I just finished writing a feature about the Video Game History Foundation in Oakland, California, and how it is preparing to share its digital archive of games magazines. From 30 January, youll be able to visit the institutes website and explore a collection of about 1,500 publications from throughout the history of games, all scanned in high detail, all searchable for keywords. Its a magnificent resource for researchers and those who just want to find the first-ever review of Tetris or Pokmon. I cant wait to visit.While researching the article, I spoke to John OShea and Ann Wain from the National Videogame Museum in Sheffield, which is also collecting games mags and other printed ephemera. They said something that really fascinated me. The museum is looking for donations to build its archive, but its focus is not so much on the magazines themselves, but on who brings them in. Were particularly interested in fan perspectives, OShea told me. Were not intending to develop an exhaustive collection of every video game magazine ever made were interested in the full suite of an individuals video game experience in how games connect to their lives. Wain continued: Were interested in the stories of why why did they collect these particular things, what were they looking for? Its that kind of social context were after.Collections are about memories more than facts and this applies to games and the cultural matter about them. Im writing this letter to you in my little cellar office, surrounded by piles of games, game magazines and game books. There are things in here that I cherish, including a copy of Devil May Cry signed by game designer Shinji Mikami, and my fathers Sega Mega Drive; there are also some endlessly useful and fascinating things, such as Steven Kents seminal book The Ultimate History of Video Games, and an old Sony personal video monitor, for which I bought special cables allowing me to connect very old consoles. What does all this stuff mean in the end, and what does it say about me?Jet Set Willy: as important as the Smiths. Photograph: YouTubeIm not sure. All I know is, when I happen on TikTok videos of peoples games collections I watch transfixed, over and over. I look at the console formats theyve bought and the magazines they read. It helps me to picture their journey through games history, which may be very different than mine. I think thats why the National Videogame Museum wants this sort of sociocultural context in its collections: the choices other people make are fascinating.Its such a shame that museums and academic institutions have only relatively recently been given the resources to collect material about video games. Although classic games are now being carefully archived, the VGHF estimates that 87% of classic video games released in the United States are critically endangered Im sure the situation is the same elsewhere in the world. Games discs and tapes deteriorate and become unplayable; the machines they ran on break down. Games magazines were considered ephemeral and throwaway, and are only now being seen as cultural artefacts in the same way as music and movie publications. Theres a lot of history to catch up on. If we really want to remember the youth culture of the 1980s, we need to think just as much about Jet Set Willy and Crash magazine as we do about the Smiths and NME.As OShea said in our chat, cultural memory exists in the detritus of our lived lives. Last year, a good friend and I went to the Naomi Campbell exhibition at the V&A. In one area, the curators recreated the models dressing room a chaotic explosion of discarded clothes, wet wipes and makeup. It told us as much about her as anything else on display. We are what we surround ourselves with, and what were passionate about. All my books and games are, in the end, me.Perhaps this is why I felt emotional when OShea and Wain talked about how games mags are important for their social and personal context. And actually, I had a very recent experience of their intimate value. A couple of weekends ago, I help my mum clear out a few old things at her house. In a dusty corner, we found a plastic bag that had obviously been safely stored away by my dad, who died in 2003. I discovered it contained a pile of games magazines that I had worked on Edge, DC-UK and others, as well as some copies of my first stories for the Guardian.I used to post him these things because he was interested in games and cool new gadgets. I thought hed have a quick flick through and chuck them out. But there it all was: my career in a plastic bag, as collated and archived by my dad. Those magazines are in my collection now once they were about me, now theyre about him. We all have a natural ability to share and ascribe cultural meaning and emotional value. As well as bringing us joy, the things we collect are a message to others. This was important once; take care of it and youll understand why.What to playThe Reuters game and story Cosy Comfort. Photograph: ReutersWhen is a news article not a news article? Um when its a game? Reuters has just run a lovely introductory article about cosy games such as Spiritfarer and Animal Crossing, which have proven mental health benefits for stressed or anxious players.The Reutuers feature is also an interactive role-playing game, Cosy Comfort, which allows you to guide a cutesy anthropomorphic Radish around the teeny village of Rootersville as you read, customising its clothes and house en route. This is such a lovely, relevant way to present a positive story.Available on: PC, Mac and smartphone Estimated playtime: skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Pushing ButtonsFree weekly newsletterKeza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gamingPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionWhat to readIs a Sims rerelease on the horizon? Photograph: EA/MaxisThere are rumours that Electronic Arts is preparing to rerelease The Sims and Sims 2 to celebrate the games forthcoming 25th anniversary. Kotaku reports on teases from the publisher and I hope theyve got it right: the origins of this 200m-selling life sim havent been available to download and play for many years. I wonder if my old saves will work?Alice Bell has written a beautiful article for Eurogamer about how video game spaces have become memorials to friends we have lost. This makes complete sense in the digital era when so many relationships play out online and in virtual worlds.Yet more games industry job losses this week as Ubisoft announced it is closing its Leamington studio and downsizing Ubisoft Reflections in Newcastle, Ubisoft Dsseldorf and Ubisoft Stockholm. According to GI.biz, 185 staff will lose their jobs.What to clickQuestion BlockTunic is a game to bring an old friend back to the console again. Photograph: FinjiThis weeks question comes from Martha, who asks:My friend and I live together and we are avid gamers. Not into sport or platformers but we love all the modern greats; GTA, Last of Us, Uncharted, Days Gone, Horizon ZD and FW, Spider-Man (and Stardew Valley). You get the picture! A friend of ours who hasnt gamed since the 90s wants us to help get her into gaming again. So it needs to be something we enjoy with a good learning arc. What would you recommend? We are PlayStation gamers.Of the games youve mentioned, Spider-Man, Uncharted and Horizon are all excellent introductions to modern games and they all have good easy modes. If they were playing in the 1990s, they might recognise a few of the franchises still going today, so Rise of the Tomb Raider and Resident Evil Village might be a good idea. I also love Stellar Blade and The Quarry, which have quite a 90s gaming vibe to them. Also, as you mentioned, Stardew Valley, which has a real Super Nintendo look and feel, Id recommend Tunic and Roots of Pacha, which both look as if theyve come from that wonderful era.If youve got a question for Question Block or anything else to say about the newsletter hit reply or email us on pushingbuttons@theguardian.com.

Before the internet, if you were an avid gamer then you were very likely to be an avid reader of games magazines. From the early 1980s, the likes of Crash, Mega, PC Gamer and the Official PlayStation Magazine were your connection with the industry, providing news, reviews and interviews as well as lively letters pages that fostered a sense of community. Very rarely, however, did anyone keep hold of their magazine collections. Lacking the cultural gravitas of music or movie publications, they were mostly thrown away. While working at Future Publishing as a games journalist in the 1990s, I watched many times as hundreds of old issues of SuperPlay, Edge and GamesMaster were tipped into skips for pulping. I feel queasy just thinking about it.Because now, of course, I and thousands of other video game veterans have realised these magazines are a vital historical resource as well as a source of nostalgic joy. Surviving copies of classic mags are selling at a vast premium on eBay, and while the Internet Archive does contain patchy collections of scanned magazines, it is vulnerable to legal challenges from copyright holders.Thankfully, there are institutions taking the preservation of games magazines seriously. Last week, the Video Game History Foundation, a non-profit organisation dedicated to the preservation of games and their history, announced that from 30 January, it would be opening up its digital archive of out-of-print magazines to read and study online. So far 1,500 issues of mostly American games mags are available, as well as art books and other printed ephemera, but the organisation is busy scanning its entire collection. The digitised content will be fully tagged and searchable by word or phrase, so youll be able to easily track down the first mentions of, say, Minecraft, John Romero, or the survival horror genre.In a recent video introducing the archive, VGHF librarian Phil Salvador explained: We wanted to make something thats going to be useful and easy for anyone studying video game history, whether youre an academic writing a book or a creator making a YouTube video, or youre just a curious person.Founded by game historian Frank Cifaldi in 2017, the VGHF is part of a growing number of archives, academic institutions and museums dedicated to preserving games history. While the focus is usually on tracking down and preserving the games themselves, there is a growing understanding that magazines provide vital context. Video game magazines are often representative of peoples relationships to video games they accompany that journey, says John OShea, creative director and co-CEO of the National Videogame Museum in Sheffield, which has a growing collection of printed materials. They have a similar lineage to football and music fanzine culture, in that they provide perspectives on the players and the fans and what they were thinking at the time. They also provide insight into particular trends and narratives, what gets emphasised, what doesnt. They provide direct access to a particular historical period.Magazines then tell a sociocultural story that the games themselves cannot. Looking at these magazines now, through the lens of contemporary video game culture, its not just what is there, but what is not there, says OShea. The majority of characters featured in magazines up to the early 2010s are men. I looked at a selection of PC magazines from 2011 and there were the same number of female protagonists represented as there were panda protagonists.Games mags were often written for very specific, very dedicated demographics, and reflected the focus of the industry itself. Many adverts throughout the 90s and into the early 00s featured skimpily dressed women, even when the games were military shooters or strategy sims. Classified ads for premium rate video game tips lines were accompanied by photos of women in bikinis. Its there because that was the demographic they were aiming at teenage boys, says the museums collections officer, Ann Wain. The marketing shows who was getting the attention and why. The letters pages also tell us a lot about player culture. What topics were people discussing, what was the conversation around games. It contextualises games in a way that just playing them cant.The Video Game History Foundation in the US are digitising their archive of classic video game magazines. Photograph: VGHFBoth the VGHF and the National Videogame Museum are reliant on donations: the latter has just received an almost complete collection of PC Gamer from a collector who also kept all the cover demo discs and inserts. Its important work because often the magazine publishers themselves have patchy records on preservation. Future Publishing does have an archive at its Bath office but it is not complete, and whole collections have been lost when other companies have shut. In a post on LinkedIn last year, veteran games media publisher Stuart Dinsey recalled that when he sold Intent Media in 2013, the new owner pulped almost the entire back catalogue of its industry publications CTW and MCV.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Pushing ButtonsFree weekly newsletterKeza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gamingPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionLooking back on video game history, its easy to imagine a smooth narrative flow, a sense of inevitability about which games or technologies would be successful and which would fail. But it wasnt usually like that: contemporary reporting reveals a mass of complications and uncertainties. Video game magazines provide a lot of resistance to that very linear idea of history, says OShea. Especially the technologically deterministic view that more powerful tech would inevitably be more interesting and successful.When you go to the VGHFs digital archive next month, look at contemporary news around the Sega Mega Drive, the original PlayStation or the Nintendo Wii there was no agreement at the time over their impending success. Games mags were on the frontline of games history. In this uncertain era for the industry, their voices, dimmed and distant though they seem, are more important than ever.

It was November 2020 when Microsoft launched its latest console duo into the rapidly evolving gaming marketplace. Over four years later, the Xbox Series X together with its more budget-friendly counterpart, the Series S has amassed an impressive and varied library of games, ranging from sprawling open-world blockbusters to intimate indie puzzlers. If youre just getting started with the console, here are 15 games that represent the variety on offer, each one interesting, enjoyable and rewarding in its own right.Alan Wake 2Alternate dimension Alan Wake 2. Photograph: Remedy EntertainmentThirteen years after the original game, cursed horror author Alan Wake returns, now trapped in an alternate dimension and determined to write his way out, while FBI agents close in on the mysterious town of Bright Falls.Why we love it: a thoroughly entertaining blend of detective procedural and surrealist survival horror. Read the full review.Baldurs Gate 3Bursting with imagination Baldurs Gate 3. Photograph: LarianOne of the greatest role-playing fantasy games of the modern era, providing players with almost as much narrative and imaginative freedom as a table-top D&D adventure as they face off against the mighty mind-flayers.Why we love it: Its a towering landmark of an RPG. Bustling with life, brimming with scope, and bursting with imagination. Read the full review.Psychonauts 2Psychic playground Psychonauts 2. Photograph: Double FineThe long-awaited sequel to Double Fines cult 3D platformer sees the return of psychic acrobat secret agent Raz embarking on a mission to root out a dangerous new adversary.Why we love it: Ive rarely played anything that is so unashamedly itself. Each hour is different, each character distinct and memorable, each new psychic playground full of surprises. Read the full review.Death StrandingA quest to save humanity Death Stranding. Photograph: Kojima ProductionsHideo Kojimas elegiac science-fiction adventure is like nothing else youll ever play, a post-apocalyptic quest to save humanity, following a parcel courier with an extremely valuable and unlikely parcel.Why we love it: This uncompromising, unashamedly political work of artistic intent is 2019s most interesting blockbuster game by a distance. Read the full review.Elden RingSpectacular landscapes Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree. Photograph: FromSoftwareA grandiose fantasy opera from the makers of Dark Souls, filled with spectacular landscapes, bizarre characters and seemingly insurmountable bosses. Complete with the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC its a challenging and engrossing open world like no other.Why we love it: This is a massive world, astonishingly rendered (the sun and moon wheel in the sky, casting each scene anew) and seemingly limitless in its creative diversity. It is an unrivalled feat of design and inventiveness. Read the full review.Forza Horizon 4Perfectly recreated cars Forza Horizon 4. Photograph: MicrosoftA beautiful open-world driving game providing hundreds of square miles of the British countryside to explore while racing other drivers, completing challenges and collecting stunningly modelled supercars.Why we love it: As driving games go, its the best Ive ever played, not only because of its irresistible scenery, exhilarating driving and perfectly recreated cars, but because spending time with it puts me in a lasting good mood. Read the full review.HadesHell of a fight Hades. Photograph: Supergiant gamesFight your way out of hell while enjoying the horny shenanigans of ancient Greek gods. Has there ever been a more attractive premise for a Rogue-like action role-playing romp?Why we love it: Interesting things happen all the time, and no matter how long I spend with Hades I feel like I am only just getting acquainted with it. Read the full review.Hi-Fi RushUnashamedly music-centred Hi-Fi RushBetter known for its horror adventure series The Evil Within, Tokyo studio Tango Gameworks surprised us all with this stomping rhythm action brawler where enemies, action and hallucinogenic environments are all in sync with the infectious beat.Why we love it: As brazenly colourful as a Jet Set Radio fever dream, its refreshing to play a game that is so unashamedly music-centred. Read the full review.MinecraftUltimate crafting adventure Day Gliding in Minecraft: Console Editions Holiday Update Minecraft (2016). Photograph: MojangThe ultimate crafting adventure, providing a vast procedurally generated world to explore and an almost limitless range of activities from building castles, to fighting zombies, to competing in mini games. Fifteen years old and showing no sign of running out of ideas.Why we love it: By constructing the world from 1x1 blocks that can be arranged in every imaginable combination, Minecraft is perhaps the closest we have to a true god game. Read the full review.PentimentInspired by illuminated manuscripts Pentiment. Photograph: Xbox Game StudiosIn an Alpine Bavarian village during the 16th century a young artist sets out to solve a series of gruesome murders. With luscious visuals inspired by illuminated manuscripts of the era, this is an extraordinary detective adventure.Why we love it: It provides a wonderfully evocative window into the past [] a gift to any player who longs for a historical setting thats more than a surface texture. Read the full review.Persona 5 RoyalMessy adolescent love Persona 5 Royal. Photograph: Atlus/ SegaA group of Tokyo high-school students develop incredible powers and set out to battle evil and corruption while also falling in and out of messy adolescent love. Part sprawling metaphysical role-playing game, part super cute dating sim.Why we love it: With its stylish cuts and transitions, loose and unorthodox structure and real-world setting Persona 5 is unlike any other video game. Its depth and texture far outstrips even earlier games in the series. Read the full review.Resident Evil 4 RemakeBloody thrills Resident Evil 4 Remake. Photograph: CapcomArguably the greatest ever survival horror game, brought bang up to date while retaining its mix of bloody thrills, cunning puzzles and truly horrible monsters.Why we love it: It is resplendent, delicious and decadent, like an incredibly rich banquet served amid the detritus of some horrible battle. Read the full review.Sea of ThievesA rollicking adventure Sea of Thieves. Photograph: RareEffectively a pirate fantasy simulator, player crews take to the high seas together, discovering buried treasure and battling with other buccaneers. A rollicking co-op adventure filled with memorable moments of shared excitement and hilarity.Why we love it: Youll laugh, youll sail, youll drink grog until youre sick. What a luscious, singular sandbox experience. Read the full updated review.The Witcher 3: Wild HuntChaotic world The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Photograph: CD Projekt REDGruff monster hunter Geralt takes on his defining quest as he searches for his adopted daughter Ciri through a chaotic world of giant beasts and warring factions. Memorable characters and a rich seam of romantic tension bring depth to the destruction.Why we love it: Geralt has a Swiss army knife of interactive tools, and his set of abilities offer a uniquely varied and diverse journey. Read the full review.Yakuza: Like a DragonInteractive comedy soap opera Yakuza: Like a Dragon. Photograph: SegaThis hilarious, shambolic and gripping refresh for the Yakuza series features low-level gangster Ichiban Kasuga attempting to get his life back in order on the mean streets of Yokohama. Come for the fights, stay for the karaoke.Why we love it: Like a Dragon preserves the old-fashioned, somewhat unreconstructed vibe of the previous Yakuza games, while adding a new twist that diverts it into a different genre [] a very Japanese, gangster-themed, interactive comedy soap opera. Read the full review.

