Innholdsfortegnelse for Xmas 2021 i PLAY

Family-friendly body-horror game Bugsnax is getting a massive free update early next year. A large part of this is story DLC The Isle Of Bigsnax. After a mysterious island emerges from beneath the waves just off the coast of Snaktooth Island, you and a gaggle of Grumpuses venture once more into the unknown. What you find on this island is more than you, spiritual advisor Shelda, mad scientist Floofty, archaeologist Triffany, or buff grump Chandlo could ever have bargained for. It’s home to super-sized versions of familiar Bugsnax, with plenty of surprises to munch on along the way. Remember the curly fry limbs and burger-shaped body of the Bunger? These little buns happily charge at you in the main game, sending you careening into the air. Well, now they come…

“If the game was too easy, players wouldn’t hesitate to move forward.” The parasite has mutated. As has Rainbow Six. Extraction is a brand-new full game, but its origins lie in the experimental limited-time Rainbow Six Siege mode Outbreak from 2018. “The intention for the Outbreak event was to offer, for a limited amount of time, a different experience to the Siege community,“ explains creative director Patrik Méthé. “The response was very positive and it gave us the idea to push it much, much further with the fully-fledged standalone game that is Extraction.” From there the team needed to work out how to make Extraction feel like its own thing. “It was decided to continue in the same vein,” Méthé shares. However, most of the team working on Extraction didn’t…

FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 25 FEB / PUB NIS AMERICA / DEV FURYU / PLAYERS 1 “IT’S LIKE DANGANRONPA MEETS DARK SOULS.” Something is very wrong at Shin Mikado Academy. The students wake up to find the campus has been enveloped by a cloud of insanity-inducing mist, madness is  spreading among the survivors, and a mysterious supernatural barrier renders escape impossible. Your only hope for survival is to enter the twisted dungeons of a hidden otherworld and defeat the seven Pactbearers, students colluding with demonic forces to plunge the whole school into chaos. Hailing from a team of veteran Shin Megami Tensei developers, it’s clear that Monark is a JRPG unafraid to draw inspiration from its strong heritage. The high school setting is reminiscent of the Persona spinoff series,…

FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 2 DEC / PUB ANNAPURNA INTERACTIVE / DEV HEART MACHINE / PLAYERS 1 Developer Heart Machine’s projects boast a distinctive flair. Featuring combat that keeps you on your toes, a Disasterpiece soundtrack that’ll linger in your head, and a story close to the studio’s heart, 2016’s Hyper Light Drifter marked the studio as one to watch. So it follows that its next game, Solar Ash, is something you really ought to be paying attention to. Despite clearly wearing old-school inspirations on its neon sleeve, Drifter still stands out. We ask creator Alx Preston if there’s a name for this unmistakable feel. He replies, “Oh, gosh. Something with a ‘hyper’ in it. I’ll try and coin some term. I don’t know, ‘hyper-tuned vibe’ or something?” Whatever…

“THIS WORLD IS FILLED WITH BLOODTHIRSTY MONSTERS AND PARANORMAL HAPPENINGS.” FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 2022 / PUB NEOSTREAM INTERACTIVE DEV NEOSTREAM INTERACTIVE / PLAYERS 1-2 You might recognise Little Devil Inside from when it debuted at Sony’s E3 showcase in 2020. It was seen as a bit of an oddity, the trailer not really giving much away aside from a montage of contextless beast brawls. Fortunately, a recent look teased more monster-hunting action from Neostream Interactive’s adventure and it looks devilishly good. You step into the boots of Billy, a rugged mercenary who’s been employed by the stuffy Professor Vincent. Travelling across the world, you’ll be searching for mysterious artefacts and weird creatures. MONSTER MASH The setting looks like it’s somewhat inspired by the 19th century, but you couldn’t…

FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA TBC PUB BANDAI NAMCO ENTERTAINMENT DEV SUPERMASSIVE GAMES PLAYERS MULTI Smash the best ending in House Of Ashes and you’ll get a peek at its spooky followup, which appears to be going for full-on body horror. The Devil In Me will be The Dark Pictures’ first season finale, and it looks a lot more gruesome than its predecessors (and that's saying something). The trailer shows bloody aprons, reanimated corpses, decapitated pigs, and screaming people trapped in rooms – very ‘Saw meets Frankenstein’. We’ve got our review of the just-released House Of Ashes on p86, but The Devil In Me looks set to take the series in a new, gorier direction.…

FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 2022 / PUB TOGE PRODUCTIONS DEV TOGE PRODUCTIONS / PLAYERS 1 The second game in Toge Productions' coffee-brewing series sees you return as Seattle’s favourite barista. Just like in the first episode, your job is to chat with fantasy-inspired customers, listen to their problems, and make them warm drinks. Each brew you serve will influence a character's decisions, so you solve their issues one cup at a time. It's time to sit down for another cosy late-night brew.…

