007 First Light is not a bad game, it's just an uninspiring one—clumsy and awkward and constantly drawing comparisons between itself and other games that achieve its aims much better. It's a very good Bond tale wrapped in a game that veers between unexceptional and ungainly, and whose genuine moments of brilliance don't make up for its long runs of overfamiliarity.

James Bond has a long history in video games, but his quality missions are far fewer and farther between. I’m happy to report that 007 First Light can join the ranks of successful outings, offering a new and original take on the character that is both fresh and rooted in a deep understanding of the man and the fiction. While the game mostly features enjoyable interactive ideas, its mechanics occasionally threaten to dampen the excellent cinematic flow.

007 First Light is Bond's best game yet thanks to smart design decisions that make this a well-rounded spy thriller. Merging together moments of blockbuster spectacle with slower-paced stealth, this understands the appeal of spycraft and is able to deliver the fantasy in ways no other game can. Starring a young James Bond, this origin story can sometimes feel like just a beginning – but what a way for this spy's career to kick off.

007 First Light might just be the best James Bond game ever. The way IOI has translated the Bond fantasy into a 14-hour globetrotting epic is masterful. It's a game full of spectacle, humour, action, and romance.

It's not perfect, but 007 First Light is a mostly great start to IO Interactive's all-new take on the James Bond universe.

007 First Light is less cerebral and replayable than IO's World of Assassination trilogy, but makes up for it with excellent fistfights and oodles of charm.

It is remarkable, then, that I can't stop thinking about a tutorial montage in the early moments of 007 First Light. It's one of the most engaging and effective tutorials I've ever played, and it's all thanks to what it pulls from popular action movies. The scene in question comes when Bond is thrust into training camp with other trainees in the 00 program.

While I wasn't aching for more bots capable of killing me faster than I can react, my understanding among Arc Raiders diehards is that this is exactly what they've been asking for. The current crop of Arc have become somewhat trivial for the folks who've been playing daily since October, so it tracks that a new bot that draws comparison to the dreaded Rocketeer would get their blood pumping again.

Arc Raiders is my favorite extraction shooter to date, surpassing its competition with incredible level design, a deep yet easy-to-navigate crafting system, stunning art direction, and an exciting suite of weaponry and gadgets to discover. Developer Embark Studios’ sophomore release also cultivates a surprisingly helpful community in a subgenre known for obfuscation and treachery. However, player-versus-player firefights still shine thanks to exceptional sound design: shields break like fireworks, characters yelp whenever a projectile hits them, and players can taunt or negotiate with others on the fly via proximity chat. Unpredictable player interactions and some of the most intelligent enemies I’ve seen in a shooter work in tandem to create a thrilling experience that rivals the market’s best multiplayer offerings.

Such encounters are at the heart of what has made Arc Raiders the biggest game of the autumn – a cultural phenomenon defined by its phenomenal culture. In this ruined world where everyone is out to smash and grab whatever they can, you will regularly witness organic displays of deescalation, armistice, and even jolly cooperation. Arc Raiders is not the first game to do this; displays of human decency have been a feature of survivalist shooters since DayZ. But it is the first in a long time to bring our better angels to the fore, and is perhaps the game where such behaviour is most prevalent.

I've found some wires and a volcanic rock. I have no idea how good these things are yet, but I've played enough Escape from Tarkov to know that living long enough to escape with anything is a win. 'Just enjoy yourself', they say, but I can't stop whipping the camera back and forth, trying to spot danger before it sees me. I lose the first vote to head back to Speranza via an extraction point, so I continue skulking behind my squad, muttering about lines of sight and being too loud.

"Don't shoot!" I called out to the raider from a nearby bush. "I'm coming out, but I mean you no harm." Clearly startled by my presence and reacting based on what was more than likely a combination of the Rocketeer hovering menacingly close and a history of earlier betrayals, the dusty raider pointed his weathered Ferro rifle my way. He'd already called for the elevator to bring him back to Speranza safe and sound, so it's no wonder that he'd be anxious. He was in danger of losing everything right at the finish line, just before those saferoom doors opened.

