In an age of an overwhelming quantity of content in every type of media, it sounds almost ridiculous to suggest someone spend a good chunk of their time with a fighting game, laboring over it for weeks, months, or even years. But for players willing to give it a go, learning how to create your own music, in the form of digital street fights, can be as satisfactory and rewarding as few things in life are. Street Fighter 6 is the biggest and most approachable package in the franchise to date, waiting for you with open, gentle arms. [Polygon Recommends]

What really excites me when I play System Shock is how little it holds my hand. You can — and probably will — eat absolute shit the first time you try to make your way through the medical bay. You can get yourself into unsolvable situations — it’s a game that asks you to pay attention, that doesn’t always signpost the next thing to do. It also rewards your curiosity as much as it does your caution. I often found my way through levels mostly by accident, by deciding to turn down hallways I hadn’t gone down before. There’s always a discovery — a new weapon or a vending machine or a shortcut — or at least a useful lesson lying in wait. It’s easy to understand why people played this game and then became obsessed with it, why you can trace some people’s careers through the game. Ken Levine, who worked at Looking Glass when it making System Shock, certainly never stopped trying to make System Shock, eventually giving BioShock: Infinite an ending that suggests there are thousands upon thousands of variations on this theme. [Polygon Recommends]

If you go in without the expectations of Arcane, Convergence is a great adventure. Ekko faces off against some great boss fights against champions like Camille, Warwick, and Jinx. These boss fights force you to play differently; Camille uses the high ground and hextech tools to control the battlefield, while Warwick is more of a raw force of nature that is best dodged and controlled. Seeing these champions outside of League is a reminder of the promise of Riot Forge games. As it turns out, many of these characters do best outside the confines of a competitive game. Convergence offers another chance for them to shine in their element.

Not even Resurgence’s nearest spiritual ancestors, classic ’90s point-and-click adventures Star Trek 25th Anniversary or Star Trek: The Next Generation – A Final Unity, have captured that essential human element that makes for a great Star Trek story. Resurgence ties a worthwhile cast of characters to an interstellar adventure. Does Resurgence qualify as “great Star Trek”? Probably not, but it’s hard to argue that any video game has come closer.

Auroch Digital has done a great job of deploying retro visuals and the trappings of older shooters alongside modern sensibilities to bring the game to life. The abyss of Chaos looks downright disturbing, even captured through an old-school lens. These trippy environments and crude daemon designs combine with visceral and satisfying combat to make Boltgun a blast, and it’s nice to explore the world of Warhammer through such a ridiculous, blood-smeared filter.

Ultimately, focusing too closely on any puzzle solution misses what’s special about Humanity. In the days since playing, I’ve found myself most often thinking not about a specific mechanic, but what each level looks like once completed. By removing my ability to influence the stage, the completion screen presents the purest form of the game’s beautiful aesthetic: an unending river of people jumping, swimming, climbing. Orderly, but overwhelming. Moving, united, toward a singular goal. [Polygon Recommends]

In the end, though, the truest measure of roguelikes is whether they instill that “one more run” feeling, and Inkbound has that in spades. If the game’s early access is its prologue, I’m ready to read chapter one.

These are moments where I’m gently reminded that true player freedom is, of course, a fallacy. Nintendo created this world, and I inhabit it. Weeks, months, or years from now, I may affect it in ways its creators didn’t intend, but still — I will be using the tools they provided. The brilliance of Tears of the Kingdom lies in how well it imparts the fantasy of player freedom. Sure, Nintendo shakes me out of the daydream every now and then, and in those moments, I see flashes of its old rigid self. But no matter: At some point, I’ll fully escape its watchful gaze. [Polygon Recommends]

The campaign can be completed in a few sittings, and it’s punctuated by some fun choices — but I’m hungry to keep checking for contraband.

