Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2022 i PLAY

“Your look says a lot about you, but you can also express yourself with emotes.” Stilwater and Steelport are tiny dots in the rearview mirror as Saints Row tears away towards a fresh start. This reboot resets the entry numbering to zero, aiming for a new beginning in the Las-Vegas-inspired setting of Santo Ileso. Set to make its grand debut on 23 August, in this game your custom protagonist will take centre stage. You’ve always had a wealth of options when creating the leader of the 3rd Street Saints but the reboot takes that many steps further. To start with, you have eight Boss presets to pick and either play as immediately or tweak to your heart’s content. There are eight voices to choose from in addition to these pre-made…

“NEVER TELL ME THE ODDS.” UNCHARTED WRITER AND DIRECTOR AMY HENNIG IS WORKING ON A STAR WARS GAME. IT’S THE ONE WE ARE LOOKING FOR. “WHAT AN AMAZING PRIVILEGE IT IS TELLING STORIES WITH THESE CHARACTERS… IT HAS TRULY BROUGHT ME THE GREATEST JOY IMAGINABLE.” SONIC 2 DIRECTOR JEFF FOWLER HAS HAD FUN. SOLID SNAKE ACTOR OSCAR ISAAC TOLD IGN, “WE ARE CLIMBING THROUGH AIR DUCTS, WE’RE LOOKING FOR THE STORY,” WHEN ASKED ABOUT THE METAL GEAR SOLID MOVIE.…

Hours with the beta for the sequel to one of the biggest multiplayer sensations ever released? What’s not to love? Well, Overwatch 2’s status as a sequel has had players, ourselves included, scratching our heads. It’s certainly different – notably PvP mode has dropped from 6v6 to 5v5. But it all ends up feeling like an update to the familiar original rather than true sequel. It’s so not-a-sequel that the PvP portion is pinned to update the original game for free, whether you want it or not. The more unique PvE (player versus environment) mode is delayed, but that’s the bit you’ll have to pay for. With wonky balancing, the biggest problem with Overwatch 2 is that we don’t quite get why many of the changes have been made. Big…

01 The Miami GP debuted in May this year, and proved a hit to watch. Miami Autodrome is as much fun to play, with some tight corners and fast straights. 02 With both mischievous angles and some dreamy turns, Austria’s much-rebuilt Red Bull Circuit is as much fun as ever, and a great race for warming up. 03 We have a soft spot for Silverstone, the stalwart circuit that’s been around since the ’40s, because we’ve been there the most. It’s just racing history.…

“EXO ONE’S FORM IS NOT SO EASILY PINNED DOWN, AND NEITHER IS YOUR FINAL DESTINATION.” FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA SUMMER / PUB FUTURE FRIENDS GAMES DEV EXBLEATIVE / PLAYERS 1 You’re going to save them – all it will take is hurling yourself across the face of many alien landscapes in a highly experimental aircraft. Is it a sphere? Is it a disc? Exo One’s form is not so easily pinned down, and neither is your final destination. In the aftermath of a failed space mission leaving only one survivor, the hope you’re following takes the form of a blue light in the sky and a vehicle that manipulates gravity. What follows is a meditative experience as you plummet down rolling hills, launch yourself into the atmosphere, and then…

FORMAT PS4 / ETA SUMMER / PUB XSEED / DEV MARVELOUS EUROPE / PLAYERS 1 We’re a sprightly 20-something escaping the bustle of the city to run a late family member’s farm. Sounds familiar? It’s a story farming sim fans know well, and a setup that the Story Of Seasons series has been using since 1996 (when it was called Harvest Moon). Our hands-on with the newest game, Pioneers Of Olive Town, proves this 26-year-old series is still thriving. We’re faced with a familiar feast of busywork: the old routine of planting, nurturing, and watering seeds until they flourish into a crop that we can harvest and sell to make cash to grow our farm. It takes us some time to get into the rhythm of the seasons and start…

“MIZUKI AND RYUKI ARE AIDED BY THEIR PROSTHETIC LEFT EYES.” FORMAT PS4 / ETA 8 JUL / PUB SPIKE CHUNSOFT / DEV SPIKE CHUNSOFT / PLAYERS 1 What’s more mysterious than half a murder victim’s body showing up in an unexpected location? The other half appearing six years later with no signs of decomposition. New ABIS agent Mizuki is thrown in the deep end as the case is reopened, leading her to seek out the original investigator, Ryuki. It’s up to you, dear player, to investigate both eras. Just like the vertically sliced corpses, this murder mystery is a game of two halves. You play as Mizuki in the present and new character Ryuki as he spearheads the original investigation in the past. If you played the first game, you…

