Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2021 i PLAY

With Mecha Whale buzzsawing its way on stage, and Pig Detective himself handing out awards, the second annual Impys was the kind of celebration only Media Molecule could pull off. These awards are for creations made using the studio’s Dreams software, which enables any PS4 owner to make amazing things. Picking up Creator Of The Year, Creation Of The Year, and Best Gameplay was Pixel Gorilla with first-person puzzler Lock and Press X To Puzzle respectively. “The main reason I’m drawn to puzzle games is they allow me to be ambitious about game design without having to be equally ambitious about the technical aspects of building a game,” says Pixel Gorilla. “I think it’s very common to want to jump right out of the gates and make a big RPG…

“No-one likes to read on their TV – but now we have full professional VO to make up for that. [It] feels very lush.” Glance at it, and Disco Elysium seems to be cast in the same mould as many other classic RPG revivals of the modern era. But after only a few minutes hands-on with it it’s clear there’s nothing else like it. Playing an amnesiac detective, you have to solve a murder in a strange, magical realist world. It’s compelling stuff. We spoke to Helen Hindpere, the game’s lead writer, about how ZA/UM is bringing an expanded version – The Final Cut – to PS5 this month. OPM: How hard has it been translating an RPG like this onto a controller? What’s the approach been there? Helen Hindpere:…

“Game Of Thrones’ breakout actress Bella Ramsey will take on the role of Ellie in The Last Of Us.” The Last Of Us television series, announced last March, has finally found its twin leads. The Mandalorian star Pedro Pascal will play Joel and Game Of Thrones’ breakout actress Bella Ramsey will take on the role of Ellie. That’s far from the only news in the videogame adaptation arena, as a slew of big names have been confirmed for the Borderlands movie. So far, Jack Black is set to voice wisecracking robot Claptrap, Cate Blanchett will play ethereal Siren Lilith, Jamie Lee Curtis will portray Pandoran archeologist Dr Tannis, and comedian Kevin Hart will play Roland the soldier. Acclaimed horror director Eli Roth is set to call the shots from a…

“EDEN PRIME’S HORIZ0N-MASKING RED MIST IS REPLACED BY A BRIGHTER, CLEARER VISTA.” i FORMAT PS4 / ETA 14 MAY / PUB EA / DEV BIOWARE / PLAYERS 1 Can I romance Garrus?” is one of the internet’s most-asked questions. Seriously. But there’s more to this space opera than who you lust after. Naturally, fans are obsessing over the minutiae of the remaster (yes, you can now play as femme Shepard as a default character in Mass Effect) but there’s more here than fan service. Mass Effect Legendary Edition remasters and unifies all three games, delivering improved visuals across the series. This means we get revamped dynamic shadows, volumetrics, depth of field, and updated lighting, as well as improved textures and character models. It’s an impressive roster of tweaks. CHANGE OF…

02 months RESIDENT EVIL VILLAGE Can you escape the horror of literally larger-than-life vampire ladies? Find out in this first-person local horror for local people. i FORMAT PS5, PS4 ETA 7 MAY / PUB CAPCOM 04 months LITTLE DEVIL INSIDE Experience the reality of hunting monsters in this 19th-century world. i FORMAT PS5, PS4 ETA JULY / PUB NEOSTREAM INTERACTIVE 06 months GHOSTWIRE TOKYO Throw some hands to exorcise demons in modern-day Japan. i FORMAT PS5 / ETA OCTOBER / PUB BETHESDA SOFTWORKS…

i FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 26 MAR / PUB SQUARE ENIX / DEV BALAN COMPANY / PLAYERS 1-2 This unexpected new 3D platformer from former Sonic Team luminaries Yuji Naka and Naoto Ohshima should automatically become the stuff of legend, especially with Square Enix behind it. But playing this game after coming fresh from Astro’s Playroom, the current build of Balan Wonderworld simply doesn’t feel or look good enough. To dismiss it on aesthetics alone, though, could be a very big mistake. The action feels like it’s come straight from an early noughties 3D platformer. That’s arguably exactly what 2017’s Yooka-Laylee was supposed to offer, and this game really does have a nostalgic quality, especially since the two-child storyline in the wonderfully cinematic intro is so reminiscent of the…

i FORMAT PS4 / ETA 8 JUN / PUB BETHESDA / DEV BETHESDA STUDIOS / PLAYERS 1-12 Eight hundred years before the events of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, life was… actually very similar. People roamed the land smacking each other with swords, looting crates, and rifling other peoples’ bookshelves for lore. The odd bottle of wine was welcome, too. “We picked a time that was kind of unknown in the lore; it was The Time Of Struggles, when there were a lot of emperors, a lot of kings, and it was perfect for what we wanted to do,” says studio director Matt Firor. It’s a setting that offers familiar places, environments, and people, then, but with the scope to do things differently from offline Oblivion and Skyrim. One of…