With some of the same problems that plague its source of inspiration, Cassette Beasts doesn’t so much evolve the formula as it does swap it out for a different type. It’s fun, it looks and sounds great, and it runs beautifully on Steam Deck, for what it’s worth. But its shininess is only surface-level, with the underlying mechanics, chain reactions and all, matching but not surpassing Game Freak’s best adventures. Of course, given the two-person development team here, that’s an achievement unto itself. At the end of the day, Cassette Beasts is a remix of a song you like. Just don’t expect a remaster.

A narrative that fleshes out Redfall’s excellent sense of place could help overcome its lackluster combat. So far, the story hasn’t provided much impetus to press forward through mission after mission of decent exploration and drab gunplay. The incidental writing — found in places like old notes or flashback scenes captured in spectral dioramas — is evocative enough to color in the broad strokes of the plot with an eeriness and human drama it otherwise lacks. If this tone takes center stage in the back half of the story, combined with plot developments that add some momentum to the proceedings, it may be easier to overlook the game’s weaker aspects and appreciate it as a compelling narrative work. At this point, though, the town of Redfall is sucked too dry of liveliness for players to be invested in whether its vampires triumph or not.

Mr. Sun’s Hatbox brilliantly answers the age-old question of how to make players take risks and engage with new mechanics rather than exclusively stick to familiar ones. By incentivizing you to court chaos, it creates a gameplay loop where so many of the most intense, inventive moments stem from hilarious failure. It’s the rare game that’s as riveting to lose as it is to win. [Polygon Recommends]

Rusted Moss’s unique mobility options may be overwhelming at first, but for those looking for a unique and challenging spin on the Metroidvania 2D platforming genre, this game might get its hook into you faster than you’d expect. [Polygon Recommends]

Tending to the drama of an immortal pantheon is enough to keep me around, though I’m not sure for how much longer. If the repetition doesn’t kill you once you start struggling through higher tier realms, maybe the marauders will.

So, did Jedi: Survivor sweep me off my feet? Am I about to introduce him to my mom, and talk about getting a condo? Probably not. For starters, we need to discuss that beard before there’s any talk of moving in together. That said, if he hit me up again for a second date? That’s an easy yes, provided that I’m picking where we go. A healthy relationship is about boundaries, after all.

The new Advance Wars, just like the original, arrives at a strange time. Nintendo appeared to recognize this last year when, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it delayed Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp indefinitely. But the toylike soldiers exaggeratedly stomping cities into submission and cartoon characters being wiped out by artillery fire feel disconnected from the real-world war that gave Nintendo pause in 2022. In other words, it’s less off-putting than one might think to have fun with an urban military wargame right now. If anything, the return of Advance Wars feels like a link to a simpler time, made better with age and reverence for a long-ignored, still-great franchise. [Polygon Recommends]

There’s an overwhelming fakeness and irony to Dead Island 2 that, without any oppositional hope or sincerity, can eventually make the experience of playing it feel like kind of a downer, similar to the feeling you get after eating a load of junk food. My partner turned to me during one of my sessions late into the game and said it looked like I was on autopilot. Instead of meaningfully engaging with its systems, I was mindlessly pushing through the hordes in search of more complexity, or a satisfying narrative crescendo that never came. Dead Island 2’s nostalgic charms can transport you back to a simpler time, but there’s often a reason why you don’t see old friends anymore.

It won’t take you long to work your way through Tron: Identity — two to three hours at most. That said, the nature of the story itself encourages replayability, especially for eagle-eyed Tron enthusiasts scoping out references to the political landscape of the Grid’s inhabitants and the occasional hint to what exactly is going on in the human world of the Users. Truth, as much as identity, is all a matter of perspective. Your Query will likely choose a different path than my own, arriving at a “truth” that itself is only one part of a far greater and inscrutable whole. Whether said truth brings you any closer to the game’s central mystery than mine did will depend on your vigilance, your cunning, and your willingness to adapt and change beyond the duties of your station. Good luck, program.

