Gamereactor UK

Huntdown: Overtime

marcus@gamereactor.eu (Marcus Persson) — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 09:00:00 +0200

Swedish developer Easy Trigger are back, once again treating us to a wild mix of 80s vibes, synth-rock, pixel art and neon-lit cosiness. In short, it's a veritable blast of nostalgia. The big question, then, is will this be just more of the same, or is there also a touch of freshness here compared to the now six-year-old original game?

Because even though the framework is the same, much of what made up Huntdown has also changed, for better or worse. With Overtime, they've set about mixing in a fairly hefty dose of roguelite into the mix, and the result is about as brilliant as it is, at times, frustrating. Because when Huntdown: Overtime is at its best, you sit there like a drooling idiot and just love life.

But let's start at the right end. First and foremost, it is once again John Sawyer who takes centre stage. The trigger-happy bounty hunter who lets his shotgun handle the communication with the city's scum, and just like before, it's all about cleaning up the city's lawless swamp, a wild mix of gangsters, madmen, mutants and all manner of thugs.

Pixelated visuals and cheesy descriptions. It's hard not to love it.

And what strikes you almost immediately is just how incredibly satisfying it feels to tear around as Sawyer. The controls are razor-sharp, and every shot feels like a cannon blast. There's a raw brutality here that few other games can match, and you glide effortlessly between cover whilst taking out the scum one by one with a few well-placed shots from your trusty old rifle.

In many ways, it feels like a Cannon film from the 80s, right on a par with American Ninja, Missing in Action or Cobra. In short, it goes all out with pretty much everything. Everything is big, epic and strangely cocky, not least Sawyer himself, who moves with a weight and precision that makes much else feel like molasses by comparison. The response is, in other words, spot on, with an almost delightfully arcade-like fluidity that really does make your knees go weak.

It certainly doesn't hurt that, visually speaking, Overtime is downright stunningly beautiful. Perhaps not quite on the same level as Replaced, but still incredibly charming, with a design language reminiscent of many of the 90s' greatest pixel-art classics. Throw Contra, Metal Slug and Blackthorne into a blender and you'll get pretty close to Overtime. It's clear that Easy Trigger has a great fondness for the action games of that era, at any rate, and every level is bursting with charming details.

The hooligans on the city streets are best dealt with by force.

Easy Trigger also deserves a special mention for the bosses in Huntdown: Overtime, not least that rocking madman Sammy Six Fingers. A guitar-wielding hard rocker you face off against right in the middle of a concert. Yes, it's exactly as daft as it sounds, but I wouldn't expect anything else from Huntdown, and just like the first game, Overtime doesn't take itself seriously at all.

But then there's the whole roguelite setup. Which, to be honest, feels a bit so-so given that the first game was a proper run-and-gun experience, and for those who appreciated the original game as it was, this could very well be a complete deal-breaker. And I get it. The start is very slow, and the first few hours consist of a lot of repetition and a real hamster-wheel feeling.

The rewards between defeats simply don't feel quite as significant as one might have hoped. And even though they do add up after a while, you never get that wow moment where an upgrade takes your gameplay to new heights. Because one thing is clear: Overtime is significantly harder than the first Huntdown, and much more punishing.

"Say hello to my little friend"

The truth is, it can be rather tedious to grind your way through an entire level, only to be utterly crushed by a boss and then get almost nothing out of the effort. But sure, that's part and parcel of the genre, and therein lies that unique appeal that is the so-called claim to fame of roguelite games. You either love it or hate it, and Easy Trigger certainly deserves credit for actually daring to shake things up.

We must also remember that Huntdown: Overtime is, after all, still in Early Access, and is likely to remain so for a long time to come. The team has also been very transparent about the fact that player feedback will be a vital part of how the game is shaped going forward, based on the existing framework. Which gives hope for the future.

Because even if Easy Trigger hasn't quite hit the mark here as they did with the first Huntdown, there's still plenty to love for those who, like yours truly, harbour an almost unhealthy fondness for the 80s and side-scrolling pixel action. Huntdown is rougher around the edges, slightly less polished and, at present, a bit unnecessarily challenging. But it's also delightfully addictive, outrageously beautiful and delivers some seriously intense action, a great soundtrack and loads of attitude. And that goes a long way.

Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes

patrik@gamereactor.eu (Patrik Severin) — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 16:00:00 +0200

Battlestar Galactica is one of the best science-fiction series ever made. This is why I was delighted to try out Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes, as it's a game that aims to capture the best of its TV counterpart. Just like in the series, it all begins with the planets being attacked and gradually destroyed by the Cylon AI race, where these super-intelligent machines have previously waged war against the 12 colonies comprising "humanity".

This title is developed as a roguelite and follows a spaceship being hunted across the galaxy by its enemy. We start from the same premise as the modern TV series, though we don't have access to the same advanced weapon systems and spaceships. Instead, we have smaller warships and our goal is both to survive and to gather the remnants of our allies, where in practice, it's a setup that takes place in phases. You fight in one phase and repair, develop, issue orders and so on in the other phase, and these alternate with one another. If you've just fought the Cylons who've found you and jumped to safety, you have a certain number of points/actions to use before they find you again, leading to a combat phase where the aim is to survive so you can jump to the next system. It's a game loop that's simple but works well.

The battles are varied thanks to the different enemy ships and the bonuses this grants the enemies. Elite enemies in certain star systems also help to add variety to the battles.

The combat phase is in real-time with a pause function, and it's a fairly small-scale skirmish with few spaceships and abilities under your control. It's somewhat reminiscent of how certain mobile games work and this makes it easier for you to position yourself, manoeuvre, and hold out until you can make a jump to a new solar system. I like this setup; it's just chaotic enough that you remain in control and just challenging enough that you don't get lost in the game mechanics. Our goal is to survive, not to defeat the enemy, and I think Alt Shift has got it right, as the challenge builds gradually with tougher enemy ships and greater variety in what's thrown at you. As the game progresses, you can upgrade and train your pilots to gain more abilities in combat, where one strategy I adopted early on was to acquire as many hero characters as I could, so that I had greater freedom in how I fought and the bonuses they provided for solving problems on board the spaceship. For example, a character can repair things for free without spending an action.

The dialogue and characters vary slightly from one campaign to the next.

The second phase is the classic "sort out a couple of the problems you're facing". You usually have crises on board, and far more than you can resolve before the next battle, and you must choose and spend your hard-earned resources wisely. This is just as difficult as in other similar titles such as FTL, as you must live with limited capabilities and weaknesses. It can be likened to a balancing act where you choose what you'll be slightly worse at during the next battle and you are forced to prioritise whether to have less health because you need to prioritise weapon resources or something else you require.

Variation comes in the form of the enemy mothership, which provides different bonuses to battles, environments that may contain hazards, and characters that are randomly generated on each playthrough. There are also certain abilities that you cannot unlock in a single playthrough. Unfortunately, after just two or three replays, it becomes apparent that the content isn't varied enough before you start seeing the same events, situations, and much more. In a roguelite, this is a worrying problem. It must be said, however, that the content that is there is well-made, especially the slightly longer mission chains and when you have to search for a Cylon aboard your crew who is pretending to be one of your own but with a human appearance.

You must not only look after your own spaceship, but also ensure that civilian spaceships and their crews are well looked after.

If you enjoyed the TV series and, above all, the roguelite genre, this is a competent game despite its lack of variety. Although it's nowhere near as good as Battlestar Galactica Deadlock, it's still one of the best games bearing the franchise's name. Visually, it's quite primitive, but thanks to the zoomed-out perspective, it still looks perfectly acceptable, as it has a somewhat pixelated look when you get close to the spaceships. From a distance, the colours pop and it looks decent, and the character portraits during conversations are also good. It feels as though you're part of the Battlestar Galactica TV series when playing this. The music, however, is the star of the show, thanks to tracks reminiscent of the 2004 series.

