Arco blends tactical RPG gameplay with a striking, South American-inspired art style. Its narrative is moody and compelling. Combat is unique, strategic and engaging. Lots of secrets and meaningful choices. Really, really cool game.

At first glance, Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers feels inspired by Balatro (but for blackjack), but it’s important to note that it was announced first. While the concept is creative and compelling, I struggled with dense card and mechanic descriptions - an area where Balatro excels in succinct clarity. Very cool and indeed fun, but sometimes overwhelming.

Black Myth: Wukong is a crazy impressive, visually stunning action RPG rooted in Chinese mythology. It’s not a soulslike, and it’s not entirely a boss-rush either. Combat is fluid, satisfying, sometimes challenging. The enemy variety is wild, and the boss designs are compelling. The narrative is engaging, the overall atmosphere and world-building are captivating. Remarkable achievement for a studios first big game.

Mika and the Witch’s Mountain feels like a love letter to Ghibli and Wind Waker, with its whimsical world, light-hearted atmosphere and gameplay. As a rookie witch, you’ll deliver packages to quirky townsfolk, zipping around on your broom through the charming art style. It’s not without flaws, but being short and sweet, they’re relatively easy to overlook. The simplicity won’t be for everyone, but if you’re up for a cosy Sunday, definitely give it a go.

It’s another survival horror MMO set in a post-apocalyptic world infested with monstrous creatures! Once Human has something, though - the world is wonderfully creative and its crafting and base-building are intuitive and satisfying. Great visuals and an atmospheric setting, but it feels typically grindy and repetitive over time. Definitely worth checking out for fans of the genre.

HoYo’s latest gacha has all the tropes and systems you’d expect, this time in a retrofuture urban setting and excelling in presentation, fast-paced combat and quality-of-life improvements. The combat is fluid, satisfying and addictive (albeit never particularly challenging), the story isn’t the deepest but has its moments (even if the pacing could use some work), and the whole thing has great visual design, sound design and music. Smaller than Genshin, its minor flaws are easy to overlook if you’re willing to ignore or accept the predatory gacha foundation.

The First Descendant is an almost aggressively pedestrian looter shooter - neither exceptional nor terrible. It combines ideas well but is held back by shameless drive toward microtransactions and apparent lack of identity: part Destiny, part Warframe, lots of fanservice. While the visuals and cooperative systems are strong, its gunplay and movement feel pretty average, and overall inconsistent quality and monetisation model won’t appeal to everyone. Worth a quick go if you wanna turn your brain off for a while.

Please don’t. Rumours started last week about an Elden Ring TV show or film adaptation, and George R. R. Martin has added fuel to the fire in his ‘not a blog’.

Oh, and about those rumors you may have heard about a feature film or television series based on ELDEN RING… I have nothing to say. Not a word, nope, not a thing, I know nothing, you never heard a peep from me, mum mum mum.   What rumor?

As much as I’d love to see this done well, I think it’s more likely it won’t be… if it even can.

Ever wondered what Wordle would be like if it was a dark, absurd and funny dungeon-crawler? Look no further! What a strange little game. Evokes a tonne of nostalgia, but capitalises on modern game sensibilities. Great music, excellent voice acting (and a crazy amount thereof!) and chock-full of charm. Won’t be for everyone just by virtue of being so different, but absolute worth checking out.

Apart from the obvious gacha repulsion, the major things stopping me from enjoying Genshin were laborious movement and unsatisfying combat. Wuthering Waves attempts to remedies these, with almost over-the-top traversal abilities, and more impactful (albeit still button-mashy) combat. That said, even ignoring how unashamedly they’re ripping Genshin, I still struggle to get properly into it. Several hours in, it feels like 90% of that has been spamming ‘advance dialog’, the VO is hilariously flat, and the story isn’t particularly compelling. Ultimately, if you’re into the genre, it’s worth checking out - and even if you’re not, it’s a fun braindead way to spend some time before the F2P grind becomes too harsh.