CATEGORIES

Children Of The Sun

René Rother’s acrid revenge thriller – an action game with its limbs broken and forcibly rearranged into the shape of a spatial puzzler – is at once a bonafide original and an unlikely throwback. Cast your eyes right and you wouldn’t blink if we told you this was a forgotten Grasshopper Manufacture game from the early PS3 era (we won’t be at all surprised if this finds a spot on Suda51’s end-of-year list).

Post Script

What does Rise Of The Ronin say for PS5 exclusivity?

Rise Of The Ronin

Falling in battle simply switches control to the next person up, and then quick revive fixes everything

Post Script

The pawn and the pandemic

Dragon's Dogma 2

The road from Vernworth to Bakbattahl is scenic but arduous. Ignore the dawdling mobs of goblins, and duck beneath the chanting harpies that circle on the currents overhead, and even moving at a hurried clip it is impossible for a party of four to complete the journey by nightfall.

BLUE MANCHU

How enforced early retirement eventually led Jonathan Chey back to System Shock

THE MAKING 0F.... AMERICAN ARCADIA

How a contrast of perspectives added extra layers to a side-scrolling platform game

COMING IN TO LAND

The creator of Spelunky, plus a super-group of indie developers, have spent the best part of a decade making 50 games. Has the journey been worth it?

VOID SOLS

This abstract indie Soulslike has some bright ideas

VISIONS OF MANA

The action RPG series returns, as light on its feet as ever

TAILS OF IRON 2: WHISKERS OF WINTER

It's rats versus bats in Odd Bug's chilly sequel

PHONOPOLIS

Enter a corrugated dystopia, where everyone's card is marked

Narrative Engine

Write it like you stole it

The Outer Limits

Journeys fo the farthest reaches of interactive entertainment

Trigger Happy Shoot first, ask questions later

An on-rails driving simulator can be surprisingly immersive. I may be pootling along strictly under the speed limit, but as I turn a corner I find myself leaning over in my seat as though that will help me get a better view of what’s around the bend.

DISPATCHES JUNE

I love playing games. As an almost 40-yearold with a family, though, I spend more time reading about games and writing lists of the games I want to play than actually playing them.

Here be Dragons

What does Poland's key game dev conference have in store?

Snap decisions

What inspired the creation of Downpour, which invites you to turn photos into games?

Absolute state of the union

What this year's GDC says about the present and future of video game development

Hi-Fi Rush

A progress report on the games we just can't quit

Dragon's Lair

An old-fashioned dose of movie magic - but one that trades in a novel type of glamour

DAMBUSTER STUDIOS

How the former Free Radical found the fun amid corporate crises

THE MAKING OF... HARDSPACE: SHIPBREAKER

How Blackbird Interactive cracked the formula for a sci-fi tale of dystopian deconstruction

DREAM TICKET

As Media Molecule prepares to move on, we get the inside track on Tren, its spectacular swan song for Dreams

SILENCE IS GORDON

Why does the mute protagonist still loom large over the landscape of firstperson-viewed games?

AS ABOVE SO BELOW

After 13 years, Remedy is ready to make the game of its dreams

LAIKA: AGED THROUGH BLOOD

This apocalypse is not for the birds

FOREVER SKIES

Though its knightly get-ups remind us of the Arthurian tone of Dark Souls, and its gothic environments carry the miasma of Bloodborne’s Yharnam, it doesn’t take long for Hexworks’ Soulslike to spill beyond the mould in which it’s been set.

LORDS OF THE FALLEN

Though its knightly get-ups remind us of the Arthurian tone of Dark Souls, and its gothic environments carry the miasma of Bloodborne’s Yharnam, it doesn’t take long for Hexworks’ Soulslike to spill beyond the mould in which it’s been set.

Final inning

The life and death of Blaseball, one of gaming's strangest experiments