Dreamcast is rarely thought of as the start of anything. It was the full stop on Sega’s reign as a hardware company, the console that died as PlayStation 2 thrived. But it was also, Rockstar says, the birthplace of the era’s defining PlayStation game. You know, the one your mum heard was about killing prostitutes: Grand Theft Auto III. The story goes like this: GTA’s developer, DMA Design, had just opened a new office in Edinburgh after a decade in Dundee. Change crackled in the air. The ’90s were ending, and all around DMA the game industry was transitioning to three dimensions. The young team behind an early 3D game named Body Harvest believed they were ready to do the same with GTA. Yet the studio’s old guard was unconvinced.…

“The Guardians feel more fully rounded than their movie counterparts.” INFO FORMAT PS5 (reviewed), PS4 PRICE £59.99 ETA Out now PUB Square Enix DEV Eidos Montréal PLAYERS 1 LENGTH 14 hrs ACCESSIBILITY Granular difficulty sliders (eg damage dealt, cooldown timer, death gate); customisable subtitles; adjustable lock-on; auto-win QTEs and huddle toggle; adjustable hint frequency Bright colours, silly banter, and ’80s tunes. The vibes in Eidos Montréal’s take on the Guardians Of The Galaxy (and Marvel’s extended cosmic offerings) feel just right. It’s unfortunate, then, that the tape snags when it comes to what you actually do, with barebones combat and exploration feeling like they’re present to simply give players something to do rather than being enjoyable in their own right. Don’t get us wrong, there’s plenty of enjoyment to be…

WHAT YOU DO IN: BACK 4 BLOOD 42% Shooting and running and chugging pills. 10% Counting how many Mom gags the writers can come up with. 13% Huddling around the weapons crate like a hungry pig at a trough. 10% Studying buffs and building a card deck. 22% Discovering stacking an Uzi with Legendary attachments is massive fun. 3% Wondering if you should give Swarm another go. Nope. FRIENDS & ENEMIES WALKER Our favourite Cleaner, military veteran Walker gains 5% accuracy per kill. STALKER A devious enemy, Stalkers leap at you from the shadows and drag you away. TALLBOY Each of these Ridden has a devastating club-arm; shoot its weak spot! THE DUALSENSE DIFFERENCE LEFT TRIGGER Each weapon feels unique. An Uzi will rattle in your…

INFO FORMAT PS4 PRICE £44.99 ETA Out now PUB Softstar DEV Softstar PLAYERS 1 You, like us, may never have heard of the Xuan-Yuan Sword games, because it’s a Taiwanese series that’s barely been seen in the West (Xuan-Yuan Sword: The Gate Of Firmament was the first, and only previous, game to have been translated into English). Even so, the series has been going for an awfully long time – just over 30 years, in fact. Fortunately you’re not expected to go back and play all of them in order to enjoy this seventh entry. You’re put into the incredibly reliable shoes of Taishi Zhao, a man who’s good with a sword, has some light mystical powers, and comes fully equipped with an intensely tragic backstory.1 Thankfully, that’s in your…

WHAT YOU DO IN: HOUSE OF ASHES 28% Soaking in this game’s sun, sand, and absolutely buckets of blood. 3% Saying ‘hello, goodbye’ to the Curator and wanting more. 18% Wishing the monster design had got its due rather than been spoiled. 16% Feeling your palms sweating as you try to keep your squad alive. 21% Drinking in the cavernous climes and wishing you could explore more of it. 14% Rolling your eyes at predictable twists and a post-credits surprise. HOW TO… KEEP THE KINGS ALIVE On top of being open to reconciliation and coming clean about past indiscretions, there are a few things to be wary of. First, don’t cut that rope! (You’ll know it when you see it.) Second, shoot foes that attack Rachel or be…

INFO FORMAT PS4 PRICE £49.99 ETA Out now PUB NIS America DEV Furyu PLAYERS 1 Back to school, and the setup is pretty much the same as the first game’s: your ragtag player characters awaken to the nature of the world as an illusion, and form the Go-Home Club to battle musical-themed world admin and break out. A direct sequel this game may be, but a new cast makes it mostly standalone. Improving on the original somewhat, it unfortunately also carries over many of its shortcomings. Once again it sets itself up for a psychological dive beneath a modern-day, cyberinflected surface, but fails to go deep enough. Predictable plot beats and underwhelming ‘reveals’ aren’t adequate reward for hours of repetitive RPG action. It’s a real shame, because the concept is…

“Just as the momentum begins to pick up affairs are cut short by an out-of-place, abrupt ending.” INFO FORMAT PS5, PS4 PRICE £19.99 ETA Out now PUB Raw Fury DEV EggNut PLAYERS 1 LENGTH 4 hrs ACCESSIBILITY n/a Despite its population of anthropomorphic animals, this post-apocalyptic Vancouver is anything but cuddly. Still, wandering through its decrepit streets and soaking in the sights to the sound of jazz is Backbone at its best. Although the story may suffer as it hurtles towards its lacklustre conclusion, moments like these create a captivating world that offers just enough to warrant a visit. You are Howard Lotor, a trenchcoat-wearing raccoon PI tasked with proving a promiscuous husband’s infidelity at the behest of his wife. The setup is simple, but when you stumble across the…