Ten hours into Arc Raiders, I felt betrayal's sharp sting for the first time. The round began with generosity. I met a fellow raider who had dropped me a rare shotgun as well as a damaged heat sink to upgrade my workbench. They asked nothing in return. It was one of many friendly encounters I've had roaming the surface of Arc Raiders' hostile maps, but I also felt my heart rate rise: when you die you lose everything you're carrying, so I knew I had to reach an extraction point quickly and quietly.

At its core Modern Warfare 4 is a faster, more ferocious shooter. New movement abilities allow you to seamlessly roar through the maps, quickly vaulting over obstacles for firefights or navigating the map in interesting ways.

But honestly, while there's undoubted pleasure to be found in the usual social rhythms of collaborative sandbox survival, and as much as I've enjoyed the company, co-op is, I think, a pretty terrible way to experience Subnautica 2. Even in early access, this is a game of such carefully hewed ambience - of creeping dread and lingering melancholy, of intimate discovery and lonely survival - it doesn't feel quite right to ride roughshod over it all. And structurally, co-op is a bit of an awkward fit.

I adored the original Subnautica, so I’m pumped that the third game (Subnautica: Below Zero still exists, guys) is finally here. I don’t often put much time into Early Access titles, but I’m looking forward to exploring Subnautica 2’s depths and enduring what will likely be several jumpscares from all manner of Leviathan-class organisms lurking below. It seems I’ll be far from alone given how massively successful the launch has been, so here’s hoping the game is nothing but smooth sailing throughout its Early Access period.

The sheer coherence of Subnautica 2's early access build is also slightly miraculous, given that the developers have spent the past year in legal hell. I encountered no technical problems of note, and the distribution of resources and crafting recipes seems well judged, with codex hints and environmental cues guiding you towards rarer materials. Still, after seven hours, I do feel like I'm playing a remake rather than a sequel.

Hints of tragedy and disaster are everywhere, and after ten hours with the early access version, I'm keen to see just how all these elements - these alien creatures, this doomed world - fit together, and to learn exactly what the Pioneers' real place in all of this is. Already, even in Subnautica 2's far from finished state, it feels like there's simply so much to do; optimising crafting and base-building, locating more blackboxes to unravel, piecing together the story, and ultimately discovering what's hidden away in the ocean's complex cave networks and beyond. It's off to an encouraging start, then, and as much as I fear what's to be found later in deeper biomes, its compelling sense of discovery and mystery keeps drawing me on.

Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection represents a significant evolution for the series, surpassing its predecessors in both scope and execution. The narrative is grander and more immersive, complemented by high-fidelity visuals and a diverse cast of characters that each come with compelling backstories. From its meticulously detailed environments to the introduction of formidable new monsters, the game offers a heightened sense of adventure and higher stakes when you get down to some ol’ fashioned monster biffo.

Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection didn't "wow" me. Its story is adequately entertaining, its combat is sometimes tedious, and I wouldn't consider it a "must-play" role-playing game. Still, my time playing was pleasant more often than not,

Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection certainly knows how to distinguish itself. Whereas the mainline Monster Hunter games are defined by real-time combat, diversified through a variety of different weapons, the Stories franchise is a turn-based JRPG, built more around tactical combat, build-crafting, and character-first storytelling. Remarkably, Monster Hunter Stories 3 manages to retain the most essential elements of the core franchise.

Monster Hunter Stories 3 ReviewWhile its battle system is going to divide some players, the monster hatching and raising is some of the best in the business. Monster Hunter Stories 3 might be the best turn-based Monster Hunter yet, and shouldn’t be ignored by fans of Capcom’s larger-than-life series.

Monster Hunter Stories 3 delivers deep build crafting and battle systems, but they're wasted on a war story that's barely there.

Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection may not supersede the thrills of an action-packed hunt, while other JRPGs have made more significant evolutions in comparison. Nonetheless, it's still an improvement for this sub-series with production values, mechanical depth, and challenge that makes it a worthy companion piece to its mainline apex.

I realise I'm probably only just starting to scratch the surface of what Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection has to offer some seven or eight hours in, but already it's gripped me in a way none of its predecessors have done. And no, I didn't expect to be living in a topsy turvy world where I'm somehow enjoying a turn-based Monster Hunter spin-off more than its latest mainline entry, but here we are! Capcom's latest is gorgeous, it's compelling, it's thrilling, it's just the right amount of daft, and I'm excited to play on.

