IGN

Hollow Knight: Silksong has managed to live up to my high expectations, taking a game I absolutely adored and quite literally turning its dash into a full-on sprint.

NHL 26 is a competent entry in the series from EA Vancouver, even if it doesn’t do enough to stand out either from past years or other sports games.

Borderlands 4 is a badass open-world evolution of a wonderfully unhinged looter-shooter series that needed to try something new, and it largely nails the biggest swings it takes.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle: The Order of Giants can be whipped through in a single afternoon, but during that short run it takes you through a beautiful array of new locations to explore and presents several puzzles that are even better than those in The Great Circle itself.

Lost Soul Aside would’ve been a great character action game if it hadn’t gone out of its way to do anything outside of that.

Belief and disappointment go hand in hand; just ask any sports fan. The crushing blow of losing lingers, but is eventually replaced by a newfound fervor – a flicker of hope that maybe this time things will be different.

Hell is Us has a blend of exploration, puzzles, and combat that, while familiar, pushes you to really pay attention to the world around you in a way that’s both compelling and occasionally frustrating.

Cronos: The New Dawn presents an intriguing mystery to unravel and a creepy sci-fi hellscape to explore, but its run-of-the-mill combat system prevents it from stepping out of the shadows cast by survival-horror heavyweights like Dead Space and Resident Evil 4.

Mafia: The Old Country is a conventional but effective return to the linear and tightly story-driven format of the original Mafia and Mafia II, and it boasts a wonderful eye and ear for detail.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land is still a great platformer three years later, and the Star-Crossed World DLC that comes as part of its Nintendo Switch 2 Edition adds a few more amusing levels to the mix – but that’s about it.