PC
It starts with a single machine: a landing pod on an untouched planet. Then a drill, built with iron mined by your own hand. Hours later, the planet is covered in neat (or not) arrays of extractors and conveyor belts, machines whirring comfortingly as they create their infinite thingummies. Corporate strip-mining simulator it may be, but it’s just so absorbing.
PS4/5, PC, Nintendo Switch
Like much of the best British comedy, this slapstick puzzle game is topped off with just a smattering of unease. As a tiny travelling salesman, you explore a barmy Viz-flavoured northern town, solving its citizenry’s weird problems (a boy with a fear of milk, pie meat of questionable provenance, a lost screwdriver stolen by sentient rats). Unfailingly funny.
PS4/5, Xbox, PC, Nintendo Switch
A cleverly self-referential horror game about a gruesome theme park that draws on all of the genre classics of the 90s, and borrows their fuzzy polygonal aesthetic. Its twisted-fairground settings are as detailed as a doll’s house, evolving unsettlingly as the hours pass and Crow Country’s mystery unfurls – and the bold ending is worth the effort.
Smartphones
What first appears to be a manipulatively compelling card-collecting mobile game with a bunch of different inscrutable currencies is … well, exactly that, but with the addition of impressively well-balanced, snappy and enjoyable competitive battling. It plays fast and smart, and allows for creative deck-building and creature combinations that let each player put their own twist on their game.
PS4/5, Xbox, PC
A seance in a high-school library goes very wrong in this adventure game, a creepy, fun tribute to the best of 90s horror, both film and games. Thanks to its heartfelt, lightly metaphorical story and merciful absence of gore, this is the kind of game that even people who usually hate horror can enjoy.
PS5, PC (2025)
Using 1997’s Final Fantasy VII as a foundation, Rebirth creates a bigger, richer and, of course, much more beautiful world for Cloud Strife and his companions to roam. A maximalist miracle of fan service replete with things to do, and new, expansive detail on some of the most beloved characters and stories in gaming’s history.
PC
From the title, you would expect a game about a magical special ops team blasting their way through enemy territory with spells and time-rewinding powers. You might not expect a quietly radical story with superb characterisation and the courage to question the morality of the entire military-shooter genre it borrows from – but you’ll get that, too.
PS5, Xbox, PC
Just a splendid modern fighting game, polished in every aspect. New contenders join the highlights of 30 years’ worth of Tekken rosters (including martial artists, cyborgs, a demon and two giant bears) to smack each other about in thrillingly ostentatious bouts that can turn around at any moment.
PS4/5, PC, Nintendo Switch
An artist invites you to an abandoned baroque hotel where nothing is as it seems. When you get there, you can rely only on your mind to disentangle the confused timelines and bespoke puzzles that await you, finding fragments of answers in paintings, discarded documents, behind locked doors and on the other end of a ringing phone. As ambitious, compulsive and stylish as puzzle games come.
PS5, Xbox, PC, Nintendo Switch
The eeriness of this subterranean maze, filled with disquieting pixellated animals trying to snap you up for a snack, is offset by quiet beauty. Fronds of luminescent plants sway as you pass them; drips and creaks and distorted animal cries echo off the damp walls of intricate caverns. Exquisitely clever and atmospheric.
Xbox, PC
The adventurous archaeologist whips around fascinating recreations of the Vatican City and the Pyramids of Giza in the 1940s, delving into ancient crypts and, naturally, punching Nazis. Anyone expecting a first-person Uncharted or Tomb Raider will be pleasantly surprised by the emphasis on puzzles, disguises and exploration over whipping out a revolver.
PC
A compilation of 50 games from the long-defunct (fictional) 1980s game company, UFO Soft, encompassing a stunningly creative variety of themes and gameplay styles while remaining faithfully retro in look and feel. Almost any one of these games individually would be an indie release worth paying for. Together, they are an absurdly generous package.
PS5, PC
It is rare to play an action game in 2024 that feels truly original. Black Myth: Wukong’s spectacular take on Journey to the West is as flashy as Devil May Cry and (almost) as rewardingly challenging as Dark Souls. A tightly curated journey through Buddhist legend and jaw-slackening scenery.
PS5, PC
This hit shooter’s premise is so simple and so well trodden: four players land on a planet full of insectoid aliens and blast it all to bits. But everything from the feel of the guns to the rhythm of each mission to the jingoistic satire is precisely engineered to entertain, and with the right friends, every session has the potential to devolve into slapstick hilarity.
PS4/5, Xbox, PC, Nintendo Switch
A warrior and her wolf pup fight to survive and repel an incursion of oil-black demons into their natural paradise. As the seasons pass, the wolf grows, and so does the threat. One of the most extraordinary-looking games you’ll ever play, infused with deep and sincere feeling.
PS5, Xbox, PC
A highly unusual and unfailingly entertaining quasi-medieval fantasy role-playing game that has no qualms about dropping you into hot water and challenging you to figure things out for yourself. Stuck out in the woods at night after forgetting to pack your camping kit, surrounded by ghosts, you cannot fail to find your way to adventure.
PS4/5, Xbox, PC, Nintendo Switch, smartphones
The year’s biggest breakout indie hit, this chillwave psychedelic take on poker can make hours disappear. Create outrageous hands with decks of cards that transmogrify with each playthrough, making your score ping higher and higher (if you know what you’re doing). Wins are elusive but every attempt brings you tantalisingly closer.
PS4/5, Xbox, PC
Extraordinary art direction, an operatic soundtrack and theatrical battles between transforming fantasy robots and grotesque Boschian human-adjacent monstrosities come together in an impassioned plea for the embrace of multicultural society and an end to divisive politics. A role-playing game as intelligent as it is grandiose, pairing philosophical postulating with intense strangeness and outrageous style.
PS4/5, Xbox, PC
Not technically a sequel to 2022’s dark fantasy masterpiece, but it may as well be. Shadow of the Erdtree adds tens of hours, more creatively disturbing foes and yet more fascinatingly defiled locations to FromSoftware’s peerless realm. It reinvigorates an already superb game with a renewed sense of danger and possibility.
PS5
A cute blue-and-white robot and his hundreds of little friends romp across a galaxy of fun-packed planets, aided by backpack monkeys, extendable frog boxing gloves and a rocket-powered chicken. A brisk 10-plus hours of pure, concentrated playfulness from Sony’s Team Asobi, this inventive and adorable adventure shows exactly what modern consoles’ advanced technology can add to the business of fun.
