Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2024 i PLAY

FORMAT PS5 / ETA 22 MAR / PUB SONY / DEV TEAM NINJA, XDEV / PLAYERS 1 Past and future, brother and sister, East and West – how each of these pairs picks a path forward, between ‘unity’ and ‘conflict,’ weaves through the heart of Team Ninja’s most ambitious project to date. You take to a loosely historical stage as the titular ronin, a warrior without a prestigious lord to answer to, and therefore left to bear the responsibility for your choices alone. It wasn’t always like this; you were trained from a young age to serve as one half of a pair by a clandestine group known as the Veiled Edge. However, during a tumultuous era, you’re separated from your ‘Blade Twin’ for the first time. Whether this ushers…

What’s the purpose of a remake? That’s a question with a hundred answers. But with Persona 3 Reload, a full overhaul of the PS2 RPG, Atlus’ intention seems clear: to make it appear as close to Persona 5 as possible, ensuring that the fifth game’s megahit status buoys this comparative cult classic. The result is lavish, faithful, and at times also something of a missed opportunity. The visual overhaul is significant, but this is still a game in which you plough through over 260 floors of one procedurally generated mega-dungeon. The core script, while tweaked (yes, the transphobic beach encounter has been replaced, now involving a conspiracy theorist instead), is often exactly the same. Very little new flesh has been grafted onto the old bones. COFFIN UP Summoning Persona 3…

This is like Control, only the weirdness is out in the world instead of inside the FBC. Also, instead of a gun and supernatural powers you have a vehicle that needs constant attention. Okay, it’s not that much like Control, apart from the atmosphere. It is, ironically, more like a temperamental old car that demands a little too much patience. The premise is that, in an alternate recent past (and as something of a Chernobyl allegory), the development of an amazing new power source leads to a terrible accident, a government coverup, and a large exclusion zone. You end up stumbling into this zone where reality itself is warped and constantly changing, and all you have to help you survive is a car that’s barely holding itself together and a…

Forced to cover her dad’s shift working as a guard at the castle gate, 12-year-old Lil has had a big responsibility thrust on her. It’s her task to size up the fantasy folk who are seeking entry to the kingdom of the Sprawl and either admit them or boot their butts out the door. It’s silly, lighthearted, and will have you chuckling from the start of your shift until you clock out. It’s the kind of job that could easily feel dull, but Lil’ Guardsman manages to find the fun in quizzing a bunch of quirky oddballs. You need to question each character as they approach your gate, and if you’re suspicious of their intentions you can bust out your upgradable magical gadgets to reveal more about them. You’ve got…

Before becoming the critical and commercial darling that made Elden Ring, FromSoftware released one of the most divisive sequels ever: Dark Souls II. Lacking both the intricate world design of the original and its visionary director (who was making Bloodborne) it’s a bloated, messier adventure than its predecessor. “Still dislike it,” says reader Santino Lala. “Worst of the series but still a good game.” Ah, yes, because for all its faults, it’s still full of brilliant ideas. Like enemies that bash their way out of the mirrors they’re trapped in, and a DLC fight with a boss that’s literally invisible. “It’s still a great game with amazing concepts,” says reader Fergusson Samy. “I just wish it had better execution.” DARK SLOWS A fast-forward feature might have helped. The glacial movement…

Pixel art is often deployed to give games a retro feel but when used well it can do so much more. For its first game, Hyper Light Drifter, indie studio Heart Machine wielded the power of the pixel to give its 2D action adventure a darker edge. Somehow, it makes those tiny squares seem rather sinister. Static screenshots don’t tell the full story, which is that everything in Hyper Light Drifter feels a little… off. The jagged lines of pixel art are one reason why, roughly defining the world and its inhabitants as corrupted, or otherwise not quite themselves. Indeed, the world is corrupted by a purple blight that seems to have turned the majority of people and animals into mindless killers, with only a handful of survivors in a…

