STATE OF PLAY

How the BAFTA-winning indie gravitated from paper towns to the Antarctic coast

BALAN WONDERWORLD

Is Yuji Naka’s return missing a trick?

Hitman 3

Developer/publisher IO Interactive Format PC, PS4 (tested), PS5, Stadia, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series (tested) Release Out now

ACOLYTE

This AI-powered detective game is a real conversation piece

A Plague Tale: Innocence

How killer rodents helped us see the light

Goodbye Volcano High

Ko-op scales up for a bittersweet ode to youthful impulse

NODDING HEADS GAMES

How an Indian studio defied the odds to develop a culturally rich adventure

SHADOWS OF DOUBT

A detective procedural

Tetris Effect

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

Watch Dogs 2

How a major attitude adjustment saved Ubisoft’s hacker series from meltdown

INSCRYPTION

Cards of darkness

kingdom come

Exploring Hollow Knight: Silksong, Team Cherry’s sharply refined sequel to a modern classic

Impossible year

Reflecting on a terrible, yet undeniably transformative 12 months in games, and where it might lead

HITMAN 3

Agent 47’s big finish is a fresh start for his creators

Gated community

Inside Dim Bulb Games’ gallery of lockpicking mechanics, and what it might mean for games

Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales

With Peter Parker taking a much-needed break abroad, there’s a new swinger in town.

POWER PLAY

Sony’s new console makes a bold statement in the battle for our living rooms: innovation over iteration

STARSTRUCK: HANDS OF TIME

Give this genre-hopping musical delight a big hand

Yakuza: Like A Dragon

Kiryu who? It says much for the success of this remarkable reinvention that we don’t miss the Dragon Of Dojima half as much as we expected to.

LITTLE DEVIL INSIDE

Imagination comes to life in this minimal RPG

LAKE

Getting away from it all in small-town ‘80s Oregon

FORZA POLPO

PS1 meets SNES in an airy J-pop platformer

COMFORTABLY NUMB

Games understand the human experience of boredom as well as any psychologist

Call Of Duty: Black Ops II

Treyarch’s unexpectedly experimental shooter still surprises and discomforts, though not always intentionally

Assassin's Creed Valhalla

Ubisoft’s open-world model was made for Vikings.

3d World Inspired By '90s Game Box Clay Dioramas

Cobysoft Co’s monster-collecting visual novel is a glimpse into a gorgeous, chimerical 3D world inspired by ’90s game box clay dioramas – but made purely with software

Unreliable Narrator

Exploring stories in games and the art of telling tales

Weird science

Meet Playables, the production company quietly behind the coolest interactive experiments going

Trigger Happy

Shoot first, ask questions later

Turbo charge

Analogue announces Duo, a new console for NEC’s PC Engine family