INFO FORMAT PS4 PRICE £13.99 ETA Out now PUB SFB Games DEV SFB Games PLAYERS 1 Could something as inconspicuous as a painting kill a real person? It’s certainly an odd question with a seemingly straightforward answer, but SFB Games’ smart murder mystery will make you think again. Playing as the flamboyant Grimoire and his deadpan partner Sally, you’re investigating the murder of Freya Fellow, an artist who has been fatally stabbed while she was painting a portrait. When the detective duo arrives at the crime scene, there appears to be no weapon in sight, but after further inspection Freya’s unfinished, looming portrait shows its subject holding a bloody knife. It’s a brilliant hook, and to uncover the full mystery of what happened Grimoire and Sally need to search Tangle…

“Complements the main game’s theme while expanding it along LGBTQIA+ lines.” INFO FORMAT PS5 (reviewed), PS4 PRICE £9.99 (included in the deluxe edition) ETA Out now PUB Square Enix DEV Deck Nine Games PLAYERS 1 Part prologue, part epilogue, this one-woman show focusses on everyone’s favourite dice-rolling girlfriend, Steph Gingrich. Set across four seasonal vignettes the year before she meets Alex Chen, you keep Steph company as she settles into Haven Springs. Each chapter sees Steph managing the town’s record store and its independent radio station, with familiar voices making cameos over the air. This DLC chapter offers more than just a slow shift at work. Alternating between managing music stock and slinging vinyl is a compelling frame for this short DLC. It also helps that the soundtrack’s indie vibes…

“Not a straightforward virtual guided tour – it provides its own quests.” Once upon a time, this sort of thing would have been called ‘edutainment’, a word guaranteed to send shivers down the spines of people of a certain age. There’s nothing to fear here, though; it’s a gorgeous vision of ninth-century Britain, this time full of things to see and do rather than aggressive NPCs determined to stab you with pointy things. Coming to consoles in 2022, Viking Age, like previous Assassin’s Creed ‘discovery tours’, enables you to explore the world without any of the dangers or pressures of the main game. Unlike the others, however, it’s not a simple virtual guided tour, instead providing its own quests and characters. This is a perfect way to enjoy the world…

“A gauntlet of traps with boulders, spiky walls and rhythmic blades lies in wait, ready to reduce aristocratic Lara to pedigree chum.” INFO PUB Eidos Interactive DEV Core Design RELEASED November 1997 GET IT NOW £5.99, eBay NEED TO KNOW 1 Voice actress Shelley Blond’s soundbites were reused from the first game. 2 Composer Nathan McCree voiced Winston’s murmurs and grunts. 3 Bartoli’s sea plane features an image of Jane Fonda in Barbarella. Think of Tomb Raider as the starter and Tomb Raider II the main course. Lara Croft’s first playable adventure left us wanting more, and a year later, in 1997, Core Design satiated us with another groundbreaking action adventure. With an arsenal and attitude packing serious punches, Lara’s second escapade cements her place in gaming history. While Lara’s…

FORMAT PS4, PS3 / PUB THQ / DEV VIGIL GAMES / RELEASED 2012 As much as siblings can be a pain, the truth is there isn’t much we wouldn’t do to get them out of a jam. Take Death, for example, second horseman of the apocalypse and unassuming protagonist of Darksiders 2. For him, saving his brother means venturing to an entirely different realm, into the bitter cold of the icy Veil itself, to try to prove War’s innocence. Unfortunately he cannot do so alone, and thus kicks off the game’s short yet wildly evocative prologue. Death rides up on his horse Despair, the Crowfather’s lair almost towering over him in the distance. Such a structure would be impossible for a standard human to traverse, but it’s not for the…

Sony has announced that Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City will be hitting UK cinemas on 3 December and, as B-movie styled as it may be, the live-action reboot looks like a riot. If you love the Resident Evil videogames for their guns, gore, jump scares, and zombies, you’ll feel right at home. Written and directed by Johannes Roberts, Welcome To Raccoon City mixes up elements of Capcom’s beloved survival horror series. Instead of focussing on the plot from a single game, the movie combines the events and locations from the first two, featuring both the Spencer Mansion and Raccoon City’s police station. In an interview with IGN Roberts stated he modelled the tone of the film on that of 2019’s Resident Evil 2 remake. The story follows Claire Redfield…

We pride ourselves on our communication skills. As such, there are few experiences quite as humbling for Team PLAY as winding each other up in an asymmetric co-op game. We Were Here Forever looks set to knock us down a few more pegs in 2022. Venturing into Castle Rock once more, you and one unlucky chum are at the mercy of not only the dark forces sequestered between these craggy stone walls but also each other. This is the fourth entry in developer Total Mayhem Games’ two-player-only adventure series, and there’s a loose continuity between instalments but you needn’t have played everything else to understand the precarity of your situation here. Cordoned off from one another, your only channel of communication is a walkie-talkie. As things become increasingly dire, you’ve…