The first Crash Team Racing game was released in 2001, with sequels following. Yes, Smurfs Kart for PS4 and PS5 really happened in 2023. 2006’s Mortal Kombat: Armageddon had a truly awful Motor Kombat minigame. MOD CONS Put your kart into it Although rarely talked about today, ModNation Racers was an ambitious community-driven game that deserved to continue through the console generations. Developed by United Front Games for PS3 and released in 2010, it allowed players to create and share characters, karts, and tracks online. It spawned PSP and Vita versions; the servers were finally shut down in 2018. SACKBOY AND FRIENDS TOOK TO THE TRACK IN LITTLEBIGPLANET KARTING (2012) ON PS3, FROM THE DEVELOPER OF MODNATION RACERS. DREAM CAST Sega gets into (game) gear Sega may have bowed out…

FORMAT PS3 / PUB SONY / DEV NINJA THEORY / RELEASED 2007 The PS3 trailers of E3 2005 were a lot to live up to. But while Heavenly Sword didn’t quite justify the phenomenal hype when it dropped in 2007, it managed to live up to one promise; PS3 had been shown to be capable of rendering an entire battlefield, and Heavenly Sword kicks off by delivering exactly that. You are handed control of Nariko as the camera pulls down from above, revealing our heroine facing some 200 soldiers. Great balls of fire are raining from the sky (goodness gracious indeed); it looks like a scene straight out of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit. It’s chaotic, brief, and a touch scrappy by today’s standards, but it happens – complete with that…

“Kojima announced a completely new stealth game, his first since the almighty Metal Gear Solid V.” We’d assumed Hideo Kojima was all-in on Xbox after he spent five hours of his allotted stage time at last year’s Game Awards talking up the game he was making for that console. But then he appeared in Sony’s first State Of Play stream for 2024, and it couldn’t have been more of a Kojima love-fest unless Mads Mikkelsen had leapt out of a cake. We knew Death Stranding 2: On The Beach was well under way, but Kojima also announced a completely new stealth game, Project Physint, his first since the almighty Metal Gear Solid 5. The hopefully working-titled Project Physint is described as an ‘action espionage’ game as opposed to Metal Gear…

Our team can all fit round a table. There’s only ten of us,” says New Star Games’ community manager Mark Baldwin. “We’ve never done anything like this before, it’s completely out of our comfort zone.” Well, if that’s the case, how come the studio’s Grand Prix game is packing more features than many full-price racers? Let’s get under the carbon fibre bodywork and take a look. Visually, New Star GP’s flat-shaded polygons nod to Sega’s 1993 arcade classic Virtua Racing, but it feels deeper thanks to some impressively interwoven sim-like additions including staff management, car upgrades, and driver rivalries. But just like its arcade inspiration, New Star GP distils the sport. This pick-up-and-play ethos looks likely to set New Star GP apart from its peers. “The way that we always…

FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA APRIL / PUB MINTROCKET / DEV MINTROCKET / PLAYERS 1 There’s one thing you need to know about Dave: he loves to dive. He’s also friendly and warm to a fault, making him oblivious to the possible villainy of some of his friends, and unable to say no to their requests. Enter Cobra, a Hawaiian-shirt-wearing big shot who’s quite possibly a Bond villain, and who wants you to help him explore the mysterious Blue Hole. These depths are, to put it in game terms, procedurally generated, changing every day to pull in bits from all oceans across the globe. Which means for the right entrepreneur you have the majesty of the seven seas in one must-visit destination. As it stands now, Cobra still needs you…

“TWINKLING MELODIES AND WARM AMBIENT SYNTHS GUIDE YOU THROUGH THIS SERENE ADVENTURE.” FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA TBC PUB HIWARP / DEV HIWARP / PLAYERS 1 An adventure that’s well on its way to becoming this year’s most relaxing indie, Naiad plays like a dream. Twinkling melodies and warm ambient synths guide you through this serene adventure where you play as a water nymph floating through interconnected rivers, streams, and ponds. You’ll want to sit back, put your feet up, and grab a cosy cuppa for this one. Naiad is designed to capture the feeling of being at one with nature’s waterways. As our aquatic pal floats downstream on their back, sometimes there’ll be obstructions like a log or branch in the way. You can often just duck under these…

FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA SUMMER 2024 / PUB SQUARE ENIXDEV SQUARE ENIX CREATIVE BUSINESS UNIT III / PLAYERS MULTI The last ten years of FFXIV have taken the Warriors Of Light on a truly epic journey; players have fought gods, stopped the tide of imperialism, ended a 1,000-year war against dragons, saved a parallel world, and even halted a despair-induced apocalypse. So how on earth can the team behind one of the best MMORPGs ever hope to follow that up? We recently got the chance to speak with Final Fantasy XIV director and producer Naoki Yoshida (aka Yoshi-P – his in-game username – to fans) to talk about what it takes to make an MMORPG, and the upcoming Dawntrail expansion that will see us setting off on a completely…

Harley Quinn, clowned queen of crime, might want to bonk us on the head with her epic-tier mallet for making comparisons to the Arkham series. But like Batman on the case, it’s impossible not to see the connections. We’re sure the great detective would agree that this pivot from top-tier solo action to live service multiplayer is quite the curious case indeed. Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League isn’t only from Arkham developer Rocksteady, it’s a bona fide sequel. An early moment that sees the titular squad, officially known as Task Force X, exploring Metropolis’ ‘Batman Experience’ drives this home, as they poke around a museum mocked up to take you through the Arkham series’ story. Then the lights go out. And Batman begins picking you off one by one.…

As metroidvania games become more intricate, there’s something refreshing about going back to basics. And Touhou Luna Nights – a spinoff from long-running cult series Touhou Project – certainly strips the genre down to its fundamentals. Compact and breezy, your journey here progresses without the burden of excess baggage. Just don’t let that lack of frills fool you into thinking it’s going to be an easy ride. If you’re not familiar with the many Touhou Project games (there are 19 mainline ones, plus spinoffs), don’t worry – Luna Nights is self-sufficient. Sure, the characters here are series regulars, but it barely matters who they are and the plot is no less back-to-basics than the rest of the game. To summarise, protagonist Sakuya, a human maid who works in a demon…

You’d be forgiven for not knowing what is happening the first time you play this. The original Atari game was, after all, a prototype that was never officially released as it was deemed too difficult by testers. To an extent the psychedelic visuals of Llamasoft’s remake are even more obfuscating, but if you stick with it, it does eventually fall into place. It’s essentially a shooter-slash-tower-defence; your goat-head thing in the middle can drop bombs to destroy enemies, with fallen foes creating shockwaves that hit other enemies, the chain reaction potentially endless. Some enemies can’t be destroyed this way, so you have to take them down with bullets earned from bombed enemies. This creates a tension where you have to be smart with ammo while trying not to drop another…

01 Synapse Telekinesis and guns make a wonderful combo in VR. With one mapped to your left hand and the other to your right, you feel like a conductor of chaos as you blast your way through a rogue colonel’s mind to uncover secrets. Eye-tracking is wonderfully used to target your telekinesis, meaning you can slam enemies all over the place as you reload your arsenal. It’s got a roguelite structure, so you’ll keep coming back. 02 Horizon: Call Of The Mountain Manages to make level after level of climbing compelling with different environments to pull yourself up through, the Sense controllers allowing for neat player expression. Just make sure you take a break, or all that spider monkeying will make your arms throb. 03 Star Wars: Tales From The Galaxy’s Edge Who…

The answer to your first question is yes, this slightly creaky interactive interpretation is still superior to the film that inflicted the idea of midichlorians onto the world. However, the game has issues of its own today, beginning with the way it looks. The graphics have been given a polish, which helps to emphasise the fact that, despite hardware limitations, the developers did a good job. However, the camera is often zoomed in too close, or set at an angle you’re dying to adjust (which you can’t1). It’s also worth saying that if your eyes are sensitive to anything less than a freshly waxed framerate, you’ll want to give it a miss. TATOOINE ARTIST It’s also, at times, sadistically difficult. Where’s regenerating health when you need it? Still, you get…