i FORMAT PS4 / ETA SUMMER PUB UNITED LABEL / DEV FALLEN FLAG STUDIO / PLAYERS 1 Gods, eh? Always meddling. The Old Gods were imprisoned and in their absence humankind has prospered. But in an act of revenge they’ve unleashed a Desolation on the world, causing you to pick up a massive sword and enter the Citadel, the Old Gods’ prison, and slay ’em all. Eldest Souls is a slick boss rush adventure where every defeated Old God offers a new power and upgrade path; you’re stealing their powers and turning the tables. The pixel-art visuals impress at every turn, with neat details and animated touches bringing this dying world to life. Combat is immediate but the game’s upgrade paths and item management hints at hidden depths. If you’re…

i FORMAT PS4 / ETA 29 APR / PUB NIS AMERICA DEV GRANZELLA INC.// PLATERS 1 R-Type was the daddy shooter that started the whole thing, and this is a sequel to the PS2 edition. The classic side-scrolling gunplay returns – fly your tiny ship into the heart of the resurrected Bydo empire and kill everything. What’s new is a fresh look that’s unafraid to dazzle, a unique adaptive difficulty setting, and an incredible number of customisation options. Just when you think you’ve cracked it, R-Type Final 2’s stages evolve around you.…

i FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA AUTUMN / PUB SQUARE ENIX / DEV SQUARE ENIX / PLAYERS 1-24 Remember Paris in 2019? Naoki Yoshida walked the stage in front of excited Final Fantasy XIV Online players, dressed in the full garb of a Gunbreaker (a Job class in the game). When he asked the audience where they thought they’d be going next, one fan shouted out “The moon!” Yoshida laughed and grinned. “The moon? Maybe that’s 7.0!” In a way, the lunar setting of forthcoming expansion Endwalker (due this autumn) is another in a long line of promises Yoshida and his team have made and kept for fans of the Final Fantasy MMO. “I said [that] half-joking,” says Yoshida when we ask him about that moment. “We did actually have…

i FORMAT PS5 / ETA TBC / PUB SQUARE ENIX / DEV SQUARE ENIX / PLAYERS 1 Clive Rosfield, First Shield Of Rosaria, is on the warpath. The fire in his eyes shows he’s a man prepared to set off down a dangerous path of vengeance. Against the Imperials? Against the Eikons? Against the very Mothercrystals that have brought prosperity for generations? You’ll have to find the details out for yourself, but you can rest assured that he is determined: “I’ll kill you, if it’s the last thing I do.” Final Fantasy XVI represents a bold risk on Square Enix’s part as it’s an unadulterated action RPG that brings the series back to its high fantasy roots. It’s being developed by Square Enix’s Creative Business Unit III – the team…

Crisis Core (FFVII) Focussing on the untold story of Cloud’s BFF Zack Fair, this game retells everything before and including his ultimate sacrifice. Our PSP remains tear-streaked to this day. FFX-2 The first true sequel features two musical numbers that have to be seen (and, indeed, heard) to be believed. Dresspheres gave the Jobs system an unexpected but welcome magical girl twist. Lightning Returns: FFXIII The FFXIII trilogy’s conclusion takes Lightning to the end of time as she tries to pull the world back from the brink. Introducing a time limit and a new battle system, it’s worth a flashback. FFXIII-2 This direct sequel ditches its predecessor’s linear story through a time travel conceit and further develops the Paradigm Shift battle system. Kingdom Hearts Yes, it counts – alongside the…

“Asking for a fresh pair of eyes on a puzzle mimics the dynamic between Mono and Six.” Leaving the decks of the Maw, the first game’s sinister ship, and its hungry ghosts behind, this spooky followup signals a shift in focus. She of the iconic yellow raincoat, Six, is only along for the ride; Mono – a boy with a penchant for putting things on his head – takes the lead in exploring what is the opposite of a sweet dream. Like the first game, this has stretches of platforming and puzzling punctuated by running away. Mercifully, as you leap towards safety, fall damage this time around is much less likely to take out your pint-sized protagonists. However, you’re still bound to miss your fair share of jumps in this…

INFO FORMAT PS4 PRICE £5.35 ETA Out now PUB Apriori Digital DEV Apriori Digital, Natalie Clayton PLAYERS 1 Time is running out. Stranded by mechanical failure, mech pilots Beatrice and Cort are unable to do anything but contemplate their own mortality before a severed fuel line sends everything sky-high at sunrise. Unable even to wave hello to each other, at least the onboard messaging app still works. Like the missives the two pilots ping back and forth, the game gets to the point, with your first playthrough unlikely to run over 20 minutes. It sounds like a lightweight experience but it’s impressive just how much the small development team squeeze out of the limited presentation. Opening tableaus of a battlefield are bookended by scripture1 and, coupled with Priscilla Snow’s driving…