1 Amitoj Singh Game: The Witcher 3: Blood & Wine Nothing says fantasy like a good castle. Here lit by moonlight, it’s a sight to behold. The Witcher 3’s Blood & Wine expansion contains some beautiful scenery, making it a great place to hunt for striking virtual photography. You can even jump straight to it without having to get through the main game so you can get snapping right away. The second season of Netflix’s The Witcher is due 17 December, but will it look as nice? 2 Andrew Coxon Game: Final Fantasy VII Remake Believe it or not, this was actually Coxon’s first Final Fantasy, making it a special moment. Using Sephiroth as a graceful subject, Coxon “wanted to make him look as intimidating as possible (like…

2 months GUNVOLT CHRONICLES: LUMINOUS AVENGER IX 2 More blades, and super-quick form changes. FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 27 JAN / PUB INTI CREATES 4 months GRAN TURISMO 7 Past features return, while a PS5 version that looks stunning drives everything into the future. FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 4 MAR / PUB PLAYSTATION STUDIOS 6 months FORSPOKEN A fast-moving open world adventure taking place across gorgeous environments. FORMAT PS5 / ETA SPRING 2022 / PUB SQUARE ENIX…

FORMAT PS4 / ETA Q1 2022 / PUB THE ARCADE CREW DEV BERZERK STUDIO / PLAYERS 1 Who among us does not have an old school exercise book with back pages covered in biro scribblings for ‘that sick game I’m totally gonna make one day’? The developer of Just Shapes & Beats brings those gnarly ink sketches to life in its new throwback project. A great knight returns home, only to find the land ravaged by unholy magic. His quest to set the place to rights once more takes the form of a retro sidescroller full of creepy creatures, monstrous bosses, and buckets of blood. Inspired by a selection of obscure 8-bit titles, Infernax is unabashedly nostalgic in its execution and there’s a distinctly ’80s dark fantasy edge to its…

FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA TBC PUB MOONANA / DEV MOONANA PLAYERS 1 A neon-touched cyberpunk world meets chaotic rhythm minigames in Keylocker, a music-infused RPG that recently smashed its Kickstarter goal and is now coming to PS5 and PS4. Playing as musical virtuoso Bobo you need to battle against a corrupt government and bring an end to an oppressive system through the power of music. Turn-based combat involves a flurry of rhythm minigames that allow you to attack and block based on how good your timing is. And as this is an RPG there are colourful NPCs to meet and classes to choose from, as well as plenty of rock anthems to headbang to. Who knew the anti-capitalist rebellion would take the form of a killer electric guitar solo?…

FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 2022 PUB FOCUS HOME INTERACTIVE DEV UN JE NE SAIS QUOI, UMANIMATION / PLAYERS 1 There's nothing we want more than to jump into the watercolour world of Dordogne. This charming adventure puts you in the painterly shoes of Mimi, a young woman visiting the house of her recently deceased grandmother. It's a wholesome puzzle game where, thanks to Grandma's letters, you go time-hopping through Mimi's childhood, completing quests and solving puzzles as you go. It's a gorgeous game to look at, and one which you explore by walking through forests, climbing mountains, exploring caves, and kayaking down rivers. Dordogne is as cute as a button, and we suspect it'll get you to pick up the phone and call your own grandma.…

WHAT YOU DO IN: MARVEL’S GOTG 54% Doing a lot of boring blasting while you wait for meters to fill up. 2% Closing the broken fridge door on the Milano. 21% Telling Drax to push something over or Groot to make a bridge. 8% Going slightly off the path to unlock extra costumes while Rocket berates you. 5% Tilting the stick to make Quill slowly walk through beautiful areas. 10% Joining in the banter and feeling like part of the team. FRIENDS & ENEMIES LADY HELLBENDER She loves monstrous aliens, and pays good money for new ones. COSMO This psychic Russian pup is Knowhere’s watchdog, and guards powerful secrets. MANTIS Sees many possibilities for reality, making her both helpful and unhelpful. STATPACK  16 Chapters to blast and…

INFO FORMAT PS5, PS4 (rev) PRICE £39.99 ETA Out now PUB Gamemill Entertainment DEV Ludosity PLAYERS 1-4 Look, everyone’s incredibly happy that we finally have a fighting game with characters from the all-time powerhouse that is Avatar (the good one, not the blue one, obviously). However, we’re afraid we have to tell you that Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl really doesn’t do them, or any of the other popular personalities it features, any kind of justice. We’d describe it as an injustice, only that’s a really good fighting game. All-Star Brawl is a platform fighting1 game that pits characters most of us will remember from childhood against one another for the sake of violence. That’s a good enough reason, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. In terms of the…

INFO FORMAT PS5, PS4 (reviewed) PRICE £32.99 ETA Out now PUB Koei Tecmo DEV Koei Tecmo PLAYERS 1 LENGTH 15 hrs ACCESSIBILITY ‘Classic’ and ‘Action’ control options; subtitles; camera sensitivity options Look what’s finally haunting PlayStation. Maiden Of Black Water is a remastered port of a previously Wii U-exclusive title, and follows three playable protagonists who get wrapped up in the deadly mystery of Mount Hikami, involving – you guessed it – both maidens and black water. With plenty of ritualistic scene-setting, unnerving ambience, beautiful imagery, and a score of scares, it plays well into Project Zero’s Japanese folklore style. The series’ signature camera-based combat is still at the heart of the action, but the already-smooth mechanics have been spruced up with a few new additions and some effective fine-tuning.…

