Last night’s Xbox Developer Direct stream was pretty good, wasn’t it? I’ve come to enjoy the way that Microsoft presents these, giving the spotlight to a small selection of games that are locked in for the year ahead, and always with one smaller surprise along the way. The most exciting thing was to really see and hear about Playground Games’ take on Fable, though, which looks like it’s going to capture so much of the British charm and whimsy.
But what about the games we can and are playing in the here and now? Well, I’ve made a belated start on Rennsport, setting up my racing wheel to dip a tyre into this racing sim. I’ll have some thoughts to share on it in a review at some point.
We’ll start with Dom this week, who’s been getting his blacksmithing skills up to snuff in Bladesong, enjoying its unusual atmosphere and feel, as well as playing Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora – From the Ashes and Final Fantasy VII Remake on Switch 2 for our reviews. He’s also somehow ended up checking in each day on a new Animal Crossing island. He says “somehow”, but this was totally my fault for needing a buddy to try out the new online features…
Laura has been hopping around on rocks this week, but has been doing so while embodying an adorable fox and getting lost while playing Spirit of the North 2 with Ade. Ade, meanwhile, has mostly been enjoying Marvel Rivals with the launch of Season 6 – “With the launch of season 6, the game is the best it’s ever been. Faster gameplay, silky smooth animation, punchy and responsive combat, and a nerfed Daredevil. For anyone who understandably bounced off the rather rough version of Marvel Rivals we got at launch, it’s definitely worth a revisit.”
Gamoc is coming to the end of two games, reaching the summit of Cairn for our upcoming review, and coming to the conclusion of Ghost of Yotei which (and he can’t believe he’s saying it for an open world game) is actually too small.
MIO: Memories in Orbit largely delighted Aran for our review this week, with just some frustrating patches getting in the way of a visually stunning and challenging game. Now he’s gone back to Star Wars Outlaws to roam Tatooine, searching for treasure, and making mischief.
Jason has hopped back into Last Epoch this week, and thinks ” it still has the coolest skill system of just about any game I’ve played. Being able to respec constantly is also very soothing for my poor addled brain.”
Playing Xbox but on PS5 is still a bit strange, but it has meant that Jim has been able to drop into Sea of Thieves, matchmaking with crews to go on voyages, and experiencing Hellblade 2 this week. “I’m just the past the halfway point and while I enjoyed the opening hour or so, this middle portion has really dragged with boring, drawn out environmental puzzles that act as filler between the occasional bout of combat.”
Steve’s found it a bit tricky to focus this week with his gaming, jumping into the “shameless RE ripoff” of Ebola Village, bouncing off Quarantine Zone: The Last Check, and loading up Gigasword as a bedtime Steam Deck game. He’s also set to explore the weird world of game streaming soon with some upcoming horror games, so keep an eye out for that.
And we’ll wrap things up with Miguel, who’s been playing a bunch of Code Vein 2 for our review next week, a sprinkling of the silly co-op of The Outlast Trials and Peak, and getting his extraction shooter fix with Synduality: Echo of Ada.
Now then, what have you played this week?