INFO FORMAT PS4 PRICE £24.99 ETA Out now PUB Inin Games DEV Factor 5, Ratalaika Games PLAYERS 1 Back in the ’90s great games were defined by smooth scrolling, a thumping techno soundtrack, and more hyperactive nonsense than Nicolas Cage’s entire career. Turrican straddled this decade as one of the 16-bit era’s best, and even playing now, 30 years later, it remains an engaging and fraught shooter. Aping Metroid and Contra, the Turrican grind involves exploring colourful, blocky 2D maps, seeking secret routes and bonuses, and stumbling into boss battles. The endless upgrades and mix of inventive weapons reward exploration – shoot invisible blocks and bonuses rain from the sky.1 Design choices other developers have ditched over the years, such as dead ends, leaps of faith, and harsh restarts, are…

We return once again to the shifting halls of the Oldest House. Jesse Faden’s bizarre adventure wowed us in 2019 as Remedy’s most confident vision to date. But PS4 struggled to tame this new weird tale, and the experience was marred by dropped frames, long loading times, hitching when shifting between menus, and none of the PC build’s bells or whistles. The Ultimate Edition addresses all of this and more on PS5, adding support for Activities as well as DualSense. In many ways it’s the definitive way to play. Collecting together the base game and all DLC, it’s the perfect introduction for first-time players. However, as PS4 saves cannot be carried over, Oldest House old hands picking this edition up for the upgrade will have to dive in as though…

The controls are a slice of arcade loveliness, the definition of ‘pick up and play’.” Looking like a cross between Destruction Derby and a child’s birthday party, this online-only car combat game gets our engines revving as soon as we make it past the title screen. Colourful and cartoonishly violent, we gleefully dive in after the brief tutorial. Constantly busy servers ensure that we have no shortage of victims (and tormentors), so we drive these roads again and again. The controls are a slice of arcade loveliness. The very definition of ‘pick up and play’, they become second nature almost immediately. They’re largely as you’d expect from an arcade racer, except that you get a brief burst of forward or sideways speed (which works on a cooldown) from flicking the…

Get frustrated by the twitch reaction gameplay most online megahits require? Then Auto Chess might be for you. Leaving combat up to the computer, you draft, equip, and arrange your heroes on a board. Then you cycle through head-to-head matches with other players and NPC configs, upgrading as you go, until you’re the last player standing. Then you do it all over again. Rounds earn you coins, which you can spend on heroes or experience to allow you to place more pieces on the field in the short break before the next battle. Built-in guidance makes it simple, but with enough nuance to be compelling. INFO FORMAT PS4 PRICE Free ETA Out now PUB Drodo Studio DEV Drodo Studio OFFLINE REVIEW N/A PLAYERS 1-8 CROSSPLAY PS4, PC, mobile…

IMMORTALS FENYX RISING – A NEW GOD Overcome the trials set for you by the Gods of Olympos, and prove yourself worthy to take a place among the mythical pantheon. Subsequent pieces of DLC will introduce new heroes to play as, so this is your chance to relish the heights of Fenyx while you can. WRECKFEST – WRECKNADO This new track puts the skills of crash lovers (which, let’s face it, is most of us) to a real test. With four massive loops, drivers meet in the middle, and it’s a disaster if you’re not able to get one up on the other drivers. Wreck as many others as you can, or win the race, in the new car, Gorbie. Victory feels smashing. SID MEIER’S CIVILIZATION VI – VIETNAM &…

Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End Nathan Drake’s swan song is a daring evolution. It combines series-defining set-pieces, quietly devastating storytelling beats, and sprawling levels that make you feel like a real-life explorer. This franchise finale retains its signature charm, with the wisecracks firing as fast as the bullets, while the new characters each justify their inclusion. With an astonishing attention to detail, it’s Naughty Dog’s best yet. Red Dead Redemption 2 There are a lot of open-world games, but none that make you feel like you’re a part of a world in quite the same way as Arthur Morgan’s wild west adventure. Tremendously physical, an epic story, and some of the most satisfying headshots you’ll ever find. Grand Theft Auto V Laughing in the face of other cross-gen ports, GTA…

THE WITCHER 3: WILD HUNT T-SHIRT MONDO / BECKY CLOONAN $25 MONDOSHOP.COM Artist Becky Cloonan, creator of the award-winning graphic novel trilogy of Wolves, The Mire, and Demeter, designed this distinctive The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt T-shirt. She taps into a passion for classic fantasy illustration to deliver an image that’s certain to turn heads, and we love it. The shirt’s unisex and comes in sizes from XS to 4XL. Hunt it down. THE ART OF MANA DARK HORSE BOOKS $39.99 MONDOSHOP.COM Our love of this retro Square Enix RPG series, an offshoot of Final Fantasy back in 1991, has been reignited in recent years with a series of remakes on PS4. This book gathers over 400 illustrations from the original design team, as well as…