FORMAT PS5 / ETA 9 AUG PUB TEAM17 / DEV OVERBORDER STUDIO / PLAYERS 1 Where some brutally hard action adventures take their inspiration from Dark Souls, Thymesia draws on Bloodborne instead. The disease-stricken land, plague mask, and gothic streets aren’t all the games have in common, though: this similarly encourages you to get stuck into the action with a mechanic that requires you to confirm chip damage with w in order to dole out death. Throughout our hands-on, we find it fiddler than FromSoftware’s fare, though the more we open up the skill tree, the more we enjoy, mainly thanks to how it’s possible to spec in a way that feels wholly different. Throwing feather darts in order to dash directly to enemies is a treat, as are launcher…

FORMAT PS4 / ETA 30 SEP / PUB NIS AMERICA DEV NIHON FALCOM / PLAYERS 1 Don’t believe the name – the two games in this remaster are more hero than zero, and it’s the first time they’ve been localised since their Japanese release in 2010/2011. Series fans will be familiar with them, as it’s the middle saga between Trails In The Sky and Trails Of Cold Steel, and Lloyd Bannings and friends’ attempt to save their city of Crossbell is a missing link many are keen to fill.…

“IT’D BE EASY TO CREATE A LIST TWICE AS LONG. WHERE DO YOU BEGIN?” PlayStation has been kicking around since 1994, when the original grey box of joy launched. At the time there was nothing like it. The 3D polygon gaming it delivered was revolutionary in a way that no generational leap has managed to match. That was 28 years ago. The years since have been packed with brilliant games, so assembling a list of the 100 best is a tall order. It’d be easy to create a list twice as long, or maybe even ten times longer. Where do you even begin? You could try to look at things objectively, to quantify how well games have aged, the impact they had, or how good the visual design is. But…

“OFTEN THE ONLY WAY TO GET THROUGH IS TO MASTER YOUR OWN FEAR AND GET STUCK IN.” FORMAT PS4 / RELEASED 2015 / PUB SONY / DEV FROMSOFTWARE Oozing as much atmosphere as it does blood, FromSoftware’s gothic PS4 exclusive remains a masterpiece. While very much in step with predecessors Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls, much of what makes Bloodborne so intoxicating is in how it’s not like those games. In fact, it’s not like anything else at all. Sure, you’ve got massive bosses and dangerous maze-like areas to navigate, but this is also a game that practically forbids you from using a shield. Limited-time health restoration plus a gun you dual-wield with your weapon of choice encourage you always to duck and weave your way back into the fray.…

INFO FORMAT PS5 (reviewed), PS4 PRICE £24.99 ETA Out now PUB All In! Games DEV The Farm 51 PLAYERS 1 LENGTH 14-16 hrs ACCESSIBILITY Customisable UI; adjustable aim sensitivity and aim assist; vibration, motion blur, head bobbing, gore and subtitles on/off; Management, survival, and combat difficulty adjustment at any time Although we’d like to neatly slot this into a genre for you, this is a game that’s more difficult to pin down than a frog that’s just learned the meaning of the word ‘dissection’. The resource gathering and crafting offer a survival element, while the FPS gameplay is a mixture of action, stealth, science fiction, and horror. Then there’s the base building, the team management, the series of tricky moral choices… Set in an alternate timeline 30 years after the…

INFO  FORMAT PS4 PRICE £7.39 ETA Out now PUB Blitzworks SL DEV Ansdor PLAYERS 1-4 This racer has been built as a homage to Sega’s OutRun and early ’90s gaming. It’s best described as a sort of ‘OutRun 1.5’, as it features scaled sprites just like the 1986 classic, combined with drift cornering and slipstreaming like OutRun 2. Both games are still fondly remembered – so can it possibly be as good as either? The answer is, sadly, ‘no’, but it’s at least comparable, which is an admirable achievement for its one-man dev team.1 Nail the drift mechanism and you’ll never have to brake for a corner, instead swooshing along between countless smoothly scaled skyscrapers, columns, and trees. There are forks in the road so you can choose the next…

INFO FORMAT PS5 (reviewed), PS4 PRICE £24.99 ETA Out now PUB Blowfish Studios DEV Sky Machine Studios PLAYERS 1 LENGTH 12-15 hrs ACCESSIBILITY Change difficulty at any time; subtitles on/off; customisable controller bindings; invertable X & Y axes; adjustable stick sensitivity The image used to illustrate this game’s PlayStation Store listing shows the hero, Arthur, leaping to the ground from a great height. If you try that in the game, he dies. It’s certainly an appropriate image for a game that’s easier to promote than to play. Don’t get us wrong, there are some great ideas here, but they’ve all been forced through a mangle of sloppy design. The harsh truth is that Winter Ember feels half-finished in multiple ways, including the story and its telling. The setup is easy…