INFO FORMAT PS5 (reviewed), PS4 PRICE £59.99 ETA Out now PUB Ubisoft DEV Ubisoft Annecy PLAYERS 1-64 LENGTH N/A ACCESSIBILITY Vibration on/off; subtitles; trick landing assist; menu narration; speech to text/ text to speech; colourblind modes Now, we’re not saying that this game’s dialogue was written by somebody’s rapidly balding uncle, but it tries so hard to be ‘hip’ that it just might make you cringe so much that you implode and reappear in a universe where the characters talk like actual human beings. We just know the word ‘zany’ was used by somebody during development. You’ll have to learn to live with it, because Riders Republic’s irreparably damaged view of youth culture informs the entire experience, ‘wacky’ costumes and all. Events are split into bike racing, bike stunts, snow…

INFO FORMAT PS4 PRICE TBC ETA Out now PUB Freedom! Family Alabama DEV The Wandering Band PLAYERS 1 Catastrophe is usually at the heart of any city builder, whether that’s natural disasters or rioting inhabitants. Airborne Kingdom is more about the building aspect of city building, as you literally take your home to the sky in order to follow an ancient prophecy.1 The more you build, the more you have to keep your city’s weight in mind, forever shifting buildings around to keep it from tilting. You also need to keep an eye on building placement so your workers’ needs are met, for example with nearby places of worship. Coal is an essential and constantly scarce resource – you have no way of storing it, which can be annoying but…

“Almost like playing through a scrapbook version of Spyro The Dragon, only far more diabolic.” INFO FORMAT PS5 (reviewed), PS4 PRICE £19.99 ETA Out now PUB Playtonic Friends DEV Fabraz PLAYERS 1 LENGTH 15-20 hrs ACCESSIBILITY Auto/manual camera options; UI scaling; colour blind modes Three-dimensional platformers with polygons? Pfft, that is so 20 years ago. Everyone knows that if you’re going to make a 3D platformer today it has to feature an intriguing gimmick, and in Demon Turf’s case that means infusing this classic genre’s challenging design principles with a punk-rock 2D art style. The result? Almost like playing through a scrapbook version of Spyro The Dragon, only far more diabolic. You might think the emphasis on flatness would have a detrimental affect on activity, when the truth is that…

INFO FORMAT PS4 PRICE £26.99 ETA Out now PUB Active Gaming Media Inc DEV White Owls Inc PLAYERS 1 Being millions of dollars in debt isn’t anyone’s idea of a good time, especially not journalist Naomi Hayward’s. Leaving the Big Apple for the idyllic English countryside isn’t ideal either, yet it’s preferable to financial ruin. Uncovering the truth of the sleepy village of Rainy Woods, the task she’s been set, seems like a doddle, yet it’s anything but. Your story begins with a grisly murder – one that Naomi is determined to solve. However, what follows is far from a linear story (the lead developer is Hidetaka ‘Swery’ Suehiro, best known for Deadly Premonition, which might explain matters). It feels more and more convoluted as you progress; the residents of…

INFO FORMAT PS5 (reviewed), PS4 PRICE £69.99 ETA Out now PUB EA DEV EA Sports OFFLINE REVIEW #7, 7/10 PLAYERS 1-22 CROSSPLAY No On the home pitch EA’s football sim has seen improvements, so it’s a shame they’re not allowed to shine in online play. That’s owing in part to a feeling of unbalance in Ultimate Team, where squads of overpowered players – I’ve already come up against teams boasting several Icons or In Form players – are more common than adequately matched opponents. Instead of picking opponents apart through incisive passing or fancy footwork, you’re sometimes left playing defensively to avoid being bulldozed by a costly super-squad. A shame then, as the measured pace of this year’s entry is a step in the right direction.…

“If you’ve played through the Titanfall 2 campaign, then you may remember fighting Ash.” Eleven seasons in, it seems fair to assume that Respawn has got a handle on this whole battle royale thing – and it’s now decided its players need a fresh map. No, more than that: a holiday. Cue lush island with lovely sunny weather! Well, you’ll still be fighting for your life, so think of it as a working holiday. Hang on a minute, though. Haven’t we seen some of this before? Yes… sort of. We won’t go too deep into the lore, but Apex Legends players will already be familiar with the new character, Ash, who’s previously been seen as an NPC, and serves as the announcer for Arenas. Yet you also might know her…

01 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 PSVR, but in the virtual space it really becomes next level, transforming one of the tightest puzzle games ever made into an emotional ride. 02 Hitman 3 Every mission in the World Of Assassination trilogy can be played in PSVR 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 PSVR’s best. 03 The…