Apart from a couple of minor technical issues with text, I haven't encountered any major problems. We live in an age where many games are released in a rather buggy state, and this is not one of them. Rather, the game runs smoothly on various hardware and works straight away when you start it up. Although sound and effects are sparse, explosions, alarms, and other sounds come across as a bit vague and fail to deliver the franchise's iconic sounds. Thanks to the fact that it replicates its source material, the music is perhaps the best thing about the game, as there is a musical style unique to the Battlestar universe and that is captured here. Unfortunately, the rest of the soundscape doesn't have the same strong Battlestar identity.

There are several areas on board the spaceship. In the bar, you can chat with your crewmates and play games.
In the hangar and the research lab, you can upgrade your spaceships and develop technologies to help you.

If you like FTL-style games set in the Battlestar Galactica universe, this is a perfectly acceptable game. It has issues with repetitive content, and mechanically speaking, it's simple, with a focus on surviving as long as possible rather than defeating all enemies. Although I'm not quite as keen on this setup as the one we saw in Deadlock, it's still a title worth checking out if it sounds appealing. There aren't many games that manage to draw inspiration from FTL and still be worthy titles in this genre, and if you're keen on decent alternatives within roguelites, have a soft spot for Battlestar Galactica, and want to experience the nightmare the crew in the TV series had to endure, I think you should check out this game.

After a couple of rounds, the world starts to branch out and you get to choose which system to jump to.
Assignments can be given in several places on board, but you will usually be taken straight to the bridge.
The spaceships are all different, but you can use them to generate resources. You can also train your crews so that they generate resources more efficiently and perform better in battle.

Psyvariar 3

sebastian@gamereactor.eu (Sebastian Lind) — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 17:00:00 +0200

There are game series that are constantly evolving to stay relevant to the times. Then there are series that refuse to compromise, clinging to a design philosophy so niche that it almost feels provocative. Psyvariar 3 belongs to the latter category. With the series' unique grazing system, it's an explosive bullet hell title for people who want to dance millimetres from disaster and feel the adrenaline pumping right to their fingertips!

Grazing, that's right. Or buzzing, if you prefer. It's a gameplay system where you score points and level up by flying as close to enemy projectiles as possible without getting hit. When you level up, you become temporarily invincible, which opens up a chaotic dance of death where you try to survive a barrage of enemy attacks whilst getting as close as possible to the bullet storms so you can unleash even more death and destruction. It helps that your ship's hitbox is extremely small. If, however, you try to play Psyvariar 3 as a more traditional shoot 'em up where you keep a safe distance from enemy fire, you won't last long. The result is a space shooter that, more than usual, intertwines risk and reward into something that feels very unique and innovative for the genre.

But the first impression is... not great. Psyvariar 3 isn't a visually appealing game, to put it diplomatically. You could also say that that leftover sack of potatoes, right at the back of the cupboard, probably looks better. The graphics are some sort of retro-inspired 3D with a plastic feel that screams generic space shooter. I also don't like the fact that the background scrolls at 180 kilometres an hour, with loads of detail. At a quick glance, it's hard to tell what's actually just part of the background and what are things you actively need to avoid. After all, shoot 'em ups rely on quick reflexes, and so it's a cardinal sin to let the screen be this overloaded with clutter. The enemy design is also almost painfully sterile and anonymous, with hordes of scrap metal. The same can be said of the electronic soundtrack, which is by no means rubbish in any way... It's just there, completely impersonal and meaningless, and I find it hard to tell one track from the next.

I may sound unnecessarily grumpy and negative here. But despite my reservations, Psyvariar 3 is by no means a bad game. Its strength lies in its gameplay, where the grazing mechanics, at their best, create an almost hypnotic flow that's hard to tear yourself away from. For a shoot 'em up, the developers have also thrown in quite a few game modes. In addition to Arcade mode, there's Arrange Mode (a slightly easier, alternative version of Arcade mode), Mission Mode (around fifty different missions to complete... or survive!), Caravan Mode (chase high scores), Endless Mode and a training mode.

In other words, there's plenty to get stuck into for those who do get hooked.

Psyvariar 3 is a niche game within an already niche genre. This is a title that knows exactly which audience it's aimed at: the kind of shoot 'em up enthusiasts who fell in love with the old Psyvariar games released around the turn of the millennium, and who have been waiting for a new shoot 'em up with the same super-aggressive gameplay ever since. If you belong to this narrow target group, Psyvariar 3 is Christmas, Eid and Hanukkah all rolled into one. For everyone else, it might just seem like a sack of potatoes.

R-Type Dimensions III

martin@gamereactor.eu (Martin Carlsson) — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 11:00:00 +0200

When asked if I wanted to review R-Type Dimensions III, I was feeling a bit cocky and replied simply: Bring it! I mean, it doesn't look too bad and "how hard can it be?" was the question I asked myself; after all, I do like a challenge. You'll find the answer to that question at the end of the review. I'm not entirely unfamiliar with the gameplay or the genre in general, having tackled several similar experiences in the past as an 80s kid; Section Z on the NES, Gradius in various incarnations across multiple formats over the years, to name a few.

Things go boom - and it's especially fun to see the enemy die, for a change.

This is a side-scrolling shooter in which enemies come in waves, interspersed with power-ups that you collect along the way; the more of these you gather, the more advanced your weapon systems become over time. At your disposal are plasma, bouncing lasers, rockets, shields and charged super shots in various directions - all standard fare in this genre. But nothing - nothing - I've played before could have prepared me for what this remake of the 1993 Super Nintendo original entails. In my naivety, I thought the older games I mentioned above would be a good preparation. I was wrong. Very, very wrong. Not just wrong; it's comparable to running a marathon on lava or jumping off a balcony in the hope of being able to fly. And sure, you can manage a sort of running stride when the terrain is 1200°C, as well as the sensation and experience of being airborne when you take off from a great height. The comparisons aren't quite as far-fetched as one might first think, given how this new release is built and structured. It's not particularly well thought out, ever, and consistently punishes you in ways where it's rarely the player's lack of skill that's to blame. Russian roulette with a fully loaded revolver comes to mind as a way of putting it into a comprehensible perspective.

Expect the terrain to change suddenly, as well as a new definition of gang violence.

The sheer madness sweeping across the screen, killing you with a single hit, borders on the obscene. I never once feel defeated on fair terms - rather, I'm hit out of the blue from behind, from the front, from above, from below or from the side. The blind spot is every angle, constantly. It's based entirely on trial and error and trial by fire. The idea here is entirely about memorising the terrain ahead of you and what types of enemies appear where and when, and they rarely appear in a particularly logical way either. The bosses at the end of each level? We shouldn't even talk about them. Or yes, we should - they're very good at killing you, overall. Which feels particularly frustrating once you've managed to get there.

The game's first boss (the UFO on the left) looks like it's straight out of Duck Hunt - but don't be fooled by appearances.

Identifying the death traps and what happens as you progress through the game's levels is absolutely essential. It doesn't exactly welcome new players in a particularly polite or respectful manner, although thankfully there is a mode here that offers infinite lives and continues. Had it not been for that mode, I would most likely have kicked both my own and my neighbours' walls, as well as hurled the side table in front of me at my TV to strike back as best I could. And I would firmly argue that the difficulty level is not solely due to my own limitations as a player, but rather an incredibly narrow and frankly unfair playing field. If it isn't drifting space debris knocking you out, it's dripping acid from the environment or geysers spewing plasma from walls and ceilings at random, all whilst you're trying to avoid or defeat incoming enemies of various kinds and their attacks, which appear from all directions — often from behind, or completely out of the blue from above just when you think you've got things under control. The game's enemies frequently trap or corner you, leaving humiliation as your only escape, where no amount of automatic fire in the world can stop what's approaching unless you started shooting at the right moment, making timing and precision crucial. No one can hide from death, ever.

