Must Play

A timeless masterpiece gets a modern, tasteful cosmetic uplift. Shadow of the Colossus is understated, beautiful, charming and inspired. It’s an adventure you’ll never forget - must play.

Quite likely the best 3D platformer ever. The perfected, foundational movement is creatively explored and tested through several worlds brimming with ideas which constantly surprise and delight. Masterpiece.

Supergiant’s debut game, and what a game it is. A 2D isometric RPG which is tonnes of fun, has gorgeous visuals, a great soundtrack and famously brilliant narration. Must play.

The genre-defining browser classic comes to Steam, bringing all its apocalyptic Grandma madness along with it. If you didn’t dedicate a browser tab to this for thousands of hours, you didn’t live.

One of, if not the best couch co-op games around. Classic beat-em-up sidescrolling action with great design and super fun combat.

Extremely funny and clever - a ‘must play’ that elevated meta content in video games to still unmatched heights.

After bouncing off Fortnite the week it launched, I wrote it off for years. It was polished and fun, but I was frustratingly bad. Once they introduced Zero Build I tried again, and it’s fun as hell.

An intriguing, nihilistic, funny and depressing paperwork simulator. A simple concept thoughtfully & creatively explored.
𝙶𝙻𝙾𝚁𝚈 𝚃𝙾 𝙰𝚁𝚂𝚃𝙾𝚃𝚉𝙺𝙰

One of the best games ever made. Dauntingly complex, but mindblowingly considered and exceedingly well executed. It’s hard to overstate the brilliance of Dota 2, a game beyond compare.

It’s Skyrim. For its time, raised the bar for the genre. I have many, many fond memories of the hundreds of hours lost to this game. Hugely influential for better or worse.

A seminal masterpiece that took the world by storm with good reason. I spent thousands of hours in Minecraft; a game for me about exploring creativity within tight restriction. Must play.

The amazing devs and team at Digital Extremes have set the bar for online grindy shooters. Warframe is, for a F2P game, amazingly well-crafted and dangerously deep.

Not the most mechanically engaging game, but is elevated to sublime heights by its characters and writing. Moment-to-moment gameplay is visceral & satisfying, sound design is fantastic. Must play.

Harrowing and emotionally challenging, a game has never left me feeling the way I did as I stared through tears at the credits of The Last of Us Part II. This is a masterpiece I love so much, but may never play again.

Balatro absolutely rules. And this is coming from someone with abject disdain of poker… Traditional poker hands are your basic tools, but that’s about as far as the connection goes. The rest of Balatro is a wickedly clever, psychedelic, insta-classic roguelike through which you’ll devise cunning ways to break the game. Cards and modifiers are tightly designed, crisply defined and delightfully synergistic. Again, Balatro just rules. Play it.

The coolest Diablo game. Genre defining. Unmatched atmosphere and immersion for the franchise. You’d likely only go back for nostalgia nowadays, but it’s a remarkable achievement and pretty much perfect. 𖤐

A fresh, visceral and addictive hyperactive trip of ultraviolence, strategy and style. Finds its rhythm immediately and sticks the landing. Hell of a soundtrack too.

Arguably the grand-daddy of modern rogue-likes. Ed McMillen hones his tradmarked style of absurd, funny darkness in this virtually infinitely replayable & deep, fucked up world. Must play.

Technical niggles are easy to overlook when a game is this lovingly crafted, heart-warming and - at the time - unique. An absorbing and emotional triumph from Ueda and team. Masterpiece.

The new benchmark for smooth, responsive controls for skilful platformers. Funny art direction, great music and awesome level design which is super rewarding to overcome. A must-play for the genre.

SUPERHOT SUPERHOT SUPERHOT SUPERHOT SUPERHOT SUPERHOT SUPERHOT SUPERHOT IS THE MOST INNOVATIVE SHOOTER I’VE PLAYED IN YEARS SUPERHOT SUPERHOT SUPERHOT SUPERHOT SUPERHOT SUPERHOT SUPERHOT

The hint is in the name: this game (and Nintendo when they’re in this form) is indeed a wonder. Constantly surprising, funny, delightful, and endlessly creative. The best 2D Mario has been in a long time. Vibrant and refreshed, but still underpinned by decades of perfecting tight controls and a seemingly endless supply of not just ideas, but the talent to execute them. Love.