It’s a significant step up from the previous titles, offering a level of quality that – if sustained – will easily make it the best entry in the trilogy.

As I’ve discovered in the few hours I’ve spent roaming the red pudding game’s map so far, its greatest strength is arguably in spoiling you for choice when it comes to distant towers to ponder from a vantage point. Whether you’ll actually encounter any of the sorts of intriguing quests or well fleshed-out dungeons you’d expect from the likes of The Witcher 3 or Skyrim on the way is another matter, but when it comes to well-stocked horizons, Crimson Desert’s got them covered.

Crimson Desert sees an absolutely incredible open-world adventure undercut by a lackluster story with some of the most frustrating bosses, puzzles, and controls I’ve come across.

Crimson Desert is ludicrously overstuffed with mechanics and systems, a scant few of which are really quite excellent (picking up cats and catapulting off trees are the highlights), but the rest of which feel half-baked. And they're the ones that you spend all your time with. Believe me, I want to like the game.

One can’t help but see at least a couple of genres’ worth of influence when playing Crimson Desert. Moments and interactions will strongly evoke some of the coolest shit you’ve seen over the years in action-adventure games of many denominations. When I think of my six hours with Crimson Desert, I find myself constantly drawing comparisons to two other big-name, fantasy action titles: Dragon’s Dogma 2 and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

A vast world and even vaster array of MMO-like activities mix with glittering fidelity in Crimson Desert, but what good is it without much character, texture or charm?

Crimson Desert offers one of the most impressive worlds in gaming, but the deeper you go, the more it asks you to meet it on its own terms.

Proving that looks aren’t everything, Crimson Desert’s stunning visuals and strong performances aren’t enough to save it from being a disappointing experience. Jam-packed with content and systems that make it feel like a Jack of all features, master of none with an unenjoyable gameplay loop, Crimson Desert is really just a single-player MMORPG in all but name.

Vast and obtuse in a way that is going to frustrate some and exhilarate others, Crimson Desert is a fascinating journey, even when the destination isn't all that.

Crimson Desert is messy, but as you untangle its mechanics and compensate for its flaws, elements of genius and wonder make the experience worthwhile. Take time to leave the beaten path and find out which of its many facets appeals to you, and you'll discover a game that's far better as a sandbox than as a story.

The first meal you learn to cook in Crimson Desert is Clear Soup, a brothy mixture of simply water, meat, and lentils. It looks nice and is probably filling, but would no doubt be a bit simple and leave you wanting something with a little more depth of flavor. As it turns out, it’s the perfect allegory for Crimson Desert at large: a beautiful, exploration-rich open-world game that’s a clear technological achievement, hampered by a cornucopia of little frustrations and a stark lack of narrative depth.

[;ASKLDFAL;S C;A is] a very silly, surprisingly fun mode, one which I'll be using as my cooldown when I'm getting a little too fed up with whatever shenanigans my teammates are getting up to in quick play.

Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era is a triumphant return for the legendary strategy RPG series. Even in early access, this is the best entry since the iconic Heroes 3, combining the appeal of the classics with slick modernization and plenty of fresh ideas. This launch is a terrific starting point, and is already incredibly feature-rich, offering near limitless play.

Another argument for Olden Era is that there aren't many directly comparable games, even though it's been 10 years since the last proper HOMM – Songs of Conquest, I guess? Heroes of Might and Magic is very much its own style. I'd say Unfrozen are off to a good start with this comeback project.

Here is a game that feels like an adventure. And it feels like it was an adventure to make, too. Mina the Hollower took six years to design and build, six years that took it from what sounds like a kind of coding doodle to a panoramic journey across a richly imagined island, taking in platforming and combat, puzzle-solving, and sheer immersion in the world building.

Mina is a gloriously gothic combination of ferocious combat and beautiful scenery, with enough secrets and modifiers to keep the game fresh and fun for a very long time.

