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In the 87 hours that it took me to beat Elden Ring, I was put through an absolute wringer of emotion: Anger as I was beaten down by its toughest challenges, exhilaration when I finally overcame them, and a fair amount of sorrow for the mountains of exp I lost along the way to some of the toughest boss encounters FromSoftware has ever conceived. But more than anything else I was in near-constant awe – from the many absolutely jaw-dropping vistas, the sheer scope of an absolutely enormous world, the frequently harrowing enemies, and the way in which Elden Ring nearly always rewarded my curiosity with either an interesting encounter, a valuable reward, or something even greater. FromSoftware takes the ball that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild got rolling and runs with it, creating a fascinating and dense open world about freedom and exploration above all else, while also somehow managing to seamlessly weave a full-on Dark Souls game into the middle of it. It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that Elden Ring ended up as one of the most unforgettable gaming experiences I’ve ever had.

Like many of developer Supermassive’s previous games, The Quarry is clearly made both by and for people who love horror movies. From the start, it slowly builds tension and atmosphere, getting you invested by constantly asking you to make small decisions that will guide its teenage cast of potential murder victims. By the time the blood started flying, every choice felt like one more step in a rolling disaster, and that made it nearly impossible to put down. When I went back to replay it again, however, it was impossible to ignore just how non-interactive much of The Quarry actually is. As a spiritual sequel to Until Dawn, it's a better movie, but a worse game.

You follow the story of nine camp counselors who get stuck in the woods for one more night at the end of the summer, with nothing to do but throw one last party before they go back to their lives. There's something stalking them from the treeline (because of course there is) and your choices determine which, if any, of the counselors will be able to survive the night. This setup layers three fairly textbook horror plots on top of each other as you progress, but you can tell that Supermassive Games had a lot of fun figuring out how to connect them together. When you play, you may think you're in one type of horror movie, but you're often in another.

At first glance, Two Rock, Arizona is merely a backwater town occupied by little more than tumbleweed and a few rows of houses. But very little is as it first appears, and all it takes to reveal As Dusk Falls’ many layers of storytelling depth is one small, decades-spanning tragedy. And it’s all about the story, since this is a choose-your-own-adventure-style graphic novel that cleverly pulls ideas from games like Telltale’s The Walking Dead series and 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim. Each member of this voice-acting cast of unique and interesting characters has their own, often conflicting emotional stakes that accelerate the story in seemingly hundreds of logical and intelligently connected directions. Through the powerful and often far-reaching consequences of your own actions, this small town is gradually unveiled as a powder keg full of secrets, vices, and familial bonds that run far deeper than any outsider is initially led to expect.

A delightful cat-based platforming adventure in a cyberpunk world worth exploring.

Silent protagonists are nothing new in video games, but Stray certainly pushes that concept to an interesting place. Part platformer, part traditional adventure game, this cyberpunk world full of neon-soaked robots transforms into a giant jungle gym from your perspective, which is just one foot off the ground. The concept of putting you in the paws of an average cat may be a silly one on the surface, but Stray uses that furry vehicle to tell a genuinely compelling story with some entertaining action along the way. Not all of its ideas land on their feet, but it was impossible to shake the fuzzy feeling it gave me right from the adorable opening minutes.

Like a sugar-crazed child working their way to the bottom of a Halloween bag full of treats, A Plague Tale: Requiem is confident that the things which made the first game great will be even more delectable in ludicrous quantities. You liked massive swarms of rats? Well, how about we increase the number of them by a degree of 1,000! You enjoyed a gruesome and harrowing journey that tested the limits of your emotional resilience? Great, let’s increase your personal suffering by 200%! This follow-up to one of my favorite action-adventure games of the previous console generation turns the dials up to 11 in practically every way, and overwhelmingly benefits from those escalations despite sometimes being a bit heavy on the nihilism. With improved stealth action mechanics, a fantastic (and deeply depressing) story, and graphics that had me gawking, A Plague Tale: Requiem is an impressive glow up that’s easily worth the immense horrors it subjected me to.

One of my favorite things about watching superheroes duke it out is when someone gets smacked so hard they fly backwards and crash through solid walls, explode tanker trucks, or slam into their friends. It’s an awesome demonstration of just how strong these godlike characters are supposed to be, and it’s always a disappointment when a superhero game doesn’t quite capture that feeling. With Marvel’s Midnight Suns, however, Firaxis has built a deep and innovative turn-based tactical combat system around the joy of having Iron Man, Dr. Strange, Blade, and more knock enemies around like toys they're trying to break – and that hasn’t gotten old in the roughly 75 hours of its surprisingly expansive RPG campaign. A lot of that time isn’t spent in battles, though, and while it’s certainly appealing to get up close and personal with this cast of more than a dozen popular and lesser-known Marvel heroes, it does tend to go a bit overboard with convincing Earth’s mightiest heroes to all be your BFFs.

Like many, I’ve been waiting for a truly excellent Harry Potter game since I was in the third grade. In that time, we’ve gotten some respectable LEGO Potter games, an underwhelming EA Sports Quidditch game for some reason, and even suffered through the fevered nightmare that is Harry Potter Kinect. But none of these has come close to fulfilling that fantasy of receiving a Hogwarts admission letter that opens the door to a secret world. With Hogwarts Legacy, I’m happy to say that we finally got a Harry Potter game that captures some of that magic. Its open world map absolutely nails the vibe of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, it has spellcasting combat that’s stupefyingly good, the characters that inhabit it are charming and unforgettable, and it is positively brimming with countless diversions to soak up dozens of hours of your time. It may not be the most impressive technical achievement and it is certainly cursed with a lack of enemy variety, but none of Hogwarts Legacy’s issues can cast a Descendo charm on this triumphant visit to the Wizarding World.

In light of the high-quality remakes of Resident Evil 2 and 3 released in 2019 and 2020, it felt like a safe bet that Capcom would do an equally admirable job of rebuilding Resident Evil 4. Even so, when I hit the start button on this 2023 remake of the legendary 2005 action-horror game I wasn’t prepared for how forcefully it would knock my knees out from under me and suplex me headfirst into 16 hours of sustained tension and exhilaration. This fully revitalised campaign dramatically one-ups the original in almost every conceivable way. Its Spanish countryside setting is substantially more sinister, its pacing has been tightened to the point where hardly a single minute is wasted, and its controls have been modernised in order to allow its signature dynamic shooting mechanics to really shine. I’ve been waiting 18 years for a game to thrill me in the same way as Resident Evil 4; as it turns out, this whole time I’ve just been waiting for another Resident Evil 4.