Matt Wales
Charming yet utterly aimless, Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer is a curious off-shoot that's best for those with a sweet tooth.
Despite lacklustre management options, Frontier creates one of the finest park construction simulators yet.
This colourful co-op puzzler is an ingenious treat that's sadly a little on the small side.
Sega's brilliant puzzler Puyo Puyo makes a long overdue return to the west as part of this outstanding package.
This ambitious survival game emerges from Early Access fully featured but just as in danger of toppling in on itself as ever before.
A stylish and smart take on the beloved theme park formula, Parkitect is a winner.
A characterful, frequently charming sequel that doesn't quite match up to the original - and somehow performs worse.
A stylish, dreamily wrought open-world detective adventure that dances masterfully on the edge of cosmic nightmare.
An imaginative co-op experience that demands communication and teamwork, and conjures something memorable and unique as a result.
Far more than just a Monster Hunter clone, Wild Hearts exceeds expectations and then some, mixing streamlined action with inventive new toys.
Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew is a cerebral but hugely characterful stealth tactics game filled with creativity and depth. And fun pirate stuff.
Lorenzo Redaelli follows up 2020's uncompromising The Milky Way Prince: The Vampire Star with a pulverising, shape-shifting visual novel of friendship, post-COVID trauma, and horror in the blistering Italian sun that's as artistically dazzling as it is emotionally raw.
Developer Harebrained Schemes returns with an evocative and pulpy tactical adventure, where enjoyable turn-based combat just about offsets some woeful real-time stealth.
Structural complexity and a magpie's eye for pilfering makes for a strange, fragmentary journey into nightmare.
Ubisoft's long-in-the-works pirate adventure boasts a beautiful world and bombastic ship-to-ship combat, but it sinks amid boring busywork and tedious traversal.
Developer Balloon Studios cultivates a beautiful puzzle game with the timeless allure of a summer's day stroll.
Bleak realism meets absurdist fairytale in a stylish, surreal, and astonishingly surefooted - if mechanically unadventurous - exploration of faith, free will, and demonic temptation.