix and Phyla-Vell struggled to get much play time, simply because they can’t do very much. A couple of basic attacks, a range attack and a special? It’s not much terribly exciting. Plus, the insistence on flying heroes and enemies is unnecessarily fiddly, it’s often difficult to tell where you and your enemy are, resulting in a lot of accidental punching of thin air.
Wolverine and Black Panther are both superb, however, with varied combos and juggles putting their flying counterparts to shame. She Hulk’s range of pro-wrestling themed moves are brilliant fun to unleash, and Venom and Spider-Man deliver all the web-based antics a fan could hope for. The impressive sounding 15 character roster is quickly reduced down to five heroes you’ll actually want to play as, with the rest acting in a support role, leaping into the action with a brief bonus attack at the touch of a button.
If the heroes are well catered for, the villains they’ll be punching are not. Considering the vast universe of characters Tribute Games could call upon to include, they picked some lame ducks here. Most of the time you’ll be beating-up the exact same bug-like minions, only they’ll be painted in slightly different colours from level to level. Sure, there’s a few Sentinels to take on and some symbiotes, but mostly you’ll spend your time battling big mutated bees. Where’s the Kree? The Skrulls? The Chitauri? For a game set in the galaxy-spanning Marvel Cosmic comics, the lack of decent bad guys to duff up feels like the waste of an iconic licence.
Boss fights are also quite boring, even if they do feature a decent range of Marvel villains. No matter if you’re facing Knull, The Phoenix, or MODOK, your enemy will launch the same limited range of attacks and will soon be defeated without much effort. Indeed, for a game aping a 90’s coin-up, Marvel Cosmic Invasion is unexpectedly easy, offering little challenge and only occasionally pushing back against the player. My partner and I only had one or two re-starts and saw off the entire game in a couple of hours. We had little use for the tag-team mechanic either. Sure, you can swap in and out characters to deliver a massive juggling combo – so long as you don’t pick a flyer as a partner – buy why bother when a few punches will kill most opponents?
Worse, the levels themselves are oddly dull and repetitive. Scrolling beat ‘em ups are hardly known for their variety when it comes to level design, but Streets of Rage 4, Absolum, and Tribute Games own Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge prove it can be done. With no weapon pick-ups, no vehicles to drive or mounts to ride, no new moves to unlock, and the aforementioned limited range of enemies, Marvel Cosmic Invasion, even with its short run time, ultimately becomes a bit of a slog.
Despite all of the over-the-top visuals with nostalgia dripping loveliness then, playing Marvel Cosmic Invasion is just a bit, well, boring.
Duskpunk is a dice-based RPG putting you in a world where misery roams the streets of the city of Dredgeport, thanks to a combination of a seemingly never-ending war, criminal gangs, and the sway of the most powerful including the Emperor. You are a nobody who somehow escaped the butchery of the Front, but need to find your footing in a city where luck is thin and where relationships can turn sour quickly.
You have a choice of four classes in Duskpunk – Veteran, Writer, Criminal and Engineer – each of which has different starting stats. The veteran is a solid pick if you want to fight your way out of situations, with the disadvantage of not having the charisma or intuitiveness to find other solutions. The criminal class is for those who want to sneak around and use intuition. Engineers can construct workarounds for problems but are useless in a fight, while writers use their words to win arguments and bring people round. As you progress through Duskpunk you will earn ability points by completing tasks to up each skill, so can raise all of the stats to deal with most situations, as well as earning additional abilities.
Duskpunk’s gameplay is similar to Citizen Sleeper, but with different issues to keep track of and worry about. Groat, the game currency that you use, is a big one as it will determine if you can buy food, shelter, and drugs to deal with stress. Groats go as quickly as they come, so you won’t ever feel financially comfortable. Stress can be raised by pushing beyond your character’s limits and through nightmares. As the stress meter builds, dice faces break, meaning your rolls as less likely to give you good outcomes. Initially, the only way to reduce stress is to take a drug which is expensive and hard to acquire, but as you explore more of Dredgeport different ways to reduce stress open up including meditation and talking to others. A wanted level can also appear depending on your actions, so you have to figure out ways to evade the authorities before they catch you. Health is another attribute to watch and if it reaches zero then a skill becomes broken. These skills can be fixed by recuperating, but that costs time and Duskpunk is a game where time matters a lot.
You will find yourself mixing with different factions through Dredgeport, each with their own goals, from controlling the drug business, unionising, all the way to toppling the government. As you become familiar with these groups you will be given aims, aka missions, to undertake which can vary wildly from handing out pamphlets to digging up corpses. A majority of the aims are time sensitive and it doesn’t seem possible to complete them all, so you need to decide which factions appeal to your character more.
