Earthblood, then, has the essential components to be a righteous, fast-paced action game. Which makes it all the more unfortunate that it undermines itself with cumbersome stealth mechanics, especially on higher difficulty levels.

There’s certainly technical wizardry at work making the game’s big hook possible, and the realm of the dead is a well-imagined bit of dark artistry, but we’ve also seen smarter and more compelling iterations of the same idea in recent years.

Hitman 3 is another attempt on the part of the series to split the difference, for better and worse, between player freedom and focused storytelling.

For better and worse, Cyberpunk 2077 is what it was always going to be: less a work of intensely relevant speculative fiction than a nostalgia piece for yesteryear’s vision of tomorrow.

The blandness of the gameplay might have been somewhat forgivable if the game’s narrative didn’t suffer from an identity crisis.

Along with being one of the most gentle and soothing games of the year, Haven is also gaming at its most compassionate.

At its best, Age of Calamity keeps a weak grip on 30 frames a second, and at its most visually chaotic, the game effectively becomes a slideshow.

The game is fairly dedicated to correcting many of the worst creative decisions made across the lifespan of the Assassin’s Creed series.

The Pathless ultimately buries anything it might have to say in a stupefying level of cliché, grasping for profundity in the shadow of the things that inspired it.

Tetris Effect is one of the best VR titles on the market, so without the feature Connected feels, well, disconnected.

Melody of Memory is less than the sum of its parts, a judgment one can fairly cast over the entire Kingdom Hearts franchise.

The game noticeably stumbles as it attempts to more overtly address the darkness beneath its concept.

The game’s aesthetic enhances the horror, with your crew’s flashlights rarely being much of a match for the overwhelming fog and darkness, and the monsters reflecting the full ugliness of witchcraft murder techniques like drowning, burning, and pressing. But the gameplay blunts the effectiveness of that aesthetic, because there’s no real danger to exploring the environments here. There might be the occasional jump scare upon opening a window or door, but nothing’s actively chasing you as it would in something like Resident Evil. It’s the weirdest sort of plot armor to be found in a horror game, in that your characters are completely safe in Little Hope so long as you control them, and at risk only when a cut scene takes over.

Perhaps there’s some other take on Legion that lives up to its potential, if not for salient commentary then for player-authored mayhem as you juggle random variables.

Between Star Wars Squadrons and last year’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, EA has finally understood what kind of ride the Star Wars franchise should be taking us on in video game form.

In theory, its intricacies should be bracing, but in practice the fixation on spacing and formation further slows down the pace.

Spelunky 2 remains staunchly committed to its immaculate core design, demanding that we adapt to its rhythms and its secrets.

Everything truly good in Marvel’s Avengers is compromised by its mercenary feature set.

The game’s exuberance helps to smooth over its rough spots, like the awkward parrying mechanics, imprecise hit boxes, and messy camera angles that come as a result of being unable to lock onto enemies. That’s because No Straight Roads stays true, above all, to its themes.

Players would be better off firing up their Hulu apps if they want to get a sense of Samurai Jack’s breadth and wonder.

The decision to segment Windbound into discrete chapters isn’t ruinous on its own; the game only spirals into tedium through the slow drip feed of new areas, items, and enemies on a per-chapter basis.

Even when Fall Guys is working perfectly as intended—no server issues, quick matchmaking, good teammates, balanced levels—its appeal is limited.

This is the kind of game you don’t realize you missed until you start playing it, one that doesn’t demand much of the player’s time or commitment or discipline but is just trying to find new ways to amuse you from one stage to another.

These survival horror sequences are neither scary nor fun, and the most challenging thing about them, beyond their forcing you to try to auto-adjust your aim in order to account for the stuttering lag in the frame rate, is how you have to push past boredom. Consider, then, these sequences not so much a premonition but a warning born of experience: Turn back all who enter here, for there is nothing good awaiting within.

Ghost of Tsushima has the look of a thoughtful samurai epic, but the façade flakes under scrutiny, revealing that it serves Western blockbuster tastes and tenets above all. It’s a game that so desperately wants to be 13 Assassins but more times than not ends up looking like The Last Samurai.

The Origami King has so much exuberance and confidence in all of its designs that even if you’re not completely sold on the combat—and there are modifiers that allow you to get rescued Toads to help solve it for you—the game will still win over all but the most puzzle-phobic and pun-hating players.

The series mainly distinguishes itself through its bizarre atmosphere, as well as its capacity to surprise by introducing new environments and characters, but remixing familiar templates in a level creator captures little of that same charm.

Irritating though they may be, few of these problems would be insurmountable in the face of an engaging narrative. But like countless other pretty games trading on emotion, Röki drones on about feelings, namely grief—all of it documented in Tove’s illustrated journal, and complete with occasional asides about Dead Mom or Sad Dad. Repressed memories, shadow selves, and mysterious environmental sicknesses rear their tired heads. Beyond the trappings of Scandinavian myth, there’s precious little to set Röki apart in an already overcrowded space.