Cramped passages, pinpoint precision and enemies attacking from all angles when you least expect it? Good luck.

Dying in this game is, in fact, completely inevitable, if that hasn't already become clear. And we're not talking about 5-10 times on the first level, which isn't particularly long - no, 75 times is more realistic for a newcomer to R-Type III Dimensions, like me. On top of this, you have to navigate narrow, deadly corridors and ideally load up on heavier shots in advance to even stand a chance against whatever might appear in front of you. Add to that the fact that the entire level you're in can start rotating 360 degrees, where even the terrain kills you instantly, whilst various new enemies make their presence known—enemies whose attacks you haven't yet seen or know how to counter, other than by saying a silent prayer for survival. Yes, until you then face that boss at the end of each level, where you can add 25 new failed attempts and celebrate your 100th death. Congratulations, you've reached the next level where you can multiply your failures so far by two - and so it goes on. The game is therefore aimed first and foremost at fans of the original who have played it to death and have the levels etched into the shards of their souls, which must otherwise be full of bruises that will never fully heal.

The boss that fired sperm could only be defeated by firing deep-penetrating shots.

I'm not going to pretend to be some sort of '1337' gamer, but I would go so far as to say that I've built up a broad repertoire of genres and different types of gaming experiences from the 1980s onwards. Fortunately, as mentioned, there are endless lives here if you play on a 'human' difficulty setting, which in a way can be regarded as a benign condition with good prospects, provided there is some hope of survival - whereas the higher difficulty levels instead bring to mind inescapable suffering and sadism intended for the player, who is driven to barbed wire against tooth decay and wipes their backside with coarse sandpaper. It is utterly merciless and very rarely done in the right way or according to a template that feels rewarding, where the level design is hopelessly outdated and unfriendly.

Being able to switch to the original graphics is a fun feature, if only to see yourself die in a pixel explosion rather than a polygon one.

But what isn't outdated, of course, is the effort that's gone into the graphics and presentation, which are perfectly adequate but nothing to write home about either - though they're acceptable. At the touch of a button, you can switch to the original 1993 graphics in real time. Not that this makes anything any easier, but it's a feature I've always appreciated in remakes of older games, from The Secret of Monkey Island - Special Edition to Diablo II: Resurrected. Similarly, there are various soundtracks to choose from, comprising original tracks and new arrangements, as well as the ability to view the game in immersive 2.5D rather than traditional side-scrolling 2D - again, on the fly with the press of a button.

The Crab Boss. That one, lads... it's going to pinch you more than once.

It's not just about violent death and hatred; there's a fair bit of love-hate in there too. And if you've got a mate who likes to die? Well, you can bury yourselves together on the sofa. As I said, I like a challenge, and here I got a proper thrashing I won't forget in a hurry. Are you stubborn? Go for it, just go for it. Fans of the original have a technically more advanced shoot 'em up to look forward to, but this really isn't a game for everyone. There have also been a few sections in the game that have slowed down to such an extent that I had to restart the console and try the level again to rule out bugs - which didn't help, so certain sections on the Switch 2 are simply subpar at the moment. When the frame rate dips to 10-15 and behaves like a slideshow, it obviously doesn't do anyone any favours; I die anyway when it's running at 60. This may well be patched, but I still want to highlight the issue in its current form on Switch 2. So how difficult is the game on a scale, as I asked at the start? I'll answer with a counter-question: "How long is a piece of string, and how much patience do you have?"

eFootball Kick-Off!

david@gamereactor.eu (David Caballero) — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 05:00:00 +0200

eFootball/PES was, in my opinion, the second biggest absence in the whole Nintendo Switch catalogue. I think Konami missed a clear goal there, and now they're trying to be more agile on the Switch 2. After all, their efforts in the beautiful game for Nintendo platforms had been great in the past (SNES, N64, Gamecube in Japan, Wii), but the owners of those had been missing them for a couple of generations.

At first sight, eFootball Kick-Off!'s proposal seems confusing, but I think I now understand what this is all about. For some reason (probably the always controversial player packs as something similar to loot boxes?) the regular eFootball won't arrive on the Switch 2. That means no free-to-play football game on the system, no MyClub, coins, spending, and randomised elements. The title has been downloaded a billion times so it's a proven successful formula, but it won't grow on a Nintendo system, at least for now.

The International Cup has all the groups and matches inspired by the imminent World Cup. If your National team is licensed, you also get the real kit.

However, this isn't a fully fledged football title either. Don't expect the content and the bells & whistles of the good 'ol Pro Evolution Soccer, nor of your annual FIFA and EA FC.

eFootball Kick-Off! is, then, a sort of a "lite" football game with a very reduced price point. A pick-up-and-play experience you can easily and quickly buy and download from the Nintendo eShop to enjoy some matches on the go or on your TV this summer, more so when the World Cup is about to, hmm, kick off.

And with that compact format in mind, how does it fare? Well, not bad, really. For a €19.99 download, you get a game where you can play local, online, wireless, and even via GameShare, and where you can choose between friendly matches but also a couple of longer modes. One is the confusingly-named "World Tour", and the other is the likewise confusing "International Cup".

There's a significant contrast between partner or top players like Lamine Yamal and the rest.

World Tour is a Campaign Mode. Like the Master League!? Well, not so much, but a space to create and manage your club as you progress through the different stages on offer. Not much to customise or manage, but it's a longer single player mode with its stats and medals, if you will.

Then the International Cup is a blatant copy of the FIFA World Cup, just without many of its licenses (more on that later, same as with Leagues and clubs). But, you know what? For me it was perfectly fine to choose Spain and see how all the groups and fixtures had been arranged already.

It's also got a couple of quirky extras, such as a Mini Game space and a players encyclopaedia, but the meat here are the matches themselves, right?

Controller in hand, eFootball Kick-Off! plays and feels pretty much like your regular eFootball. And that is good. It's clean, responsive, arcadey, magnetised to the diagonals, as you would expect. Lots of fun, if you don't expect or need something more sophisticated to, again, play on the TV or on the go.

It also offers an interesting emphasis on accessibility for newcomers to football games. This permeates both the interface and the controls, with lots of visual aids, guidance, and assistance. For example, you can learn to shoot with Castolo in slow motion, or to activate auto-passing until you get to grips with the real thing. And you can see comments from the players in dialogue bubbles in-match, which is a nice light-hearted touch.

Once you've mastered the systems, for example in easier 6v6 matches, you can try your foot at the regular 11v11 matches, with all the strategies, club playstyles, and more you would expect. So the core gameplay is there, waiting for you.

Now, while all this is to me good and enough for a 20-buck purchase, I think there's room for improvement. For example, while graphics are clean and solid, I think we can ask a little bit more from the Switch 2. It looks like a simpler PS4 version, with the same models but struggling with depth of field and suffering from Konami's now decade-old graphical glitch involving grass texture and draw distance.

Konami's old grass glitch in action.

Besides, you get your typical mixture of fully-licensed clubs, such as Barça, Arsenal, or Inter Milan, and even leagues, such as the French League including fresh Champions League winners PSG, and then a ton of important clubs with fake names and kits, such as the now infamous Madrid Chamartín. And the same goes for National Teams. All players have real names and faces, but that's it.