I dont remember much from the first weeks of parenthood a colicky baby and extreme sleep deprivation will do that to you but I do vividly remember one night with my baby son when absolutely nothing I did seemed to help him. I walked him around: he screamed. I tried to feed him: he screamed. I put him down: more screaming. So it went for a couple of hours. I remember thinking: this is like a text adventure video game where none of the answers are right.Game designer and college teacher Nicholas OBrien had similar thoughts. His first child was born during the Covid-19 pandemic in New York City, and he and his partner were trapped at home, on the endless merry-go-round of menial baby-care tasks. It was getting to him, like it gets to all new parents. I didnt have a lot of social or emotional outlets besides my partner, he tells me. I felt like I needed to create something about how I was feeling, work my way through it by making something.The result is Bundle of Joy, a quasi-ridiculous yet heartfelt game about early fatherhood. It breaks baby care down into frenetic microgames: aim your spoon to feed baby! Press a button with decent timing to burp baby! Try to get a pair of tiny socks on to babys feet! Fit the babys head through the impossibly small opening in this tiny jumper! Some of these made me laugh with recognition; my kids are in school now, so I had forgotten about the little bulb that you use to suck snot out of a tiny nose, and how much they hate it when you try. Ive never had to fit a nebuliser over one of my childrens faces, but I have now successfully managed it with a virtual child.These frantic vignettes are interspersed with moments of reflection. If you fail at the games, you get stressed out, and the game makes you take a break and perform a few deep breaths. When the baby is sleeping, you can talk to your partner, reflecting on your feelings (and theirs). But mostly, youre caught up in the endless now, a sequence of repetitive actions. It does capture something of the busy monotony of caring for a baby: youre never at rest for a second, but the tasks are all so unstimulating and repetitive that it saps your very sense of personhood.OBrien initially made a prototype that was more narrative-driven, and heavier in tone, but he landed on this minigame-driven format because the act of play felt more closely aligned to his actual experiences. The thing that was so important to capture was that chaotic energy, that moment to moment feeling that you have when youre taking care of an infant, he says. So I thought, Whats a gameplay type thats very similar to that? The WarioWare/Bishi Bashi format immediately jumped to mind.The difficulty of each day varies based on how the baby has slept (and consequently how you have slept); day after day, when you revisit each game, theres a new wrinkle. The baby kicks their feet more enthusiastically when youre trying to get the socks on. A hand will appear to swipe the spoon away from their mouth. It takes an hour or two to play through, depending on how deeply you engage in the written dialogue during moments of calm.The thoughts and feelings that show up in these reflective moments are based not just on OBriens experiences, but those of other dads who shared their stories with him. They touch on many of the complex feelings that early parenthood excavates from your marrow: not just the exhaustion, joy and tedium of the moment, not just the self-doubt, but how you feel about your own parents and the way that you form relationships. On the advice of his partner, hes kept it to the experiences of one parent, rather than guessing at the experiences of the other; you can choose your co-parents gender at the beginning of the game, and everyones skin tone, but you are always playing from the perspective of Dad.Making Bundle of Joy has been an act of catharsis for its developer, and he hopes it might be cathartic for players, too. You feel stuck on a loop. I think a lot of parents have that feeling. Even when youre not in lockdown, you lose track of days, he says. Especially for dads, I dont think that theres a lot of material out there thats positive and reinforcing and encouraging. I hope its positive encouragement for people going through that experience. Youre doing it, you CAN do it. You dont have to beat yourself up along the way. The baby will do that!skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Pushing ButtonsFree weekly newsletterKeza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gamingPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotion

Its no secret that the video game industry is struggling. The last two years have seen more than 25,000 redundancies and more than 40 studio closures. Thanks to game developments spiralling costs (blockbuster titles now cost hundreds of millions to make), overinvestment during the Covid-19 pandemic, and a series of failed bets to create the next money-printing forever game, the pressure for blockbuster games to succeed is now higher than ever.Its a predicament that feels especially pertinent for Ubisoft. Employing in the region of 20,000 people across 45 studios in 30 countries, its most recent big licensed games Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and Star Wars Outlaws underperformed commercially. It has had two expensive, failed live-service experiments in the past year, Skull and Bones and X-Defiant. With Ubisoft share prices plummeting and investment partners circling like sharks, rarely have the fortunes of a massive games company relied so heavily on a single release. It has already been delayed multiple times, to ensure its quality.Against this gloomy backdrop, I find myself roaming the glistening halls of Ubisoft Quebec for the worlds first hands-on of Assassins Creed: Shadows. The companys series of historical action games is back after a two-year break, and this time it takes us to feudal Japan. This has been the most requested setting by fans, according to creative director Jonathan Dumont, but ironically some of those purported fans have turned on Ubisoft over the course of this games development.Shadows stars Yasuke, a documented historical figure known as the black samurai, and a female shinobi named Naoe. This ignited a mini culture war, as X posters and YouTube commenters seethed over historical inaccuracy and the wokefication of video games. (Oddly enough, these complaints of historical inaccuracy have never been levied at the series before, despite the fact that it stars a secret order of essentially time-travelling assassins doing side quests for Karl Marx and Leonardo da Vinci.)When I ask nervous Ubisoft developers about the deluge of unpleasant comments and online harassment directed their way over the past year, they look understandably scared. Nobody is willing to address it directly. We like to make games, this is what we wake up to do every morning, offers Dumont. So obviously if the criticism [we receive] is nuanced or if its good feedback, its always taken.When I pick up the controller, Yasuke is the first character to take the stage. After an engrossing opening cutscene, Portuguese missionaries introduce their African slave Diogo to the Oda clans ruler, Lord Nobunaga. The influential warlord takes a shine to Diogo, employing him as a samurai and renaming him Yasuke. As he wanders silently across Harimas cobbled streets, he is greeted by the kind of dumbfounded looks youd expect for an African man arriving in 16th-century Japan. Kids and adults alike scramble to take a look. Its a clever and attention-grabbing opening, reminiscent of 2024s Emmy-award winning Shogun series; here Yasuke echoes the TV shows John Blackthorne character, a cipher for players to experience this era of Japan through a foreigners eyes.Naoe the shinobi in Assassins Creed Shadows. Photograph: UbisoftAfter a so-so hour-long prologue, this war-torn world finally opens up. I gallop across the green fields of the Iga province, and Shadows Sengoku period adventure truly begins. There is pleasing visual variety and attention to detail. Reeds sway in the wind convincingly as workers toil the rice fields beside the road; fishing boats float across the horizon line while villagers chatter by bustling markets.With open worlds, its the little details that really bring the simulation to life, and in Shadows, I am told, there are more than 1,000 different situational behaviours directing its 16th-century characters. Roaming the port town I see a fishmonger chopping his fish, a woman cleaning a firearm and a shiba inu gleefully hopping around as merchants and villagers haggle over their wares. Wild deer frolic in the tall grass, fleeing skittishly as I ride past, and noble ladies gather idly at Buddhist shrines. Weather and seasons change dynamically too, adding a welcome layer of unpredictability as a sunny countryside walk suddenly becomes an ominous, rain-drenched affair. As I ride valiantly into battle, scale Osaka castle and gallop my way across serene landscapes, I forget all about the difficulties surrounding this games development and lose myself in the feudal fantasy.The Quebec studios of Ubisoft, where the game had its launch. Photograph: Tom ReganIts hugely enjoyable to play. In recent years, Assassins Creed has strayed from its stealth roots, embracing RPG-esque inventories and swapping infiltration for all-out action. Yasuke embodies this, yet in Shadows, players who prefer their Creed on the sneakier side can step into the tabi boots of shinobi Naoe, swapping lumbering might for agile parkour and stealthy takedowns.In a Grand Theft Auto V-esque touch, youre free to switch between Yasuke and Naoe as you please, approaching each new quest as either protagonist: sneaky shinobi or murderous samurai. On main missions, this plays out as the pair splitting up to divide and conquer, with Naoe silently running across rooftops and slitting throats while Yasuke charges brazenly through the front door. Yasukes heft leaves him unable to perform aerial assassinations or do much in the way of the series trademark acrobatics, but he can wield katanas, bows and rifles. Having the freedom to swap between protagonists and their vastly different play styles keeps things fresh, providing a welcome antidote to the mission-repetition fatigue that so often plagues open-world games.On first impressions, Shadows marks itself as the most overtly violent Assassins Creed to date: heads are sent flying by Yasukes katana; arms are severed from bodies by the force of a spear; and skulls caved in with a mace. An explosion of blood and viscera accompanies each of Yasukes cinematic executions (these gory animations can be turned off for the more squeamish player). At key moments during Shadows 700 cutscenes, players can decide which lords they will pledge allegiance to, how they navigate Japanese/ Portuguese relations and which romances they chase.Strength and stealth each play their part in the game. Photograph: UbisoftShadows also takes surprise inspiration from the other AC: Animal Crossing. Once you unlock a hideout for your characters, you can adorn it with furniture and decorations, and people you recruit along the way will relocate themselves there. I became entranced with setting out a tea room and laying a beautiful bamboo forest around a pond. It was a welcome contrast to all the bloodshed.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Pushing ButtonsFree weekly newsletterKeza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gamingPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionYou can also hang paintings of wildlife in your hideout because instead of hunting and skinning animals, Naoe and Yasuke respectfully sketch Japans wildlife. Crouching out of sight, you edge yourself quietly into the perfect viewpoint, allowing you to paint two deer clashing horns or capture a heron mid fish-dive. This made me feel like an ancient Japanese Attenborough.Despite Shadows recent second delay, I find myself pleasantly surprised by just how polished and bug-free my six hours of playtime are a marked improvement over the enjoyable but bug-ridden Star Wars Outlaws. It is shaping up to be an immersive and enjoyably slick adventure, offering perhaps a more detailed and varied simulation of feudal Japan than Sonys Ghost of Tsushima.Assassins Creed Shadows trailerBrooke Davies, the games associate narrative director, talks me through the teams painstaking efforts to create relatable and endearing characters. We had the great privilege of working with consultants, historians and experts at every stage in the production, she says. That gave us lots of interesting ideas about how to tell stories about very ordinary people caught at this very extraordinary moment in history.One of our core narrative themes is community and about people coming together to make the world a better place, and despite loss and difficulty, really persevering and having the courage to start over. Its a really uplifting message to me, imagining and learning about the courage of these people and being able to explore that alongside our protagonists Naoe and Yasuke.With a series as big as Assassins Creed, its all too easy to forget that these pieces of fiction are made by very real people people who just want to entertain their audience. Games made by humans, and no one wants to make something bad, says art director Thierry Dansereau. Were working hard. We want to make the best Assassins Creed we can So I think [people] should just keep that in consideration. The people that are making video games, they just want to have fun and to create great products.

I was obsessed with Lonely Mountains: Downhill, the minimalist mountain-biking game from 2019. Obsessed with it. I ran those courses over and over until I knew just when to brake, when my tyres would skid over a rock and when theyd catch and send me flying, when to power down a straight, and when to cautiously pick my way over ledges like a goat in Lycra. I found it deeply soothing, partly because of the soundtrack of tweeting birds and rustling leaves (punctuated only by the sickening thwack of a rider colliding with a boulder), but mostly because of the zen-like state of concentration needed to get down those mountains at speed without dying 300 times. I developed a perfect feel for the infinitesimal adjustments in trajectory that made the difference between shaving a second off a run and sailing off the path to land in a crumpled heap.I have been looking forward to this snow-sports-based successor for years. Instead of sun, rocks and dirt, we have glittering snow; instead of a bike, we have skis. It couldnt be that different, surely. I thought it would take me no time at all to find my ski legs. But the first few runs on these mountains were humbling. I skidded backwards down slopes after trying to brake and turn at the same time; I smacked continually into trees; I flubbed jumps and skidded, puzzled and slowly rotating, across frozen lakes. The challenges on each course felt impossible. I dont even want to talk about what happened on my first multiplayer race. It was humiliating.Just you and nature single-player mode. Photograph: Megagon IndustriesA few hours in, though, and I was carving beautiful curved lines down the harder courses, listening to the perfect swoosh of snow, banishing all thoughts from my head. When youre perfecting a run, its like youre flying down the mountain with the wind in your ears. It is a beautiful feeling. And then you screw up a turn, cartwheel into a chasm, and the spell is broken. Back to the checkpoint. Start again.Such is the rhythm of Lonely Mountains, and I still love it. The minimalist soundscapes, the beautiful low-poly interpretation of natural landscapes, the feeling of achievement that you get from conquering a course all of that is as good as it was. Some things are better: you can dress your skier up in colourful gilets and give them a beard. Some things are, however, slightly worse. Its more difficult from the start, and the controls feel even more precise and exacting, which will make it hard for new players to complete enough challenges to make progress through the mountains. And the addition of multiplayer races and team skiing is not without its downsides.Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders trailerAt the moment and this is right after release multiplayer does not work brilliantly. The game judders and freezes momentarily when several players are on screen at once, such as at the start of a race. In a game where milliseconds matter, losing control even briefly makes it feel unbearable to play. Its crashed on me multiple times while trying to load a course. Ive been kicked out of multiplayer games, or other players mysteriously lose their connection. All of this will probably be fixed soon thanks to the developers efforts, and Im willing to put it aside. But still there remains a fundamental problem: players wildly variable skill levels.In a race with eight players, three of you may make it down the mountain within 3 or 4 minutes; the rest may take a lot longer. When you cross the finish line, you can either continue to ski pointlessly about or spectate the players who have yet to prevail. This means that everyone spends entire minutes watching the last-place players fail the same mini-section of a run, which is genuinely a heart-rending experience, especially if you areBig freeze the multiplayer option needs a fix. Photograph: Megagon IndustriesIn team mode, youre all supposed to help each other down the mountain, sticking together and placing checkpoints and reviving the fallen, but nobody I played with seemed to get this idea. Id be patiently scooting down the mountain trying to revive people like a field medic while others whizzed over my head. Id eventually get down to base camp to find several other players whod been chilling there for ages. Thanks, guys! Appreciate the help.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Pushing ButtonsFree weekly newsletterKeza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gamingPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionNone of this feels particularly smooth at the moment, and theres a lot of wasted time hanging about for other players. It is fun, though, just the right amount of chaotic, and the slapstick comedy of watching a small crowd of skiers continually screw up the same corner and fly into a rock face sometimes made me laugh out loud. Im not sure this flavour of game is the best fit for multiplayer, but Im glad the option is there.After a couple of frustrating hours trying to play with other people, it was a relief to return to the solitude of solo mode: just you and the mountain. Here, the only competition is yourself, and the only company is nature. A sense of calm descends. Everything is how it should be. Until you fall foul of a rock, again.