After eagerly reading about all the excellent titles for the next gen (PS5), I’ve been left stunned to see there are no boxing games planned for the PS5 this year. It’s a knockout blow to me as I love playing boxing sims. So, this is my plea to publishers – get in the ring and sort it out! Adrian Fisher Big Rumble Boxing: Creed Champions is due out on on PS4 this year, but you’re right, we don’t know of any being released on PS5. There are loads of other good fighting games on PS5, though – Mortal Kombat 11’s already out and Guilty Gear Strive is being released soon, so why not give one of those a whirl while you wait for a realistic boxing game?…

01 All our favourite characters return and have never looked better, including the genetically ‘perfect’ Miranda Lawson. PS4 makes everything better. 02 The games’ controls and handling have been revamped for this return, ensuring the original Mass Effect finally plays smoothly and responsively. 03 All the original DLC returns, remade for PS4. Extra content includes mission packs such as the iconic Leviathan, which connects ME1 and ME3.…

i FORMAT PS5 / ETA TBC / PUB PANIC / DEV TERRIFYING JELLYFISH / PLAYERS 1 Dropping a cube of butter onto a pile of fluffy pancakes and watching it melt into the warm maple syrup, then drizzling over our… even Marks & Spencer would have trouble competing with this game’s glorious food porn. Just try not to lick your DualSense. “Mostly that it’s so universal; everyone from any walk of life has some sentimental attachment to food or some sort of fond memory,” says Nour: Play With Your Food creator TJ Hughes when we ask why people love staring at luscious images of food. “Whether you’re a foodie or not, it’s something that sparks a memory in all of us,” he adds. “ADAPTIVE TRIGGERS SIMULATE THE RESISTANCE OF CUTTING…

i FORMAT PS VR / ETA SPRING PUB TREBUCHET / DEV TREBUCHET PLAYERS 1 Releasing exclusively on PS VR, this contemplative free-roaming adventure challenges you to bring life to a barren world. The simple act of planting trees, watching them grow, and picking fruit from their branches is made engaging in virtual reality. You move about the world on stilts, actively pulling yourself through the colourful landscape. You can raise and lower your height to snag hard-to-reach fruit, or just take in the view. Winds & Leaves is a simulation too, which means you’ll need to discover where to grow your plants for the best results, as well as develop new tools and upgrades to open up your grow bag to a wider selection of rare and wonderful crops. Winds…

i FORMAT PS VR / ETA 20 APR PUB MWM INTERACTIVE DEV INNERSPACE VR / PLAYERS 1 The act of making an ornate mask by chiselling it from wood before painting and decorating it with ornate details is engaging in virtual reality. But when you place the mask over your head you’re transported to new worlds. Each mask unlocks a new environment to explore, including a forest, a desert canyon, and a serene tropical beach. Gather new items to adorn your masks – sea shells, branches, and feathers – and they’ll unlock more places when attached in combination. Some extra resources can only be discovered by helping the guardians of each realm, others from solving puzzles. The more brain-teasers you complete, the further you can venture in one of PS…

I The play’s the thing As a series, Final Fantasy frequently flirts with theatricals. FFIX’s opening act gleefully rips off the bard, not only teaching you the combat but also deftly foreshadowing pivotal plot beats that don’t pay off until much later. That it culminates in a theatre troupe kidnapping a princess – who even gets a chance to show off her own improvisation skills – is just icing on the cake. II Last Dance Vivi’s character arc is one of the most tragic and gets right to the heart of the game’s themes. After discovering the true purpose of the Black Mages and seeing what is ostensibly his family callously cut down by Black Waltz No. 3, Vivi delivers a fiery rebuke. His act of courage poignantly denounces the…

INFO FORMAT PS4 PRICE £34.99 ETA Out now PUB NIS America DEV YummyYummyTummy PLAYERS 1 Three weapons transformed into people, like a trio of violent Pinocchios, commanded by a ghost? Story and action that alternate between this and a politician who supports the group with diplomacy and stealth? A great idea… that is let down by pretty much everything else. Despite a grand backdrop of humanity in peril, it’s a claustrophobic experience. The diplomat Lucien very quickly runs against the same few backdrops in the castle he’s trying to wrest from a tyrant, while the ghost Rowena and her crew travel through an oddly homogenous world. The story is thin, though the actors do what they can with the rough dialogue1 (which isn’t a lot). Multiple endings dependent on your…

INFO FORMAT PS4 PRICE £49.99 ETA Out now PUB NIS America DEV Nihon Falcom PLAYERS 1 Do you get JRPG fatigue? Ys IX avoids inducing that. It doesn’t change or add things for the sake of it, instead offering a refined iteration of JRPG tropes that also nimbly dodges many genre pitfalls. “The Monstrums’ Gifts make navigating the mind-blowingly expansive city enjoyable.” Everything in Ys IX builds up in layers, like a moreish role-playing cake. None of the plot elements feel dragged out, with chapters dedicated to each party member and the many side-quests therein still progressing the underlying mysteries of the story and providing further insight into life in Balduq (the prison city where you find yourself trapped). The chapters are formulaic but comfortably so. You battle small-fry enemies…