Thrilling combat punctuates a fun, well-told, gripping adventure. Naughty Dog throw down the gauntlet on set pieces, and deliver a wild ride through glorious vistas alongside great characters and writing.

Short and sweet, Portal has a simple concept which lends itself to all levels of complex puzzles. Nowadays it lives in the shadow of it’s unbelievably good sequel, but the concepts started here.

A perfect sequel expanding massively on an already brilliant puzzle mechanic. The puzzles are challenging and well designed, but the centrepiece is the plot and specifically the characters.

A really fun balance of roguelike dungeon crawling and Animal Crossing colony sim inside a slick package of stunning art and great music. Bit buggy at launch, but still great and ripe for expansion.

A tense 2D puzzle platformer with a gorgeous art style. LIMBO was one of the more inspirational indie games that changed the game at the time, and deserves a playthrough.

More of the same but better. Tremendous fun with friends, especially if you can get in the same room. Valve struck on something simply fun and perfected it here.

A nostalgic but fresh and seemingly-casual approach to card games. Early on it was approachable, diverse and very fun. As time went on, P2W became more present, and complexity-creep sucked a lot of the fun.

To be clear, this is a very good game. I couldn’t get into it, however. The design is clever and ‘endings’ very cool. But the setting, characters, movement & navigation frustrated me to a distracting degree.

The one that changed the game. The impact of Half-Life is immeasurable, but I’ll always look back and be thankful for that intro train sequence, knowing that all the new games I like learned from it.

An instant classic that dared to expand the lore of its predecessor to intriguing depths and flex how physics can be fun in videogames. Virtually flawless game design.

Valve (finally) throw down the gauntlet. Alyx changes the VR landscape and is truly a masterpiece; sound, level, visual, game design and story are all top notch. Will not be surpassed for some time.

The first and likely last masterpiece by Phil Fish. The amount of attention to detail and care that went into this game is crazy. A simple mechanic well explored and executed - a must play.

Perfectly distilled and refined Animal Crossing. Absolutely love the art style, world and music. Loved getting creative, making friends and making the island my own. Could have done with some UX love.

This in my opinion is the best Far Cry. Best world, best characters (even if the protagonist and his crew are a bit cringey), best moments, best plot.

A visually spectacular and bloody journey through 13th Century Japan. Complimented by great characters, passable story and, more than anything, combat so satisfying you’ll ignore its standard openworld stuff.

I have no idea how Nintendo did this. It takes mechanics and gamedesign inspiration from all over the industry, and improves on basically all of them. Constantly impressive and gratifying - one of the best games ever made.

The gunplay, loot and world design and graphics are all excellent (and still stand-up in 2018), but the characters, bosses and story leave a little to be desired. Worth a buy, especially the sequel.

A fresh and lastingly influential take on the broadly tired shooter genre. Decent gunplay is offset by the audio/visual and narrative masterpiece that surround it.

A beautiful, dark and immersive alternate reality with characters you’ll be sad to leave behind. A brave successor that pulls it off and has genuinely jaw-dropping moments.

A beautiful, puzzling and incredibly well crafted work of art. This game does not hold your hand and does not give you an explicit pat on the back. Discovery, learning and rumination are your rewards.

Dark, varied, complex, addictive and unforgiving. If you like turnbased RPGs, just get it - no question. When I first played I could not stop myself from saying aloud “this game is so fucking good.”

Beautiful, immersive, intriguing and clever - Firewatch is a relaxing, and at times both hilarious and emotional game driven almost entirely by characters and conversation.

While it’s not “the Dark Souls of platformers” (because that’s stupid), it is quite challenging and famously gorgeous. This is a true labor of love and is absolutely more than the sum of its parts.

Best in class 2D metroidvania with crisp controls and challenging but fair combat. Unforgettable music, characters and world - Hollow Knight is one of the most well executed games ever made.

An artistic exercise in persistence and hopefully eventual triumph.

Fresh & clever, Ring of Pain’s simplistic inputs bely its depth and difficulty. Absolutely stunning art, haunting music and great sound are underpinned by a fun and addictive gameplay loop. Love it.

SpyParty has been around a long time and is still has at its core one of the most interesting gameplay concepts ever explored. Challenging, fun, utterly unique and hilarious with friends.

Don’t Starve is exceedingly well designed, from its core gameplay to the aesthetics, music and sound. It’s very challenging, but absolutely full to the brim with content from a great team. Must play.