After nine years, it’s fair to say you know what to expect from MotoGP 22. The latest bikes, teams, and riders, all with better visuals, physics, and presentation. Check, check, and check again. But what if there were something new? Something creative? Well, welcome to Nine – a celebration of the now-legendary 2009 season. Things just got a lot more interesting. In this mode, real MotoGP footage and driver interviews from the era introduce each famous scenario that you then get to play. Produced and directed by Mark Neale, who made a couple of famous MotoGP films as well as music videos for the likes of U2, the stories and backstories are explained with authority and passion before the slightly pixellated, standard-def footage is replaced with in-engine loveliness, rendered at…

Sometimes a game doesn’t need to give you a health bar or even a combat system to work, and Tasomachi is a prime example of this. Exploring and gathering items are the core of your travels through To-en, a beautiful but abandoned town. You’re on the hunt for Sources Of Earth to fix your airship and rid the land of a strange, light-dimming fog. “The chance to throw yourself with reckless abandon from pagodas in hope of shinies.” It’s a platformer at heart, so it’s all about how you move through the world. That can be fiddly at first, though it comes into its own as you complete shrines and unlock skills such as a midair dash to extend jumps. As you unlock more, you’ll want to go back to…

With faces that only a mother could love, it’s understandable why the Prowlers from Clan Nosferatu have specialised in covert movement and temporary invisibility. They’re not the prettiest bunch of undead. Beautiful but deadly, artsy Clan Toreador’s Sirens can ambush unlucky wanderers with their long-distance teleport, and escape from firefights in a flash with a disorientating stun ability. The big posers. Armed with powerful fists and an impressively athletic leap, rebellious Clan Brujah’s Brute class is absolutely lethal when given a samurai sword and placed in the hands of skilled players.…

ZOMBIE ARMY 4: DEAD WAR – RAGNARÖK With the cult retreating to Hell and setting the apocalyptic Project Ragnarök in motion, your only hope is to descend to the underworld yourself and put a stop to it across two campaign missions. A free horde map has also been released alongside the missions. COZY GROVE – NEW NEIGHBEARS Thought you’d helped all the ghost bears you could? Think again. As you’re the best Spirit Scout around, even more ursine spirits than before need your help to find peace, from literal party animal Archie to shy Lillian. Butterflies that you can catch have also been added. FURI – ONNAMUSHA The Game Bakers returns to its twitchy 2016 hit with the aim of granting players’ wish: to be able to forget the game…

The 2000s brought us spiral hair gems, Avril Lavigne, and Groovy Chick everything – and also one of the best-selling games of all time: The Sims. The life simulator became a pop-culture phenomenon overnight and a cornerstone of sandbox gaming. Only PC players were able to board the launch bus to Sims city in 2000, however; we had to wait till 2003 to live our Big Brother dreams on PS2. So let’s fast forward a few years, to when The Sims upped sticks and finally arrived on console, having undergone some serious renovations. It came to us in glorious full 3D, and with a far more nimble camera than the PC version had. Thanks to the analogue sticks, we were spinning around more times than Kylie Minogue as we decorated…

Time to stop emailing Square Enix every day begging for a new Deus Ex. The Japanese company is washing its hands of it all, selling off Crystal Dynamics, Square Enix Montréal, and Eidos and their associated IPs to Embracer Group for $300 million. As well as Deus Ex, that includes Tomb Raider, Thief, Legacy Of Kain, Crystal Dynamics’ Marvel games, and more. It’s possible you haven’t heard of Embracer Group, but you’ve almost certainly played its games. The Swedish holding company, which formerly traded as THQ Nordic (which remains a division of the group), owns over 100 studios across multiple subsidiaries. The company has been swelling in size in recent years, acquiring Perfect World and board game maker Asmodee at the end of last year, and even buying comic publisher…

As the Indonesian indie game scene continues to flourish, one development team has come to the forefront. Mojiken Studio has been making games since 2013, and during that time has released 14 games, each release wider in scope and vision than the last. The team’s stories tend to be introspective in tone and often whimsical in their approach to topics like loss and death. But with their latest game the team are digging deep and going back to their roots, placing their home country of Indonesia at the centre of the studio’s new slice-of-life drama: A Space For The Unbound. It’s a heartfelt story that follows two high-school friends living in rural Indonesia in the 1990s, but this trip back in time is far from a joyous jaunt down memory…

“I ALSO WISH SONY HAD NOT CHANGED THE SOUND WHEN YOU ACHIEVE A TROPHY.” SOUNDS WRONG I agree with Jess Kinghorn in issue 14, the PS5 UI is a little soulless. I also wish they had not changed the sound when you achieve a trophy. I’m sure I’m not the only one? Surely it’s not beyond Sony to offer us a choice of sounds, including the ‘original’. David Wright We’re with you on the trophy sound – years of hearing it on our PS4s left us with a Pavlovian reaction to the old one. WAITY THOUGHTS I’m one of the people lucky enough to get a PS5… but to be honest, I’m not sure I wouldn’t have been better off waiting to buy, in the hopes of the price dropping,…