The representatives of each of these factions, such as Zai of the Machinists and Dresden of the Lich Dealers, are decently written but, for me, did not quite have the depth to pull me in to build a real connection with them. There are some powerful groups in Duskpunk, but the decisions you make are what really impacts the wider world, even through inaction or not completing an aim. While there are a number of choices to make, there are only a few real endings that your actions can lead to. It offers some replayability, but also shows that some actions you take will not have an overbearing impact on the final outcome, though they can impact the fate of individual characters.
A bit more of the world treating you as a just one person where events happen without your involvement would have been good too, making Dredgeport feel more like a real city that moves around you and not because of you. The story is pretty engaging and does explore a number of themes including workers rights, the balance of power in society, isolation, segregation, and survival. Again it is not the most in-depth look at these themes, but Duskpunk does provide an accessible way to learn about these issues and tie them to our own experiences.
For much of Duskpunk, you will either be looking at a map of Dredgeport to pick locations to visit, or reading the conversations you have with the different characters to advance the game. I like the user interface of Duskpunk, finding it easy to navigate and understand. You have the map, the aim journal, and an inventory to show what you are carrying. Aside from groats, you can also trade rumours, tip-offs, and rare goods for money or influence. The characters are nicely drawn too with each one having a really distinctive look, while the map has small details like birds flying around, the flow of the river, and smoke rising from the factories. A lot of work has gone into making the world seem alive, even if it is a map.
It’s felt like a pretty subdued week, with the US focussing on its holiday, and Black Friday sales not being terribly interesting or exciting this time around, to my mind at least. Some good indie game sales, but when the price for a game is only coming down to £35+, it’s harder to get worked up about that. But did you manage to grab any bargains?
Outside of that, I guess we have to give in and accept that it’s Christmas. You could be strict and hold out until Monday, but I’ll be putting up a tree and decorations this weekend.
Beyond that, Dom delivered reviews for the SIVGA Robin SV021 headphones and the Creative Aurvana Ace 3 earbuds – they’re getting a bit too creative with the English language, if you ask me – and I shared a preview of the Hive Scum character DLC for Warhammer 40,000: Darktide.
Rounding out the week, What We Played featured Terrifier, Ghost of Yotei & Assetto Corsa Rally.
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide already enlisted the dregs of the grimdark future’s society to fight back against the forces of Chaos, but the Hive Scum goes a step further by getting into bed with organised crime. It’s honestly a bit like a classic film noir set-up, with the gangsters of Tertium choosing to team up with the law and order of the Inquisitorial Warband to fight back against Chaos. And why? Just because the growing war has been really bad for business.
Put any images I’ve just conjured of Tommy guns, zoot suits and spats out of your mind, because the crime cartels of the 41st Millennium are much more punk rock than that. Literally, they look like old British punk rockers, slathered with full-body tattoos, with mohawks and spiked hair or… uh, just some really long sideburns, and uncomfortable-looking spiked leather outfits.
Darktide captures this look and feel perfectly, and there’s a bunch of new customisation options in the character creator to accommodate this. There’s new Hive Scum exclusive hairstyles, and you can dye hair different colours too, new tattoos, face paint and more besides. You also get to choose from four gangs to be aligned with – the Water Cartel, Iron Riders, Show, and Tread Lightlies. Necromunda fans will have a field day with all of this, or they would if they knew what a field was.
For as distinctive as the Hive Scum are compared to the rest of the Inquisitor’s gang, they play even more differently. It starts with the weaponry, and in true gang runner fashion, there’s absolutely no common sense applied to always running around with twinned blades and twinned automatic pistols. Heck, they even blast away with the guns in side grip half the time. This is very much the rule of cool, and plays into the indiscriminate firing style that the Hive Scum is really all about. It’s spray and pray more than precise aiming, and should be good for dealing with hordes of more basic enemies. For the melee side of things, you can also swap to a vicious looking bone saw, or a crowbar, which you can flip in hand to go from blunt-sided enemy-staggering sweeps to pointy end stabby stuff.
There’s a new Toxins damage type that comes with the Hive Scum. Alongside a concussive grenade and missile launcher, you can pick the chem grenade that is able to make a toxic gas cloud, and there’s also the needle pistol as a main gun option, which has been realised to deal this special type of damage. This actually bleeds through armour to affect tougher enemies, which is a really interesting twist, but it also acts a bit like the classic Virus Outbreak stratagem card from the 2nd Edition Warhammer 40K era. While it won’t be quite so devastating, the Toxin effect is able to spread between enemies, dealing damage over time throughout an onrushing horde.