Elon Musk admitted he cheated at video games to get high scores, a transcript of a private online conversation he had shows, seemingly concluding a fiery scandal over the billionaires outlandish claims to be a globally-ranked player.Musk has regularly bragged about his gaming rankings. He told the podcaster Joe Rogan last year that he was in the top 20 players in the world for the fiendishly difficult action role-playing game Diablo IV.His claims have raised questions about how the worlds richest man could find time to compete internationally. He would need to have played hundreds of hours in between running businesses including Tesla Inc, X and SpaceX, as well as his growing political activity alongside Donald Trump.Two games Musk says he has high scores in, Diablo IV and Path of Exile 2, are notoriously hard to compete in. Some players spend most of their waking hours grinding through dungeons and battling monsters and other fantastical creatures to make their virtual characters more powerful.An answer to Musks unlikely gaming prowess was provided in a video posted on YouTube on Sunday by the top Diablo player NikoWrex, which showed what he said was a direct message conversation with Musk on X.In the conversation, Musk admits to account boosting, a cheating practice in which people get other players to power up their characters. This is usually done by paying them to play for hours.Have you level boosted (had someone else play your accounts) and/or purchased gear/resources for PoE2 [Path of Exile 2] and Diablo 4? asked NikoWrex. Musk responded with a 100% emoji. He later added: Its impossible to beat the players in Asia if you dont, as they do!skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Pushing ButtonsFree weekly newsletterKeza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gamingPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionThe Guardian could not independently verify the transcript, but Musk reposted the video to his X account and had previously interacted with NikoWrex on X in early January to discuss Path of Exile 2. In his video, NikoWrex, whose Instagram account says is called Nick Hayes, showed that Musk follows him on X.He said in the video that Musk had permitted him to publish their conversation. The Guardian has contacted Musk through X for comment.Uproar about Musks alleged video game prowess exploded after his comments on Rogans podcast in November, and further scrutiny came at the beginning of the year when he did a livestream of his Path of Exile 2 character on X.High-level players with deep knowledge of the game said Musk made rookie mistakes that no expert would make, including walking straight past valuable items that would help his character.After being called out, Musk began to fight the allegations publicly, getting into arguments with prominent gamers. At the end of the conversation with NikoWrex, Musk claimed to be a living god of video games.The Canadian musician Grimes, who has three children with Musk from a previous relationship, tweeted in his defence on Saturday, saying she had seen with her own eyes how he was a top Diablo player in the US. There are other witnesses who can verify this, she said.On Monday, further allegations of cheating were levelled when Musks Path of Exile 2 character was seen as active in the game while Musk was in Washington attending Trumps inauguration.

Well, it happened: Nintendo announced the Switch 2 the day after last weeks newsletter went out. And a strange announcement it was.The Guardians journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link.Learn more.The short trailer (which you can watch here) tells you everything we know at this point: everything about the machine except for its appearance remains a mystery. Nintendo has scheduled a reveal event for April that will presumably be more fulsome. This was likely Nintendos plan all along, and the trailer was released early following a flood of leaked information about the console. They provided no release date, no details and no games.This makes any deep analysis of the Switch 2 feel speculative. Its notable this is an iterative console, just like the Switch in form but bigger and more powerful and with a few new features. Its not a total curveball like the motion-controlled Wii, or indeed the original Switch, whose hybrid at-home/on-the-go functionality was a world-first in 2017. Im holding out for some fun, yet-to-be-announced gimmick, like the 3DSs augmented reality camera that let you see Nintendo characters posing on your desk.Since 2017, though, other companies have released hybrid consoles. The Steam Deck has been a huge deal for people with depressing backlogs of unplayed PC games, letting them play Elden Ring on the plane. (Nobody knows quite how many units it has sold but 10m is a fair estimate, which admittedly pales in comparison to the Switchs 150m.) PlayStations Portal, a controller with a very appealing screen spliced in the middle that lets you play PS5 games in your hands, is a half-step towards a portable PS5. Microsoft is also exploring an Xbox handheld, though this will be a few years off yet.The question for Nintendo is whether people want to upgrade from the console that they already have, with its tremendous library of games particularly well-suited to families. But perhaps Nintendo doesnt have to stake its fortunes on selling tens of millions of new consoles in the first year on sale. The companys games and characters are only growing in popularity and influence: between the Mario movies, Universal Studios theme parks, a new museum in Kyoto and the ongoing success of the Switch, Nintendo is at the height of its fortunes and less dependent on its core business than it at any point in its history.The Steam Deck has been a huge deal for people with depressing backlogs of unplayed PC games.Like many Japanese companies, Nintendo operates conservatively. Rather than loading itself with debt in the American tradition, which can make every new product launch a do-or-die gamble, it maintains enormous cash reserves; it reportedly held 3,071bn yen (more than 16bn) in assets as of last September. This war chest has enabled Nintendo to weather the occasional flop, and take a medium- to long-term view on its games and properties rather than continually appeasing shareholders in the short-term. Its why the company has continually defied the armchair analysts who have been insisting it is doomed to become a third-party publisher, putting its games on other companies consoles, since the days of the GameCube in the early 2000s.Whatever happens with the Switch 2 in its early years, Nintendo will not be in existential danger. Perhaps a relatively safe bet such as this one its just like what youve already got, but better! might free Nintendo up to pursue its trademark innovation elsewhere. The mad toy maker side of the company showed up recently in Alarmo, a motion-detecting alarm clock that wakes you up with Nintendo music. Its been a while since Nintendo Labo, a series of delightful cardboard contraptions brought to life by Switch controllers, but all the people who made those things are still working at the company, and I doubt their creativity is being suppressed.As ever in this business, it will all come down to the actual games. Only one of those shows up in the Switch 2 reveal trailer: brief footage of a new Mario Kart that, hilariously, Nintendo has yet to officially confirm. Come April, I will be holding out for something like Breath of the Wild, which launched with the original Switch and completely remade open-world video games. But failing that, Id settle for a new Rhythm Heaven. Its well overdue a revival.What to playLonely Mountains: Snow Riders. Photograph: Megagon IndustriesBack in 2019 and 2020, I found peace in a downhill biking game called Lonely Mountains Downhill, whose minimalist yet exacting gameplay go fast, dont die and nature soundscapes soothed me. Its sequel, Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders, came out yesterday, and instead of a bike youre now on skis, and you can race others or try to make it down the mountain as a team in multiplayer.This is not an easy game but it feels so good when you get a feel for the minute adjustments to your trajectory that you need to make to fly down the slopes without smacking face first into a rock. Fans of the old Trials games should definitely check it out.Available on: Xbox, PC Estimated playtime: skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Pushing ButtonsFree weekly newsletterKeza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gamingPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionWhat to readElon Musk. Photograph: Getty ImagesIts been a fun week on my beat. A slew of YouTubers and streamers have accused Elon Musk of pretending to be good at video games, after Musk played a game live on X and appeared to have little understanding of what he was doing. He has since admitted to boosting paying other people to play for him on his accounts after his Path of Exile 2 character was seen grinding away whilst Musk attended Trumps inauguration.In an interview with the New York Times, Inkle Studios cofounder Jon Ingold laments that video game writing isnt good enough. He calls critical darling RPG Disco Elysium overwritten and tedious, an unpopular opinion I happen to share.Sony has cancelled several unannounced in-development live-service games, including one based on God of War and one based on Horizon, according to various reports. (Sony has confirmed two cancellations via a spokesperson.) Is the tide finally turning away from these expensive and, lets be honest, increasingly predictable mega-games?When TikTok briefly went offline in the US over the weekend after a supreme court decision upheld a ban, another app became collateral damage: Marvel Snap, which is also published by TikToks owner ByteDance. At the time of writing, the game remains banned in the US.What to clickQuestion BlockTakaya Imamuras artwork for the SNES racing game F-ZERO. Photograph: NintendoReader Adam asks a timely question:If there arent many surprises coming in the Switch 2s technology, what surprises would you like to see in terms of games for it? Is there a long-forgotten Nintendo franchise youd like to see resurrected? Id love for the Everybody Votes channel make a return. It was everything weird and fun about Nintendo in the mid-2000s.I mentioned Rhythm Heaven at the end there, a Wario Ware-style music mini-game collection with a touch of the bizarre, but there are a few more good candidates for this. Star Fox! F-Zero! (We recently ran a great interview with one of the F-Zero series lead artists from the 1990s, who is working on his own sci-fi game.) I would love to see something like the StreetPass functionality of the DS, where other peoples avatars would visit your console if you walked past them when out and about. Lonely Mountains has got me in the mood for another Excitebike, too. Im going to nail this down and say Star Fox, because I think its the most likely. Readers: what would you like to see, come Aprils reveal event?If youve got a question for Question Block or anything else to say about the newsletter hit reply or email us on pushingbuttons@theguardian.com.

Last year on Joe Rogans podcast, Elon Musk claimed to be one of the worlds best Diablo IV players and surprisingly, the leaderboards backed him up. For those that havent had the pleasure, Diablo is one of the most mercilessly time-intensive video games out there; you build a character and carve through armies of demons, spending hundreds of hours refining skills and equipment for maximum hellspawn-cleansing efficiency. I played it for maybe five hours last year and immediately quit, for fear that it would consume my life. Most of the people who play it are young, often male, and have plenty of time to themselves to spend on the internet and playing games so, the exact demographic of many Musk stans.It suited these hardcore gamer guys to believe that someone who tweets all day and runs several businesses was also an elite player who poured hundreds of hours into Diablo. This made him relatable. It fed into his preferred image of being the hardest-working man alive. But then Elon made the mistake of actually playing a game live on X, and it became clear very quickly that something was amiss. It seems Elon Musk might be a fake gamer. On 7 January, Musk played Path of Exile 2, a very Diablo-like hack-and-slash game that came out towards the end of last year. His character was extremely well-equipped; suspiciously so. Viewers noted that he had better gear than some of the professional streamers who play this game all day every day, and he didnt seem to know what their stats meant. I have not played Path of Exile 2 and so I cant independently assess these claims unlike Musk, apparently, I am quite happy to admit when Im not an expert on a particular game but within a few hours the many inconsistencies in his play and commentary were laid out exactingly on Reddit and in YouTube videos. (He also posted a suspiciously rubbish Elden Ring build back in 2022, which was dredged up as further evidence.) Evidently Musk forgot that we nerds are known for our attention to detail.Getting a boost has Musk been paying for someone to play Diablo IV for him? Photograph: Blizzard EntertainmentThe implication is that Elon Musk is paying other people (most probably in China) to play these games for him, on his account, to make him look far more accomplished than he is. This practice is known as boosting, and its deeply embarrassing.This has enraged the exact people that Musk has been trying to court with his gamer shtick. Asmongold, a successful streamer and YouTuber who is himself very popular with right-leaning young men, called Musk out on it. He responded by accusing Asmongold of being not his own man, beholden to his bosses, posting a screenshot of their DMs as proof proving that Musk also doesnt understand how YouTube works, because in those DMs Asmongold talks about the video editors who chop up clips for him, and they are definitely not his bosses. The feud, hilariously, is ongoing.Over the weekend the musician Grimes, who has three children with Musk, tweeted in his defence. Just for my personal pride, I would like to state that the father of my children was the first american druid in diablo to clear abattoir of zir and ended that season as best in the USA, she wrote, definitely of her own free will. I did observe these things with my own eyes. There are other witnesses who can verify this. That is all. Her next tweet sounded rather more heartfelt: sigh. There is no shame in being bad at video games. I honestly believe that most people are, by the standards of the internet, bad at video games. The shame is in being bad at video games and pretending otherwise. You cannot claim to be an elite gamer without putting in the work. It amazes me that, at some point, appropriating nerd credibility became a thing. When I was growing up, there was absolutely zero value in being good at games (most unfortunately for me, a young Mario Kart and GoldenEye 007 prodigy). Not one of my university friends offered to buy me a pint when I completed Dark Souls. Now, though, theres respect and credibility on the table for people who are talented gamers. You can make a good living out of it, on YouTube or Twitch or the esports circuit. Apparently being good at games earns you so much respect now that the richest man in the world might believe its worth his while to fake it.Completed it mate Musk at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in 2019. Photograph: Adam S Davis/EPA-EFE/ShutterstockThe true irony here is that Musk stands accused of doing exactly what toxic nerds have been accusing women of doing for decades. Lets say youre playing a first-person shooter online and you get anywhere near the top of the leaderboard: an aggrieved man in the voice chat might accuse you of letting your boyfriend play for you. Women writing about video games in any capacity have to deal with comments threads asserting that, actually, you know nothing about them, and youre faking it. Women who play games on Twitch are constantly told that theyre doing it for attention (please, guys, nobody wants your attention).This very gendered condescension used to enrage me so much when I was a teenager that I made a point of becoming extremely good at the games I played, because I so deeply relished the looks on the faces of the boys who told me I didnt belong when I would hand them their asses at Halo. I am far too old for that now, and too time-poor, but happily there now exist entire TikTok and Twitch accounts dedicated to this: women who are excellent at male-dominated games such as Call of Duty, obliterating men who shit-talk them in the lobby. I would pay so much money to see one of these women in a live match against Elon Musk. In his endless X stream of bad jokes, grievances and cringe memes, Musk has tweeted a lot about DEI in games, a manufactured controversy that the left has infiltrated sacred gaming spaces in order to ruin them with woke. This rhetoric is designed to court the kind of people that were taken in by Gamergate many years ago, disaffected young men that former Trump strategist Steve Bannon cleverly recognised were invaluable to his cause back then.What delicious irony that it is not women and minorities pretending to be hardcore gamers in order to manipulate people to their own ends, but, it seems, Musk himself.

