Micro-developer Lunar Division melds scientific rigour and faithful devotion into one, creating an entirely singular game about the depths of space, the limits of your own mind, and the divine beauty of mathematics.
Fit for the red carpet.
Like the Blizzard hits of old, Diablo 4 is a designer's game at heart, built on intricacy and depth. A sense of fearful overcompensation holds it back.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 is the most extensive Call of Duty game ever made, but not without its flaws. Dour storytelling and purely incremental changes to multiplayer prevent it from reaching the legendary status of its predecessors.
Ubisoft Montreal could have made a bold, brave statement as to what a hardcore, competitive multiplayer shooter should be all about. For all the joy of its exceptional gameplay, Rainbow Six Siege is suppressed by a lack of commitment to what makes it great.
Star Wars Battlefront is remarkably beautiful. So much so that I genuinely believe it is the best realisation of the Star Wars universe we have ever seen in a video game. But it also feels empty. Simple, stripped back shooting is great in a game with tons of ways to play, but when it's confined to what feels like only two fully-fledged game modes, and the metagame is taken back to bare bones too, it begins to make you wonder if there's actually much there at all.
Starfield pairs near-impossible breadth with a classic Bethesda aptitude for systemic physics, magnetic sidequests, and weird vignettes. But in sacrificing direct exploration for the sake of sheer scale, there's nothing to bind it together.
Mixing repetitive, imprecise combat with annoying characters and a landslide of nonsensical, proper noun-stuffed lore, Immortals of Aveum is almost so bad it's good. If only.
Dated and out-of-place
Tearing up the rulebook but bringing back the fun, Pok'mon Sun and Moon make for the best generation in more than a decade.
Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled is a gold-standard remaster, capturing the loveably janky, off-brand spirit of classic CTR - and then some.
Draknek masters a genre with a game of little touches, big challenge, and giant heart.
Beautiful, rhythmic, inventive and funny, Titan Souls developer Acid Nerve has delivered one of the best Zelda-likes in some time.
Roll7 blends genres with total mastery in Rollerdrome, one of the most breathlessly stylish and casually, outrageously cool games you'll ever play.
Dawn of War finally returns with a fascinating, if imperfect, twist on the modern RTS.
Pok'mon returns for a 3DS victory lap in this generous, definitive retelling of the Alolan story.
Messy, boisterous, chaotic - Civilization 6: Rise and Fall is the antidote to the Enlightenment.
Pok'mon's Switch debut deftly toes the line between returning fans and all-new ones, with a few small wobbles along the way.
Ambitious and sometimes overwhelming, Three Kingdoms does a great job of capturing the complexity of China's vivid past.
Riot Games delivers a masterclass in competitive integrity, soulless precision and zealous, life-consuming obsession.