Silent Hill is a series about being trapped by the past. In both the 2001 PS2 original and Bloober Team’s upcoming remake, James Sunderland travels to the town of Silent Hill in search of a time in his life he knows on at least some level is impossible to truly recapture. The Silent Hill 2 remake currently has no fixed release date, but, like a spectre, it did recently appear to us once more. Moody shots of the Woodside Apartments remade in Unreal Engine 5 and accompanied by Akira Yamaoka’s Magdalene definitely tug at our heartstrings. But remakes need to trade in more than nostalgia. After showcasing puzzles reimagined in gorgeous detail, the latest gameplay reveal takes another direction, almost half of its runtime dedicated to combat, with a more…

What are you to do after a long Dark Hour slaying shadows? Slurp some ramen with a Social Link bestie, that’s what, whether in a game or in real life. Noodle restaurant chain Yokocho is celebrating the release of Persona 3 Reload (read our review on p78) with a limited-time menu at London locations 8 Heddon Street and 35a Panton Street. We donned our S.E.E.S gear to investigate. The Protagonist set menu, led by the tonkotsu-style Gourmet King Ramen, followed by a coffin-shaped chocolate brownie dessert called Sweet, Sweet Thanatos (hopefully not a transformed person), and all washed down with a blue melon-flavoured Balm Of Life fizzy drink, seems an obvious choice for any fan of the game. So obvious, in fact, that we ordered something else. THOU ART I…

1 CHRONO TRIGGER This has to be one of the most iconic fireside chats in all of gaming history: seeing your comrades gather around to reunite with their friend Robo, who has been working for 400 years while the others were only gone for a minute. Never mind Robo-exploitation; it’s a touching moment that deepens your connection to the time-travelling squad. 2 FINAL FANTASY X Listen to my story… this is a singular, iconic campfire where the game begins as the characters reflect on their journey, and also where you realise just how much you’re going to lose as you press on for the final stretch. We’re not crying, you are! 3 RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2 The life of a cowboy isn’t complete without a night in the open by…

“EVERYTHING YOU SEE ON SCREEN HAS BEEN MADE BY HAND.” FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 2024 / PUB SLOW BROS DEV SLOW BROS / PLAYERS 1 The science fiction genre always feels rather serious, which is why Harold Halibut is a breath of fresh air. Not that the residents of the space shuttle Fedora would know what that feels like, having been stuck in their city-sized spaceship at the bottom of an alien ocean for hundreds of years. It may sound dire, but this underwater community is doing just fine. After leaving Earth on the brink of a cold war crisis, the hope was that the Fedora would find another planet for its human residents to inhabit, but the stars had other plans. The ship crash-landed on a watery planet…

FORMAT PSVR2 / ETA 2024 / PUB VRKIWI / DEV REKT GAMES / PLAYERS 1 Here’s hoping you don’t suffer from motion sickness for this one. This VR platformer takes place entirely within a first-person view, and the game has you hurling yourself from ledge to ledge and beyond – though hopefully not in ways that will necessitate a deep clean of your headset. No doubt inspired by the silly charm of many classic platformers, you play as a small furry creature with spring-loaded stilts strapped to your locomotive appendages. (Are they legs? Are they arms? Perhaps they’re a little bit of both.) Your spaceship has been stolen by a grabby giant octopus perched atop a volcano, and your ridiculous footwear (gloves?) represents the only way you can take back…

FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 4 APR / PUB MARVELOUS EUROPE / DEV GALAXYTRAIL / PLAYERS 1 There aren’t many modern games that copy Sonic The Hedgehog’s 2D platforming template, which is odd considering how popular those games remain. That’s especially true on PlayStation, where we haven’t even had the other indie hoglike Spark The Electric Jester. Freedom Planet is our closest alternative to classic Sonic, and its sequel is finally heading to the big white obelisk after a successful stint on PC, anthropomorphised animals and all. At first glance, it does look like a ripoff of Sega’s flagship platformer, complete with loops, ramps, mid-air collectibles, and even pinball flippers, but it ends up playing very differently thanks to its emphasis on combat and screen-filling boss battles. You get to…