INFO FORMAT PS4, PRICE £19.99 ETA Out now PUB Headup Games DEV Cracked Heads Games PLAYERS 1 Silver Chains kicks off promisingly, but never seems to break through the barrier of ‘this is gonna get good soon’ and resolves before really taking you anywhere but dizzying circuits of its exceptionally spacious, dubiously accurate 1900s manor house. Seriously, the house is excessively large, with rooms that seem to serve no purpose but to confuse you, as though you’re a ghost in the Winchester Mystery House. Upon stumbling into yet another bathroom you heave a sigh and ask yourself if anyone in this house is even worth saving, if that is in fact actually the goal.1 Effort’s been made to build an unsettling atmosphere, and it comes very close to succeeding. Unfortunately,…

Despite being developed by Dynasty Warriors developer Omega Force and being in a completely different genre from Persona 5 (turn-based battles are out, real-time hack and slash is in), letting the opening hours of Strikers roll over you feels like you’ve just put in a disc for Persona 5, part 2. Front-loaded with a lot of story, it’s a joy just to spend time with all your faves from the core cast. It might not revive the golden years of our Persona 5 youth, but that doesn’t mean making new memories can’t be fun. Some raised eyebrows at the vocal mixing aside, both English and Japanese dubs are great, and all bar some minor scenes are fully voice acted. With the whole party assembled from the last game, latecomers get…

INFO FORMAT PS5, PS4 PRICE £15.49 ETA Out now PUB Skookum Arts DEV Skookum Arts PLAYERS 1 Abstract puzzleplatformers often place you in totally unexpected situations – jumping through portals in the hopes of receiving cake, say. But while most indie examples usually force you to navigate through a dark and dingy setting, The Pedestrian adds some welcome lightness to the genre. Here how you act and think must effortlessly intertwine. The kicker this time around? No city road sign is safe. What could have easily remained a cute gimmick is actually well implemented. You play as the pedestrian of the title, who in this instance is the stick figure you commonly see on safety signs littered around buildings. This 2.5D adventure sees you transfer and hop between signs (you’ll…

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla not enough Vikings for you? Happily, Dying Light is getting in on the nordic action with the Viking: Raiders Of Harran bundle. Offering up a double dose of Björn (or triple, if you whack on some ABBA while you play), in it two Vikings have somehow stumbled upon the zombie-infested city of Harran instead of Asgard. Believing themselves to have ended up in Helheim, they do what any Vikings would do… ready themselves to spill blood in a battle for the ages. Both Björn the Warrior and Björn the Berserker are playable characters, and just as capable of dealing with infected as anyone from the modern day. “The Björns have a buggy which they refer to as an ‘Earth Boat’.” Using Asgard’s Protector, a sturdy shield, they’re…

The trilogy’s story has ended, but that doesn’t mean rich and powerful meanies can rest easy. Throughout February, Hitman 3 received its first batch of extra challenges through the Initiation Protocol, adding not only brand-new content to the newer suite of levels, but boosting some of the ones that could be brought forward from the first two games too. For Deluxe Edition owners (an upgrade is available) there are two new Escalation Contracts: The Proloff Parable casts you as a white-clad ninja tearing a warpath on a train in the Carpathian Mountains; and The Gauchito Antiquity dresses you as a guru with an affinity for emetic poisons. Two more escalations arrived free for everybody: the box-destroying challenge The Sinbad Stringent; and highlight The Baskerville Barney, which tasked you with offing…

While it’s a given that newer PS4 games such as God Of War are going to perform well on PS5, older hits that may have snuck under the radar are the ones finding a new lease of life on the console. “The action speeds along and the textures and VFX ping from the screen.” One such game is The Evil Within 2. On PS4 this horror sequel from Tango Gameworks (which is currently working on PS5’s Ghostwire: Tokyo) was overlooked by many. Perhaps for good reason, as it could drop to 25fps on base PS4s and rarely broke 60fps on PS4 Pro. Add in long load times to enter the game’s meta-world of the Barrows – a maze of secret locations hidden below the psychic realm much of the game…

Famous last – or should we say first? – words: “I guess I really don’t care if it’s dangerous or not. I’m going to town either way.” Like many of us over the past 12 months, maybe grieving widower James Sunderland should have stayed at home. This utterance, slightly deadpan in delivery, opens one of the most loved and acclaimed survival horror games of all-time. It completely understates what is to follow: roaming around a strange town steeped in mist, blood spattered all around and trailing every which way, with all manner of monsters lurching from within those foggy tendrils. What Silent Hill 2 accomplished, beyond anything, was making you fear what might be hiding around the next corner. Or indeed, what might not be. Silent Hill 2, a remake…