In 1889 in Kyoto, craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi founded a hanafuda playing card company. He called it Nintendo a phrase whose meaning is lost to time according to Nintendos own historians, but which can be translated as leave luck up to heaven. In the 1970s, Nintendo eventually transitioned from paper games to electronic ones, making its own luck in the process. It has been a permanent fixture in living rooms across the world ever since.For budding artist Takaya Imamura, an art student who had been captivated by Metroid and Super Mario Bros 3 in the 1980s, working at Nintendo was a dream. Back in 1985 when Super Mario came out in Japan, everybody was playing it, he recalls. I was at an art university, studying design at the time. Back then, game design wasnt a thing people didnt even know what game creators were.Imamura assumed that hed need to study science to land a job designing these exciting pieces of software. But then he found out that the team at Nintendo that had created Super Mario Bros was run by someone called Miyamoto not a programmer, but a designer who had himself once aspired to be a comic book artist. Someone in the year above him at art school had just landed a job at Konami. So he decided to apply for a job in video games, too. To his surprise, he was invited for an interview at Konami and at Nintendo.People didnt know what game creators were Takaya Imamura in the 1990sAt Nintendos HQ, Imamura found himself face to face with Shigeru Miyamoto. We talked about the films that we liked, Imamura remembers. Miyamoto-san is actually a very good artist himself, and I brought in a manga Ive been working on called Omega Six. He really took a proper look at it it seemed like that impressed him.After taking sage advice from his mother on whether he should go to work at Konami or Nintendo she favoured the company with the 100-year history over the relatively novel upstart Imamura would go on to spend 32 years at Nintendo, beginning in 1989, the year of Nintendos 100th anniversary. (Imamura expected a celebratory atmosphere but then-company president Hiroshi Yamauchi deemed parties a waste of money.) On his first day, he was led through the drab office where his interview took place and into a new world beyond: the development building.Suddenly there were monitors with brand new games being developed, all of this fun stuff going on, says Imamura, It was like in a James Bond film, where they go into an office that is all prim and proper, then they go into an elevator and ta-da! I was lucky enough to be assigned to Miyamoto-sans team. Me and three or four other new recruits got called into a room with him, and he said, you guys are going to work on Super Famicom games. This was before [the console] had even been revealed! I was listening and thinking, OK, be calm but inside I was doing the Mario jump.Takaya Imamuras artwork for the SNES racing game F-Zero. Photograph: NintendoAs the Japanese gaming giant perfected the rules of platforming, wrote the rulebook for 3D and ensnared a generation with touchscreen play over the 80s, 90s and 00s, Imamuras pen designed many of the companys most iconic characters. His first ever project was the breakneck speed-racer F-Zero, and he dreamed up the games whole backstory for a comic book that would come inside the box, designing its most famous character Captain Falcon. Imamura tells me that Miyamoto favoured more western-style comic art over Japanese comics at that time, so F-Zeros look was more Marvel than manga. Nobody asked me to create these characters, or that world, he says. I just felt that if were making a game that there should be something there now, [these characters are] loved by people all around the world. It gets the old tear ducts flowing.After F-Zero, his next project was 1991s Zelda: A Link to the Past, for which he designed the logo, the map of Hyrule, and many of its iconic bosses. After that it was Star Fox. an SNES space epic. It was a science fiction game, so, at first we were thinking humans, aliens lots of aliens! Imamura recalls. Then one day Miyamato-san pops by and says, lets make these animals instead, and the main character a fox. And I was like, a fox?! At the time, Miyamoto walked past a shrine of a fox god every day on his way to work. He is not necessarily a religious man, but its something he saw daily and felt some kind of connection to, and well, hes the boss! Imamura laughs.Taking Miyamotos eyebrow-raising idea and running with it, Imamura designed most of Fox McClouds companions, taking inspiration from Japanese folklore. Miyamotos request, Imamura feels, encapsulates Nintendos unique design philosophy. A 3D space shooting game is not something thats particularly original, so Nintendo added something new to it, and in that process, you create something new as a whole, he says. Its tried and tested technology and ideas, but adding that secret sauce to create something special its what Nintendo does best.Looking back, I was extremely lucky to be a part of that moment in history Takaya Imamura todayImamura was named art director on Zeldas infamously dark Nintendo 64 offering, Majoras Mask, for which he came up with its terrifying, leering moon, and the onesie-wearing nightmare character that is Tingle. Looking back, I was extremely lucky to be a part of that moment in history, reflects Imamura. Its probably the time period when technology and the games industry itself changed the most, and in such a short amount of time.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Pushing ButtonsFree weekly newsletterKeza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gamingPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionAs the gaming world changed rapidly, so did Nintendos leadership. Programming whiz-kid Satoru Iwata was appointed company president in 2002. He had this vision that we need to build not just Nintendos customer base, but a bigger population of people who can enjoy games, says Imamura. We as games developers were seeing that there was a contraction in the number of people playing games, but then the DS arrived It was a games machine, but it also had Brain Training, tour guides, all kinds of things that were not anything to do with games. I remember thinking, wow, thats a pretty impressive vision.As Beyonc appeared in Nintendogs adverts, and elderly relatives humiliated their families at Wii Bowling, Nintendo saw huge success something Imamura attributes to a less arrogant style of leadership. Yamauchi-san was not interested in market research at all he wasnt interested in the data. The market is something that we make, he would say. But Iwata-san would look at the data. I think that more logical, facts and figures based thinking of Iwatas was what brought about the Nintendo blue ocean strategy with Wii and DS.My vision for it back then is still my vision now Omega 6: The Triangle Stars. Photograph: Clear River GamesImamura found those years a creative struggle. He regrets that he never released a single game on the Wii, struggling to get his pitches through internally. After creating a slew of downloadable 3DS games, Imamura left Nintendo in 2021 to go independent. His very first game as an indie creator? A playable adaptation of the same manga he showed Miyamoto during his interview 32 years ago Omega Six. Its a sci-fi adventure game that, appropriately, looks like a lost SNES classic, and its out next month.My vision for it back then is still my vision now which is quite surprising! Imamura smiles. President Yamauchi used to say that the name Nintendo meant leaving luck up to heaven itself, which meant putting everything you can into these games, and once youve done that, the rest is up to luck I really think, looking back, that I got very lucky at Nintendo. And now its manifesting in Omega Six.Omega 6: The Triangle Stars is out on PC and Nintendo Switch on 28 February

Squid Game is not a subtle show. It is impossible to misinterpret its very obvious message that the games are bad, and people should NOT be driven to such desperation by a merciless capitalist system that they will murder each other for rich peoples entertainment. I would not be the first to point out that there is some conflict in the fact that we, the viewers, are watching all these competitors get killed for our entertainment, but still: despite the violence, despite the shock value, there is no ambiguity around the narrative intention.In this spin-off video game from Netflix, by contrast, the games are not bad. They are supposed to be fun. You run around colourful obstacle courses trying to kill as many of your fellow players as possible to advance yourself to the next round, their cartoon avatars crumpling comically when stabbed or burned or shot only to respawn seconds later. When you win, you get money and tokens to buy new zany outfits for your vacantly smiling character, and then you go again. In this madcap tumble, the message of the TV show is rather lost. This is a Squid Game adaptation for people who think that Walter White was in fact the hero of Breaking Bad.Still, what else is a game developer to do with Squid Game? With a few exceptions, critical commentary on violence and capitalism is not something that this medium is known for; it would have been a bold choice. So theyve gone for the most harmless, toothless interpretation: dont these games look like fun? Wouldnt you like to have a go? The violence has been toned down to cartoon shrieks and spatters of red. The games have been reduced to the most frictionless, uncomplicated minute-long snapshots, requiring very little skill or attention. Considering the source material, they have made Squid Game almost impressively inoffensive.The problem is that a much better version of this battle royal slapstick gameshow video game already exists. It is called Fall Guys, and it is extremely popular. Many of Squid Game Unleasheds contests are almost indistinguishable from Fall Guys challenges, and it brings nothing new to them, except baseball bats and knives. The signature games of the TV show do make an appearance Red Light, Green Light works exactly as youd expect, without any of the tension because you simply respawn at the starting line every time you fall foul of the eerie giant dolls motion detectors. Dalgona, meanwhile, instead of making you frantically tap out umbrella or triangle shapes on your phone screen, has been reinterpreted as a race where the surest route to victory is to stand still while other players run around doing all the work for you before making a last minute dash for the finish.I found few of the 40+ minigames here exciting, or especially competitive. Even ignoring the sheer incongruence of the shower of rewards and cash that await you after every round of the death games, and the Fortnite-like character customisation am I not supposed to be playing against desperate down-and-outers, rather than people dressed as robots and K-pop stars? its not much fun. The controls feel imprecise, like youre skating over the ground. Jumping feels floaty and unpredictable. I never felt sure when a swinging obstacle was going to hit me, and when I was going to make it past. I didnt feel like I was ever getting any better at the games. I either got lucky, or didnt. Mostly, I just got frustrated.When I imagined a video game adaptation of Squid Game, I did not imagine running around an arena in a golden pig outfit trying to hit a player called skibidi69 with a baseball bat. Perhaps I set my expectations too high, but the only shock value here is in the lack of imagination.

I started playing the Pokmon Trading Card Game (TCG) around 10 years ago, when Iwas seven. My older brother, Marco, had already been playing with my dad for years. At first, the three of us just played at home. For me, Pokmon TCG is a family activity it keeps us close. Ithink thats important, especially nowadays when everyone is on their phone.Im from Iquique, a city in the north of Chile. We have a strong Pokmon community here, and several local shops host tournaments. The game is two-player, and involves each person preparing a deck of 60 cards each card represents one Pokmon, with different abilities and powers. You then battle your opponent with your cards; whoever has the more powerful combination of cards is the winner.Across Chile, Japanese culture has become ingrained in our own anime, Pokmon and manga are very popular here. There were a lot of Japanese shows on TV when I was growing up. Iwatched Naruto, Dragon Ball and, ofcourse, Pokmon.I hadnt really prepared a good deck, so never expected to win. But my opponent made a mistake, I gave it my best shot, and it workedI travelled to Santiago for my first tournament when I was 10. I got to the final. Before I started playing Pokmon TCG, Id not travelled much; now, Ivebeen to tournaments in So Paulo, New Orleans, Buenos Aires and, most recently, Hawaii, where the 2024 world championships took place.We began saving up for Hawaii a year before the competition. My brother came first in a tournament in Brazil andwon some money, and as one of thetop players in Latin America, he wasalso awarded funds to go to the world championships.My dad, Marco and I set off to Hawaii in August last year its the furthest weve ever travelled. On the first day, we had to wait three hours to check in to the tournament, then we queued again at the Pokmon centre, which sells merchandise. Igot some plushies, including a scuba-diving Pikachu exclusive to Hawaii. Then we concentrated on watching games and strategising against our opponents.Marco is a better player than I am hes one of the best in the world. But the game also involves luck. I didnt feel overly emotional during the three-day championships I was just having so much fun. My dad taught me not to worry about winning or losing, but instead to concentrate on playing well and sharing great experiences with my opponents.I took part in 15 games throughout the competition each can last up to 50 minutes. In the final, I hadnt really prepared a good deck, so never expected to win. But my opponent made a mistake, I gave it my best shot, and it worked. My dad would say Im being too humble.We didnt have time to celebrate my victory as I had a flight to catch I was just given the trophy and then rushed to the airport. But when I got back to Chile, we arranged a barbecue and had about 30 friends over of course, we played some Pokmon. A few weeks later, we received an invitation to the presidential palace. Athletes get invited to meet the president even ones who play niche sports!I wasnt too interested in going, but saw it as an opportunity to encourage younger kids to play. I was the first Chilean to win the Pokmon championships. We dont win many things as we are such a small country.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Inside SaturdayFree weekly newsletterThe only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend.Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionWhen my dad and I got to the palace, we were told Chiles president, Gabriel Boric, had to attend an emergency meeting and couldnt make it. Instead, we chatted to the secretary general, the foreign affairs minister and the ambassador of Japan, who were interested in the social impact of the game.Suddenly the door opened and Boric walked in, and said: Hey cabros (guys), how are you? He asked to see some of my cards, and suggested we take a few selfies. It didnt feel as if I was talking to a president, but just hanging out with another card player he plays the Magic the Gathering card game, which is similar in format to Pokemon TCG.I dont care about defending my title no one has ever won it consecutively. I just play to have fun. Anyone with a bit of luck can win. If you have a good deck, and its your day, whos to say you cant become the next Pokmon champion?Do you have an experience to share? Email experience@theguardian.com

In May last year, an anonymous forum poster shared details of what they claimed would be the next game in the Like a Dragon series, the Japanese gangster drama with a unique spirit of melodrama and ridiculousness. It would star the series most theatrical, violent villain, Goro Mad Dog Majima, as a pirate with amnesia, and it was called Project Madlantis. This leak went under the radar, quite possibly because it sounded so silly that nobody would believe it. But then, at 2024s Tokyo Game Show in September, Sega surprised everyone by announcing exactly this. It is called Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii. Thats it. Thats the game.Madlantis sounds like a theme night at a noughties student bar, but is in fact the games pirate hub, a nautical Vegas where captains battle and bet on each other in coliseum face-offs. Ships are outfitted with cannon and pistols, but also machine guns and rocket launchers. Sailing the seas around Hawaii, avoiding lightning strikes during storms, Captain Majima can let go of the wheel of the ship and heft an RPG on to his shoulder to blow up an enemy craft. Boarding another vessel results in a fight between crews, which, given all the tricorn hats and outlandish costumes, looks like a punch-up between a bunch of extras from an 80s music video.When you get sick of swashbuckling you can put into port in Hawaii, where Majima slips on a colourful short-sleeved shirt and runs around getting into scraps with street thugs or nosing around in peoples lives. (He can also glide serenely around on a Segway.) Here, I accompanied a Japanese pop star and a group of her superfans on a guided bus tour, helped a buff woman beat up some creeps on the beach, bought a cow, and fought a polar bear named Stephanie in hand-to-hand combat. Majima is followed around everywhere by a small boy called Noah, and a tiger cub who once offered me a butterfly from its tiny jaws.They didnt have these in the golden age of piracy take aim at enemies with an RPG. Photograph: SegaWe have fans who have been playing our games for decades at this point, says Hiroyuki Sakamoto, the series chief producer. Their speculation has become more and more accurate. Because theyre getting so good at figuring out what were probably going to do next, we have to think of ways to come from a different direction, so we can still surprise them [but] not everything is as over the top as we possibly could make it. In the end, there are still a lot of character drama stories.The Like a Dragon series has become known for its lifelike virtual versions of real-world places in Japan and farther afield, from its version of Tokyos Kabukicho, Kamurocho, to tropical Okinawa. Hawaii was also the setting for 2024s Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, which means that the studio was able to reuse a lot of what theyd already painstakingly built. This has allowed for a quick production schedule: development began around September 2023, and the game will be released this February.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Pushing ButtonsFree weekly newsletterKeza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gamingPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionBut Sakamoto feels these games are as much about their characters as their settings. Like a Dragon tells stories about people with strong beliefs, strong feelings, creeds and ways of life, and how these people connect with each other, he says. Even when they are connecting over bottles of rum below deck on their gangster pirate ship.

Nintendo has announced its long-awaited successor to the 150m-selling Switch console, called the Nintendo Switch 2. It will be out later in 2025.The first Nintendo Switch debuted on 3 March 2017, and pioneered the hybrid console: it can be played both on the move, with its snap-on controllers, and at home, connected to a TV. The Switch 2 follows the same model, with a larger screen and bigger, redesigned controllers that attach magnetically to its sides. The controllers can be used like a mouse, or held in the hands like a traditional joypad, and also have motion-control functionality.In a short trailer, a new version of Mario Kart was shown running on the console.This continuity represents a step-change for Nintendo, which has innovated consistently throughout its 40-year history in the video games market. The Nintendo 64, launched in 1997 was the first console to introduce an analogue stick to control characters movements in three dimensions, and 2006s Wii was the first to bring motion-controlled games into homes with Wii Sports tennis and bowling. Less successfully, 1995s Virtual Boy experimented with an early form of VR, and the Wii U was the first console to have a screen embedded in its controller. With a few exceptions, the size, shape and names of Nintendo consoles have been distinct in each new generation.The Nintendo Switch 2 will be backwards compatible with all Nintendo Switch games, allowing players to bring the games they have bought over its eight years on the market forward with them to the new console when it launches later this year.The wider video games industry has recently been experiencing a contraction, with widespread layoffs, protracted game development cycles and uncertainty around the viability of increasingly expensive business models. Analysts and commentators have expressed hopes that the launch of a new Nintendo console will provide a shot in the arm, reviving sales and excitement in the sector.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Pushing ButtonsFree weekly newsletterKeza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gamingPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionMore details are due on 2 April, and Nintendo will hold several events across the world later that month where people will be able to play the new console. A lottery will open on 17 January at 2pm for fans to win tickets to attend.

