Housemarque’s follow-up to Returnal is immediately, comfortably familiar: the sound design hits within seconds, the controls are responsive, and the movement and gunplay feel just as good as you’d hope. The new world is genuinely cool, and the flexible difficulty system - no set modes, just a huge range of individual toggles - is a thoughtful idea for players who bounced off Returnal. Personally, I’d probably prefer to’ve played a game balanced around a fixed challenge - the freedom to self-adjust takes some of the edge off. Build diversity is theoretically strong, but I found something that worked, leaned into it, and the game didn’t really push back hard enough to make me reconsider. Admittedly this is more of a me-problem, and I enjoyed it to be sure, just wish it lasted longer!

Capcom’s long-awaited sci-fi action-adventure - announced in 2020, delayed indefinitely in 2023, finally here and better than expected. The primary draw is obviously the hacking-grid-while-in-combat mechanic: it sounds fiddly but works surprisingly well in practice, and the game layers in new ideas at a good clip. The dialogue is a bit on-the-nose and the story hits familiar beats, but it’s well-paced, short, and the collectables are genuinely fun to chase. After playing the demo I didn’t expect to get much more out of this, but really glad to’ve been proven wrong.

Turn-based roguelike deckbuilder where you collect a band of mercenary pieces, combining traits and relics across a dark gothic medieval world. The art is fantastic, the world is intriguing and the design is elegant - approachable on the surface, genuinely demanding underneath - with solid variety across runs. So far, a strong early access foundation with clear room to grow.

A port of a free Playdate game from osuika, now on Steam with cross-platform online multiplayer between the two versions. You slide office chairs at a target - physics-based, simple, immediately fun. The multiplayer works well and the high score mode has more pull than I care to admit. Cool little game, and the fact that it talks to a Playdate across platforms is hilarious.

Small French team’s atmospheric dungeon crawler. Descend through procedural floors in search of the lost sun, upgrading with cursed teeth and strange items. The art direction is fresh and interesting, and the vibes throughout carry a lot of weight. Where it wobbles is arguably excessive RNG, which can make a run feel like it’s happening to you rather than because of you. Brutal, but the bones are really interesting.

Coin-pusher roguelike deckbuilder - you’ll be able to tell whether you’ll like it from five seconds of a trailer. The premise may sound thin but the execution is the real thing: stack towers, trigger combos, shake the machine, feel the dopamine hit. Great art, nice music. Very cool.

Roguelike deckbuilder where you roll custom dice - each with unique and creative faces - and chase a point total. Balatro’s DNA is obvious, and the structure is clean enough. The loop never clicked quite for me; something in the feel had me admiring the concept more than enjoying the runs. Definitely worth a look for number-goes-up enjoyers.

Base-defence auto-battler where you wire up modules on a board to create your defences. The hook is immediately compelling, and the build ceiling is high enough that, initially, the real challenge became finding synergies strong enough for endgame, but efficient enough to keep it above 1fps. Patches have since reined it in. Compact, clever, very moreish.

Mike Kasprzak, longtime caretaker of the Ludum Dare game jam, has announced that LD 64 in October 2028 will be the final scheduled event, capping 26 years of one of indie gaming’s most formative institutions. Kasprzak is planning an unofficial April 2029 encore before the lights properly go out, and has openly challenged the community to build a better successor rather than inherit the name. LD 59 is live for theme suggestions in the meantime. Few jams have shaped indie development like Ludum Dare has - 26 years of weekend experiments that seeded careers, studios, and whole corners of the scene. Enormous legacy, and enormous props to Kasprzak for keeping the lights on this long.

Sony Pictures has confirmed an R-rated animated adaptation of FromSoftware’s Bloodborne, with studio exec Sanford Panitch promising it’ll stay “very true” to the game’s gothic brutality. It’s co-produced by PlayStation Productions, Lyrical Animation, and YouTuber Seán “JackSepticEye” McLoughlin. Amazing we’re getting a film before 60fps, but we’ll take it!