At the end of a tumultuous decade, it’s only natural to reflect on the years gone by. And here comes a great game to cap the previous decade—and signal the start of something new. If I hadn’t already spent the last several years being told that Kentucky Route Zero was a special game, I’d have known it immediately.

While this is a fantastic game on its own merits, it also stands as a towering achievement in Star Wars storytelling.

Though the campaign doesn’t perfectly stick the landing, it finds strength in a multitude of moments that keep things intimate yet thrilling, making it almost certainly one of the series’ strongest entries.

The Outer Worlds is everything you’d want from a modern RPG. There’s no “right” way to play, and there are no easy decisions. At least, the game doesn’t seem to think so. It provides a well-realized, organic universe to explore and allows you the freedom to choose your way through gorgeous environments and complex conflicts. I already want to tour the solar system as a different explorer and see what else the game is hiding beneath the surface. It marks a tremendous achievement from one of the most accomplished developers in the genre.

Having an easily accessible version of Killer Queen is incredibly exciting. Bumblebear Games’ surprise hit harkens back to a different era of gaming, built around real-life interaction and player coordination. But Killer Queen Black was never meant to fully replace the arcade cabinets, but rather recontextualize the excellent experience for a brand new audience. It does so wonderfully.

This game could suck a lot of your time—and battery life—if you try to max out every conceivable level and configuration for every tour.

Though its titular goose may present itself as the town’s true menace, every meddling grandma and gossiping baby boomer in that town deserves the honking that they get.

I found playing through a modern imagining of this classic to be almost perfect. While it doesn’t reinvent the franchise or break convention, it never acts like it wants to. There’s something comforting about returning to a world like this: to know its every corner, to recognize its colorful cast, to feel truly lost in the experience.

I can’t imagine anyone walking away from Gears 5 disappointed. This is a complete package, tied together with some of the most consistently engaging gameplay you could ask for. The storytelling on display proves that the franchise has yet to peak, and it lays the foundation to continue improving with whatever comes next.

It’s not a particularly pleasant experience—but it is uncompromisingly captivating.

While I’m playing, I’m enthralled by the intricacies of every new mechanic folded into my progression. When I’m away from it, I’m imagining new experiments and combinations to toy with on a future run.

At no point did I truly dislike Plague Tale. Quite the contrary. It almost never fails to give you something new to think about or look at, even if you tend to be doing the same three or four things while doing so. The art and environment design is on par with or exceeds some of 2019’s biggest budget titles, and while its core gameplay wears thin by the end, Plague Tale never seems to run out of unique scenarios to throw you into.

There is no denying that Days Gone is visually impressive, heightened by expressive motion capture and a lifelike wilderness. The signs of life that should make for a great experience are all there. But in every shining sunset, detailed human face, and open clearing, I couldn’t find any shred of soul.

I found Jupiter and Mars to be a thrilling and thoughtful experience. It clearly communicates an important message and manages to be equally fun and charming. For the approximately five hours it took to reach the end credits, I was absorbed by impressive visuals and a weighty narrative. I came away with complicated feelings, and I can tell that was intentional.

This adventure marks a maturation in the formula that fans have come to love. Everything new in Sekiro is achieved with graceful triumph, demonstrating how willing From Software is to experiment with new ideas and proving it to be one of the greatest modern developers.

Anthem wants to be the kind of game you and your friends log in to every day. The foundation is laid in a way to track weekly objectives, discover new sights, and build toward significant unlocks. The problem is, despite the undeniably beautiful vistas it offers, almost nothing in Anthem is exciting. The flight mechanics and character mobility are a joy to control, but so is Microsoft Flight Simulator.

The most damning thing I can say is I felt like Crackdown 3 knew I didn’t care about what I was doing—and never went out its way to even try pulling me back in.

Despite these gripes, it’s clear that 4A Games has sacrificed none of Metro’s survivalist spirit. Amid all the ruin, murder, and mutation, there’s a humanity to this game that few other shooters ever reach. What started out as a cast of generic white guys (and a few POC) has become a family—people I’d reach out to, sit and drink with, make merry with until our throats became sore.

Wargroove is challenging in all the right ways, but never rigid in obstinance. From all angles, this is an experience you can truly tailor to do just what you want it to. Chucklefish has packed this game so full with meaningful experiments—and things that are worth seeing.

Pikuniku has so much personality bubbling out of every moment that I couldn’t put it down.

Striking black-and-white visuals looks great on the Switch’s handheld screen, and the vibrant sound design often reveals hidden clues and cues. My Memory of Us stands out as an accessible throwback, and it commits fully to its message. This journey won’t take you very long to complete, but it’s one worth seeing through to the end.

Come, feel the history, watch it, touch it, marvel at how anyone a century ago ever got by in this crazy world full of chess-themed electrical plugs. But don’t forget where you came from, and honor those traditions, goofy as they may seem to us now, and you’ll have all the more fun for it.

There’s no denying the palpable triumph of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. An ambitious, far-reaching project, it feels like years and years of dreams come true. A game with this number of characters, songs, stages, bosses, and callbacks simply feels like it shouldn’t exist. It’s hard to imagine a better Super Smash Bros. game, but with more content already on the way, Ultimate will continue to top itself for the foreseeable future. For now, it’s impossible not to love what has been so carefully crafted as Nintendo’s finest multiplayer game ever.

As an odd, seemingly disconnected but nonsensically intertwined chapter in this franchise, it just falls flat. To play Darksiders III is to engage with a relic of a bygone era, when stiff mechanics and empty space defined the action-adventure genre.

Pokémon has a long and storied history, with plenty of exciting developments, and plenty of missteps. Let’s Go is more the former. These games imagine a beautiful, friendly future for Pokémon, and they’re more than worth any interested player’s time.

Pokémon has a long and storied history, with plenty of exciting developments, and plenty of missteps. Let’s Go is more the former. These games imagine a beautiful, friendly future for Pokémon, and they’re more than worth any interested player’s time.

As it stands now, Battlefield V is a beautiful depiction of an ugly war that offers only a few fleeting chances to reflect on what it meant...And then the bullets start flying.

Suffice it to say, if all the stabbing, choking, and hippo-mauling is your kind of fun, Hitman 2 is the most Hitman there ever were, for better or worse. Its story, while plain, serves its purpose without getting in the way, and you’ll be able to stretch the murdering on for weeks to come, despite what few innovations there are being minor. There’s just nothing quite like Hitman, a series that defies everything we’ve learned about modern game business.