Yes, Mina the Hollower is a love letter to Game Boy Zelda titles. It's also a 2D Soulslike, a top-down Castlevania, and somehow, something all its own. You can probably find a precedent for every mechanic here, to the point where it's almost impossible to discuss Mina the Hollower without invoking other games.

Despite Shovel Knight’s myriad spin-offs and continued ubiquity in the indie game space, it’s been more than a decade since developer Yacht Club Games delivered something wholly new. And maybe calling Mina the Hollower entirely “new” is a misnomer, as it is a reverential showcase of beloved game design and visual ideas from the past and present, all arranged into something that manages to be unique and nostalgic at the same time. Mina is not without its frustrations, but its density of discoveries, sense of place, and heartfelt story and characters all deliver an experience I was thinking about often whenever I wasn’t playing.

Mina the Hollower is a game in the Zelda tradition. It's a top-down affair like the original games, and while Mina can jump, they jump just like Link does in - hey! - Link's Awakening. They jump up into the space above the screen, as it were, and you need to use their shadow to work out where they are so you can collect things hovering about them and then stick the landing.

Boasting a profound reinvention that overhauls the game’s core player power routes and lacklustre endgame options, Lord of Hatred is a masterful recalibration that replaces "more of the same" with genuine mechanical depth, making it an essential evolution for veterans and the perfect demonic olive branch for the sceptics.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Lord of Hatred and think it goes a long way towards improving the Diablo 4 experience as a whole. While I could nitpick a few issues here and there, the package in its entirety is an impressive expansion that offers tons of welcome features and challenges to keep Diablo 4 players engaged in endgame content for hundreds of hours more. I can easily see Lord of Hatred becoming one of the most beloved expansions in the Diablo franchise.

Lord of Hatred brings a campaign packed with thrills and a systems refresh that revolutionizes the loot chase.

Lord of Hatred offers a grim, emotional, and satisfying conclusion to the Age of Hatred saga that began in Diablo IV’s original campaign. A gripping narrative paves a perfect playground to explore the newly introduced Skovos region as the expansion’s entertaining new classes: Warlock and Paladin. Tack on new endgame systems designed to simplify and further incentivize post-story activities, and Diablo IV has another strong argument to dive back into Hell.

To golf, I press Tab, which pulls the camera back to give me a full-body, third-person view of my FMV golf-self as additional UI panels accumulate on-screen. One represents my character's body, letting me swing my club by clicking and dragging my hands, determining the swing's power and contact angle with the ball based on my speed and movement. It's imprecise, but it's manageable after some trial and error.

My mom would tell me not to count my chickens before they've hatched, but the Paralives roadmap reads like my life sim dreams come true. The only problem is that it's a little hard to follow between a sparse infographic and a detailed Notion outline, but that's easy enough for me to solve and present here.

Paralives takes a different tack; opting for a sort of cosy-game-adjacent level of lower-stress, lower-stakes tranquility. It's an ambience reflected in its aesthetic, as Paralives Studio adopts a muted, sketchbook-watercolour artstyle that's just inherently more chilled, and a soundtrack that can be similarly lo-fi. And it's there in the design of Paralives' relatively expansive open(ish)-world map too.

I suspect this is intentional, but so much of what is shown off is the kind of stuff I've wished to see in The Sims for years. Tiny quality-of-life tweaks here, or mind-bogglingly absent features in The Sims that are happily present in Paralives' early access launch.

Escape The Backrooms is the most encyclopedic Backrooms game of them all. If you don't know what The Backrooms are, you probably don't have kids of a certain age. Born as a more specific branch of the liminal-space genre, The Backrooms is the all-encompassing name for a horror lore bible of sorts that's been handcrafted by communities online over several years. Each inhuman monster and each unnerving location becomes a chapter of a horror universe that the internet built together.

Pragmata is better than it has any right to be. It is so clearly inspired by some excellent survival horror games and action platformers from two decades ago, all reinterpreted in an original property with exciting runway for future expansion. The bittersweet adventure of Hugh and Diana walks a tonal knife-edge that it largely pulls off with aplomb.

Pragmata is the new third-person moonbase shooter from Capcom in which you play Hugh, a gruff spacedad, with a small girl android named Diana riding around on your back. The game's core gimmick is that Diana can (and, indeed, must) hack the robots you're battling to nix their shields and so forth, using a real-time holographic minigame in which you move around a grid to reach a green square. There are also simpler varieties of hack for opening doors and springing traps.