INFO PUB Sony DEV Sony RELEASE 2006 (Japan/US), 2007 (Europe) IF YOU LIKE THIS, TRY THIS… If you want a PS3. game to play now, Uncharted is an obvious pick. Assassin’s Creed also debuted this gen and many players agree the trilogy’s second instalment remains the best. Metal Gear Solid 4 blew us away too, but remains bound to the platform. (Remaster when?) Finding a suspiciously large box under the tree and unwrapping a console on Christmas Day is a special memory, and PS3 was hefty indeed. In fact, its size is the first thing many people mention. Reader @D3J08 declares, “Chunky is still the best-looking version [in my opinion].” The console was many readers’ first big purchase. “I was saving for a car at the time,” @MrTJ_808 remembers, “then…

INFO PUB LucasArts, Lucasfilm, Disney DEV LucasArts RELEASED 2008 (PS3) This Force Blast from the past is proof that developers boasting about film-quality visuals is nothing new. In its favour, LucasArts was embedded with the team at ILM and made use of the VFX studio’s tech to deliver incredible mocap performances and real-time destruction.1 Back in 2008 it wowed us all. The mix of cinematic styling and physics-based destruction caught the imagination. In 2021, however, we see cracks in the game, and they’re not all meant to be there. The opening stage has you, as Darth Vader, tear up a Wookiee village; it’s comical. A force blast shakes a suspended walkway, tossing Wookiees into the air only for them to land randomly about the level. An emotional cutscene is Pythonesque…

“Playing the bad guys and laying into the Justice League is an appealing idea.” Long gone are the days when Warner Bros could bat away (pun unintended but very welcome) competition for ‘best superhero game’. With 2021 coming to a close we’ve had two critically acclaimed Spider-Man games (with another on the way), a surprise Guardians Of The Galaxy adventure, and a fanbase going hyper over the mere mention of a Wolverine game. In short, Marvel is gobbling up all the videogame headlines, purchases, and chatter. DC Fandome, DC’s major online event, was this year used as a not-so-secret weapon for it and Warner in the war for attention. There was plenty of non-gaming news (including a movie trailer in which Robert Pattinson’s Batman says “When that light hits the…

“EVERYONE INVOLVED IN THE GOFW FRANCHISE PUTS THEIR HEARTS AND SOULS IN EVERY FRAME YOU SEE.” CHRISTOPHER JUDGE, VOICE ACTOR FOR KRATOS, THANKS EVERYONE AT SANTA MONICA STUDIO. “WE WILL CONTINUOUSLY EXPAND ON THE STORY OF THIS WORLD, WE WILL EVOLVE THE WORLD AS YOU PLAY.” DICE’S DANIEL BERLIN ON HOW THE WORLD’S NARRATIVE IN BATTLEFIELD WILL PROGRESS OVER TIME. “GET COMFORTABLE WITH BEING UNCOMFORTABLE. THIS IS SOMETHING THAT MILES IS LEARNING FROM, AND THIS IS HIS WAY OF SWINGING.” INSOMNIAC SENIOR ANIMATOR JAMES HAM ON MILES MORALES’ MOVEMENT IN THE LAST GAME. HIS WORK CONTINUES ON SPIDER-MAN 2.…

MORE CAN BE LESS In a continuation of David Wright’s comments from the September 2021 issue, yes, I feel like some games can be a bit tedious. I feel like a longer game does have both advantages and disadvantages. In some cases, a game that has a bit of a longer campaign may seem a bit self-defeating, but our curiosity about the unknown can lead us to play more. An example of this can be any game in the Hitman series. I enjoyed the suspense of the unknown. However, whenever I repeatedly failed a mission, I would want to throw my controller at my TV. Then there are games like Tetris Effect. I loved playing that game. The Tetris franchise is older than I am, but the simplicity of it…

“GET UP IN AN ENEMY’S BUSINESS AND YOU CAN BEAT THEM AT THEIR OWN GAME.” FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 18 MAR / PUB SQUARE ENIX DEV TEAM NINJA / PLAYERS 1-3 Jack has one thing on his mind: killing Chaos. You’ve probably seen the jokes about his singlemindedness online. But in a sense it’s testament to Team Ninja’s action design. Just like Jack, when we’re in the flow of combat throughout our lengthy hands-on, all we can think about is killing our foes too. Which doesn’t mean there’s no story. Billed as a precursor of sorts to the very first Final Fantasy, it plays with the four Warriors Of Light’s destiny, and the connection between Chaos, a manifestation of the world’s evil, and the heroic knight Garland. The twist?…

FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 2022 / PUB SOLD OUT / DEV AUROCH DIGITAL / PLAYERS 1 The best thing I think that could ever happen is for somebody to tweet the studio a selfie of them drinking the beer that they’re brewing on the controller,” says Peter Willington, Brewmaster’s creative director. “THERE’S ALL THIS REALLY INTERESTING CHEMICAL STUFF THAT’S HAPPENING.” “It isn’t about stress. It’s about taking the game at your leisure,” says Willington. He compares the philosophy behind the game to how Hideo Kojima reputedly designed the flow of Metal Gear Solid around the idea players would take smoke breaks. “We definitely want people to be sipping on a beer and enjoying the beer that they’re doing at the same time. And like having a really, you know,…