How much does it cost to make a video game? The development expenses of blockbuster games are closely guarded business secrets, but they have been climbing ever higher over the years towards big Hollywood-style spending.Industry leaks have exposed how the budgets of major video games are spiralling upwards: $100m, or $200m, even more. One of the bestselling franchises, Call of Duty, saw costs balloon to $700m (573m), a number only revealed recently when a reporter dug into court filings.There is, however, one game with a budget that is anything but secret. The sprawling multiplayer space simulator Star Citizen publishes its funds on its website and they are updated in real-time. Currently, they stand at $777,145,107 (a figure that will be out of date as soon as this article is published). Soon itll surpass $800m and, possibly in a year or so, breach the ceiling to become the worlds first billion-dollar video game.Unless beaten to it by another huge game and there are a few of those in production, although their costs are likely to remain undisclosed that would make it the single most expensive piece of entertainment ever produced. Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the priciest movie ever made, cost roughly half that.Star Citizens figures are publicly available because it is not investors that are funding this PC game, but the players themselves.Fandom is at the beating heart of Star Citizen, says Rhys Elliott, a games industry analyst at the London-based market research firm, MIDiA Research. Its more of a movement than a game. Theres a mutual commitment between the developers and the players to make something cool and revolutionary something that hasnt been done before.Olli43 playing the latest version of Star Citizen.British-American video game developer Chris Roberts famed for his 1990s Wing Commander spaceship fighting series launched Star Citizen as a crowdfunded project in 2012, promising to create a digital universe so huge yet still so detailed that players would forget its a game.He raised its first $2m on Kickstarter and it has been growing ever since, fuelled by fans willing to put their money into a plan so ambitious in scope that no profit and deadline-focused publisher would consider the risk of making it.After a few years, an early version of the game became available for fans to test, but it was almost always unplayable, constantly freezing and crashing. Only recently has Star Citizen started to look and feel like a real video game.YouTube is filled with videos of players cruising around the Star Citizen universe with each other. Their spaceships fly seamlessly from space stations and down through planetary atmospheres to land in sci-fi-styled cities, before they head onwards on foot into caverns deep below the ground. Warp holes have just been added to the game, allowing players to jump between two solar systems.Space games are very easy to get excited about, says Oliver Hull, who runs a gaming-focused YouTube channel with 1.56 million subscribers. Its a very pretty game. I think, visually, people see it and they go, Oh whats this about?Hull, 32, used to play a lot of other games, such as Grand Theft Auto, but now mostly posts videos showing him playing Star Citizen, flying around and looking for things to do, whether it be mining asteroids or attacking space pirates. Often, Hulls videos show him frustrated when things dont work as they should. But that is part of the interest, he says.To be frank, the game is still in development, he says. When something doesnt work how its intended to work it doesnt really bother me because its kind of a work in progress. If anything, I find it quite interesting from a game development standpoint.Its the rough edges of the game, the promise of what it could be and seeing the game slowly move in that direction, that motivates Star Citizen fans. I cant think of many games that do what Star Citizen does, says Hull. Its not finished but I think its very attractive the fact that theres nothing else quite like it.It might not be finished, but people have nonetheless been paying money for Star Citizen for all this time. A starter ship costs $45, and the game now has over 80 flyable ships. The most expensive ones currently available cost more than 500.The pre-release version allows the development team, Cloud Imperium Games (CIG), to test how the game functions with live players as they develop it. But it also gives funders something tangible to play with, a glimpse into the long and complicated processes of game development, rather than waiting for years until the full release.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Pushing ButtonsFree weekly newsletterKeza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gamingPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionAs time goes on, satisfying the community becomes increasingly important. Many fans have now given large sums of their money, including through a controversial money-making scheme in which CIG pre-sells spaceships online that they intend to make in the future. Some so-called superbackers have spent well over $10,000.Fans, says industry analyst Elliot, have been pouring so much money into it that they are really emotionally invested.The Star Citizen website, showing ships for sale. Photograph: Roberts Space IndustriesDevelopment teams, too, have felt the pressure from the community, with allegations in the industry media made against CIG management for imposing long working hours. A 2016 investigation by the gaming website Kotaku cited former employees who described crunch practices in which development teams are asked to work overtime before a big milestone, such as a gaming convention. Roberts told Kotaku at the time that he did not want crunch as a culture.CIG describes Star Citizen as the largest scale open development game in existence but that ambition has also meant the game has now been in development for well over a decade, with repeated, frustrating delays. In a 2012 interview with Roberts, the Guardian reported the plan was to release the game two years later, in 2014. Fan forums regularly question if the game will ever be properly released.But late last year, there were tentative signs of hope. For the first time, CIG revealed what the eventual launch version will look like, offering a clear vision of what will and wont be included, even if no date was given.What they did provide, however, was a 2026 release date for a standalone single-player game, Squadron 42, a story-driven narrative set within the wider Star Citizen universe, with a Hollywood cast of voice actors including Mark Hamill, Gillian Anderson and Andy Serkis.More delays are certainly expected, but the end may finally be in sight.No game made the traditional way, through an established publisher with investors expecting a return, could have weathered 13 years of development without a finished product. Star Citizen has been able to buck the trend of the rest of the industry, which is in crisis, with ballooning costs and regular layoffs. Its main backers are players, not investors, and they have different motivations.I think Star Citizen funders saw it as a direct line to fight back against corporatisation and support a passion project of the highest degree, says Elliott. Success isnt just about spreadsheets, maximising value and return on the investment, but putting fans at the heart of it.

Nintendo is likely to announce its next console this week, the follow-up to the 150m-selling Nintendo Switch, which came out in March 2017. Theres just one problem: we already know almost everything about it. At this point theres very little that Nintendo could announce that would be a surprise to anyone who has been following the rumours closely.The trickle of Nintendo Switch 2 leaks began last summer, and built to a flood this month. Last week at the CES tech trade show in Vegas, accessory maker Genki arrived with a full-on model of Nintendos next console, which it happily showed off behind closed doors to illustrate its forthcoming products. You can even look at a detailed render of the thing on Genkis website. It is a slightly larger, more powerful version of the Switch console we all know and love, with controllers that attach magnetically rather than sliding on and off the sides of the screen. It can still be played docked on your TV or on the go.This is a very un-Nintendo way to do things. Apart from the NES/SNES, every single Nintendo console has been a form-factor revolution. There was the N64, with its pioneering analogue stick and three-pronged controller; the squat, toylike GameCube; the Wii, with its motion control remotes; its follow-up, the Wii U, added a screen in the middle of its controller. This is the first time that Nintendo has ever made two successive consoles that look the same and work the same, with the possible exception of the dual-screened DS and its successor the 3DS, which added stereoscopic 3D to the consoles features. They even share a name, and a logo: the current most credible information indicates that it will be called the Nintendo Switch 2.I wont repeat more leaked details about the Switch 2; they are easy to search out, and well know for sure whats true and what isnt within the next day or so. Nintendo has confirmed that the Switch 2 will share a back-catalogue with the Switch, so that every player can enjoy all the games they bought over the past eight years on the new console. We also know that it wont launch before April, as it is due to come out in Nintendos next financial year (my money is on June). But this is an extraordinary situation we know pretty much everything about a console from gamings most secretive company before it has been officially announced. How has it happened?Getting your hands on a release-day PS5 was a challenge. Photograph: Charly Triballeau/AFP/Getty ImagesWhen the PlayStation 5 launched in 2020, the biggest story at the time was that people could not get hold of one. Some customers who had pre-ordered a PS5 instead received packages containing bags of rice, swapped out by a neer do well in the delivery chain. On eBay and other resale platforms, the consoles were going for two or three times their retail price. The supply-and-demand gap, caused partly by manufacturing challenges during the pandemic, dogged the console for at least the first two years of its life. Nintendo will have wanted to avoid a similar situation.We know that Nintendos manufacturing partners have been making parts for this console for a long time over a year. The company is aiming to have huge amounts of stock in reserve for when the thing launches. This is one reason why so much information has leaked in advance: many different companies have already been involved in Switch 2 manufacturing, and units/parts of units have been out there for some time.Nintendo also hasnt gone after the leakers in the way that you might expect, or shut anything down legally. Its sole response to this flood of unauthorised information, given to Japanese outlet Sankei last week, is these images and videos are not official. This suggests that Nintendo itself considered that this might be inevitable; that it has delayed the announcement of its next console as much as it can, to eke out the life of the phenomenally successful Switch, and that it reckons these leaks wont do much to damage sales prospects.The Switch 2s announcement will contain few surprises. What is surprising is the rather un-Nintendo nature of this iterative console, and the piecemeal way were finding out about it. Watch out for more on the official announcement very soon.What to playIts Literally Just Mowing: just mowing, literally. Photograph: ProtostarA low-effort dad game for a quiet January, for anyone missing their time in the garden: Its Literally Just Mowing is exactly what it says it is. You swipe, and your little ride-on mower soothingly passes across swathes of unruly grass in the increasingly large gardens of your neighbours until the whole street has been brought into order. You mow, you collect hats, you tap on different species of butterfly to admire them. My attention was drawn to this by my friend Patrick Klepek of parent-gamer newsletter Crossplay (we do a podcast together about navigating games with your kids), and I was surprised to find myself playing it for a full half hour straight. Am I getting old?Available on: iOS/AndroidEstimated playtime: 5 mins, an hour, whatever you wantWhat to readDreams on a Pillow has been a decade in the making. Photograph: Rasheed AbueidehDreams on a Pillow, a game about the 1948 Nakba from Palestinian developer Rasheed Abueideh, has hit its funding goal. I spoke to Abueideh about the many obstacles he has faced in trying to tell a Palestinian story through a video game hardships that nobody should have to face down.Square Enix has announced a new policy that aims to protect its staff from harassment by toxic fans, and will not stop short of restricting the games and services of players who abuse its support staff or developers.The latest Awesome Games Done Quick speedrunning event raised over $2.5m for charity this past weekend. Personal highlight: the Crazy Taxi player accompanied by a live pop-punk band.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Pushing ButtonsFree weekly newsletterKeza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gamingPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionWhat to clickQuestion BlockScissor Sisters Jake Shears selected Immortality in his On my radar column. Photograph: Half Mermaid ProductionsThis weeks question is from reader Tom:The Guardian has a regular On my radar column for interviewees to suggest what theyve been enjoying recently, and Ive always been surprised by the lack of games on there. Why do you think this is? Do people not think games are highbrow enough to mention? Profile/age of the people profiled? Or are we trained to think of games as not culture in that way?As someone who writes about games for the culture section of a newspaper, I come up against version of this question all the time: why arent games talked about in the same places, and in the same ways, that other art and entertainment is talked about? Games are culture, incontrovertibly, but they are also technology, and thats how a lot of people still think of them, as techy toys. I am very used to a certain level of condescension when it comes to games, and I suspect most people my age who grew up when games were scoffed at or considered potentially dangerous fear that reaction when they talk about them.So perhaps, when asked to pick out their cultural highlights, people do keep their gaming tastes to themselves, and foreground other things. But I do think this is changing with time. We are long past the time when games were considered nebulously shameful, and I notice that nowadays, even when I am speaking to someone who doesnt understand games very well, eg when Im guesting on a radio show, they nonetheless ask with respect and curiosity rather than condescension and dismissiveness. As more of us age into power this will only continue to change.If youve got a question for Question Block or anything else to say about the newsletter hit reply or email us on pushingbuttons@theguardian.com.

From pinball to pachinko, human beings have spent billions of hours fascinated by the capricious effects of physics on a metallic ball. Its a pastime that, in Ballionaire, has perhaps reached its zenith. The premise is childishly simple: drop a ball into a pyramid-shaped run, then watch, helplessly, as it tinkles toward the gutter at the bottom. On its way, the ball will ricochet off any pins and bumpers it meets in its path, triggering their special effects and gradually accumulating dollar-based points along its wending journey.Some of the bumpers, which are colourfully rendered as anthropomorphic characters, have straightforward qualities. They might add a little cash to the pot, or spawn a second ball. Others are more complicated, reversing gravity, or teleporting the ball to another spot. At first the board is mostly empty, but after each roll you have the chance to strategically add one of three new bumpers to the layout, thereby increasing the amount of points you can score on your next run.Herein lies the challenge: you have five attempts to build up a cash pot that meets or exceeds the financial target for the level. Fail to meet this target and its game over. Meet the challenge and the next target increases exponentially. Soon youll need to be making tens of thousands of virtual dollars per ball, entirely through the strategic arrangement of bumpers and the luck of the bounce. What starts off as a rather pedestrian, bagatelle-style board game soon becomes a carnival of pyrotechnical effects as a fountain of coins and balls cascade down the run, causing dazzling chain reactions.There is a simple joy in watching your score accumulate via outlandish multipliers, and while the physical aspect of the game is entirely passive, there is a world of strategy to be explored in figuring out the most beneficial arrangement of bumpers in the 55 spaces on the board. A deceptively simple, obsession-forming challenge, then, to start the year.Watch a trailer for Ballionaire.

It is an interesting quirk of video game history that one of the greatest ever horror titles debuted on the Nintendo GameCube, a toylike console better known for the cutest titles in the Zelda series and Animal Crossing. But in 2002, Capcom revealed five exclusives to boost the beleaguered platform and among them was Resident Evil 4, technically the 13th title in the franchise, which on its release three years later would be considered its zenith. It was an exciting new lease of life for the survival horror genre.Not that youd guess all this from the games extraordinarily pedestrian setup. Six years after the fall of the Umbrella Corporation smouldering cop Leon Kennedy has been dispatched on a mission to retrieve the US presidents kidnapped daughter, who has been spotted in a tiny village in rural Spain. For some reason best known to the Secret Service, hes going in alone.Yet from this B-movie premise, it radically challenged the conventions of the Resident Evil series and the survival horror genre itself. By moving the action away from the grim, rainy midwest of Raccoon City and into the Spanish countryside, Capcom thrust Resi fans (and Leon himself) into utterly unfamiliar surroundings. This sense of dislocation continued when the traditional lumbering zombies (clearly inspired by George A Romeros Night of the Living Dead trilogy) were replaced by brutishly fast, axe-wielding country folk, infected with parasites by evil aristocrats in a gothic castle. These sprightly creatures were much more in line with the infected maniacs depicted in Danny Boyles modern take on the zombie flick, 28 Days Later, surely an influence on Resi 4 director Shinji Mikami. Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the obscure Lovecraftian horror Dagon, which is actually set in Spain, have also been put forward by fans as potential inspirations.The action feels frighteningly close Resident Evil 4 (2005). Photograph: CapcomIn interviews, producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi said that theme of the game was fear of groups. Throwing swarms of Ganados at the player rather than small groups of zombies ramped up the pressure, and prompted many moments of sheer panic. The games rudimentary AI allowed foes to circle behind the player rather than stumbling brainlessly straight at them.But most importantly, Resi 4 yanked the players eye-line downwards from a floating third-person perspective to an intense over-the-shoulder viewpoint. This made it easier to aim at enemies compared with the frustratingly obtuse early Resident Evil games, but more importantly, it accentuated the sense of embodiment and proximity. The action feels raw, the teeth and axe blades frighteningly close. Mikami has since said that he never realised this would be such a revolutionary feature, but it inspired a whole generation of brawling adventures including Gears of War (and the 2018 reboot of God of War).Elsewhere, Dead Space designer Ben Wanat has referred to EAs cosmic horror shooter as Resident Evil 4 in space, and The Last of Us designer Ricky Cambierhas spoken about his ambition to recreate the tension of Resi 4. And when you look at it now, the sense of interdependence between Leon and Ashley certainly foreshadows the vulnerable relationship between Joel and Ellie.The new shoulder camera, with a heightened emphasis on action and gunfights, altered the whole tempo of the Resi experience. There were still tense minutes of quiet as you explored dank, carcass-strewn farmyards and castle grounds. But then there were bloody sieges as waves of monstrous warriors came at you through the muddy lanes and murky industrial tunnels. The set-piece encounters have become the stuff of legend from the rabid dogs lurking in the ornate garden maze to the giant serpent beast in the lake, the game has a thrilling menagerie of boss enemies to contend with. Amazingly, even the inventory management is fondly recalled, with players obsessively repacking their attache case to fit in more goodies bought from the shadowy trader.In 2023, Capcom released a wonderful updated version, which introduced a new generation to its thrilling, Grand Guignol pleasures. But go back to the original and it still works. Once in a while, a video game comes along that fans love, but that game designers love more and these games end up altering the approach of the entire industry. Super Mario 64 was one, Doom was another. To that list we must surely add Resident Evil 4.

It sounds like a delightful getaway. A week in a remote Dutch village tending to the garden of an absent homeowner; birds tweeting in the trees, a picturesque church just over the lane. But theres something wrong in designer Tom van den Boogaarts surreal and quietly eerie puzzle game. The tools are all missing, the villagers are weird and youve been warned not to go out at night. Plus, the sky is a hallucinogenic haze of red and orange and every once in a while you catch someone watching you from behind a door or through a window. What on earth is going on?Grunn is somehow part gardening sim, part point-and-click adventure and part survival horror thriller. Once you find your shears and trowel you can spend time tidying the hedges and digging up mole hills, but you can also explore the tiny hamlet and its lonely haunted locations, often finding discarded Polaroid snaps which give you photographic clues to where the next tool, implement or puzzle item may be found. Theres a day-night cycle running in the background, and if you do venture out in the dark, odd glitches and ghostly beings are glimpsed at the edges of your vision. As you explore, there are perils to contend with that may well end up killing you then you start again from scratch with only your memories and photos to guide you.The result feels like being trapped in a Alejandro Jodorowsky movie sinister, strange but beautiful and compelling. Everywhere you look there is some unsettling image, from skeletons lying on riverbanks, to bizarre children sitting alone in bus shelters and ferry canteens. The puzzles are shrewd and challenging, and the blocky discordant visuals make the whole environment feel like some sort of uncanny valley of the mind. If youre looking for a very different sort of challenge, in a decidedly unnaturalistic open world, Grunn delivers much, much more than the sedate rural idyll it initially promises.