VOTE NOW! Tell us the five games you can’t wait to play at play@futurenet.com 01 Final Fantasy XVI This 16 is certainly going to be sweeeet – with Yoshi-P producing, our expectations are high. FORMAT PS5 ETA TBC 02 God Of War Ragnarök This could well be late 2022’s biggest release, but we want it now. FORMAT PS5, PS4 ETA 2022 03 Sonic Origins Turn to p15 to find out why we’re all ready to go fast once more. FORMAT PS5, PS4 ETA 23 JUN 05 Star Wars Jedi 2 Never mind the lack of concrete details for this, feel the Force! FORMAT PS5 ETA TBC 04 Stray Hanging around at no. 4, someone give this kitty a saucer of milk. FORMAT PS5, PS4 ETA…

FORMAT PS4 / ETA SUMMER 2022 / PUB DOTEMU / DEV TRIBUTE GAMES / PLAYERS 1-4 The kings of Saturday morning cartoons are crashing back onto our screens in a side-scrolling bombastic beat-’em-up. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have a history of brawlers going right back to the 8-bit era, and this new game will see Raph, Don, Leo, and Mikey tackle Shredder and The Foot Clan once more. The first two stages, which we go hands-on with, take place in a TV studio that’s been taken over by Bebop the warthog, then in the back alleys of New York, where we face off against Bebop’s rhino pal Rocksteady. REVENGE IS SWEET It’s not just the turtles on the team, mind you. The quartet are joined by news reporter April…

FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 6 DEC / PUB TINYBUILD / DEV EERIE GUEST STUDIOS / PLAYERS 1 After the experience of investigating the screams from next door in 2017’s nosy neighbour simulator, you’d think we’d know better than to poke around other people’s homes. But no, the followup’s swapped the claustrophobic corridors of Mr Peterson’s mansion for the open-world environment of a small suburb, and we are ready to snout around. For our hands-on we’re enjoying the ‘beta experience’ – a standalone demo designed to showcase a handful of features without spoiling the final story. The sleepy streets of Raven Brooks seem like a picture-perfect slice of small-town America at first glance. Rendered in an exaggerated art style reminiscent of 1960s cartoons, its lush lawns and colourful homes look…

FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 2022 PUB TEAM17 / DEV SUPER MEGA TEAM / PLAYERS 1 This metroidvania doesn’t demand you run a gauntlet of challenges with perfect form. Instead you’re able to play it how you want. After all, as a Knight Witch, you have control over the battlefield. A bullet hell at heart, it empowers you to zip every which way, using your weapons to mete out destruction and your spells to warp reality around you. Some spells even mimic cheats – but are in-universe, and auto-aim and main quest navigation are available too to assist play. How you play also changes how you grow, as Knight Witches are powered by the gratitude of those around them. That doesn’t mean you have to play nicely, though, as you…

FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 24 JUN PUB BLOODIOUS GAMES DEV BLOODIOUS GAMES / PLAYERS 1 Even though the teens are usually the first to be murdered in horror movies, this is one setup that the social media-savvy might be a dab hand at – it’s all about the ’gram. In Madison, your primary interaction with the world is through your camera, meaning that stopping to grab a quick snap actually is the best thing to be doing while being thoroughly haunted. Like a Polaroid the film is instant, and you need to flap pics around to develop them, revealing what’s actually present in certain areas in order to solve puzzles. You don’t have much choice either way, as you’re trapped in a nasty ritual, and have to solve it…

“HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE LEVELS DESIGNED LIKE DEVIOUS PUZZLE BOXES.” FORMAT PS4 / RELEASED 2016 / PUB BETHESDA SOFTWORKS / DEV ARKANE STUDIOS Some games struggle with power curves, being wary of making you feel overpowered too early. Dishonored 2, however, isn’t afraid to shower you in godlike powers from the off – and it then throws you into situations that constantly push you to use your suite of unusual skills in different ways, often leaving the ‘how’ of the approach up to you. The exact powers on offer depend on who you choose to play the game as. The first game’s protagonist, Corvo, returns with a set of powers similar to the ones he wielded there, including the abilities to teleport and summon rats, whereas his daughter Emily, Empress Of Dunwall,…