FORMAT PS4 / ETA 24 FEB PUB KOEI TECMO GAMES DEV GUST / PLAYERS 1 Koei Tecmo has announced another game in its long-running item-crafting JRPG series, this direct sequel to 2015’s Atelier Sophie. In this adventure Sophie is now a fully-fledged alchemist, but she’s got herself into a pickle. Using a mysterious portal, she’s been transported to a strange dream world, one where a familiar friend has forgotten who she is. Returning with a twist on the series’ iconic crafting puzzle minigame, as well as its turn-based battles with a host of cutesy monsters, this new outing with Sophie is a welcome surprise concoction from the cauldron.…

FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA TBC PUB SQUARE ENIX DEV PLATINUMGAMES / PLAYERS 1-4 Despite some concerns at its showing earlier in the year, progress on this multiplayer hack-and-slash from the Nier: Automata developer seems to be going well. The game, set in the high fantasy city of Neo Babylon, has been through two phases of closed beta tests, and PlatinumGames has tweaked just about everything seemingly for the better, from combat, graphics, and equipment to the way some of the live-service features work. There's no doubt more tweaks will come, and with no official release date the studio’s got time to get it right (and we hope it does). But whether live-service multiplayer is the right direction for Square Enix to point PlatinumGames in is another matter.…

FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 14 DEC PUB INNERSLOTH DEV INNERSLOTH / PLAYERS 4-15 The social deduction game that makes and breaks friendships (and became massively popular with Twitch streamers in the summer of 2020) is finally coming to PlayStation. In case you’ve missed all the hype, Among Us tasks you and your fellow crew members with keeping a spaceship sailing nicely along through the galaxy. However, an impostor has inveigled their way onto your team (it could even be you) and is killing people. You need to find them and boot them out of the ship before it's too late. It's a simple idea that took the world by storm and, with crossplay from the get-go, PS players can now get in on the fun.…

All three of the PS2 games in the series just got souped-up upgrades for PS5 and PS4 to celebrate the anniversary, and they’re yours for £54.99. Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition features modern improvements to gameplay, and a graphical overhaul, while retaining the feel and look of the originals. This means controls that feel like those of GTA V in the hands, with the layout of the buttons now matching that used in the most recent entry. That affects how gunplay and targeting feels: it’s now much more straightforward (including San Andreas’ drive-by shootings). Joining that are new and improved weapon and radio wheels, making switching between items in your arsenal much easier. A minimap overhaul even means you can more easily set and follow waypoints.…

INFO FORMAT PS5, PS4 PRICE £59.99 ETA Out now PUB Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment DEV Turtle Rock Studios PLAYERS 1-4 LENGTH 10 hrs (campaign) ACCESSIBILITY Customisable captions and subtitles; adjustable controller sensitivity; colour blind mode; adjustable motion blur While some games load up on flabby backstories and needless gameplay options, this team shooter keeps it lean and simple, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. Sometimes you just want a greasy burger from a roadside trailer rather than a Salt Bae-style mortgage-requiring menu. Developer Turtle Rock Studios has ouija-boarded the spirit of Left 4 Dead into Back 4 Blood – that name is no coincidence as this team created the original Xbox hit. While PlayStation has seen similar survival shooters come and go, none have stuck. Whether it’s through…

INFO FORMAT PS5 (reviewed), PS4 PRICE £24.99 ETA Out now PUB Epic Games Publishing DEV Remedy Entertainment PLAYERS 1 Stumbling through the woods with creatures wielding axes right on your heels, your torch wobbling through the darkness as you wheeze, desperately trying to get to the safety of some lights. That’s when Alan Wake (a strange middle step between Max Payne and Control that’s often clunky and repetitive, yet incredibly enthralling) is at its best. A famous writer going through a creative dry spell, Wake goes on holiday with his wife, Alice, to Bright Falls, a small town in Washington. Things take a creepy turn when they stay in a cabin that nobody else knows exists, and Alice is kidnapped. Following a trail as he tries save her, Alan comes…

INFO FORMAT PS5 (reviewed), PS4 PRICE £24.99 ETA Out now PUB Bandai Namco DEV Supermassive Games PLAYERS 1 LENGTH 5+ hrs ACCESSIBILITY Subtitle options; hold to complete QTEs toggle; option to map most QTE prompts to one button; QTE timeouts on/off; camera sensitivity slider; invertable camera, aiming, and movement Soldiers investigating a suspected underground weapons silo get far more than they bargained for in the third instalment of The Dark Pictures Anthology. There are hints that Supermassive’s QTE-laden horror series may soon hit its stride but much of this game’s confident swagger ultimately feels unearned. That said, from the off this latest entry boasts many improvements over everything that has come before. For starters, the prologue-tutorial is the most intense we’ve seen so far. Case in point: to teach you…