I didn’t know what to expect and I suggest you go in blind too. Unique, heartfelt and wildly compelling, this story and the way it is told is nothing short of a masterpiece.

Beautifully crafted, hugely influential, challenging and fun.

A project handed to a junior employee, who then crafted it into an uncompromising lesson in perseverance that rewards exploration and subverts expectations. Bleak, brutal and beautiful. Pretty much perfect - Dark Souls legacy & impact cannot be overstated.

A good game, but not a great Souls game. While there are some mechanical improvements, Dark Souls II is the buffet to it’s predecessors fine dining: lots of content, but none of it very good.

Takes all the best foundations from Souls and dials up the speed & aggression. Absolutely inspired and masterfully pulled off. Incredible setting, world design, story and of course combat. Masterpiece, close to perfection.

All of the learnings from DS through BB are here, and as a final instalment to the franchise is a remarkably rounded love letter to its fans. Almost certainly the most accessible Souls game.

A loving and faithful return to Boletaria, now rendered in spectacular modern tech. It’s clear to see FROM’s approach was unrefined back then, but it’s still a fantastic, brutal, important game.

As far as Steam releases go, Dead Cells is GOTY 2018. Absolutely the most buttery smooth controls amongst its ilk, amazing music, challenging mechanics and immense innate replayability.

From the maker (one person) of Papers, Please comes this brilliant shortish deduction whodunnit with terrific music, great voice acting and uniquely cool art direction. An awesome understated gem of 2018.

Simple but ingenious concept which will either highlight the strength in you & your partners communication, or potentially start an argument. Either way, hilarious couch/party game.

Devil Daggers with your third eye open. At first utterly incomprehensible and overwhelming, but given some time, reveals itself to be incredibly tight, elegant and intensely masterful. A special game.

An almost flawless explosion onto the scene by Jon Blow. Simple mechanics that grow increasingly complicated, making way for some challenging puzzles inside a beautiful and sombre world. Must play.

A classic modern and hugely influential roguelike which will make you love/hate RNG like almost no other. Strikes a great balance of simplicity and underlying complexity. Almost certainly a classic.

A brutal and fun return to form for the juggernaut OG of the genre. Couldn’t have come at a better time when shooters were all starting to homogenise again. Great soundtrack too.

I played this game for twelve years. It’s very good.

The seventh entry in the ‘Citizen Abel’ series of games, and probably my favourite. It’s very short (10-15 minutes) but absolutely worth it. I wish there were more games like Thirty Flights.

Incredible writing, unique approach to RPG elements with hilarious and dank, nihilist atmosphere. Truly an extraordinary game. Absolutely a must play.

The latest game by FROM is just as challenging as its predecessors, while taking things in a different direction: combat is more demanding, the world is more vertical & platformy. Extremely good.

Early access survival game, but it’s… actually really good? Smooth movement, gorgeous visuals and lots of depth (no pun intended). Can be a bit overwhelming at first, but stick with it.

Great co-op game requiring concise communication. Cute aesthetic. Good for couples.

Breathes creative new life into rogue-likes by way of deckbuilding and card/turn-based combat. Deep and satisfying, STS was an instant classic and has proved wildly influential (for better or worse).

Unbelievably cool. Vibrant, evocative and just dripping in style. Seeing the dystopian Māori culture in a game was cool enough, but the exploration of disaffection and other themes is *chef’s kiss*.

Baba is clever. Painfully clever. Really simple concept taken to really inventive heights. Music is great too. If you like puzzle games, this is a must-play.

I had to install this and try to like it five times. I’m sure theres a good game somewhere among the dotted line GPS, braindead quests and interruptions at every turn, but I kinda can’t be bothered finding it.

An extraordinary game that breaks most if not all conventions and will constantly surprise and challenge you. A seminal must-play. Best to go in blind.

Well put-together and crazy addictive autobattler slot machine. Obviously hugely RNG dependent, but fun enough to keep coming back.

Slick, responsive and addictive - an absolute must-have for VR. Check out BeastSaber for mods, namely custom songs.

I’m almost getting tired of saying “Supergiant does it again” but it’s true. They turn their incredible skill toward roguelikes here, while maintaining all their patented quality, and absolutely nail it.