Was I expecting otherwise? No. Still a bummer nowadays, even perhaps more so when we're back to paying for the base product? Perhaps. But not my biggest issue with the game. It's fun, easy to enjoy, and it's got a nice approach to it in terms of value. And I love the menu music reminding me of the ISS/PES era, and the cute icons in Nintendo's own fashion. So, if Konami manages to upgrade the graphics to more modern standards, and if the World Tour leans closer to the ML in the future, this could be more than a summer love or a travel buddy. For now, it's okay if just like that.

Players comment your plays (right).Licensed clubs match (left) and simplistic, icon-based Title Screen (right).
There's a Players Encyclopaedia (middle).Mbappé wouldn't miss the World Cup nor Konami's latest (left). The cute World Tour Home Screen (right).

Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth (Nintendo Switch 2)

alberto@gamereactor.eu (Alberto Garrido) — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 14:00:00 +0200

It seems I'm finally going to earn a reputation here as the Gamereactor reviewer who re-plays games, as lately I haven't stopped reviewing ports, remasters, and remakes of games I'd already completed before. It happened with Fallout 4, with Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and now with Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, which I'd already played, loved, reviewed (on Gamereactor Spain) and thought I'd closed the book on for the PlayStation 5, only to find myself revisiting it on the Nintendo Switch 2. With a game as massive as this one, which easily takes over 100 hours to play through, this review wasn't so much about revisiting its narrative and gameplay strengths or weaknesses (though I do have a couple of new thoughts on that) as it was about assessing whether this titanic game, with a file size of over 100 GB, lives up to its name on the Nintendo console as well.

Let's move on for now to the less attractive aspects of this FFVII Rebirth on Switch 2. Aliasing was something that, obviously, was bound to happen, given that the hardware's power is lower than that of other versions, but it hasn't been anything dramatic either. In other words, you have to bear in mind that you won't see the same sharpness in handheld mode as you would on your 4K monitor or TV with a PS5. If you've already played Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade on the Switch 2, you'll see that the DLSS solution here is identical, and although the game 'looks' a bit rougher on the small portable screen, in the Dock and on the TV it offers a noticeable improvement.

What you will notice straight away, and for the better, is that the performance is practically the same, whether in enclosed spaces or in the large open-world sections you'll encounter from Kalm to the Temple of the Elders. Even without benchmarking software, the game seems to run effortlessly at a steady 30 fps, occasionally utilising VRR technology to smooth transitions or enhance on-screen fluidity during battles. That said, don't expect the same depth of field or density of on-screen entities as you'd find on PC, PS5, or Xbox. There is object popping—and not just a little of it—affecting both NPCs and monsters.

But technical issues aside, if this is your first playthrough of Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, you're sure to be hooked by everything else. Having left Midgar behind (almost entirely), now is when the world of Gaia feels free to explore. In this second playthrough, I've taken the opportunity to enjoy my favourite activities in Rebirth: exploring every corner of the map, hunting down all the materia, playing the Chocobo-catching minigames and, of course, defending my title as a master in Queen's Blood. Seriously, Square Enix, you really ought to consider a standalone spin-off for this card game.

I've also taken the opportunity to try and grind (again, unsuccessfully) enough materials to upgrade my gear to the max using the Synthesis skill. More due to a lack of time (if you've never played Rebirth, bear in mind that there's potentially over 100 hours of gameplay, no exaggeration) than a lack of desire. Because there's always something to do, if you don't want to rush straight to the ending and the credits. Helping the inhabitants of a world that feels much more alive here than it did in 1997, improving your scores in minigames on the Costa del Sol or at the Gold Saucer... and perhaps even trying out a different sort of 'first date' there.

I won't go into too much detail about the game's main story, which, as you've no doubt already noticed, isn't the same as in the original Final Fantasy VII. Even with its additions and changes, the key moments remain where they should be, though I'm not sure I'd have the heart to go through certain scenes again that still move me, whether in 32-bit or now in high definition. The spectacular soundtrack by the sound team, building on Nobuo Uematsu's work, is also to blame, once again. In my opinion, it's far better utilised throughout the entire game now than in the specific moments where it shone in Remake Intergrade.

Be that as it may, my view is that Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth remains an absolute beast both narratively and graphically, and I'm amazed that a game of this scale and ambition fits onto a slim handheld like the Switch 2 without making any critical compromises. If taking Cloud, Tifa, Aerith, Barret, Yuffie, Cait Sith, and Red with you wherever you go outweighs any technical limitations, here you have one of the most important games of recent years finally on Nintendo, and also one of the best recent instalments in the Final Fantasy franchise (if not the best) finally in your hands.

World of Tanks: Heat

ben@gamereactor.eu (Ben Lyons) — Fri, 29 May 2026 17:00:00 +0200

I won't beat around the bush; I find reviewing games like World of Tanks: Heat to be rather challenging. It's not that these games provide a complex array of mechanics or a gameplay design which is a bit polarising to get your head around, it's simply that this is yet another example of a live-service game where I can't help but feel as though the cards are already stacked against it. This understanding doesn't just come from the fact that it's a live-service game in a segment that is more cutthroat than ever before (just ask Highguard, Spellcasters: Chronicles, heck even Destiny 2 to an extent, for this year alone), but also when considering the limited slate of content currently featured and also how this is a Wargaming project. Again, not to point the finger per se, but Wargaming has tried all manner of live-service efforts as of late and many don't tend to stick around for very long, with Steel Hunters the most recent casualty...

In fact, Steel Hunters is a fascinating game to compare with this latest idea known as World of Tanks: Heat, as Steel Hunters offered a unique hook by combining towering mechs with intense online multiplayer action. Whether or not this marriage worked to great effect is another point of conversation, but the key thing to note is that Steel Hunters was fundamentally a unique video game. World of Tanks: Heat doesn't exactly fit the same bill.

Essentially, what we have with this game is a faster-paced and less demanding version of the World of Tanks formula. The core mechanics and premise of using armoured vehicles in multiplayer combat is preserved but it's now less rigid and strategic, and more focussed on letting players get into the action to make for chaotic carnage that feels more like an arena shooter. A very rudimentary comparison could be if World of Tanks plays more like the tactical Counter-Strike, World of Tanks: Heat is Call of Duty.

But again, aside from a tweak to the pacing and change to the game modes on offer, at its core we're still talking about a multiplayer game where players drive tanks, shoot at one another and steadily whittle down health bars to defeat opponents and win matches. The difference is it's less reliant on landing the perfect shot and overcoming armour thickness, armour sloping, round penetration values, how camouflaged and hidden your vehicle is, conserving resources to ensure you last the full game. All of the key elements World of Tanks players will know so familiarly at this point have been cut out in favour of more arcade-like gameplay where you zoom around a map and run-and-gun, completely devoid of the worry of being destroyed as you know you will simply respawn.

On paper, I can see why Wargaming wanted to create this game and I understand it too, but at the same time, I don't know whether there's a place for it. Core World of Tanks fans will still find the more strategic and intricate gameplay of the original more compelling, similarly to how they will continue to better connect with the creative focus of that traditional experience where the premise is steady but rewarding progression and learning every niche nook and cranny of every map and combat scenario. Likewise, newer players less familiar with World of Tanks will likely find that Heat is still too slow and sluggish for them. This isn't a responsive and snappy twitch shooter, the sort of experience Marathon and ARC Raiders players have come to enjoy as of late, it's still very much World of Tanks, except around 30% faster. So as you can see, I feel as though this game fundamentally has a bit of an identity crisis.

The trump card would be that the gameplay is simply too well refined and enjoyable that the identity issues become forgettable, but I'm not quite convinced this is there either. It works and I won't knock the experience for what it fundamentally does to a functional degree, but at the same time, we're not talking about a World of Tanks variant here that will knock you off your feet. It's acceptable and that's fine, but live-service games need to draw in an audience and then keep them hooked for months, years even, and I can't see Heat snatching players away from World of Tanks or even landing a broad new playerbase who so clearly associate with this experience but not the original. There's just too much overlap and many of the areas this game changes the formula simply stand out as regressions.

