Elden Ring is a crowning achievement for FromSoftware and undoubtedly the very best gameplay experience they've yet delivered - and that's really saying something given this developer's incredible back catalogue. The Lands Between deftly combine breathless open world exploration, stunning artistry, immaculate world-building and wondrous adventure with classic Dark Souls combat and dungeon-crawling, resulting in not just the best Souls game to date, but a candidate for one of the very best video games ever made.
Starfield is Bethesda's best RPG to date, an enormous space odyssey that serves up some incredibly evocative and engaging exploration, satisfying combat, and a narrative that had us hooked right to the end. Yes there are issues here with the usual jank, and some very messy and fiddly menus and interactions, but all of these problems feel minor when compared to everything this game gets right. In a year that's been packed full of absolutely essential games, Starfield manages to sit right up top with some of the best of them. After all the hype and bluster, this is just a very, very good RPG and a game we'll be playing and replaying for a long time to come.
Toygoata. After 14 long and thrill-filled years, Forza Horizon has finally landed in Japan; where fans have wanted the series to go for some time now. Heading to Tokyo and its surrounding areas was the no-brainer, the banker, the one that couldn't fail - and Xbox & Playground…
Double Fine has given us another charming Xbox first-party title in the form of Kiln, which might be light on content, but nevertheless is a fun time both on and off the battlefield. The pot-creation system is a genius take on a character creation suite, matches are frantic but offer plenty of room for strategy, and the overall presentation is really high quality. Moving forward though, it's going to need regular new content to remain fresh and give players a reason to keeping coming back, otherwise I fear this online-only game might get doused a little too prematurely.
Resident ol'reliable. During the current generation of gaming, it feels like a good cluster of once-mainstay franchises have started to fall by the wayside. Either by declining in quality or simply due to a less-frequent launch schedule, many of the AAA franchises I grew up…