Resident Evil Village is almost upon us, but you could argue that the VIII in the name is slightly misleading. In the 25 years since the original game widened our eyes on PS1, we’ve seen remakes, side-stories, lightgun games, and more rain down like T-Virus-corrupted blood, filling every new generation of PlayStation console with devastatingly infectious fun. So just before we dive into the eighth numbered instalment on 7 May, let’s look back at 25 moments in the history of the quintessential survival horror series – some we’ll never forget (no matter how hard we try) and some we never knew. Zombie dogs crash through the windows GAME RESIDENT EVIL / FORMAT PS1 RELEASED 1996 / TRIVIA ZOMBIE DOGS APPEARED IN EVERY RESIDENT EVIL FILM 01 This incredible moment in…

Ridge Racer was a launch game for every PlayStation console before PS4 and PS5. The series’ playable loading screens were a patented idea by Namco. However the patent expired on 27 November 2015. So… go nuts. THE LOW POINT What’s a Mappy? Aside from the playable snippets of arcade games like Galaxian and Rally X, the cars in the games are regularly branded with names from old Namco arcade games. Mappy (1983) is a police-mouse who recovers stolen property from thieving cats, Solvalou is a 1991 entry in the Xevious series of shooters, and Pac Team Racing is based on ’80s classic Pac-Man. Waka and, indeed, waka. EIGHT YEARS HAVE PASSED SINCE THE LAST CORE ENTRY, WHICH WAS AT PS VITA’S LAUNCH BACK IN 2012. RECORD BREAKER Forwards and backwards…

“You can transfer your progress to the [retail] game. You won’t have to start from scratch.” People Can Fly’s gritty shooter ticks off most of our teenage wish list of killer ideas: guns with elemental powers, RPG-style customisation that floods across everything, a roaring soundtrack, an exotic alien landscape that resembles Avatar remade by Eli Roth, and explosions. Lots of explosions. But of course, you’ve discovered this for yourself in the free demo, out now. As the haze settles on the demo, we meet creative director Bartek Kmita and lead designer Piotr Nowakowski, who tell us they’re tracking data and player responses to make tweaks to Outriders ahead of release. They also reveal your hard work levelling up your customised character won’t go to waste. “You can transfer your progress…

“WE BELIEVE THAT IT’S GOING TO USHER IN A NEW GENERATION FOR BATTLEFIELD GAMES AND BATTLEFIELD FANS AND WE’LL BE [...] BENEFITTING FROM THE FULL POWER OF NEXT-GEN PLATFORMS.” EA CEO ANDREW WILSON HAS BIG EXPECTATIONS FOR THE NEW SHOOTER ON PS5. “HIS TENGU MASK GIVES HIM A LOT OF CHARACTER, BUT HE’S ALSO SUPER-RIPPED AND LOOKS AMAZING!” STREET FIGHTER 5 PRODUCER SHUHEI MATSUMOTO LOVES DAN’S DRAMATIC, BUFF NEW LOOK IN SEASON 5. “WE’RE THRILLED [TO] AMP UP THE EXPERIENCE WITH NEW FEATURES.” J. ALLEN BRACK ON PS4’S LOST VIKINGS, ROCK N ROLL RACING, AND BLACKTHORNE.…

1 Finn Dobney Game: Control “Control has, out of all the photo modes I use, one of the best focus distance options. So for close-up shots, detail was paramount and Control seems like the perfect choice,” says Finn, who headed to the game’s Panopticon location for this shot. “It has very good soft light,” he adds. The FBC never looked better. 2 Serjio Gutierrez Game: Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order This creature shot took Serjio Gutierrez 15 minutes to take. He tells us to have confidence in the shots you’re capturing, “but most importantly, have fun! Do not worry about ‘keeping up with the Joneses.’ We all have our own way of showing our creativity,” he says, clearly taking his own advice. 3 Kenneth Vega Game: Death…

i FORMAT PS4 / ETA 2021 / PUB NACON / DEV ABRAKAM ENTERTAINMENT / PLAYERS 1 Even poker is a roguelike if you think about it. Each game a new set of hands is dealt, and if you lose, you’re out of money and need to start all over again. Card games and the concept of trying runs again and again go perfectly together – after all, what kind of luck is easier to understand than the good old-fashioned luck of the draw? “MIXING OFFENSIVE AND DEFENSIVE CARDS IS IMPORTANT.” Roguebook isn’t the first card-based roguelike, but it is the first one made in partnership with Richard Garfield, Magic: The Gathering’s creator. Transported into a faerie tome, you need to journey across the pages to have any hope of breaking…