Deckbuilding… reverse-tower-defence… strategic… dungeoncrawler… roguelite? Hard to describe but wickedly clever. Polished, fun, challenging & very addictive. Set to be a classic - play it.

Probably peak EA. For its time, a very unique and interesting take on what fast, first person games could be - but great controls and even better mapdesign seemingly stop it from aging at all.

The very influential testbed for ‘The Telltale Way’. A wonderful example of storytelling in games and in retrospect, remarkably accomplished. Its characters, and decision making ensure its a classic.

A fast and ridiculously satisfying, simple beat-em-up. Aesthetic is gorgeous - music is even better. Short game, but worth the price of entry.

A game ahead of its time. Gritty steampunk setting and a gorgeous art style. Primarily a stealth game but the level design coupled with the player abilities make for lots of creative approaches.

Incredibly well designed and delivers on everything it sets out to do: emotional story, a focus on exploration and discovery, and basic combat.

One of the best adventure games I’ve played. Outer Wilds is a temporal, mysterious and unique exploration game with super charming visuals providing unique emergent experiences for those up for it.

An influential masterclass in the application of atmosphere and subtlety. Beautiful, powerful, surprising and mesmerising - Journey is a must play.

Deckbuilding roguelite escape room ARG. An inspiring masterpiece & wonderfully executed ode to card/videogames. If you’re into that kind of thing, it’s a must play. So, so impressive. Mullins is nuts.

FMV investigation game in which one can become completely absorbed. A unique and compelling experience helped along by good writing and acting. Definitely worth a playthrough.

One of the best games of its generation and a shining example of how to do reboots creatively and exceedingly well. Great characters, story, combat and world. Super ambitious and pulls it all off.

You know what it is: the much memed third-person honk-‘em-up starring a horrible goose. All the press it got was deserved, it’s fun and funny as hell. Also, great to see games from my home town!

Obviously gorgeous, and voice acting and music also great. World is large without being empty. Story is solid, if a little repetitive and drawn-out at times. So, so much to do. Remarkably polished.

Roguelike classic. Awesome styling and tonnes of replayability. Lots of depth, enough RNG to keep you coming back, and cool secrets. Hard at first, but if you like roguelikes, you know the drill.

As simple as they come, but strangely hypnotic and addictive. Love it. Sadly I am still fat IRL.

This would have been a thumbs down upon release. Hello Games have since weathered the storm and managed to turn this into a good game. It worries me what other studios will learn from this however.

Rockstar have absolutely mastered this format of game, and GTA5 is the jewel in their crown. It’s extremely well designed and the singleplayer is good, albeit suffering from restrictive ways to play.

Visceral, satisfying combat, sublime art, great sound/music and a good challenge. Relatively unforgiving but ultimately very rewarding. An extraordinarily cinematic, violently masterful blast.

Celeste is challenging, smart and exceedingly well designed. Its movement is some of the most satisfying ever in a platformer. The great soundtrack supports a surprisingly fresh exploration of mental health, which has traditionally proved difficult in videogames.

Hauntingly beautiful, tight controls and an atmospheric world. Hyper Light Drifter is a great example of how to do top-down adventure standing on the shoulders of giants like Zelda and Dark Souls.

Fascinating and complex systemic game design, executed extremely well. The systems allow for virtually endless emergent scenarios amongst the rewarding exploration and fun, chaotic combat

A masterclass in narrative point and click adventure/exploration. KRZ is dripping in mood and aesthetic, but doesn’t sacrifice its core design which is truly captivating and thought provoking.

Absolute gem and insane value. Despite its mechanical simplicity, Vampire Survivors allows for tonnes of variety and replayability. Fun, satisfying and addictive - stop reading and play it.

So masterfully crafted, creative, confident and bold that it immediately makes the rest of the openworld genre feel dated and uninspired. A landmark achievement and a very special game. Masterpiece.

Cleverly expands on what Obra Dinn did with the genre while painting a gripping story. Doesn’t waste your time or rely on gamey logic. Extremely hard to pull off, but it’s been done wonderfully here.

I was ready to bounce off, intimidated by its depth and pacing, but this game is truly something else. Great writing, VA, world design and more than anything, an obscene level of player agency.

FROM reinvigorate mecha gaming with their masterfully honed pedigree, elevating the genre to new supreme heights. The world is enthralling, the garage deep and addictive, and the combat tight and impactful. What can one say - they’ve done it again.