Lorenzo Redaelli follows up 2020's uncompromising The Milky Way Prince: The Vampire Star with a pulverising, shape-shifting visual novel of friendship, post-COVID trauma, and horror in the blistering Italian sun that's as artistically dazzling as it is emotionally raw.
Developer Coal Supper's relentlessly inventive absurdist comedy might, by necessity, keep a tight rein on players, but this is an impeccably constructed masterclass in gag-telling.
Suspicious Developments' latest builds a witty, wonderfully generous adventure around a smart, rewarding, and endlessly imaginative turn-based tactics core.
Psychonauts studio Double Fine returns with a surprising, shapeshifting adventure of captivating wonder and beauty.
Capcom marks Resident Evil's 30th anniversary with a stellar return that's both a masterful bit of suffocating horror and a nostalgic, fan-thrilling victory lap for the legendary series.
Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew is a cerebral but hugely characterful stealth tactics game filled with creativity and depth. And fun pirate stuff.
Developer Balloon Studios cultivates a beautiful puzzle game with the timeless allure of a summer's day stroll.
Bleak realism meets absurdist fairytale in a stylish, surreal, and astonishingly surefooted - if mechanically unadventurous - exploration of faith, free will, and demonic temptation.
It might not have quite the same wow factor second time around, but Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 builds on its astonishing predecessor with intelligence and precision - making an already impressive achievement richer and more welcoming.
The most exhilarating and refined Monster Hunter yet, even if its attempts to balance the old and new don't always quite coalesce in its ongoing quest to please all audiences.
Acclaimed point-and-click studio Wadjet Eye's gently paced, time-travelling genre-hopper blends elegant puzzling and intricate, affecting storytelling to beautiful effect.
Jenny Jiao Hsia's dazzling, semi-autobiographical tale of teenage life finds wit and warmth in its WarioWare weirdness, even as it deals with difficult themes.
PowerWash Simulator 2 opts for welcome refinements over big advancements, but it's as weirdly compelling and winningly daft as ever.
Santa Ragione delivers a subversive, sometimes shocking, often funny first-person narrative horror that, while perhaps a little insubstantial, remains an engagingly unconventional exploration of some timely themes.
Tarsier returns to horror with a rich, meaningful evolution of its familiar Little Nightmares formula. And while it could perhaps be a little more radical, Reanimal remains utterly compelling; bleak, nasty, and full of menace.
Part-chaotic retro shooter, part-stylish cartoon noir, Fumi Games' Mouse P.I. for Hire goes beyond its stellar artistry to land an invigorating, imaginative hard-boiled romp.
Developer Harebrained Schemes returns with an evocative and pulpy tactical adventure, where enjoyable turn-based combat just about offsets some woeful real-time stealth.
Structural complexity and a magpie's eye for pilfering makes for a strange, fragmentary journey into nightmare.
While Still Wakes the Deep is a beautiful work of atmosphere and tension, all that can be shattered by its strictly linear trappings.
A beautiful, elusive mood piece, Phoenix Springs' blend of taut dystopian detective noir and meandering surrealism is likely to frustrate as much as it intrigues.