“An admirable effort to create as authentic an homage as possible.” INFO FORMAT PS5 (reviewed), PS4 PRICE £15.99 ETA Out now PUB Devolver Digital DEV Leonard Menchiari, Wild Flying Hog PLAYERS 1 LENGTH 5-6 hrs ACCESSIBILITY Difficulty options; bloom and grain filters on/off; subtitles Wait, a samurai game inspired by the black-and-white samurai films of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa except with Tarantino-esque levels of ultraviolence? Haven’t we had one of those already? You may be thinking of Ghost Of Tsushima, which includes a ‘Kurosawa mode’ that allows you to play Sucker Punch’s open-world epic in monochrome with grainy film filters and Japanese audio. But whereas that game included it as a somewhat superficial option, Trek To Yomi fully commits to the aesthetic. It’s still a samurai game from a Western…

INFO  FORMAT PS5 (reviewed), PS4 PRICE £15.99 ETA Out now PUB Ravenscourt DEV Digixart PLAYERS 1 This is the summer of ’96 in the country of Petria, and the climate isn’t the only thing starting to heat up. The country’s politics are leaning more toward authoritarianism than ever, and as a sham election draws near young people have started to leave the country to escape the impending regime. Road 96 has you play as these teenage runaways, all on their separate journeys to get to the border and escape to a new life. The story is structured surprisingly like a roguelike, each chapter acting like a new ‘run’ as you take control of a new teenager. Every journey is procedurally generated and the choices you make along the way affect…

INFO FORMAT PS5, PS4, (reviewed), PSV PRICE £13.99 ETA Out now PUB Dear Villagers DEV Flying Oak Games PLAYERS 1 LENGTH 10+ hrs ACCESSIBILITY Language select; control config; adjustable game speed and enemy bullet speed; invulnerability; adaptive difficulty; reduced flash effects; togglable screen shake and vibration This isn’t just a game, it’s a kind of high-intensity interval training for the thumbs. Each screen in this roguelite action game hosts a burst of violence that flares instantly and fades equally quickly, all in a matter of seconds. Then you stop, take a breath, and move on to the next. Repeat until your character, Kyhra, runs out of energy. Most rooms cough up two waves of enemies – robots, insects, and beasts that gob out strings of bullets or charge towards the…

WHAT YOU DO IN: MOTOGP 22 30% Rewinding the action ten metres and braking again. 5% Watching the enjoyable Nine documentary scenes. Lovely. 2% Wondering if an ‘accidental’ crash would secure your championship win. Muahahaha. 45% Trying to slow the bike down for the next corner. 7% Marvelling at how deep into the uncanny valley the grid scenes plummet. 11% Assigning staff to R&D tasks. More staff = faster development. LOVING/ HATING TWO WHEELS GOOD The first transition between genuine archive footage and the same shot rendered in-engine is just fantastic. MORE WHEELS BAD The AI is just too good sometimes. ‘Finish five seconds ahead’ is way more easily said than done on medium difficulty. THE DUALSENSE DIFFERENCE TILT CONTROL The DualSense is superb in MotoGP 2022.…

Feeling a bit hot and cold about the Borderlands spin-off? Well, if you’re playing this DLC that’s absolutely as intended, as the new environment ping-pongs you between desert and arctic ruins before having you fight an old god in the middle of a tempest. You’re on a quest to free the ancient deity from its humiliating fleshy prison. Nicknamed ‘Chums’, it’s caged within its seawarg shark body against its will, the Coiled having abducted it before sealing it away. Naturally, Chums isn’t happy about this, and by taking it out you’ll set it free once again. The short dungeon (it takes about half an hour) is accessed through Vesper’s Mirror Of Mystery, and is the first in a series of challenges to be released. Short as it may be, it’s…

Crossovers don’t get more massive than ones involving giant monsters. Arriving way later than the movie, COD: Warzone – Operation Monarch is a crossover with the MonsterVerse, embracing all things Godzilla Vs Kong. The new dig site location plays host to some of the larger-than-life firefights, with operators having to duck for cover behind the skeletons of fallen titans. More general changes have also been made to Caldera, with the Runway and Peak locations now fully fortified, and a dropping tide in Lagoon revealing hidden secrets and pathways around the Lighthouse. Crash Bandicoot developer Toys For Bob also makes its debut as a support studio with new Gulag The Hold, mixing claustrophobic corridors with more open spaces. “Toys For Bob makes its debut as a support studio with a new…

Square’s premier roleplaying series plus a good helping of strategy remains a winning combination. In Final Fantasy Tactics, charming pixel sprites perform turn-based tactical moves on a 3D isometric field, telling the absorbing tale of the Lion War with every battle. Your units have 20 jobs to mix abilities from, including series mainstays like summoners, mages, and dragoons. Reader Jason Pegram remembers how a few levels as that latter Lancer came in handy, commenting, “That Velius [Boss] fight though [frowny face emoji]… and then you discovered the jump technique [sunglasses emoji].” SWORN SWORDS Stolen princesses, class tensions, and shadowy scheming by the church all feature in a game that is widely considered, as reader Lamar Richardson puts it, “one of the best RPGs ever.” Eric Quintana also reflects, “Man, this…

