Astro Bot
A deliriously joyful platformer which pays tribute to 30 years of PlayStation history via adorable, tiny robots riding a controller-shaped spaceship between delightful planet-sized levels. It looks cute but it is deceptively cutting-edge – developer Team Asobi really knows that PS5 inside-out. Think Sony’s answer to Mario Galaxy.
• 6 September. PS5
UFO 50
A collection of games from the 1980s from a little known but ambitious developer whose work shaped the course of gaming history – except … the developer is fictional. Instead, made by a small coterie of the world’s best independent developers, these games write an intriguing alternate history of the medium.
• 18 September. PC
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
The first ever Zelda game to actually star the titular princess, rather than her green-clad knight Link. Rendered in the same toylike visual style as the 2019 Link’s Awakening remake, it finds Zelda using a magical staff to conjure furniture and creatures out of thin air.
• 26 September. Switch
Silent Hill 2
A remake of one of the most lauded horror games of all time. James Sunderland receives a letter from his dead wife summoning him to the mist-wreathed town of Silent Hill, where horrible things are waiting. If the monstrous Pyramid Head didn’t already give you nightmares in 2001, it will now.
• 8 October. PC, PS5
Metaphor: ReFantazio
Bringing all the grandiosity of a playable big-budget anime series, this quasi-medieval fantasy game is directed by Katsura Hashino, famous for the Japanese teen drama Persona games. After the death of a king, candidates from tavern-owning drunks to theocrats are scrabbling for the throne, and the player gets caught up in the politics.
• 11 October. PC, PS4/5, Xbox Series X/S
Life Is Strange: Double Exposure
The long-running drama series about teenagers and young adults with supernatural powers goes back to its roots. Original heroine Max Caulfield once again finds herself using her mind to rewind time in an effort to solve a murder – and, perhaps, prevent it from happening.
• 29 October. PC, PS5, Switch, Xbox Series X/S
Assassin’s Creed Shadows
Ubisoft’s playful historical fiction series has finally turned its eye to feudal Japan. Starring Yasuke, a black samurai who cuts a mysterious figure in real-life historical records from the age, and shinobi assassin Naoe, Shadows should tide us over while we wait for the next season of Shogun.
• 15 November. PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S
Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl
Developed by Ukrainian studio GSC Game World, which had to abandon its Kyiv offices amid the Russian invasion, this tense survival shooter has become an act of resistance for the people making it. As a player you must survive in an irradiated zone full of unpleasant creatures: it is not for the faint of heart.
• 20 November. PC, Xbox Series S/X
Baby Steps
When perpetually stoned loser Nate is zapped from the questionably stained couch in his parents’ basement and into a surreal mountainscape, he must finally learn to put one foot in front of the other. You control his legs as he stomps and stumbles around, often falling flat on his face.
• PC, PS5
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
The makers of Wolfenstein take us back to the glory days of Indiana Jones – somewhere between Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade – as the whip-snapping, wisecracking action hero traces a supernaturally powerful artefact from the pyramids to Himalayan mountaintops.
• PC, Xbox Series X/S