In the city of Nablus in the West Bank, Rasheed Abueideh owns a nut roastery, where he works to provide for his family. He is also an award-winning game developer. A decade ago, as the 2014 Gaza war raged, he created a harrowing video game called Lilya and the Shadows of War, about a man trying to find safety for his daughter and himself but as missiles fall around them, it quickly becomes clear that there is no safety. When the game was released in 2016, it was initially rejected by Apple on the grounds of inappropriate content, a decision reversed after a week of outcry.Despite the acclaim and attention that Lilya received, however, Abueideh has not been able to raise funding for his next game through conventional means. The game he envisions, Dreams on a Pillow, is about the 1948 Nakba, told through a folk tale about a mother in the Arab-Israeli war, in which more than half the Palestinian population was displaced. He tells me that his game has been rejected almost 300 times, by publishers and providers of cultural grants, for being too controversial, too much of a risk. Talking about the Palestinian story was always forbidden, he says.Historical context the games timeline switches between lead character Omms past, and her terrifying present. Photograph: Rasheed AbueidehNow, once again, war rages in Abueidehs home. The developer fears for his safety, and he is determined to tell this Palestinian story. With the help of a small team of developers and advisers from the region and beyond, he launched a crowdfunding campaign in the hopes of making Dreams on a Pillow a reality.Crowdfunding was our only option, but even that would not work for me because all the major crowdfunding platforms do not recognise Palestine, says Abueideh. The team turned to LaunchGood, a Muslim-focused platform, where it met its funding goal on 7 January. Its enough to cover at least half the games development costs, and he hopes that once the game starts to take shape, it will be easier to find the rest. I am overjoyed, he says. The support on social media and on the campaign page has been overwhelming, demonstrating how much people care about the Palestinian story I didnt expect this level of success.I want to deliver a message Rasheed Abueideh in his nut roastery in Nablus. Photograph: Rasheed AbueidehThe folk tale that inspired Dreams on a Pillow tells of a mother who rushes into her home to retrieve her baby before fleeing, only to realise that she has escaped with a pillow instead. In the game, she spends her days trying to make her way to Lebanon after the massacre at Tantura, and the nights dreaming of the Palestine she knew as a child. Putting the pillow down lets her move through the games scenarios more freely, but invites nightmares and hallucinations. Abueideh estimates that it will take two years to complete; heartbreakingly, the crowdfunding page contains an assurance that a clear plan for the completion of the game has been put in place to ensure continuity in the case of Rasheeds disappearance, injury or demise at the hand of the continuously expanding Israeli aggression in the West Bank.The goal is to let the player feel and understand what happened to the Palestinians during this dark era, which is still shaping our daily lives, says Abueideh. I want to deliver a message that the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is an ongoing process that started in 1948. At that point, [players] will be able to understand what is happening today and can take a stand.

Thanks to some distinctly Scottish weather over the holidays, my family and I ended up celebrating Hogmanay at home rather than at the party wed planned to attend. My smallest sons wee pal and his parents came over for dinner, and when the smaller members of our group started to spiral out of control around 9pm, we threw them a little midnight countdown party in Animal Crossing.The last time I played Animal Crossing was in the depths of lockdown. Tending my island paradise helped me cope while largely imprisoned in a 2.5 bedroom basement flat with a baby, a toddler and a teenager. (I was far from the only one the National Videogame Museum compiled an archive of peoples Animal Crossing experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic, and its evident that it was a lifeline for many.) Our guests had brought their family Switch, and we set up the kids with their little avatars so they could join the animals New Year party.They spent about 10 minutes gleefully whacking each other with bug nets before gathering with the other inhabitants in the square with a giant countdown clock in the background, the islands racoon magnate Tom Nook offering party poppers and shiny top-hats. I was visited by a sudden, arresting memory of New Years Eve 2021, which I spent on my sofa, alone but also not alone, because I was with my friends in Animal Crossing, watching the same countdown clock tick down. My youngest had just started walking, and was unsteady on his short, chunky legs. Turning away from the screen, I saw him joking with his big brother, thrilled at being up so late. It felt surreal.Watching my children discover and experience video games has often felt a little surreal. They enrich or even overwrite my earlier memories of the games in question, like playing on New Game+, or a brand-new save file. Around this time last year we all started playing Pokmon together, the Switch remake of the Red and Blue Game Boy versions that I had played to death myself in 1999. Now Pokmon is not just a thing I loved as a kid but a thing I loved through my kids. Super Mario 3D World feels like a totally different game now, with its four-player chaos and sibling spats. The games are transformed by their presence, their reactions, the differences between how they respond and how I do.The Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening remade on the Switch. Photograph: NintendoRecently, my youngest wanted to try a Zelda game, and the only age-appropriate one we have is the Switch version of Links Awakening. I bristled. When he was a baby, my youngest boy was terribly sick in hospital, and I passed the long hours at his side on the ward trying to keep my terror at bay by playing Links Awakening, my headphones failing to drown out the urgently beeping machines. He recovered, but my associations with that game remain bleak despite its summery setting and outrageous cuteness. I swallowed my reflexive anxiety and handed the controller to my son as soon as we found Links sword buried in the sand of the beach. It was a healing moment, watching him swing it at spiky land-urchins and rock-spitting spitting octopuses and squat, pig-like spearmen, healthy and whole and with an expression of mischievous delight.Video games were, for my parents, distant and mysterious, and they viewed them with some suspicion (but, importantly, never disdained them). I would invite them in, try to show them the worlds I saw on the other side of the screen, and though they would spectate with interest I would be like a visitor from another country, showing photos of somewhere theyd never been, trying to explain my sense of awe. With my own children, Im more like a tour guide: I know this territory intimately, and theyre excited for me to lead them through it.Later, when our tastes diverge, Ill presumably be the tourist in their games. Ill feel like I did 10 years ago when my friends 12-year-old showed me his Minecraft server, full of collaboratively built automated contraptions. (Hes an engineer now.) For now, though, Animal Crossing has taken hold. I created a family island for my kids to tend, then dug out the old yellow Switch Lite that was home to the island I took refuge on when they were tiny and we were shut off from the world during lockdown. It is a magnificent island, the product of hundreds of hours of gentle toil, but it has been languishing since the pandemic times; I have felt trepidation about returning to that place and all its mixed memories. But my kids are desperate to visit it. They can help me make new ones.What to playDoom: The Gallery Experience. Photograph: Filippo Meozzi/Liam StoneFor decades, programmers and developers have made a long-running joke out of getting Doom to run on unlikely things from calculators and fridges to cash machines, but its nonetheless been a while since I saw this ubiquitous 1993 shooter in a new light.In Doom: The Gallery Experience, you wander the halls of a gallery with a glass of red in hand, taking in pixelated recreations of Renaissance, Greek and Egyptian art, collecting snacks to fill your cheese meter. Its developers describe it as an art piece designed to parody the wonderfully pretentious world of gallery openings. Its brief, but it certainly brightened my first day back at work this grey January.Available on: You can play it in your browser via itch.io Estimated playtime: skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Pushing ButtonsFree weekly newsletterKeza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gamingPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionWhat to readJaw-dropping realism but lackluster sales Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, one of the games mentioned in a sweeping New York Times piece. Photograph: UbisoftThe New York Times published Video Games Cant Afford to Look This Good, a long and thoughtful interactive look at the many existential questions of how games are made, with ballooning budgets and unnecessarily high-fidelity graphics.The conversation about free-to-play and gatcha games were once universally vilified. Now theres often a suggestion that criticism of these business models ignores the reality of most people who play them, people in parts of the world where console games are inaccessibly expensive. Developer Bruno Dias argues that it is disingenuous to shy away from criticising these pay-to-play models: We should not consider these companies as fulfilling a need so much as exploiting an inequity.Video game researcher and archivist Felipe Pepe believes the US-centric way in which video game history is presented erases the gaming experiences of millions of people in other parts of the world: the histories of home computers, LAN houses, unofficial mods and gaming cafes.A scoop from Game Files Stephen Totilo, who discovered previously confidential numbers in an Activision court filing: the reported development cost for Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War came to $700m, excluding marketing. It is the biggest game budget ever reported.What to clickQuestion BlockLike a Dragons Kazuma Kiryu plays Super Hang-On in the arcade. Photograph: SegaTodays question comes from David: What would your favourite video game characters favourite game be?My favourite video game character (that I didnt create myself) is Kazuma Kiryu from the Like a Dragon games. Hes spent a lot of time playing old Sega games in the arcades of virtual Tokyo on my watch but I reckon he would love Animal Crossing. It would appeal to his sense of responsibility and do-gooder tendencies, and it would be an escape from the violence of his real-world lifestyle. I dont think of him as much of a gamer the guy was born into a Yakuza family in 1968, when they wouldnt have had a NES but I can imagine him solemnly watering flowers and customising furniture, as a break from rearranging bad guys faces with his fists.If youve got a question for Question Block or anything else to say about the newsletter hit reply or email us on pushingbuttons@theguardian.com.

As music sales and streaming revenue reaches a high of 2.4bn the highest since 2001, not accounting for significant inflation the UK video game market, which has grown almost continually for decades, has shrunk by 4.4%. The most significant decline was in boxed video game sales, down 35%.Data from Digital Entertainment and Retail Association (ERA) puts the total worth of the UK video game market in 2024 at 4.6bn, double the music market and behind TV and movies at 5bn.The numbers show a shift in players purchasing habits that has been ongoing for years, from physical games to digital downloads and in-game purchases in popular, established games such as Fortnite and Roblox. Boxed games now account for 27.7% of new game sales in the UK, according to ERA data.We see at least four factors impacting physical sales, an ERA spokesperson said. First, gamers becoming more comfortable with console downloads; second, the growing popularity of subscription access; third, the fact that we are in a down period of the console cycle; and finally, the lack of new hit IP. If you look at the top 10 titles [of 2024], there really isnt much thats genuinely new thats broken through.The waning of physical sales also reflects a precipitous decline in bricks-and-mortar video game retail. The UKs one remaining specialist video game retailer, Game, was acquired by Sports Direct owner Frasers Group in 2019, and last year ceased both in-store game pre-orders and pre-owned game sales, as well as shutting down its customer loyalty scheme. As staff told Eurogamer in a report last year, the stores themselves have shifted from stocking a wider variety of video games to toys, action figures and other merchandise, making it difficult for customers to walk in and purchase a boxed game on the high street even if they want to, unless it is an established top-seller such as Call of Duty or EA Sports FC.The 35% decline in UK boxed game sales reflects a broader global shift, says NYU Stern professor and market analyst Joost van Dreunen. Were seeing similar patterns across major markets, though the pace varies by region Boxed games wont disappear entirely but are unlikely to regain their former market position. The digital distribution models that have been popularised over the past decade better serve both publishers and consumers. Physical formats will likely persist as premium collectors items or in markets where digital infrastructure is still developing, but theyll represent an increasingly niche segment of the market.Download sales were also down slightly, 5% on PC and 15% on console. Subscription revenue, meanwhile, rose 12%, and revenue from mobile and tablet games rose 2.6%.After a period of rapid growth during and in the immediate aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, the global games industry has contracted. A drought of new investment, combined with corporate publisher belt-tightening, resulted in around 15,000 lost jobs across the industry in 2024. But in 2025, analysts expect a recovery in sales and revenues, driven by Nintendos successor to the 150m-selling Switch console and by Grand Theft Auto 6.

In the 1990s, the turn-based RPG was unstoppable. From Pokmon to the multimillion-selling PlayStation Final Fantasy games, there was nothing cooler than vanquishing blocky beasts via drop down menus. Then came the new millennium. As computing power blossomed and western-made games rose in popularity, traditional Japanese-made RPGs slowly but surely fell out of fashion.What Final Fantasy was doing before a more realistic, grounded take on the turn-based genre now, nobody is doing that. And thats where we want to be, says Guillaume Broche, CEO of Sandfall Interactive and creative director of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Citing 2007s Xbox 360 classic Lost Odyssey as the last truly high-budget turn-based RPG, the ex Ubisoft employee founded a studio with a mission to move the genre forward.The result is Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. The name is a baffling mouthful, but this ambitious French epic is inspired by Frances 20th-century belle poque and surrealist painters. A lavishly rendered party of adventurers move through a world that shimmers with a dreamlike quality, from a Little Mermaid-esque underwater kingdom to gothic, grandiose mansions.Its not just the setting and aesthetic that separate Expedition 33 from its peers, but its fast, fluid combat. Im a bit burned out on turn-based RPGs, because Ive just played far too many, Broche shrugs. So for players like me, we wanted to make sure the turn-based battles feel more interactive and different, requiring skill and offering something fresh.Shimmers with a dreamlike quality Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Photograph: Sandfall InteractiveEach attack requires successfully pulling off a timed button-press. Dodges and parries are performed in real time during enemy attacks, with successful parries and evasions recovering HP and enabling counterattacks. Jumps are introduced halfway through our demo, adding an extra layer of dynamism as each party member leaps out of the way of incoming attacks.The belle poque and art deco aspects are really present throughout, says Broche, from the costumes to the decor and the environments. We wanted to push that aesthetic as deep as we could into every aspect of the game.While the developers are remaining tight-lipped on specific plot details, the plot centres on an expedition crew with only one year left to live. Each year, a mysterious painter daubs a new number on a distant tower, and everyone of that age disappears into ash. Seeking answers, the party venture out to find and kill the painter, discovering the lifeless bodies of the expeditions that came before them.The tone of the story, the writing, the characters we have developed are darker than traditional JRPGs, says Broche. [Games such as] Sea of Stars and Octopath Traveler are what I would call love letters, because theyre reminiscent of old times. We dont consider ourselves a love letter at all. Obviously we take inspiration, but in terms of art style, presentation and gameplay we take a different approach.The high fidelity and sombre tone recall the aforementioned Lost Odyssey, an impressive feat for a game made by just 30 people. While the opaque cutscenes shown so far have left me scratching my head, there is an irresistible flair and dynamism to this world. If you have even a passing interest in the genre, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is one to watch.Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 will be released on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox in summer 2025

