Destiny: Rising has been officially announced. A free-to-play mobile RPG shooter, is set in the Destiny universe. Developed by NetEase Games, the creators of Diablo Immortal, with Bungie overseeing, it launches its closed alpha on November 1. Expect campaign missions, multiplayer modes, and both old and new characters in an alternate post-Dark Age timeline. Feels like a bit of an oof.

As previously mentioned, 2023 was rough for game devs, but there’s no denying it was a remarkable year for releases. So given all the amazing new games I played this year, it says even more about how special Baldur’s Gate 3 was - because when it came time to think about GOTY, it was not even close. BG3 is an incredibly special, once in a generation game the likes of which we likely won’t see again for some time.

A new trailer for the Phantom Liberty expansion to Cyberpunk dropped, and in spite of the base game’s flaws (and not to encourage the same hypetrain mistakes again), this looks pretty fun! Credit to CD Projekt for reworking fundamental stuff, not ‘just’ expanding the world: all players will get the Cyberpunk 2.0 stuff, whether they purchase the expansion or not.

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.

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.

A lot of the magic of the first one is gone and unfortunately it’s just kind of… uninspiring. For everything it does well, there are two things it doesn’t. Worth a look on sale.

You know what it is. Not as good as Odyssey, and that wasn’t particularly good either. They have to look at refocusing and reinventing the franchise at some point… right?

Distills the tenets of the franchise and starts fresh with the foundations of terror in a captivating setting. Now in first-person, the atmosphere is even scarier. A classic for fans of the genre.

The classic familiar-but-new the franchise is now known for, and potentially the spookiest it’s been. Not really for me, but if you’re into horror, it’s an instant classic.

Strangely mismarketed as a Destiny competitor, but in reality more of ‘just’ a co-op adventure shooter than ongoing MMO. Some very smart ideas, but doesn’t stick the landing.