Pragmata, somehow, manages to take this concept to some sort of illogical conclusion. The core conceit of this game - outside of the weirdly beautiful story about loneliness in space, what it is to be human, and the perils of rampant, irresponsible usage of AI - is that you control a human and a robot, and must engage in action-packed skirmishes whilst shooting, dodging, and solving grid-based puzzles, all at the same time. A 'hacking grid' pops up when you aim at an enemy, and from there you must strafe, hit weak spots, jump or dodge attacks, and work out the most efficient way to disable robot foes in a melee of sparks, shells, and sabotage.

There’s something distinctly 2008 financial crash about Pragmata.Perhaps it could be down to protagonist Hugh, who simultaneously sounds like both Troy Baker and Nolan North, and wears armor reminiscent of Platinum’s Vanquish.Whatever it is, Pragmata feels like a remaster of an early Xbox 360 game that never existed – and that’s great.

Pragmata certainly starts strong, but it doesn't have quite enough to stay completely engaging all the way to the end credits. It's a highly-polished sci-fi game with fun combat and exploration, but its lackluster story and characters keep it from reaching its full potential. Still, it's exciting to have a completely original IP from Capcom, and while Pragmata doesn't live up to the high bar set by some of the studio's other efforts, it's a mostly worthwhile adventure.

Short and sweet, Pragmata is a snazzy late aughts throwback elevated by a terrific sense of feedback and momentum.

Pragmata is the kind of shooter you just don’t get anymore. It packs a lot into a relatively short runtime and makes the most of every single second. The combat is brilliant from start to finish and doubles down on the hacking gimmick to deliver fast, frantic, and tense fights that never get old.

Pragmata is nostalgia wrapped in a shiny new spacesuit with plenty of cool tricks up its pressurized sleeve. It's good to see Capcom returning to its quirky action beat, with an impressive host of weaponry, upgrades, combat hacks, and base-building as the sci-fi adventure moves through beautifully-conceptualized biomes. The visual and stylistic elements definitely give me deja-vu at times, and I could do without its heavy-handed themes battering me over the head, but beneath all that polished titanium sits a profound tale of humanity I'll not soon forget.

That’s what makes original IP Pragmata such an intriguing prospect. Everything we’ve played so far feels distinctly throwback, in a way that most other developers would attract scrutiny. But that’s OK: The idea of a simpler, linear third-person shooter, with a sprinkling of Sad Dad narrative, feels pretty compelling amid today’s abundance of online shooters and RPGs, especially with the Devil May Cry house at the controls.

Overall, this new experience with Pragmata solidified my impression that Capcom’s ambitious new game has firmly found its footing. They significantly amped up the difficulty, added more variety in how you can tackle enemies, and built an exciting new world to explore. It’s great fun, and I can’t wait to play the full game in April.

Wall World 2 isn't as easy to explain as its predecessor. Yes, it is still a roguelike in which you split your time between piloting a robotic spider up and down a giant wall in search of weak spots from which you can mine deep into the cliff face, digging up minerals to spend upgrading your mecha-arachnid's weapons, enhancing its ability to fight off periodic waves of pustule-covered aliens, until you either kill the biggest pustule-covered alien or die in the attempt.

But Hunt isn’t like that, and nor is Marathon. In both games, you can think of your human rivals as the xenomorph in Alien: Isolation, or Mr X in Resident Evil 2 - a smart enemy that isn’t just looking for you but, more pertinently, listening as well. The presence of other players turns each Marathon map into one enormous alarm system - where even a swiftly resolved firefight with robots runs the risk of drawing the apex predator.

At first glance, Marathon may seem like a fundamentally solid game with a lot of potential, but one that simply feels too intimidating to invest in. But if players are willing to jump over the unnecessary hurdles in Marathon's opening hours, they'll likely discover that Marathon doesn't just live up to its potential, but it exceeds it, with the current version offering a host of replayable maps, an engaging progression system, and a core loop that should keep extraction shooter fans coming back time and time again.