WHAT YOU DO IN: RIDERS REPUBLIC 40% Soaring through the air with very much ground-based gear. 5% Showing off your costume and trick skillz to players in the hub. 22% Crossing the finish line in first place, smug with success. 19% Crossing the finish line extremely not in first place, sulking. 3% Loudly and enthusiastically cursing the unreliable, and sometimes compulsory, rewind feature. 11% Enjoying the Rocketwing, wishing there was even more to do with it SECOND OPINION RAD RACER As one of Steep’s few fans, it’s great to see it return souped up, and with the chill vibes intact. While it’s a shame to see snow races back-seated, bikes are a great addition with a lovely, crunchy brake. The cringeworthy dialogue is mostly skippable, and the soundtrack…

INFO FORMAT PS4 PRICE £44.99 ETA Out now PUB Crytek DEV Crytek, Saber Interactive PLAYERS 1 The first game in the Crysis trilogy has already been remastered once on PS4; then as now it failed to live up to expectations. A visual powerhouse in 2007, it’s plagued by framerate drops and tearing. It set the template for open-world shooters, and on PS4 delivered ray-tracing six months ahead of PS5. The reward? A bullet in the head. Move on… The opening of Crysis 2 is blunt in its acknowledgment that the first game was little more than sketched ideas taped to a tech demo. Prophet, the nanotech-suit-clad survivor of the alien assault on Lingshan, drags newcomer Alcatraz from the river Hudson as New York burns, puts him in the suit, and…

WHAT YOU DO IN: DEMON TURF 30% Exploring colourful stages through inventive wall jumping, flying and gliding. 15% Hunting down elusively placed collectible cakes in every stage. 20% Bashing bad guys into spikes using Beebz’ melee push ability. 8% Swimming through underwater sections as a cute baby squid. 5% Browsing infernal critters and companions in the pet shop. 22% Learning how to chain together multiple advanced platforming manoeuvres quickly. FRIENDS & ENEMIES MIDGI Beebz’ best friend is always there to lend a hand with useful tips in and outside levels. LUCI This early adversary grows more sceptical of Beebz’ quest the further she gets. DEMON KING The Big Bad. You must take over the turfs of four lieutenants before entering his domain. HOW TO… SPEEDRUN LIKE…

INFO FORMAT PS5, PS4 PRICE £24.99 ETA Out now PUB Square Enix DEV Square Enix PLAYERS 1 Cards are used to construct every element in this game’s visuals, but it’s certainly not a ‘card game’, having more in common with Dragon Quest than your average modern deckbuilder. It’s essentially a classic RPG with a unique tabletop skin, featuring creative aesthetic and narrative choices that enhance what could have been a by-the-numbers fantasy adventure. You’ll be charmed immediately by the beautiful character artwork and witty narration by a game master, who frequently interjects with their interpretation of the story and setting.1 A lot of effort has gone into making this feel like a tabletop game played with friends, and that helps to enliven some of its slower systems. The turn-based battling…

“There are variations on offer, but the system remains the same, and it works brilliantly.” INFO FORMAT PS5 (reviewed), PS4 PRICE £13.99 ETA Out now PUB Frontier Foundry DEV Ratloop Games Canada OFFLINE REVIEW N/A PLAYERS 2-4 CROSSPLAY PC, Xbox Victory in an online FPS is all the sweeter when you can say ‘That was all me!” and here that will often be literally true. The idea is this: you control the entire team, moving one character at a time, until they’re all active in the final round of each half. Don’t pull that face; we’ll explain. In round five you’re fighting alongside the four previous versions of yourself, your team members acting simultaneously in pursuit of your objective. Sometimes this means grabbing as much ‘XM’ as possible to bank…

INFO FORMAT PS5 PRICE £34.99 ETA Out now PUB Team 17 DEV Black Matter OFFLINE REVIEW N/A PLAYERS Up to 100 CROSSPLAY Xbox Even if the plague of disconnections is fixed, the PlayStation version of Hell Let Loose will feel like an afterthought, not least because there’s almost no attempt made to explain how things work to anybody who wasn’t there for the PC early access. The premise (a WW2 FPS with an interest in realism and a limited HUD) is sound. But snipers have an unreasonable advantage over every other unit, and while communication is important to the experience, there’s no decent alternative to voice chat (which almost nobody uses). For a large-scale WW2 shooter, try Enlisted instead – it’s more fun and is free to play.…

01 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. 02 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. 03 Grand Theft Auto V Laughing in the face of other…

Before Marvel Vs Capcom, there was X-Men Vs Street Fighter. The X-Men arcade game was available on PSN from 2010 to 2013. There are 26 (pricy) Marvel skins in Fortnite. The first Fantastic Four game was a (terrible) PS1 fighter. HULK LOGAN Claws we say so X2: Wolverine’s Revenge was released in 2003 for PS2. It was a tie-in for the second X-Men movie, which meant Hugh Jackman on the cover and promo art… but not in the game (whose plot had nothing to do with the film). To confuse things further, Patrick Stewart was present to play Professor X. Wolvie himself was played by Mark Hamill. Hey, Insomniac Games, we’ve got an idea… HUGH JACKMAN VOICED OL’ LOGAN IN THE SURPRISINGLY GOOD X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE – UNCAGED EDITION. BLOODY…