Before PSVR brought more affordable immersive gaming to us all on PS4 (never mind PSVR2 and PS5), PlayStation 2 witnessed the birth of EyeToy. It might seem quaint now, but in 2003 that little camera left us open-mouthed at the possibilities it offered for a new era of gaming. We plugged in our cameras and waited patiently for the glowing dots to dance away on the home screen, not truly knowing what was in store. Little did we know that EyeToy would put us in the driving seat – literally. The idea of using our own bodies to control the game was revolutionary. It may have been superseded, but we still have a soft spot for it, so here are the games you shouldn’t miss revisiting if you dig yours…

Thanks to a patch, the DualShock 4 can now be used on PS3. For four-player, PS1 and PS2 require a Multitap. DualShock 4’s lightbar can convey info, like Alien: Isolation’s sensor. Dropping the ‘shock’, PS5’s DualSense emphasises haptics. SHOCK HORROR Rumble in the station Returning to the 1994 launch PlayStation controller these days, you can feel the lack of the analogue sticks we’ve come to love. The Dual Analog Controller introduced them in ’97 before being quickly supplanted by the DualShock mere months later. Replacing the plastic grooves with textured round tips, rumble supported huge games like Crash, Spyro, and Tekken. RESIDENT EVIL 2 HAD A DUALSHOCK RERELEASE MONTHS AFTER LAUNCH, BUT ONLY IN IN JAPAN AND NORTH AMERICA BANANA-RAMA PS3’s slow return to basics Much was made of E3…

Free wired Nacon pad Subscribe to PLAY – The Magazine and get a free wired Nacon compact controller worth £34.99, plus your mag delivered every month. Print only If you just want a print edition, you’ll pay from £15.75 a quarter. Each issue is delivered to your door in environmentally-friendly packaging. Print & Digital Get the best of both worlds, with a print and digital bundle from £19.50 a quarter, for iOS, Google, Kindle, and Android devices. See p100.…

Fighting off other players to nab a PS5 isn’t the only competition gaming can foster. PlayStation is keen to promote competitive play, with a fresh slate of online PS4 PlayStation Tournaments already under way, and Evo 2022 set for summer. Evo (the Evolution Championship Series) is the world’s biggest fighting game tournament, and this is the first time it’ll run in-person events since PlayStation became co-owner last year. Although PlayStation is one of the best formats for blockbuster single-player entertainment, this shows that the company’s just as committed to organised play. It doesn’t just give us a sense of what PlayStation is throwing its weight behind, either, but of the state of play for some of the biggest multiplayer games around. ROADSIDE TUSSLE The PlayStation Plus Challenges were kicked off…

EPOS H3PRO HYBRID – WIRELESS CLOSED ACOUSTIC GAMING HEADSET EPOS £239 EPOSAUDIO.COM/EN/GB/GAMING Ready to lose yourself in the game? These headphones have enhanced noise cancellation. Great for focusing on backing up your buddies in-game, less so for heeding your significant other’s call for aid in their own real-life adventures in STEELSERIES ARCTIS 7P+ WIRELESS HEADSET STEELSERIES £174.99 STEELSERIES.COM/GAMING-HEADSETS Don’t you hate it when, after settling in for a longer gaming session, your Bluetooth headset announces it’s out of juice? The Arctis 7P+ not only features an impressive 30-hour battery life but also boasts a 15-minute quick charge that grants three hours of power exactly when you need it most. RAZER KRAKEN V3 PRO – WIRELESS GAMING HEADSET WITH HAPTIC TECHNOLOGY RAZER £199.99 RAZER.COM/GB-EN/GAMING-HEADSETS This…

“CODEMASTERS HAS BEEN KEEN TO TREAT THE NEWER RACES WITH AS MUCH REVERENCE AS THE ICONS.” FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 1 JULY PUB EA / DEV CODEMASTERS / PLAYERS MULTI Racing has changed. Or, at least, Formula 1 has. For the 2022 season, dubbed the ‘new era’, the real-life sport has had some serious work done under the bonnet, and it’s the culmination of a host of tweaks that have been in the works for years. Going hands-on with Codemasters’ annual videogame version the same rings true – the fundamentals have been overhauled in a way that mirrors what’s happening out on the track. There are down sides. There’s no equivalent of last year’s Braking Point story mode, which we loved.That mode took about two years to develop last…

02 months TWO POINT CAMPUS Run a bonkers campus with oddball students in Two Point Studios’ latest management sim. FORMAT PS5, PS4 ETA 9 AUG / PUB SEGA 04 months GOTHAM KNIGHTS This open-world, four-player co-op brawler featuring Batman’s pals is now new-gen only – it’s no longer coming to PS4. FORMAT PS5 / ETA 25 OCT PUB WARNER BROS 06 months GOD OF WAR RAGNARÖK Kratos and Atreus go big and leave home, as it’s apocalyptically chilly. FORMAT PS5, PS4 ETA 2022 / PUB SONY…