It’s a lovely gem of a game that touches on my nostalgia for Zelda but still managed to tell a unique story through the gator and their sister’s relationship. It’s a story about the little gator’s deeper desire to connect with someone again in the present, and how games facilitate that. So if you’re looking for a charming pick-me-up before The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom comes out, don’t ignore Lil Gator Game.

There are a few typos in the game’s UI, like the status effect ‘inmune’, or receiving a blessing with an extra S. But despite a few small issues, I otherwise found this Riot Forge title to be another smooth ride through League’s increasingly complex canon. The Mageseeker makes the smart move of setting up some truly hateable villains, and then lets me smash their hopes and dreams — what more could I want from a game about toppling the elite? [Polygon Recommends]

Minecraft Legends is a charming portmanteau of genres that manages to simplify the RTS formula while still demanding a fair amount of concentration and strategy. I’m interested to see where the game goes in the future; players might use its mechanics to create truly terrifying multiplayer strategies that escalate in amazing ways. Or they might just enjoy the campaign and then go back to their own realm, to tame their own wilderness away from the chimes of quest givers. Legends is a charming and colorful adventure, and it’s nice to finally befriend the humble Creeper.

I’ve tried each of the three Chorf factions, in both the base game campaign and the Immortal Empires game mode. And although they’ll likely get their fair share of nerfs and minor reworks in the coming months, I can confidently say that they’re one of the most consistently engrossing races in the vast world of Total War: Warhammer. Their armies are flexible, their economy is robust, and their political mind games keep campaigns interesting into the triple-digit turns. As with any addition to this digital facsimile of the Warhammer Fantasy world, their presence will have ripple effects in the game’s future. And as usual, I can’t wait to see what happens next. [Polygon Recommends]

Dredge parses out these moments of rewarding exploration without losing focus on its core conceits of fishing and discovering new creatures. But it also masterfully balances two distinct tones. It comprises the sort of dread and horror that sneaks in, eyes jittery, after too many nights with too little sleep. It’s not a boiling terror and panic, but more of a simmer. There’s enough daylight for something of a reprieve, but it never sticks around for too long. Dredge is the perfect sort of dark yet cozy game. It can be unsettling, yes, but it never swims too far into the abyss. [Polygon Recommended]

Against all odds, The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog has a more sincere script than you would expect from anything that was released on April 1 for free ninety-nine. This is a fun game with genuine laughs, terrific art, and a killer soundtrack, and you don’t have to pay a dime to play it. I could quibble about minor stuff if I wanted, but at the end of the day, I’m happy it exists at all, and that it not only exists, but that it’s this joyful. [Polygon Recommends]

I am almost 50 years old now. I was once the daily newspaper reporter for Cooperstown itself. Buddy, I chewed tobacco when I played T-ball, and I am bonded to baseball through my father and friendships going back to kindergarten. Still, MLB The Show 23 found a way to teach me something about the sport, and give me new reason to love it.

As I played, I kept thinking, Let me love you, as I built so many pylons and tramway poles just to complete a scenario. I played the demo over and over again when it was first released last year, excited for what would come. Even if some of the gameplay feels unnecessarily rigid, I still have a lot of respect for the way this game emphasizes environmental stewardship, especially within a genre that tends to focus on the exact opposite. Despite the roadblocks, that sense of wonder is enough to bring me back into the game’s world.

Although some runs took me up to a quarter of my day, I was consistently entranced by the head-smashing music, and pulled along by the tactical decision-making process. Ishtar Games clearly knows how to induce a flow state, distort time, and balance challenge with approachability. Playing The Last Spell means settling in for the long haul; but when the long haul is this thrilling, I’ll keep returning.

Tchia could easily have filled the action-adventure mold of so many games before it. It takes even more of a risk by pulling so heavily from The Legend of Zelda. But, despite those influences, it isn’t weighed down by that sameness. Tchia’s transforming power comes from her eye, green where the other is not. It makes sense, then, that it would let us see Tchia’s world, and this genre, in a whole new light. [Polygon Recommends]