During my three-decade career as a games journalist I have written a lot of most anticipated games of the year articles, and they nearly always have a familiar theme: Well, the lineup is dominated by sequels (yawn), but at least there are one or two original titles to look forward to! From todays vantage point that ennui over the predictability of the games industry looks incredibly quaint. We didnt know how good we had it.The past five years have seen seismic shifts in the mainstream industry, mostly connected to the irresistible rise of live service games such as Fortnite, GTA Online and Genshin Impact, which survive over multiple years through voracious subscription models. The biggest are insanely profitable: since its launch in 2017, Fortnite is estimated to have earned $20bn (15.7bn), maintaining 500 million player accounts into its sixth year. GTA Online still makes an estimated $500m a year (399m), more than a decade after its initial release.The past two years have seen major publishers scrambling for their share in the live service bonanza often with disastrous results. In the past 18 months, three major live service games have been cancelled: Creative Assemblys Hyenas, Sonys Concord and Ubisofts XDefiant, with losses in the hundreds of millions, as well as studio closures and staff redundancies. There were about 10,000 games industry layoffs in 2023; according to the online layoff tracker maintained by game artist Farhan Noor, the number for 2024 approached 15,000. As Olivia Rodrigo succinctly put it: God, its brutal out here.So now when I look at the games due to arrive in 2025, my mood has somewhat changed. There are indeed a lot of sequels. Grand Theft Auto VI will, of course, be the mega event of the year when it arrives in the autumn. But there is also Hideo Kojimas post-apocalyptic sci-fi opera Death Stranding 2; Sid Meiers history-spanning strategy sim Civilization VII; Capcoms open-world beast-catching epic Monster Hunter Wilds; and Ubisofts latest time-travelling hitman odyssey, Assassins Creed Shadows. Not a month will pass without some sort of nostalgia-packed franchise iteration.Monster Hunter Wilds. Photograph: CapcomAnd I feel relieved. Naturally, many of these massive, expensive and ambitious projects will have gone into production before the industry doubled down on its obsession with identikit live service wallet-whackers. Nevertheless, it is bizarrely comforting to see that they havent been summarily abandoned or as far as I know converted into free-to-play gacha games crammed with microtransactions and multiple interconnected currencies.I suspect that in the coming months were going to see a lot of dilapidated intellectual property being rebuilt by big publishers as they seek alternatives to the clearly extremely precarious live service merry-go-round. This year were expecting a relaunch of the classic role-playing series Fable, while Sega is exhuming brands such as Crazy Taxi and Shinobi, and SNK is bringing back fighting game series Fatal Fury after more than 25 years. This is all very similar to the way the music, film and stage musical industries continually repackage classic albums and movies to create bankable premium experiences for older fans. In these tough, unpredictable times we all need reassurance.But I dont think the big titles coming out next year are merely safe money-spinners. We dont know much about GTA VI, but we do know it is going to be wild, controversial and extremely adult unlike most live service titles, which are pitched at the widest possible global audience. Death Stranding 2, like its predecessor, will be an almost incomprehensible yet utterly gorgeous examination of death and solitude on a ruined planet. Doom will be what it has always been: gross and hyperviolent. These are games so big they dont have to worry about alienating key demographics; they dont have to work virtual currencies or seasonal battle passes into their sprawling narratives (though GTA VI will certainly come with an online multiplayer side hustle). One of the last games I reviewed in 2024 was the morose and depressing open-world adventure Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl, a game about picking your way through an obliterated Ukraine, eating mouldy bread to stay alive and being attacked by rabid dogs. Good God, what a pleasure it was to be dumped into this miserable landscape once again; how wonderful that this game could still be made and sold.Somehow, in the madness of the modern mainstream games industry, returning to what games used to be has become something wildly courageous and optimistic. What a time to be alive, holding a joypad, hoping to be entertained by a sequel.What to playCaves of Qud. Photograph: Kitfox GamesIf youre looking for a fantasy rogue-like adventure of incredible depth, and enjoy the aesthetics of 1980s computer role-playing games, Caves of Qud is for you. Its a vast, richly detailed opera of a game tinged with sci-fi and filled with weird mutant creatures, exotic plant life and ruined civilisations, all conveyed through simple (yet stylish) 2D visuals and numerous interconnected menu systems. The world and elements of the story are procedurally generated, leading to wildly different playthroughs as you explore landscapes, kill monsters and gather items.Developed over 15 years by a small team, it has the same idiosyncratic, obsessive qualities as acknowledged genre classic Dwarf Fortress, but Ive found it more approachable and seductive. You sit down for a quick mooch about and then five hours mysteriously disappear. A true wonder.Available on: PC Estimated playtime: skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Pushing ButtonsFree weekly newsletterKeza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gamingPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionWhat to readStardew Valley. Photograph: ConcernedApeThe Steam winter sale is on! There are plenty of bargains to be had but only until tomorrow, when the sale ends. Polygon has a great list of recommended titles. Balatro, I Am Your Beast and Stardew Valley are ridiculously good value.If youre looking for console gossip, VGC has a good piece on the latest Nintendo Switch 2 speculation, including a much more powerful dock and the elimination of stick drift, which led to lots of Switch users losing control of their games.A recent study published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research has found that open-world games can aid relaxation and mental wellbeing. According to Neuroscience News, Open-world games, known for their expansive environments and player autonomy, offer a form of cognitive escapism that helps players disconnect from daily stressors and enhance their mood. The research team clearly did not watch me trying to beat Maliketh, the Black Blade, in Elden Ring.What to clickQuestion BlockMouse and Crane. Photograph: Those Eyes GamesThis recent question from a reader is one that comes up regularly, so its worth considering again:What iPad games can I get for a five-year-old that dont contain any microtransactions or require a monthly subscription?Its become extremely difficult to find premium (paid) games on the App Store, especially ones suitable for children. All the money is in the free-to-play model where games dont cost anything to download but then hit you with in-app purchases, adverts, or both. However, I asked Andy Robertson, founder of the excellent Family Gaming Database and author of the book Taming Gaming for his suggestions. Mouse & Crane is perfect for five-year-olds, he says. Its a lovely cooperative puzzle game about three unlikely friends who live in a harbour and fix machines. Chuchel is another great option. Its a comedy adventure where you play hairy hero Chuchel and his rival Kekel to solve simple puzzles and retrieve the precious cherry. My sons also really loved the Toca Hair Salon games, which let you cut and style the hair of various funny customers.If youve got a question for Question Block or anything else to say about the newsletter hit reply or email us on pushingbuttons@theguardian.com.

Like many great things, Date Everything! started off as a joke. Envisioning a game where a lonely remote worker starts chatting up their furniture, Final Fantasy voice actors Ray Chase and Robbie Daymond soon became obsessed with the concept. What if there really was a game where you could date literally everything?Now boasting more than 70,000 lines of dialogue and 100 dateable inanimate objects, their weird game about hitting on household appliances has become a reality. Partnering with Team 17 and fellow voice actor and producer Amanda Hufford, they have brought their silly concept to life, a game that they describe as wholesome, flirty and fun.Within seconds, Im flirting with a dishwasherYou may be wondering how this all works. Well, when the player slips on their Dateviators VR glasses that transform inanimate household items into talking, dateable beings once lifeless furniture and appliances suddenly get a whole lot chattier and, within seconds, Im flirting with a dishwasher.We knew what we wanted to make sure that it felt wholesome, that it was sexy but never vulgar, says Robbie Daymond, Our mantra was, we want to make something where you wouldnt be embarrassed if anybody walked in on you playing it.With dateable characters ranging from tables and microwaves to fireplaces and TVs, each potential lover is brought to life by a different voice actor. From the wonderfully unhinged microwave who thinks hes fighting an interdimensional war, to the art of the pickup line spouting fratboy fireplace, every appliance is distinctly, endearingly weird.No need to be embarrassed Date Everything! Photograph: Sassy Chap GamesIts also doing things differently when it comes to paying its actors fairly. One of the superpowers we have is that we know a lot of people in the industry, says Daymond. We have a good relationship with [actors union] SAG, and we were able to make a contract that gave residuals back to the actors who worked on it. Thanks to a combination of clever writing from TV writer Logan Burdick and brilliant voice acting throughout, even in my brief demo, I felt compelled to meet the next endearingly unhinged appliance just to see what would happen next.It sounds like a product of the pandemic, but actually the premise for Date Everything came about in 2018, when Draymond wondered if anyone would relate to the boredom and social deprivation of remote working. Im really excited that something this surreal exists, reflects Burdick. I think its incredible that everyone took a chance on it.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Pushing ButtonsFree weekly newsletterKeza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gamingPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionWhen I started working with the team, I was a little sceptical, chimes in the games quiet coder, Jack. But being able to play it and see that the amount of care and attention that was given to each character really impressed me. A lot of games are mainly doing just the same thing in a subtly different way. This is not a generic game, and nowadays thats something very important.

There was a long-running joke that Bethesdas Skyrim had become so ubiquitous that it would run on anything. Starting life on the humble Xbox 360, it found its way on to Nintendo Switch, virtual reality headsets, PS5 and even Amazons Alexa. After more than 13 years, its sequel is still nowhere to be seen, so role playing game veterans Obsidian are offering fans an alternative in the form of Avowed.Im taken aback by just how fun and breezy it is, given that it has been spun off the somewhat stuffier computer RPG Pillars of Eternity. Entering the games colour-saturated world, Eora, I explore a luscious overgrown cavern with my alarmingly athletic mage, and find myself leaping across chasms and climbing rock faces without breaking a sweat.Where Skyrims dull colour palette and clunky combat betray its 2011 origins, Avoweds kineticism and vibrance make first-person spellcasting feel fun. As I unleash bursts of acid at a horde of charging skeletons or fling a barrage of ice missiles at an apocalyptic cult, chopping and changing between spells is as easy as holding down a trigger and pressing a button, and each attack is animated in an explosion of light and colour.I think players are going to be really pleased with how fun the combat feels, moment to moment, says game director Carrie Patel. We wanted to take the momentum and sense of impact from more action-forward games, and add that player-driven progression and choice from our RPG roots.Refreshingly jovial Avowed. Photograph: ObsidianI am accompanied through my demo by a sneering, sarky companion called Kai, and armed with a classic wheel of dialogue choices. There is more than a touch of Mass Effect here, with the actor who voiced Garrus in Biowares sci-fi epic offering up a similarly endearing companion in Kai. Players will see the effects of their choices play out in front of them, even in the early hours, says Patel. Later in the game, the choices youve made along the way are going to affect which characters are willing to trust you.Where Bethesda approaches fantasy with a furrowed brow, Obsidian opts for a more irreverent tone. Its banter levels land somewhere between Guardians of the Galaxy and 2023s Dungeons & Dragons film which will be off-putting for people for whom the Avengers style of dialogue has not so much soured as entirely curdled. Its the companions and their personalities that will make or break it.Were really excited for players to meet the companions that we built for them, says Patel. We had a lot of fun building these characters out and trying to develop interesting moments between them. As you move through the world, theyll talk to each other, giving you time to get to know them, and also to see them get to know each other.In many ways what I see here is less Diet Skyrim and more Skyrim Zero not so overindulgent and without the dodgy aftertaste. With its elements of Uncharted and Mass Effect, its a refreshingly jovial take on the familiar fantasy setting.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Pushing ButtonsFree weekly newsletterKeza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gamingPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotion

Supermassives games have always been cinematic, from the persuasive performances of slasher-horror Until Dawn to the chillier atmosphere of interactive ghost story Man of Medan. This time around, with sci-fi horror Directive 8020, the studio wears its Hollywood influences even more brazenly on its sleeve.The Earth is dying, and humanitys last hope is a planet called Tau Ceti F. Yet as the crew of colony ship Cassiopeia survey the promising planet, they soon discover that they arent alone. Stalked by a horrifying alien organism that can chillingly mimic its prey, the crew of the Cassiopeia must outwit these predators and return home, with each former friend and crewmate now a potential threat. In other words, its a playable blend of Alien and The Thing.You have a cast of varied characters, and an alien monster that can infiltrate that setup. We lean into the systems that weve already built [in previous games] of choices and decisions, to create that element of surprise and the feeling of not knowing who to trust, says Will Doyle, the games creative director.Theres agency over your characters movement as well as their choices. Dropping the slow, cinematic shuffling of Until Dawn, Directive 8020 instead plays like something closer to Dead Space, allowing players to sprint, strafe, lash out and roll defensively as they flee their horrifying alien attackers. [But] these people arent action heroes. We didnt want you to be able to beat the creature easily, says Doyle. You can fend it off with some tools; you can distract it; but youre never able to pull out a gun and shoot it.The lead role of pilot Young is played by Lashana Lynch of No Time to Die fame. Everyone on board the ship lives or dies based on her read: your decisions. Mercifully, you can enlist some help and play cooperatively. Up to five people can connect online and take control of different characters something that the team implemented after seeing how many people chose to play Until Dawn by passing a controller around groups of friends.Every successive time you see a monster in a movie, it diminishes its fear factor a little bit, reckons Doyle. Without spoiling anything, we change the appearance and look and shape of our creature quite a lot There is this constant feeling of threat that you really arent safe anywhere in this game. With our previous games you can sometimes tell when youre in danger, just by the structure, so weve shaken it up a lot. Now, danger and death lurks around every corner.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Pushing ButtonsFree weekly newsletterKeza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gamingPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotion

Civilization VIIExplore, expand, exploit, exterminate: the rules of Civilization havent changed, but this devilishly compelling strategy series has long been due an overhaul. Next years instalment lets you pick and choose between many more different leaders and peoples to guide to world domination, from antiquity and through the age of exploration to the modern era peacefully, or otherwise. Released 11 February; all platformsGrand Theft Auto VIThe whole world is holding its breath for Rockstars latest. The first GTA game to star a woman Lucia, alongside her partner in crime, it is set in the wild Floridian environs of Vice City, the series version of Miami. Given that GTA V has grossed $8.5bn over its lifetime, this will inevitably be a megaton of a game. Release date TBC; PlayStation 5, Xbox, PCLost Records: Bloom & RageA game about a group of teen band-friends drawn back together after 27 years, when one of them discovers a secret they shouldnt know about. From the original creators of coming-of-age classic Life is Strange, this beautiful-looking narrative game will flit between the magical summer of 1995 and the present day. Released 18 February; PlayStation 5, Xbox, PCAtomfall. Photograph: RebellionMonster Hunter WildsJapanese developer Capcom has been on an incredible run this decade, from a brilliant new Street Fighter to the revitalisation of Resident Evil to this, an awe-inspiringly expansive new entry in its dragon-slaying action series. The creatures are imposing, the weapons gloriously huge and improbable, and the environments lashed with lighting and blooming with natural diversity. Release date: 28 February; PlayStation 5, Xbox, PCAtomfallFans of The Last of Us and Fallout may perk up at the sight of this strangely cosy Lake District version of the post-apocalypse from British developer Rebellion. In this alternate timeline, the 1957 fire at the Windscale nuclear reactor has plunged Britain into a new age of desperate survival. There are pulpy references here, from Doctor Who to Quatermass. Released 27 March; PC, PS4/5, XboxDOOM: The Dark AgesThe venerable first-person shooter goes even more metal next year, with gothic castles and sci-fi dragons and a shield thats also a chainsaw and, of course, gore flying everywhere from hordes of demons. Im not sure I can improve on its developers description of the game: YOU ARE THE SUPER WEAPON IN A MEDIEVAL WAR AGAINST HELL. Release date: TBC; PlayStation 5, Xbox, PCMetroid Prime 4Destined, surely, for the yet-to-be-revealed successor to Nintendos incredibly successful Switch console, this space adventure has been in the works for around 10 years. The first three Metroid Prime games are standard-setting science-fiction masterpieces, so we are all hoping for something similarly revolutionary this time around from Retro Studios and iconic character Samus Aran. Release date: TBC; Nintendo SwitchDOOM: The Dark Ages. Photograph: BethesdaLike a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in HawaiiThese games about colourful Japanese gangsters usually alternate between sombre self-seriousness and total ridiculousness, but here Sega is fully embracing its silly side by recasting flamboyant eye-patch-wearing villain Goro Majima as an amnesiac pirate on the high seas. An extravagant nautical action-adventure with naval combat, stylish sword-wielding, treasure-hunting and a much-needed dose of absurdity. Release date: 21 February; PC, PS4/5, XboxFableFeaturing Richard Ayoade and Matt King (Superhans from Peep Show), this comic fantasy adventure has the unenviable job of resuscitating a beloved series that has lain dormant for a long time. What weve seen so far happily suggests that it preserves the sense of humour and British sensibilities that have always made Fable unique. Release date: TBC; Xbox, PCClair Obscur: Expedition 33A French dark-fantasy game with a fascinating premise: each year, a mysterious supernatural painter daubs a number on a tower, in a torn-apart simulacrum of Paris, and everyone of that age vanishes Thanos-style into ash. You play the latest team of explorers sent out into the twisted wilds to try to stop it. A wondrous-looking game whose elaborate environments are frozen mid-destruction. Release date: TBC; PlayStation 5, Xbox, PC