Now what I mean here is that the broad and lengthy progression of the original game is gone. There's no direction really, you simply get handed powerful stock vehicles and use them in battle, gradually levelling them up to earn improved components. You match this up with 'Agents', which are hero-like characters that bring unique abilities and fit into defined classes, and the end result is a bizarre melange of design choices where you can never quite tell whether Heat wants to be a hero-shooter-like experience or a World of Tanks-lite-type project. From my experience, there's little reason to have defined classes and Agents, and if anything, it's simply counter-intuitive that the various tank options are tied to specific characters, meaning if you like a certain tank you have to use a specific Agent, and vice-versa, if you like a certain Agent's abilities, you have to use that character's defined vehicle options. It simply comes across as needlessly stiff and you can't help but wonder if the traditional World of Tanks vehicle categories of Heavy, Medium, Light, Tank Destroyer, Artillery would be better in practice, where you can select the tank you want to use and then combine it with an Agent of choice, truly putting your own stamp on the game.

Oh and let's not forget how the Agents are simply forgettable and leave no impression, an issue that countless hero-shooter-like games have faced in recent memory. There seems to be this understanding that we can be thrown a face and a name and then simply fall in love with a character with no lore, backstory, motivations, nothing. These characters are simply names on a sheet of paper for the most part and it doesn't do anything for me.

On a more positive note, Wargaming has done a fantastic job with the new engine that World of Tanks: Heat runs upon. It looks remarkable, plays like a dream, delivers a stunning ambience and thumping, intense combat, and typically speaking, this is an engine that could be put to great use if the developer could get the original World of Tanks experience running on it. There are crashes that need to be sorted, but otherwise, this engine is a highlight, and for all of its vices with how it churns out live-service games without much of a plan for their future, Wargaming does make well put together projects, and Heat is just the latest example of that.

However, we do have to build upon that last point further. World of Tanks: Heat is a free-to-play game, so there's no real obligation for Wargaming to offer up a ton of content as there's no financial entrance fee, if you will. Still, eight forgettable Agents, 15 rigidly-implemented tanks, four familiar and safe game modes, and eight rather anonymous maps is not enough content to launch a game with - especially if you want players to come in the door and stick around for the long-haul. Fans will give this game a few hours, mostly exhaust it of what it gives them, and move on, and while that may sound ruthless, it's the truth that a lot of live-service projects don't seem to want to face. There's already a clear focus on Battle Passes, premium currencies, store-bought cosmetics, and various other meaningless fluff. To me, it's rather bold to ensure these elements are so prevalent on day one when such a limited array of content is also present.

So anyway, we come full circle to the Steel Hunters debacle again, as after playing both the now-defunct game and the next live-service project being churned out by Wargaming, it's clear that the former project had a more unique theme to it. Again, World of Tanks: Heat fundamentally works, but it doesn't leave much of an impression, has a limited array of content currently, and is weighed down by the typical live-service design choices that have made this section of the game industry the most tiresome and indefensible of them all. But hey, it's free-to-play so give it a go and see what you think at the end of the day.

Yerba Buena

palle@gamereactor.eu (Palle Havshøi-Jensen) — Thu, 28 May 2026 11:00:00 +0200

Yerba Buena comes from the Berlin-based indie developer Mad About Pandas and is a surreal first-person puzzle-platformer set in a bug-ridden computer game. You take on the role of Barbara, also known simply as Barb, who lives her life as an NPC in a computer game that is no longer being updated, which means that the bugs and glitches in the game aren't being fixed and are starting to pop up all over the cityscape.

The game is set in 1970s San Francisco and Barb and her friends are fighting to prevent the city's famous Yerba Buena Park from being replaced, as planned, by a huge office block. However, Barb and her friends suddenly find themselves caught up in a grim case involving kidnapping and a local biker gang, and from there things start to pick up pace.

Since Barb lives in a computer game, she experiences strange glitches and bugs along the way, and these are quite amusing for gaming geeks like us. I won't reveal them here, but I can say that she comes across a bloke called Tee, who hasn't moved all week as he's stuck in a classic T-pose. She also comes across developer logs from Arne at Pyramid Interactive, who once worked on the game Barb lives in, and here you hear him talking about the bugs the game has and whether they should be fixed at all. This whole setup, with the game taking place inside another computer game, is quite amusing, but unfortunately is never really staged effectively.

On the other hand, the game's biggest gimmick is the "Oscillator", which Barb finds at the start of the game. It's a weapon-like contraption that can manipulate the surroundings by copying movements and/or physical properties from other parts of the environment. It works by allowing you to copy a movement or a physical property from selected areas of the environment and apply them to other selected objects around you. The movements could be a spinning carousel at the town fairground or a mechanical advertising sign where a logo moves up and down.

So how can this be used? A good example is that, at the start of the game, you need to move a parked car to the other side of the street so that you can use it to climb onto the roof of a small building. Therefore, with the Oscillator, you can copy the movement of other cars at the end of the street, which are driving from right to left, and then copy this movement to the parked car so that it moves in the same direction, i.e. from the right-hand side of the street to the left-hand side of the street. You can influence many other things - indeed, entire sections of houses and buildings - with movements from lifts, propellers in ventilation systems, and many other things.

Later, the Oscillator gains several new abilities; for example, you can make things vanish into thin air by copying the properties of steam from a vent or from a coffee machine in an office and applying them to a building, which then dissolves into thin air, just as the steam does. You can also later apply the properties of a bouncy castle or trampoline, allowing you to jump high by stepping on selected objects that have been imbued with this property.

On paper, this sounds quite exciting, but that's not quite how it is in reality. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what's wrong here, but there's something that feels "off" when playing Yerba Buena. At times, it seems as though the puzzles don't quite work as they should, but this can be difficult to discern, as several puzzles can be quite difficult to understand. Even if you do what seems obviously right, it's as if certain puzzles simply don't work or are just very restrictive, so the solution has to be executed in exactly the right way, and it's not always clear what the game wants you to do.

Puzzles are allowed to be difficult, but they must be difficult for the right reason. In Yerba Buena, they often feel frustrating for the reasons mentioned above, and add to that the first-person perspective, which does the game no favours, and clunky physics, particularly in the more complicated puzzles later in the game, where several of the Oscillator's properties must be combined.

The game encourages you to explore and experiment your way to the solution of the various puzzles, and so you aren't penalised when you die, which is lovely. Nevertheless, it's frustrating when you have figured out the solution but simply cannot execute it due to imprecise controls, clunky physics, restrictive puzzles, and a first-person view that can get in the way of seeing what you need to. Consequently, some of the game's puzzles end up being more frustrating than they were interesting to solve and that really shouldn't be the case in a puzzle game.

The visuals in Yerba Buena are fairly simple, but they work. Things can get quite chaotic when you use the oscillator to move large sections of various buildings around, but the game engine can handle it. The animations of the game's characters and objects in the environment are very mechanical and stiff, giving the game a slightly rough appearance; overall, Yerba Buena has a somewhat clunky feel to it, and it seems as though the developers may have bitten off more than they could chew.

Yerba Buena is based on a fun idea, but unfortunately it simply isn't very fun to play. As mentioned earlier, it's hard to pinpoint exactly what's wrong, but the whole thing just feels a bit "off" and the game never quite clicks. The various puzzles can seem illogical, the controls and mechanics can get in the way of solving them, and the game has a slightly stiff and mechanical feel to it.

I wouldn't in any way advise against Yerba Buena, and if you're a puzzle fan and fancy trying a different kind of puzzle game, then by all means give this one a go, but be prepared to get frustrated by some occasionally illogical puzzles, some clunky mechanics, and a first-person view that makes the whole thing a bit more fiddly than it ought to be.