01 Fans of the first game will be pleased to see that Mr Peterson, the original mansion’s terrifying tenant, makes a triumphant return in the sequel. 02 You’d think that the local police force would be eager to assist your investigation into missing kids, but the thumb-like Officer Nielson is up to no good. 03 Known only as ‘The Guest’, the inexplicable appearance of this sinister crow-faced spirit seems somehow connected to the missing youths.…

“YI KEEPS A TAOIST TALISMAN CLOSE TO THEIR CHEST FOR PROTECTION AS WELL AS ACCESS TO AN ARRAY OF OFFENSIVE ABILITIES.” FORMAT TBC / ETA 2023 / PUB RED CANDLE GAMES DEV RED CANDLE GAMES / PLAYERS 1 This latest project from the developer of Devotion – a switch from horror to platforming – has received a tremendous amount of support. The 2D side-scroller was announced at the same time as a crowdfunding campaign that breezed past its goal of 3,000,000 New Taiwan Dollars (or a little more than £80,000). Seeing this cat in motion, we can understand why. As yellow-sleeved fighter Yi, you trade blows between solving puzzles and platforming. Combat, borrowing from the likes of Sekiro, emphasises deflection. Parrying swipes or projectiles leaves your enemies open, allowing you…

FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 21 JUN PUB PARADOX INTERACTIVE DEV HAREBRAINED SCHEMES PLAYERS 1 As Baldur’s Gate is to tabletop RPG Dungeons & Dragons, so Shadowrun Trilogy (Shadowrun Returns, Shadowrun: Dragonfall – Director’s Cut, and Shadowrun: Hong Kong – Director’s Cut) is to the pen-and-paper Shadowrun. These games aren’t super-old – the first was released on PC in 2013 – though for PlayStation they’ve been polished, upscaled, and feature improved controller support. Each is a lengthy experience that has you exploring the dark underside of the fantasy-cyberpunk world and taking part in tactical, turn-based combat. Presented in isometric view, these RPGs echo the classics, but Trilogy’s modern sensibilities mean they’re slicker to play than you might expect. An unmissable adventure.…

FORMAT TBC / ETA EARLY 2023 PUB VERTIGO GAMING DEV VERTIGO GAMING / PLAYERS 1-2 Each instalment of the Cook, Serve, Delicious! series has been playfully seasoned with a post-apocalyptic storyline. You get to enjoy the full taste in this story-heavy entry that’s billed as a new IP unto itself. Playing as Nori Kaga, you’re on a quest to reach the heights of your idol, Chef Rhubarb, who cooks on TV wearing Hunger-Games-like high fashion, and commands over all from her lofty Rhubarb Tower. You need to start from the bottom to reach that high, though, taking your little food cart all around the solarpunk city as you hone your craft and take on side-quests through the fully-voiced story. With a revised cooking system for this entry, it looks like…

FORMAT PS5, PS4 / RELEASED 2019 / PUB SONY / DEV KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS After Kojima’s split from Konami, which meant leaving Metal Gear Solid behind, the question was whether the first project from his new studio would feel of a piece with his landmark espionage series or be completely different. While plenty here is familiar – the post-apocalypse storyline is just as bonkers as Metal Gear’s world-ending conspiracies, and there are plenty of tense stealth moments – Death Stranding is very different. “WHAT MAKES THE JOURNEY SPECIAL IS THE FACT IT’S SHARED.” Instead of the challenge in getting from A to B being to avoid enemy vision cones, Death Stranding makes it the geography itself. As futuristic delivery man Sam Bridges (Norman Reedus), figuring out how to navigate raging rivers,…

INFO FORMAT PS5 (reviewed), PS4 PRICE Free (upgrade), £17.99 (full game price) ETA Out now PUB Young Horses DEV Young Horses PLAYERS 1 LENGTH 3+ additional hrs ACCESSIBILITY Limited subtitle options; adjustable screen shake, vibration and control sensitivity; motion blur on/off; invertable controls When told to ‘Go big or go home,’ few of us get the chance to literally supersize our ambitions. Bugsnax’ delicious final course – an expansion that slots into the base game like an extra patty in a burger – serves up a new area full of massive ’snax plus plenty of smaller additions, making Snaktooth Island all the more enticing for both first-time travellers and revisiting Grumpuses. In it, you and some of your expedition party travel to the until-recently-submerged Broken Tooth island. The charm that…