As with all the other classes in the game, there’s a lengthy skill tree to work through as you level up, building up to playstyle defining ultimate abilities. the Desperado goes all in on Gun Fu-inspired shenanigans, making you impossible to hit with ranged attacks throughout and giving you unlimited ammo. The effect is prolonged by killing marked enemies, so you can keep it going for a good long time, though this time boost diminishes. On the other side is Rampage, which ramps up your melee damage, again prolonging the effect by hitting and killing enemies, making you a bit of a glass cannon.
The most interesting one, though, is the Stimm Supply ability, dropping a box that will spew out a cloud of enhancing drugs for you and your teammates – either a strong effect when within the cloud or to “Huff and Go”a bit reduced but sticking with people who’ve left the smog. This ties in with the Hive Scum’s second talent tree, which can be used to cook up their own custom stimms.
Essentially, this takes all the possibilities from the stimms other characters can find and use and turns them into a mix-and-match skill tree of their own. You add different components and buffs, and can either go all in on one effect category or blend them together. The most powerful aspects are that this is on a cooldown, making it as integral to the character as their weapons and ultimates, and that it’s instantly used right in the middle of the fray, just by hitting the button. The only thing you really need to balance is how strong to make the stimm, because the more powerful the effect, the longer the cooldown will be.
Hive Scum feels like it will be a really fun addition to explore through Darktide, and there’s great potential for this criminal class to interact with some of the more reputable parts of the Inquisitorial Warband when on missions together.
Speaking of which, Hive Scum will launch alongside a free update to Darktide that brings a new mission and narrative arc to the game. The No Man’s Land operation will show how this war against Chaos is evolving yet again, spilling out to the outskirts of the hive city, letting you see the dim grey skies and visit a sprawling trench network. Lovely.
Your mission here is to escort the tank of Knight Commander Dragor through to breach some stronghold walls as you battle down in the trenches. These are really wide and open trenches compared to WWI, but do lead to a rather linear feeling level thanks to the sharp 90º corners. One thing that old 40K fans will appreciate is the scenery around the main channel of battle, as you might see some iconic 3rd Edition plastic ruins rendered in all their polygonal glory in the periphery.
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide looks to be going from strength to strength, with Fatshark having settled into a practised groove for producing new characters and meaningfully continuing the narrative of this co-op shooter through new levels and story arcs. As they arrive next week on 2nd December, Hive Scum and No Man’s Land are just the latest examples of this, both great visual and thematic changes of pace that I’m keen to see evolve further.
It feels like I’ve spent most of this week playing the game ‘avoiding the Christmas crowds’, but I did get to enjoy my own version of Thanksgiving where I just watched NFL for six hours, and didn’t have to think about turkey for another month. In terms of gaming, I’ve been playing a truckload of Octopath Traveler 0, as well as some more Tomb Raider Definitive Edition and Kirby Air Riders. Besides that, I’ve been checking out Assetto Corsa Rally, and messing with GeForce Now across a bunch of platforms to see how it performs.
First up this week, Gamoc has played Sweet Surrender for review, as well as Halls of Torment and Red Dead Redemption 2.
Bizarrely keen to try and take on the Marvel Rivals PlayStation Cup challenge next week, Ade has been practicing by polished off his review of the retro-styled scrolling beat ’em up Marvel Cosmic Invasion. The embargo for that is on Monday, so check out his review then!
Meanwhile, Jim has had a much quieter week. After flitting between a glut of new multiplayer games, he’s back to Ghost of Yotei as he focuses on finishing the main quest.
Aran has been playing Duskpunk for review, which is a mix of Citizen Sleeper meets the rough life in a town full of opportunities and misfortune. Sounds great to me!
Steve has been playing the natural pairing of Terrifier: the Artcade game and Spongebob Square pants: Titans of the Tide. This weird gaming concoction has had mixed results, with Steve telling us, “The first was unfortunately pretty rubbish but the second is a solid, albeit short, 3D platformer” He continued, “With those wrapped, I’ve moved onto an indie space horror that’s been years in the making and is wonderfully atmospheric.”
And finally, Tef has been curling himself up into a ball for an upcoming review, while also dabbling with some upcoming Warhammer 40,000: Darktide DLC, and dipping into some cheap Black Friday sale pick ups, like Loop Hero.
And what about you? Have you played anything this week? Why not tell us about it!