Yerba Buena is a decent little puzzle game with a good basic concept, which unfortunately doesn't quite take off, and it all ends up feeling more like hard work than entertainment and that's a shame. And the reasonable price tag of just under £21 can't change that.

Echo Generation 2

conny@gamereactor.eu (Conny Andersson) — Wed, 27 May 2026 16:00:00 +0200

Throughout the years, there have been numerous games that we remember perhaps primarily for their distinctive design. Whether it's garish colours, beautiful cel-shading, or retro-style pixels, these stand in stark contrast to all those titles that go to great lengths to showcase more technically impressive and realistic environments. It's precisely this distinctive style of design that springs to mind when I think of the 2021 adventure known as Echo Generation, even if it was also a charming role-playing game that offered far more than just visual appeal.

The Spielberg-esque coming-of-age story, drawing inspiration from everything from The Goonies, E.T., and Stranger Things, gave us an exciting adventure, all accompanied by the wonderful blocky voxel design that served as its aesthetic. It had a retro feel, yet was also technically enriched by all the advances in graphics and that combination is often hard to resist.

I won't go on too long here, but I remember Echo Generation fondly, so I was very happy when a sequel finally arrived. But just an hour in, I realised this is a very different game from the one it follows. I don't really know why the developers did this to be honest, but I'll do my best to separate my disappointment regarding the drastic change of genre and judge it for what it actually is. Even though the sequel certainly has a lot in common with its predecessor, it is, at its core, something else.

Once again, we're treated to some truly stunning graphics.

But let's leave that for now and focus on a direct similarity between the two. If you look at the images, it becomes quite obvious what I'm referring to; it's the visuals that have carried over from the predecessor to this sequel like a common thread. The graphics are stunning, the pixels are beautiful wherever you are, and give the game a very special style. Everything is a feast for the eyes in its purest form, and the only thing I really would have liked is slightly more grandiose environments.

For Echo Generation 2, a lot of the environments consist of the sort that I, actually, don't find all that interesting. There are a lot of laboratories and dark indoor environments, and it's on those rare occasions when you are outdoors, and when you are treated to beautiful panoramic views, that I am truly captivated. It's a shame that it feels a bit confined and limited, both in terms of the variety of environments and the point we're about to move on to.

The card battles are fun, although they're never particularly challenging.

First and foremost, I want to make it clear that I had expectations of a completely different kind of adventure back then, but as I said, it would be unfair to judge Echo Generation 2 for what it isn't and for what I myself had hoped it would be. When I started looking forward to this, I was looking forward to a sequel, a natural follow-up, something similar but more developed. As a games writer, it's obviously part of the job to have a pretty good grasp of what's coming, but I had, quite honestly, missed the fact that the sequel wasn't a retro-style adventure game in the same spirit as the first instalment. What they've done instead is develop this into a deck-builder and stripped away much of what made the first game so special.

There are a few things worth discussing here because you still explore a number of different environments and there is definitely an overarching narrative. It revolves around the fates of four different characters that intertwine against a cosmic threat and the game's first four chapters can also be played in any order, and you can even jump in and out between them if you wish.

There are plenty of spectacular effects on offer.

Unfortunately, there is a distinct lack of context. It's difficult to get a grip on or care about the characters at all and this is despite some introductory text and explanation about who they are. We have a man on a camping trip with his family, a girl breaking out of a laboratory in what is perhaps the game's strongest Stranger Things vibe, a bounty hunter and her dog-like companion on a spaceship, and then a zombie searching for her child in a very hostile landscape.

At the same time, it's exciting that the game is as mysterious as it is and that it's so strange to such a large extent. Given that there's an attempt at four distinct stories, I would still have liked a bit more than what I got, especially once their introductory chapters are dealt with. But, plot aside, the main thing this game is about is still the combat. These follow one another at a furious pace and they involve playing cards, starting with just a few, where you collect more as the adventure progresses. The characters also level up, which means you can unlock skills such as being able to play more cards each turn, and it's all turn-based, with you and the enemy taking turns every other round. It's worth noting that the enemies don't play any cards; they simply launch attacks from which you can take slightly less damage by pressing a button at the right time and then when it's your turn, you play your cards to deal damage and defeat the game's various monsters.

Some characters have a rather unusual sidekick, to say the least.

It's not a particularly deep system we're being offered. Of course, there's the option to tailor your deck for maximum effect, to try to ensure you maximise damage with various types of effects like burn, poison, and all the classics, as well as including a few cards that grant you health or protect you from monster attacks. Overall, however, I'd say what's on offer is a sort of simplified version of a deck-builder, and that doesn't make it boring, because combined with the fantastic visual design, it's still these battles that are the best part of the game. If you enjoy turn-based battles with card-playing, it's still fundamentally fun.

There are, however, a few issues. Apart from the fact that the whole thing is a bit too sparse when it comes to different types of cards and their effects, there are a few occasions where, above all, your level stands in the way of defeating an enemy that simply can take a lot of damage. Sometimes it can be as simple as reviewing your strategy and making it significantly more effective, but sometimes you simply need to level up by one or two levels to stand a chance of winning. This often involves running a long way back to an area where enemies are present so you can gain a few more experience points. In one of the game's larger areas, there was also only a single spot where you could do this and the backtracking that sometimes needs to be done also occurs when, for example, you realise you want to explore an area a bit more closely. These aren't massive environments, far from it, but it still becomes a bit of a slog having to run back and forth across loads of screens, and a map for travelling around would simply have made the whole thing smoother.

The game's mystery could have been far more exciting with a more intricate plot.

Echo Generation 2 was, as you've hopefully realised, ultimately not at all what I expected. But as the credits rolled, I tried to focus mainly on what the game gave me as the kind of experience it is. My disappointment at not getting a proper sequel offering an even more epic adventure than its predecessor is one thing, but that's just the way it is, and the developers have chosen a different path. It is, however, very difficult to shake off that feeling. But if this had been a truly phenomenal deck-builder, it wouldn't have mattered quite so much that it turned out to be something different, as it would still have been a very good game. Unfortunately, however, this feels rather half-hearted for the most part. The battles quickly become repetitive and lack depth, the whole narrative arc feels rather muddled and, above all, not particularly interesting. So, even though I fully accept the nature of this type of game, it simply lacks enough finesse and depth to reach any greater heights. The fact that it's also extremely easy is a drawback because as soon as you've optimised your cards or reached the required level, you can defeat the enemies with the greatest of ease. It simply doesn't have the strengths this type of game needs in terms of challenge or complexity.

There are a few bright spots without question, and the visuals are clearly one of them. I also fundamentally love the type of combat the game features, as I simply find it fun to fight using cards. But even though these two factors shine, Echo Generation 2 will unfortunately go down as one of the bigger disappointments of the year for me.

Mina the Hollower

sebastian@gamereactor.eu (Sebastian Lind) — Wed, 27 May 2026 15:00:00 +0200

Isn't it a bit odd how some games can feel nostalgic without actually being old? Mina the Hollower looks like something you might have played on an overclocked Game Boy Color back in 1999, yet at the same time it offers a modern feel, design, and quality-of-life features that definitely belong more in the 2020s. For the impatient among you: I can say straight away that this is a serious contender for the title of this year's most charming and polished indie adventure!