INFO FORMAT PS4 PRICE £19.99 ETA Out now PUB Forever Entertainment DEV MegaPixel Studio PLAYERS 1–2 LENGTH Less than 1 hr per campaign run ACCESSIBILITY Motion controls; difficulty options; auto-reload This is the first time Sega’s arcade zombie shooter has come to PlayStation, and it’s perhaps fitting that it’s a remake of the original game that played just as big a role as Resident Evil in ushering in videogaming’s zombie apocalypse in the late ’90s. While not a graphical tour-de-force compared to Capcom’s recent remakes, it’s still a schlocky, gory delight, though it’s missing one key ingredient. As special agents Thomas Rogan and G, you’re tasked with investigating the mansion of mad scientist Dr Curien – well, not so much investigating as blasting away hordes of zombies. They’re not the…

INFO FORMAT PS5 (rev), PS4 PRICE £24.99 ETA Out now PUB Whitethorn Games DEV Gamious PLAYERS 1 Meredith Weiss, quality assurance tester at a software company, is in dire need of a break. (Or a union. But she’s taking a break.) Her boss calls her at all hours, and even tries to talk her out of her trip, but Meredith remains adamant – for two weeks, she swaps the seat at her keyboard for a seat behind the wheel of a postal van, returning to her old hometown of Providence Oaks. After a short introduction to the job, Meredith makes her daily rounds around the game’s centrepiece, a huge lake with beautiful mountain views. Just looking at it, the way the sun is glinting through the trees, listening to the…

INFO FORMAT PS5, (reviewed) PS4, PRICE £17.99 ETA Out now PUB Crows, Crows, Crows DEV Crows, Crows, Crows PLAYERS 1 LENGTH 5-6 hrs ACCESSIBILITY Customisable subtitles and gamepad controls; vision impairment options; content warnings; togglable crosshair to reduce motion sickness The Stanley Parable was a curiosity when it was first released on PC in 2011, a self-indulgent, pseudophilosophical walking sim that grappled with the idea of free will while also poking fun at contemporary game design. The office adventure has finally made its way to PlayStation in the form of Ultra Deluxe, an ultimate edition that has both the original game and brand-new content all in one place. It tells the story of Stanley, an office employee who arrives at work one day to find that all his coworkers have…

This game doesn’t need long to grab our attention, but we wish it didn’t lose it equally quickly. You see, there’s trouble in the Great Depths, an underwater world that’s been taken over by Mastermote, disrupting the flow of energy in the process. Controlling Lumote, a small but squishy character seeking to reverse this, this puzzle platformer is fun enough, but we can’t help feeling it could have dived deeper. In-game there’s not much mention of the plot. As soon as you load the game up, you’re on the go. Levels are all interconnected but split into segments, but it ends up feeling like one very long road. Less straightforward than the journey are the puzzles, as fixing the imbalance in the Great Depths requires plenty of environmental puzzle solving.…

“These aren’t your traditional crusty old vampires from the silver screen.” You know the drill: 45 players spawn in, scramble for weapons, and then duke it out across an open map as it rapidly shrinks in size. The pitch for Sharkmob’s new free-to-play shooter may not be the most original, but its selection of hard-to-master character classes and impressive movement system give you plenty to sink your teeth into. Following a secret meeting that’s gone badly awry, Prague’s most influential vampire clans are at war. While this bloody battle rages, citizens are kept inside by a strict curfew and convoys of high-tech Vatican soldiers prowl the dimly lit streets. It’s not a complicated setup, but, as an adaptation of White Wolf’s expansive tabletop RPG, the sea of strange terms such…

That this shooter ever made it onto PS2 in 2001 is remarkable. This technological marvel enabled you to blow chunks out of the scenery and even pass through it into new areas. Back then that was truly impressive. But like a magician’s sleight of hand, the visuals distracted from a so-so script and confused missions. Revisiting it reveals a game that placed its technology above action. The setting is interesting: a futuristic Mars where people volunteer to mine minerals that descends into chaos as revolution takes hold. This ensures a blend of Soviet-era architecture and sci-fi landscapes. And lots of red dust.1 It’s got the kind of pad control setup you’ll recognise, not a somewhat-clunky noughties layout. There are plenty of options to adjust sensitivities and the layout too –…

FORMAT PS3, PS4 (REMAKE) / PUB SQUARE ENIX / DEV CAVIA (PS3), TOYLOGIC (PS4) / RELEASED 2010 (PS3), 2021 (PS4) Nier’s world is full of mystery, alluring yet somehow a space you feel disconnected from. Keiichi Okabe’s hypnotic music draws you into this mishmash of rusty techno-dystopia and medieval strife, yet emotional and physical pain awaits players who choose to explore beyond its surface – apart from on one occasion, which is a beautiful exception. Games have conditioned us to assume that every quest must end with a reward (assuming we don’t fail it). Of course we’ll kill defeat a charging boar or visit the seafront to buy fish, we need that money for potions for our quest! That’s the foundation of any game. And so when you accept a…