“HERE EVERY CHARACTER’S BASIC TOOLKIT OF MOVES IS EASY TO GRASP.” i FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 2021 PUB BANDAI NAMCO, ARC SYSTEM WORKS / DEV ARC SYSTEM WORKS / PLAYERS 1-2 Long a respected developer of fighting games, Arc System Works has stepped into the mainstream with licensed games, bringing us excellent titles such as Dragon Ball FighterZ and Granblue Fantasy Versus. Now we’re taking a look at how its reinvention of its own flagship fighter, Guilty Gear, is progressing. Arc is the master of visual flair and stylish combos, but the thing you’ll notice immediately about Strive is how focussed it is compared to its complex predecessors. Flick to the command list of any character and it’s immensely readable: a couple of meter-depleting finishing moves, a handful of…

“NEWCOMER MEITENKUN FIGHTS HALF ASLEEP, PILLOW IN HAND.” i FORMAT PS4 / ETA 2021 / PUB SNK / DEV SNK / PLAYERS 1-2 Following the success of SNK’s Samurai Shodown reboot, which proved to be one of 2019’s best fighters, this long-running series’ return shows equally exciting promise. Don’t worry if you’re new to the soapy, bloated story; the hits land hard enough to ensure you won’t care. The King Of Fighters XV roster is rumoured to be 40 characters long, which is actually on the light side for this personality-packed series. Five fighters have been revealed, including the returning Benimaru Nikaido, who leads the team of newcomers, which includes Shun’ei and Meitenkun (who fights half asleep, tasselled pillow in hand). The King Of Fighters 3v3 team mode returns, giving…

i FORMAT PS5 / ETA 2021 PUB PQUBE / DEV STUDIO KIKU, INNOVINA INTERACTIVE PLAYERS 1 There’s something oddly retro about this atmospheric adventure’s premise: leaving the office and travelling home. Who does that now, right? This simple setup hides The Plane Effect’s melancholic underbelly. The world isn’t what it seems, and we’re not even sure protagonist Solo has a home and family waiting for him. What follows is a stylishly rendered journey through a world of small but escalating problems as Solo must contend with commuter travel and, erm, a giant, bridge-eating bug. (This is not an average journey home, as far as we remember.) There’s also the suggestion someone or something is watching the chaos play out. Flex your puzzle muscles later this year on PS5.…

i FORMAT PS4 / ETA SPRING PUB TEAM17 / DEV STUDIO KOBA PLAYERS 1 A funky synth soundtrack, a Tron-like ‘sucked into a computer world’ setup, and the promise of wielding a ‘techno sword’ – it’s really hard not to be drawn into Narita Boy’s heartfelt homage to the 1980s. In it, the world of The Digital Kingdom exists inside the hit videogame Narita Boy. The Creator has been wiped by Him, The Stallions (creatures from the Horror Dimension) are coming, and Motherboard drags you into this world to save it – and maybe the universe at the same time. It’s another pixel art side-scrolling metroidvania that recalls the golden age of 16-bit gaming but Studio Koba delivers its vision with total authenticity. Handcrafted frame by frame, Narita Boy is…

There’s more than the big sky orb coming to Endwalker. The island of Thavnair, a subtropical area that seems to be influenced by south-east Asian cultures, will be the other destination. Its city of Radz-At-Han will be the smaller of the new cities, but it looks gorgeous. The island is home to friendly Matanga – chill, talking elephant people. While the true nature of the Moon is something Yoshida is still keeping close to his chest, the architecture that houses the villains we’ll be facing has a detailed, Giger-like design that’s certainly otherworldly. One new dungeon we’ve seen incorporates twisting, bone-like spinal columns, and new Primal Anima (a revised version of the FFX Summon) is similarly ghoulish. Those who took part in the Ishgardian Restoration event have helped everyone unlock…

Sephiroth (FFVII) The original shirtless bad boy, he has legions of fans. Joking aside, his descent into darkness and his manipulation of protagonist Cloud make him one of the series’ most enduring villains. Kefka (FFVI) What do we need to say beyond ‘what a laugh,’ right? A classic force-of-nature villain who’s only good at being bad. Ardyn (FFXV) Darin de Paul’s performance makes this character a villain we absolutely love to hate. Bags of screen presence plus his own playable side-story make him one of FFXV’s most appealing elements. Seymour (FFX) Well, he’s persistent – we’ll give him that. Having envisioned the worst of Spira, this horned villain makes a compelling foil to Yuna, who only sees the good in things. Sorceress Ultimecia (FFVII) Seeking to reign supreme over all…

Final Fantasy Tactics In the kingdom of Ivalice, cadet Ramza slowly untangles the evil plot behind the Lion War. Fights in this TRPG take place on an isometric battlefield, and you must manage your units to victory. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles The recent remake not only introduced online multiplayer to this storybook action adventure but also brought the tale to PlayStation for the first time. Final Fantasy Type-0 Featuring a darker story than usual for Final Fantasy as well as real-time combat encounters and larger, strategy-based battles, Class Zero definitely has a varied curriculum, to say the least. World Of Final Fantasy We are helpless in the face of all of our FF favourites’ big-headed chibi charm. Stack everything else on top – often literally – and this adorable RPG…