The setup, for those of you who've missed it, is a bit different. You play as the ingenious mouse Mina, a so-called "hollower", armed with a whip and the ability to burrow underground to make her way through the world. The digging itself might sound like a gimmick, but the fact is it's the backbone of the entire game. You'll be using it constantly to avoid attacks, get past obstacles, find hidden passages, or simply move faster through the expansive game world. It quickly becomes as second nature as platforming in Super Mario or dodging in Dark Souls. Above all, it also gives Mina the Hollower its own unique hook in this crowded genre of platforming action-adventures with RPG elements. It's just not enough anymore to have some cool sprites, nice chiptunes, and a nod to Zelda to make people's jaws drop. Today, something more is required, and fortunately, Mina the Hollower possesses precisely the qualities that make it stand out from the crowd!

This is a darker game than its somewhat rudimentary Game Boy aesthetic might suggest. Sure, it features the developers' distinctive charm and humour from Shovel Knight, but the story also takes some unexpected turns and manages to convey a great deal with very little. Above all, I love the dense atmosphere, which can best be described as the developers taking every possible cliché from classic Gothic horror films, repackaging them into a game, and against all odds managing to create something entirely unique from it. In gaming terms, it's as if the base is laid with the dreamlike and surreal gameplay of The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, the filling is Castlevania's look and feel, and the topping is the unforgiving and uncompromising difficulty of Dark Souls. The world is vast and vibrant, constantly encouraging you to try new things, and as you quickly gain access to a whole arsenal of skills, the game world becomes genuinely exciting to explore. You want to lose yourself in it, memorise its shortcuts, and constantly search for the next secret.

It certainly helps that the controls are flawless, as they respond instantly to every button press, and the combat has a fluidity and precision that makes even the simplest enemies feel satisfying to dispatch. In addition to the whip, there are several alternatives such as knives (more focused on close combat) and the hammer (slower but more powerful), and the weapons can also be upgraded in interesting ways to turn Mina into a swirling tornado of destruction. The game contains some old-school DNA in that it expects you to observe the world, learn enemy patterns, and experiment with all the tools at your disposal. Thankfully, there isn't much hand-holding here, but it never becomes confusing either, as the razor-sharp game design constantly pushes you in the right direction. In combat, you quickly find an almost hypnotic rhythm where you constantly switch between attacks and evasive manoeuvres, and the bosses are also brilliant throughout, not just visually, but in terms of gameplay mechanics too. Yacht Club Games has crafted boss fights that are challenging without becoming frustrating, and even though I died many times, I could never blame anyone but myself.

I wrote earlier that Mina the Hollower feels like an overclocked Game Boy Color game, and that's really no exaggeration. The pixel art is utterly consistent and distinctive, it's almost provocative how much detail and personality the developers have managed to cram into this limited visual style. The animations are top-notch throughout, the environments are teeming with little quirks, and whilst the enemy design may be derivative, it's still cosy and charming. The game conveys a dark and fateful atmosphere and makes it look effortless, something that's easier said than done. The graphics blend seamlessly with the fantastic soundtrack, composed by veteran Jake Kaufman (who, fittingly, began his professional career with a Game Boy Color game), and speaking of game music veterans, the living legend, Yuzo Koshiro, also contributes a few guest tracks. Together, they have created a soundscape that is at once melancholic, menacing, and strangely cosy and inviting.

What really makes Mina the Hollower work isn't something you can pinpoint though, it's more a sense that this is a true labour of love, an adventure meticulously handcrafted by developers who truly understand and love this kind of game. Every little animation, every secret, and every sound effect feels both carefully placed, and at the same time, as natural as if they'd always been there.

Yacht Club Games could have made things easier for themselves. They could have churned out yet another Shovel Knight game, and instead, they chose to do something new, something different, and perhaps a little darker. Mina the Hollower therefore never feels like a cheap attempt to ride the simple wave of nostalgia. It isn't just another game in an ocean full of new-old indie titles with tacked-on retro graphics. This feels like a game that truly understands why so many of us fell in love with that era in the first place. It wasn't just thanks to impressive pixel art or infectious beep-boop music, but also for the sense of adventure and exploration. The feeling that there was a fantastic WORLD crammed onto a tiny cassette, a world full of limitations, certainly, but one that also felt like something greater than just a collection of pixels on a screen. And that feeling... Mina the Hollower captures that feeling perfectly.

Mina runs through the night as if the moon itself had lent her its heart. This isn't just another game in the crowd, it's a game that smells of dew on a summer morning, like rain against old stone. It captures the feel of a childhood cartoon series, a time when the world still hid treasures and mystery behind every shadow.

Thrifty Business

joel@gamereactor.eu (Joel Petterson) — Wed, 27 May 2026 09:00:00 +0200

A flea market simulator with a lovely 90s aesthetic, brilliant pixel art and an overall cosy atmosphere - could this be a hit? Yes and no. The basic premise is thoroughly enjoyable and well put together, but certain aspects raise questions that will bother some people more than others. Personally, I'm somewhere in the middle. I really like a lot of what Thrifty Business is trying to do, but I'm not always equally convinced by everything the game chooses to focus on.

The game begins with you taking over a business when the previous owner, an elderly lady, has decided to close up shop and devote herself to retirement pursuits - you know, bridge, crosswords and boules. You create your character in a well-made but somewhat sparse character editor, and then it's pretty much straight into a career in the second-hand trade.

Even the start menu gives you a glimpse of just how stunning this game is.

I like the setup; you buy boxes full of stuff people don't want for next to nothing - some of it costs absolutely nothing - and then arrange it neatly on shelves, tables and clothes racks. You get bonus points for sorting items into categories and by colour, so it's worth spending a bit of time actually putting things where they belong. This isn't exactly easy at first, as you're literally starting from scratch and barely have access to a decent shelf at the start of the game.

Gradually, you'll be able to afford to buy more furniture, more boxes of curiosities, and even unlock more rooms so you can properly expand the business. A classic setup and cosy in every way. You also receive letters from customers who want you to keep an eye out for certain products coming in. The idea is that customers should become more than just customers - they should also become your friends. Every now and then they share life stories and problems, but this never really engages me; it mostly just gets in the way of continuing to neatly unpack and sort everything from dog toys to old laptops.

Thrifty Business trips itself up a bit here by trying to be more than it needs to be. For me, the game works best when it sticks to its core concept: running a small, charming second-hand shop where the joy lies in buying stock, sorting it, rearranging the shop and slowly building a business from scratch. When the game starts to branch out into social side-tracks and themed evenings, it sometimes loses focus, not because the ideas themselves are bad, but because they don't always feel fully rooted in the gameplay experience that is actually the strongest part.

A clear example is the ability to organise various events to attract more customers. The first thing you arrange is a grand opening where you serve refreshments and celebrate the flea market's opening, and this fits naturally into the context. It's small-scale, down-to-earth and goes hand in hand with the game's warm tone. When the next theme, however, is "Queer Date Night," it feels more as though the game suddenly wants to say something bigger than its mechanics and world can really support. Not because the theme itself is problematic - quite the opposite - but because, in this particular context, it feels a bit tacked on. A flea market can certainly be a social meeting place, but here I would have liked to see the game develop that idea more organically, rather than throwing in a ready-made event that doesn't really carry any dramatic or mechanical weight.

You start with a room...

It would probably have worked better if the game's customer relationships, the town's social life or the flea market's role as a local meeting place had been more fully developed. Then such a theme might have felt like a natural part of the world. Instead, it becomes one of several examples of how Thrifty Business sometimes seems to want to be a cosy shop simulator, a relationship game and a social commentary all at once, without really giving the different parts enough space. The result isn't offensive or game-breaking, just a bit oddly placed.

But it's nothing that ruins the game for me. It's more of a detail that grates a little on the whole, an example of how the game sometimes loses its own strength when it tries to branch out. Because when Thrifty Business just lets me unpack old dog toys, sort through faded VHS tapes and build the best-organised little junk shop in town, it's actually really nice. A cosy game for relaxed, laid-back gaming.