FORMAT PS5 / ETA 29 FEB / PUB SQUARE ENIX DEV SQUARE ENIX CREATIVE BUSINESS UNIT I / PLAYERS 1 With everything that’s just happened (see ‘Remake recap’, opposite), gun-arm-slinging environmental activist Barret asks an obvious question: what’s the story with Sephiroth? Holed up somewhere within the citadel walls of Kalm, the gang settle in for Cloud’s answer, with childhood friend Tifa paying particularly close attention. The blonde sourpuss’ recasting of the Nibelheim incident takes the form of a playable flashback and, as a not-exactly-faithful retelling, it’s a fitting opening for the next stretch in this Unknown Journey. Cloud claims to have been about 16 when he first met Sephiroth, working alongside him as a SOLDIER – a member of the elite private military arm of the Shinra Electric Power…

So you didn’t have ‘pruning the wayward garden of an alien tomb on the edge of black hole, while a sleeping universe-eating god may or may not wake up’ on your bucket list? Well, you’re doing it anyway. The first time you run through The Sarcophagus’ overgrown corridors it plays like any other metroidvania: you explore, upgrade tools, plant things, open new areas, and keep heading deeper, further into the day-glo Moebius-meets-The Grateful-Dead alien world. But just when you think you understand Ultros, it relaunches and becomes a new kind of game. Not only does Ultros include a roguelike reboot mechanic that resets your character’s upgrades, weapons, and tools, it manages to make this part of a wider, often meditative, challenge. While your character sleeps the world grows; what you…

Not often do you hear someone say they should’ve stayed in England, but when Red mac Raith and Antea Duarte set foot in what is to become the United States in 1695 it’s hardly a welcoming place owing to evil spirits roaming the land. That’s nothing to write home about for the two Banishers, who are essentially early-age Ghostbusters. What seems like a simple enough business trip involving banishing a few ghosts and then taking the next ship home quickly turns out to be more difficult. The town of New Eden, an early settlement, is haunted by a powerful Nightmare that makes short work of both Red and Antea. Red barely survives, while his lover Antea returns to him as a ghost. As much as Red loves Antea, he’s supposed…

Back in 1996, Tomb Raider was revolutionary. It’s hard to imagine a time before 3D adventure games, but this was the first one. Defining an entire genre on the first attempt, original developer Core Design made a game for the ages. The trouble is, it really has been ages. 27 years, in fact. So here’s that game plus its two sequels and three expansions, beautifully remastered. The quality of the graphical remastering itself is absolutely stellar. The original games are genuinely running underneath everything, so while the environments have lovely lighting, 3D foliage, and super-high-resolution textures, it’s all just dressing up the original geometry from 1996 to 1998. So that means huge rectangles (and then almost-as-huge triangles), giving everything an angular look despite the fact it all looks so slick…

There’s no getting around this being a loving homage to/shameless ripoff of Nintendo’s colourful inkslinging shooter Splatoon, albeit here your task is to spray gaudy foam to win. Initially you’re trying to foam up as much territory as possible to make navigating the arena easier. You can surf speedily on the foam of your team colour, while walking in the other team’s foam slows you down to a pathetic trudge. So far, so Splatoon, even if foam does behave mildly differently to that game’s ink. For one thing, it can pile up if you concentrate your fire, creating ramps and blockades. It’s an interesting dynamic that ends a bit of extra depth, but nothing to get too sudded up over. The bigger difference is that this is much more of…

01 Red Dead Redemption 2 You won’t find another open world quite like this, the streets of Los Santos paling in comparison to this gorgeous, realistic western sprawl. Arthur Morgan’s wild west adventure is epic, emotional, and has enough teasing mysteries on every horizon for no two cowboys’ journeys to feel the same. With train robberies, tootin’ headshots, and racists to kill, there’s never a dull moment in Rockstar’s greatest. 02 Grand Theft Auto V Laughing in the face of other cross-gen ports, GTA V on PS4 is more than a mere HD remaster. Upped to a glorious 1080p, it weaves together everything that made the PS3 original great, with new music, more dynamic weather, and a game-changing FPS mode. 03 God Of War A departure in some ways but a resounding return…