INFO FORMAT PS4 PRICE £15.99 ETA Out now PUB Focus Home Interactive DEV Passtech Games PLAYERS 1 difference to how far you make it into each run. Combat is the highlight here and fights are quite technical (making clearing a room particularly satisfying), but there’s a difference between being difficult and just being punishing.1 Along with health damage, you’re susceptible to corruption, which increases with every area you explore. When your meter’s full, one of 14 curses befalls you, from causing treasure chests and enemies to explode to quite honestly falling under the curse of frustration and boredom. It’s a system that deters you from exploring, not an exciting risk/reward.2 After a handful of runs you may feel as if you’ve seen everything. The combat system still makes this worth…

Ever been trapped without your PlayStation and had to resort to a buzzy wire maze to get your thrills? You know the ones; they challenge you to move a metal loop over a wire shape from one end to the other, and if loop hits wire it buzzes and you lose. Well, Puss! is that, but a videogame. Albeit one that can only be described as a shifting, psychedelic, vaporwave nightmare. You play a kitty who is transported to a strange, trippy dimension by entering a TV. There you control your cat1 from a top-down view, its round little head serving as your cursor as you guide it through mazes. Touch the side of the maze and you’ll fuzz the screen in static, having to start again (or from a…

STATPACK 10 Characters to play as, each with their own persona, combos, and elemental affinities. Which you choose doesn’t make much difference, though. 02 Graphics settings to choose, defaulting to Performance mode to improve the framerate. It runs smoothly even with plenty of action. 08 Jails to conquer, though four of them are very basic maps that feel a little bit rushed. We prefer the original RPG’s palaces, to be honest. FRIENDS & ENEMIES FUTABA SAKURA A hacker, not a fighter. She buffs you in fights, and you need her to get past certain gates. ZENKICHI HASEGAWA An unconventional detective on loan from Public Security. SOPHIA This helpful AI assists the Phantom Thieves, but what’s the truth of her origin? LOVING/ HATING CHEF’S SPECIAL Cooking for your…

The lack of crossplay really hurts the PS5 version of MXGP 2020. Logging in to find nobody, or maybe one lobby containing three to seven people, is common – that new-gen grid capacity’s largely redundant. Still, besides the obligatory one guy who manages to be seven seconds a lap faster than everyone else, the racing is close and fun. Rival bikes can lag around, most likely due to the complex track surface, but the racing holds together surprisingly well. You can vote for tracks, weather, and race length, and the countdown timers are short, keeping the action flowing. It’s all unranked, but for drop-in fun, decent battles await. INFO FORMAT PS5, PS4 PRICE £49.99 ETA Out now PUB Milestone Srl DEV Milestone Srl OFFLINE REVIEW #185, 7/10 PLAYERS 1 CROSSPLAY…

Tetris Effect Tetris, yeah? It might be a great game, but it’s easy to understand why you’d brush this version off as ‘just more Tetris’ at a glance. Yet Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s trippy, transcendent take on the block-based puzzler is nothing short of a masterpiece. Sure, you can play it without PS VR, but in the virtual space it really becomes next level, transforming one of the tightest puzzle games ever made into an emotional ride. Hitman 3 Every mission in the World Of Assassination trilogy can be played in PS VR via the latest entry in the series. That’s a lot of murderous action. It all plays brilliantly too, with the act of puzzling through hits as Agent 47 perfectly suited to virtual reality. One of PS VR’s best. The…

PIXELJUNK SHOOTER FORMAT PS3 / RELEASED 2009 DEV Q-GAMES Breakout brand PixelJunk1 was hugely popular in the noughties. A cool label that guaranteed retro games running at 1080p HD/60fps backed by dance tunes, it took indies out of the bedroom and into the clubs, even if the dance floor was metaphorical. PixelJunk Shooter was the fourth game in the series and one of the best. On the surface this is a retro shooter that pays lip service to arcade hits such as Asteroids, but as you blast further into its caverns and alien worlds a puzzle element begins to take over. Each level is crammed with stranded astronauts to grapple to safety, diamonds to collect, and secret paths to uncover. Blasting away rocks can alter the path of water to…

FORMAT PS4 / PUB WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT / DEV ROCKSTEADY STUDIOS / RELEASED 2015 / SCORE 9/10 We’ll admit it, the first time the Joker started belting out this show tune we just sat back and watched. We took in the whole musical number, and then watched as Johnny Charisma’s bombs blew and our game came to an end. A toe-tapping, shoulder-shrugging, musical end nonetheless. This Vegas-style musical hit comes just as you begin to think Arkham Knight is too dark, too po-faced for its own good. It would be easy for Rocksteady to have continued down that rabbit hole of sombre nihilism… but this is no Snyder cut. Gotham City’s crown prince of crime continues to croon… “I’m stuck in your head and I’m laughing! “I filled you…