The older my kids get, the harder it is to keep them part of Christmas and the old traditions. Our youngest daughter is off travelling, which involves text message photos from Bangkok nightclubs with comments like, Check out the size of THIS spliff, dude! Middle son flies off to his girlfriends on Boxing Day. Oldest has added a festive shift of dog-sitting to her duties in the animal hospital and so she is around for just a few hours on Christmas Day. Wed also had a bit of a row on the 23rd and were not really speaking.It was going to be tough to make Christmas 24 a memorable one. But I had a plan. And that plan was Just Dance 2025.Back in the day, I was too self-conscious to play the initial arcade incarnations of dancing games, but would marvel at those nimble athletes who strode Londons Trocadero like colossi, attracting adoring crowds with their Dance Dance Revolution skills.Dancing Stage MegaMix was later set up on the PS2 in what I used to call my basement gym. The treadmill and bike were hardly touched, but every day I would leap around on the mat, becoming what I am sure was the greatest dancer to the Cures The Love Cats of the mid-2000s.I am Ray Liotta in the final act of Goodfellas, except he didnt have an ugly Christmas sweaterThis years Christmas Day plan was this: nice leisurely breakfast. Prepare the bits for the show-stopping mushroom wellington I am making as a peace offering for the Vegan Dog-sitting Daughter. Pick her up. Spend 10 hours waking my teenage son. Open gifts. Surprise them with Just Dance. Finish making dinner. Clear the decks. Then dance the day away until I have to take Dog-sitting Daughter back at 8pm.A Christmas Eve snowstorm complicates things, as do the dozen Christmas Day calls to assorted family in different time zones. Time is already spinning out of my control, as is my Honda Civic on the snowy roads. So I turn back and borrow someones truck to pick up the oldest, losing more time. I am Ray Liotta in the final act of Goodfellas, except he didnt have an ugly Christmas sweater and stress-induced rosacea.What was supposed to be leisurely gift-unwrapping has me barking out opening instructions as if were attacking an enemy outpost.You, son. Move up the left side of the tree. Get the one from Granny. On my count open!You need to relax, Dominik, says my wife. Its Christmas.But we have to play a fun game of Just Dance 25! I scream.Can we play Just Shoosh 25 instead? offers my son.I have one hour left until my oldest has to leave, and Christmas dinner is three oily towers of mushrooms, spinach and onions sitting by a vegan pastry blob that is refusing to defrost.I cant do it all. I cant do Vegan Christmas and play Just Dance 25.Dads sometimes have to make tough decisions. I am Bruce Willis, and this is my Nakatomi Plaza.Forget the dinner! I cry. Set up the Switch!But I wont have time to eat, says Dog-sitting Daughter.Ive got roast potatoes and carrots. Ill put them in Tupperware, I reply. Thats totally vegan!Nothing now stands between me and Just Dance 25 but a protracted game setup process will kill any Christmas fun. And even though I made it painfully clear that I needed four Switch controllers, my son has not charged his.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Pushing ButtonsFree weekly newsletterKeza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gamingPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionThankfully, it turns out we can use our phones. Thats the good news. The bad news is that my wife has a strange superpower which means nothing electronic works in her hands. She takes an eternity to set it up. Finally, we fire up the first song: Lady Gagas Poker Face. One of our favourite family tunes ever. Here we go!Here we dont. No one knows which onscreen character they are supposed to be following. It is total chaos.Next up: Green Days Basket Case. Also rubbish.I am losing them. This will be the worst Christmas ever.Then, in the corner, I see four letters that give me hope.Abba. Dear old Abba. Glorious Abba.Abba save Christmas yet again. Photograph: AlamyWe rattle through three of their tunes in quick succession. Something clicks into place. Unfortunately, it is one of my wifes hips and she taps out to put together the roast vegetable package for our departing daughter.It is me against the kids. But they make the mistake of choosing Gloria Gaynors I Will Survive. A song I have danced to on four different continents. I know every beat of that song. Within moments I am shirtless, I am a man possessed. I destroy them.Next they select Boogie Wonderland, which has us in hysterics because it allows each of us a turn in the spotlight. Its clever. It is magical. We are falling into each others arms. It is joyous. Just Dance has saved Christmas.We send videos of the madness to our faraway daughter who replies with IM WEAK!!!, which apparently is a good thing.People ruminate on the meaning of Christmas: is it a religious thing, a family thing, a party thing, a food thing or a post pictures on Facebook of the expensive stuff you got to piss other people off thing? For me, its a memories thing. And we just created another beautiful one that will warm all of us, no matter where we are next year.

Nine SolsPS4/5, Xbox, PC, Nintendo Switch Taiwanese studio Red Candle Games broke through in 2019 with the first-person horror game, Devotion. Its follow-up, Nine Sols, is less grungy but no less distinct, a robust 2D action-platformer with an exquisite taopunk aesthetic. This vivid sci-fi world feels as if it is constructed as much from bamboo and jade as steel and microchips. Lewis GordonUltrosPS4/5, PC In a year of great Metroidvanias, the psychedelic sci-fi platformer Ultros trod a distinct and unusually green-fingered path. Alongside absorbing exploration and blistering combat, you study and grow various strains of alien flora found aboard a labyrinthine spaceship. The ultimate goal is escape, but you may never actually want to leave the strange, bioluminescent garden you come to cultivate. LGManor LordsPC An unexpected breakout hit, despite still being a work in progress, this strategy game mixes economic management and city survival, with an eye towards historical authenticity. Content updates havent arrived as fast as some would have liked, but theres no denying the meditative romance of shepherding a medieval hamlet through famine and fortune. Callum BainsAuthentic Manor Lords. Photograph: Slavic MagicSteamWorld Heist IIPS4/5, Xbox, PC, Nintendo Switch With fetching hats and tactically varied turn-based gunfights, this nautical sequel proves once again that two-dimensions neednt feel flat. You can explore the world in your submarine this time around, but nothing beats the simple joy of lining up a shot to send laser beams ricocheting around the room. Wonderfully silly steambot shootouts. CBStalker 2: Heart of ChornobylPC, XBOX A survival shooter that nails trying to stay alive in the face of relentless radiation, mutants in one of the most unforgiving environments ever. This sequel is a satisfying mix of horror and shooting, with a huge open world, branching narratives and multiple endings. The game is the result of 15 years of work since the previous instalment, made all the more remarkable by the fact that its developers at Ukrainian studio GSC Game World have become caught up in a real-world war.Bex April MayThe Crush HousePC Described as a thirst person shooter, The Crush House takes you inside a 1999 Big Brother-type production where the audience is always right. Youre the producer, whose dream job is taking a sinister turn. The result is a send-up of MTV reality shows and Love Island as well as societys unquenchable current appetite for content. What better playground for all things a bit dark and exploitative? BAMDream job? The Crush House. Photograph: Devolver DigitalFrostpunk 2PC (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S planned for 2025) Few games have managed to blend the survival and city-builder genres as well as the original Frostpunk. While the much grander scope of this long-awaited sequel doesnt quite strike the same chilling, thrilling chords as its predecessor, its still an incredibly compulsive evolution that Ive lost dozens of hours to. Elliot GardnerPeglinPC, iOS, Android, Nintendo Switch While you could sum up Peglin as Peggleroguelike, that would undersell its unique charm. You are a little goblin who inexplicably battles monsters using magic orbs dropped into a pachinko machine. Nothing quite beats the satisfaction of blowing up a giant ooze after popping hundreds of pegs with a lightning ball. EGBraid, Anniversary EditionPC, PlayStation 4/5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Braid changed the game in 2008, proving beyond doubt that shorter indie titles could be just as influential as those made by multimillion dollar studios. The anniversary edition, with improved graphics, remixed sound, new levels and a unique developer commentary world, shows this intelligent, puzzle-solving, time-bending platformer is still one of the best ever made. EGKill KnightPS4/5, Xbox, PC, Nintendo Switch Twin-stick shooters, in which players aim with one thumbstick and move with another, generally keep the basics pretty simple. Kill Knight, however, piles on the complexity with ranged and melee combat, special attacks and a brilliant reload system. Its a dense but surprisingly approachable chunk of mayhem, and the death metal stylings are beautiful. Christian DonlanCaravan SandWitchPS5, PC, Nintendo Switch This compact open-worlder explores the pleasures of van life on an alien planet heavily inspired by Provence. Its beautiful stuff, with gentle puzzles and absolutely no combat. Best of all is the landscape, with shards of warm rock poking through the honeyed earth and hidden caves filled with glowing fungi. CDWilmot Works It OutPC, Mac Heres a novelty: a puzzle game in which you actually put together puzzles. Every morning, you wait for the posty to deliver a new jigsaw, and you then spend the day sorting through the pieces, clipping promising chunks together and eventually framing your creation and placing it on the wall. Its been a stressful year; Wilmot Works It Out is a perfect response. CDA novelty Wilmot Works It Out. Photograph: FinjiLinkedIn gamesBrowser-based This year, LinkedIn launched an offering of daily puzzles, newspaper-style. The four logic games are perfectly decent, if only briefly diverting. What distinguishes them from the newspapers is the stats. Based on my scores, LinkedIn assures me I am smarter than 75% of CEOs, a measure on which Wordle has never offered an opinion. Duncan FyfePepper GrinderPS4/5, Xbox, PC, Nintendo Switch A short, inventive dash through 2D platforming levels, Pepper Grinder has you wielding a drill to carve your way through snow, rocks and enemies to reach your goal. It might not be long, but weaving through the ground and popping up on unsuspecting monsters like a buttered worm is endlessly entertaining. Daniella LucasThe Plucky SquirePS5, Xbox, PC, Nintendo Switch A storybook come to life, The Plucky Squire celebrates the art of storytelling as you adventure between pages with text playfully guiding your way. Sometimes youll slash your way through enemies with your fountain pen nib sword, other times youll chuck words around to rewrite the story and solve puzzles. DLStorybook come to life The Plucky Squire. Photograph: Devolver DigitalPhoenix SpringsPC Reporter Iris Dormer searches for her brother in this neo-noir detective game, and the clues lead her to the strange, isolated community of Phoenix Springs. But its up to you to join the dots: much like David Lynchs Mulholland Drive, nothing is spelt out here, and the appeal comes from pondering what it all means. Lewis PackwoodDeath of the ReprobatePC This is the finale of Joe Richardsons trilogy of point-and-click adventure games made from bits of Renaissance paintings, and its easily the funniest of the lot. Richardsons Reeves and Mortimer-style humour runs the gamut from witty to silly to downright rude, culminating in an absolutely riotous, joyously blasphemous ending. LPThe Crimson DiamondPC As well as harking back to the 16-colour palette of 1980s PCs, The Crimson Diamond revives an all-but-forgotten genre: text adventures. Typing every action feels clunky at first, but you soon realise the freedom of possibilities it affords, and this Canadian detective mystery can end multiple ways depending on the avenues you explore. LPStar Wars: Dark Forces RemasterPS4/5, Xbox, PC, Nintendo Switch Star Wars: Dark Forces, the 1995 cult classic FPS from LucasArts pre-prequels golden age, receives an adoring tribute in this pristine 4K remaster from Nightdive Studios. You play as the rakish mercenary Kyle Katarn in a mazey, key-and-puzzle-oriented shooter that puts an appealing Star Wars spin on Doom and Wolfenstein. Calum MarshDuck DetectivePC Duck Detective: The Secret Salami is a rollercoaster whodunnit that asks you to uncover a criminal conspiracy in a sea of cute, overworked critters. Through a mixture of point-and-click investigation and mad libs here called Deducktions youll fall down a noir rabbit hole of office politics and test your inner gumshoe instincts. And before you ask, yes, there is a button to quack. Sarah ThwaitesArctic EggsPC Can you fry eggs on top of Mount Everest? Its a question that satirical dystopian cooking simulator Arctic Eggs persistently ponders as you serve up curious yolky meals to the warbling citizens of a frozen city. Ingredients such as cigarettes, beer bottles and whole pizzas complicate the gyroscopic wrist gymnastics as you sautee and flip your way to a soiree with The Saint of Six Stomachs. STRivenPC, PC VR, Quest A revitalising remake of Cyan Worlds ambitious 1997 sequel to Myst, Riven asks players to point-and-click their way through a gorgeous conjured world on the brink of disaster. To unseat a tyrant and solve some pithy familial turmoil, youll learn Rivenese language and numerical systems, as well as tinker with captivating, meticulously designed mechanisms. A theoretical head-scratcher flooded with sensational set pieces, working through Riven is a brilliantly brainy experience for puzzle-hungry players. STRevitalising remake RivenStill Wakes the DeepPS5, Xbox, PC Caz, an electrician who has fled to an oil rig to avoid some bother with the polis, soon finds himself one of the only survivors as his colleagues drill into something deeply disturbing at the bottom of the North Sea. A tight and absorbing horror-thriller with exceptional 1970s period detail and a tremendous Scottish-accented cast. Keza MacDonaldLike a Dragon: Infinite WealthPS4/5, Xbox, PC This series never disappoints when it comes to melodrama and silliness, and despite a slow start, once our lovable ex-criminal protagonist Ichiban makes it to Hawaii, Infinite Wealth has him exposing its criminal underbelly while also working as a delivery driver and doing up his own island. KMMelodrama and silliness Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. Photograph: SEGAKunitsu-Gami: Path of the GoddessPS4/5, Xbox, PC One of the more bewitching genre mashups of recent years, Kunitsu-Gami has you protecting a dancing priestess as she shimmies through demon-ravaged villages: daytimes are for planning your defences, rescuing villagers and stationing fighters, nights are for chopping your way through the demons that spill forth from cursed gates. KMWild BastardsPS5, Xbox, PC, Nintendo Switch After your gang of robot cowboys is nearly wiped out by the dastardly Jebediah Chaste, you must fight across the solar system to resurrect your crew and find sanctuary. A roguelike shooter from one of the directors of Bioshock, Wild Bastards is filled with bite-size gunfights, tactical challenges, and infectiously kitsch wild west one-liners. Julian BensonBotany ManorPS4/5, Xbox, PC, Nintendo Switch In this peaceful puzzle game set within a sprawling country home, its rooms and gardens filled with plants, you create the perfect conditions for each seedling to grow. Secrets to each plants care wait to be deciphered in the scientific charts, photographs, and books of old nursery rhymes dotted throughout the manor. JBPeaceful puzzle Botany Manor. Photograph: Whitethorn GamesHomeworld 3PC After a 20-year wait, Homeworld 3 returns you to the commanders seat, putting you in charge of hundred-strong fleets of spaceships in glorious battles. With scenes often resembling the cover of a golden age pulp sci-fi novel, few real-time strategy games look so stylish or play so well. JBBore BlastersPC Its best not to question Bore Blasters story. Youre a dwarf in a helicopter shooting through the planets crust to retrieve gemstones; just accept it. What matters is how intensely satisfying it is to drill through rocks with a machine gun in a race to the escape pod before you run out of fuel. JBNobody Wants to DiePS5, Xbox, PC With its bleak dystopian vision of New York City in 2329, a place where a substance called ichorite allows the rich to have their brains hard coded into new, healthier bodies (a process which tends to involve the poor serving as the sacrificial lambs), this sci-fi noir feels like Philip K Dick and Mass Effect had a baby. Developer Critical Hit Games packs nuance into every detail and, despite all the flying cars and cyberpunk textures, you feel more like a character in an old Hollywood murder mystery. A future cult classic, surely. Thomas HobbsPacific DrivePC, PS5 What Half-Life 2 needed more of, posits survival-exploration sim Pacific Drive, was car. Way more car. Salvaging parts from the environment and turning them into car. Repairing individual components. Driving through an enigmatic wasteland even the Combine would be hesitant to visit, and feeling smugly self-sufficient while youre at it. Who needs headcrabs when youve got head gaskets? Phil IwaniukWay more car Pacific Drive. Photograph: Ironwood StudiosWhat the Car?PC A racing game that juts out its chin and refuses to respect the rules of automotive engineering. Nowhere else will you find yourself guiding a car on long legs as it runs between woodland creatures in the forest, or use your vehicle as a motorised football to score a goal. Every new level, the definition of car is stretched beyond its elastic limit, along with your level of delight. PI