I would have liked there to be more different types of storage options and a few other styles of items. You can unlock more as you go, but it's mostly more of the same. Hopefully we'll see more content from Spellgarden Games - but at the moment, it's a bit sparse.

... and soon you'll have several.

I like the graphic style. The pixels are spot on and the aesthetics are thoroughly charming. I've got a soft spot for this colourful, exuberant 90s style - perhaps because I grew up then and recognise it from my childhood. The music is also cosy, calm and harmonious, and complements the other visual aspects perfectly.

Thrifty Business is a good game that suffers from occasionally trying to be something it doesn't really need to be. I don't always understand the developers' thinking, but that might also be because I'm not part of the intended target audience for all aspects of the experience. If, however, you're looking for a relaxing and well-made flea market simulator with small puzzle elements, I definitely think you should take a closer look at Thrifty Business.

One Military Camp

alberto@gamereactor.eu (Alberto Garrido) — Tue, 26 May 2026 19:25:19 +0200

Abylight has earned its place as a benchmark in the management simulator, 'tycoon', and city-builder genres through hard work, sweat, blood, and tears. This is largely down to its elegant design of a Roman villa that can grow into a new empire, as seen in Citadelum, but also thanks to its ambitious and chaotically entertaining military training camp builder, One Military Camp. The title marked a leap forward in the studio's own developments and as a publisher, placing us in the role of director of a small military camp from which to recruit, train and keep a new batch of cadets healthy and motivated, transforming them into elite soldiers and reclaiming all the territory dominated by the cruel dictator Dragan.

One Military Camp was released in 2023 on PC, followed later by versions for PlayStation and Xbox, and now it's the turn of the latest version on Nintendo Switch. Since that first OMC, we've tried the game on several occasions, but we hadn't spent enough time with it to give it a rating and an in-depth review until now. So today, we're donning our four-cornered hats, combing our bushy moustaches, and practising our commanding voices to join the drill sergeant in raising the last bastion of freedom (and chaos) in these lands. Attention!

As I said, One Military Camp is a military camp builder that quickly evolves into a camp manager and, ultimately, turns you into a military strategist in the campaign to reconquer the lands from Dragan's forces. Don't panic, because combat missions are based on a success rate determined by the preparation and specialisation of your deployed troops, so you won't have to worry about casualties or delivering sad news to families... at least, not at first. The real challenge will be keeping those soldiers active, happy, well-equipped, and fed for the entire duration of the military campaign.

The most important thing for success is to always maintain a balance between the supplies coming into the camp, those being consumed, and the activities carried out by the rank-and-file soldiers. You can send them on basic training and, once they've acquired certain skills, promote them to specialist soldiers, each with increasingly specific roles. The first missions will barely require sending a couple of soldiers with some experience in weapons and communications, but you'll soon find you need spies, pilots, tank drivers, and all sorts of highly skilled fighters. What's more, they need a good night's sleep, so you must provide them with quiet accommodation away from the noise of the training halls and troop deployment helipads. You'll need to construct service buildings, such as infirmaries, canteens, and research centres, as well as warehouses for specific supplies like food, medicine, or ammunition. All must have access routes, lighting, and power to function. Feeling overwhelmed? Lad, it's war out there. Snap out of it!

And who pays for all this? Well, apart from mission success, you'll also need to sustain yourself by raising funds for the cause in the liberated towns, as well as relying on them for recruitment drives to bring in new soldiers... Feeling a bit overwhelmed? Perhaps you should be, but the truth is that all these options are unlocked progressively along a curve that the studio has carefully calibrated and refined thanks to feedback from its community, with whom they have co-developed the content right up to the full version. One Military Camp is one of those games with a concept that's very simple to grasp but a pace of optimisation that will take you a long time to master.

Because in a system where there are so many unknown variables (such as deserters, illnesses, sprained ankles, or enemy attacks), getting everyone to do what they're supposed to do is quite complicated. And even more so if you want them to do it willingly. A word of advice: spare no expense on entertainment and always keep prices low. A happy soldier or worker is worth more than five rookie recruits...

Nor should you be too alarmed because One Military Camp also masks its apparent military seriousness behind a curtain of cartoonish characters, with some truly... peculiar dialogue. I think the music is a real hit, with a 'jingle' halfway between the theme tune from the film 'The Great Escape' and one of those American high school marching bands. It always has a pleasant rhythm that makes the hours fly by almost without you realising it in front of the screen.

Although... it's not all immaculate uniforms and gleaming boots. One Military Camp has arrived on Nintendo Switch 2, yes, but I think the port has fallen a little short in achieving full integration with the platform. On a technical and performance level, I have little to complain about: the game runs smoothly, and I've only noticed a bit of slowdown when it performs auto-saves or when selecting a specific recruit, when there are dozens of individuals on screen operating autonomously. But I have found it frustrating at times not being able to comfortably select commands or items in the various submenus for individuals and buildings, and that's because it's exactly the same ported interface you'd see on a large screen on a PC or a home console. In the Dock there are no issues, but if you want to make the most of the Switch 2's handheld mode, you'll have to keep a close eye on things.

I also think the research skill tree (which unlocks new buildings and, in turn, new troop specialisations) should be a bit more intuitive, and if you're a bit of a klutz, like me, at keeping all the plates spinning in management sims, you might get frustrated at not getting it right the first time. Even so, I've found myself glued to the screen with One Military Camp, just as I did with Citadelum. Its endless cycle of things to do makes it excellent entertainment for whiling away the hours, and although I'd love to see larger menus in the handheld version, I won't rest until I've led my boys to victory.

007 First Light

ben@gamereactor.eu (Ben Lyons) — Tue, 26 May 2026 14:00:00 +0200

It's a gutsy task IO Interactive has taken on with making 007 First Light. Amid a time when the James Bond franchise is at its most turbulent, the creators of Hitman stepped up to the plate to make a truly original story revolving around Ian Fleming's immensely famous spy. The aim was never to make a forgettable movie tie-in film or even to tap into the FPS heritage of the series. Rather, IO Interactive decided the time was right for an action-adventure game featuring Bond, but not only that, a full-blown origin story too, something the films don't often delve into.

So yes, what we have with 007 First Light is something very special in a multitude of ways. It's ambitious and flashy, authentic and thrilling, and for Bond fans out there who are desperate for any sign of life from the franchise, it's almost a must-play experience. But here's the thing about 007 First Light too; IO Interactive, for all of its brilliance when it comes to making Hitman games, is not particularly well-known for making action-adventure projects. So have they defied the odds and delivered a title that will take IO Interactive to the true upper echelon of the video game development elite?

Before I answer that question, let's look at the game through a more analytical lens. For starters, as a Bond experience, IO Interactive has completed the task at hand with flying colours. Patrick Gibson is a wonderful choice as James Bond and the way this character is written and performed feels like a fresh but familiar take on the legendary spy, one that still has his suave charm, his witty flair, his unfaltering determination, and his penchant for all things style and class. Bond is the man all men want to be and the man all women want to be with, and while that might sound like male chauvinistic garbage, it's a core tenet of the character and something that IO Interactive has approached with caution and overcome with excellence. Plus, the wider cast play their parts and deliver interesting characters, even if there is still the Bond franchise's signature eye-candy here and there. So credit to IO Interactive for effectively fording the womanising river of the brand that even the films likely fear crossing today.

And continuing on the Bond front further, we have all of the other areas where we expect certain promises to be upheld. We're treated to Aston Martins, shaken-not-stirred Martinis, Walther PPK sidearms, Pen Missiles, Laser Watch Straps, Dart Phones, and a host of other Q-developed gadgets. As far as a Bond experience goes, 007 First Light gets top marks, truly, delivering a world that feels just as authentic as the films, arguably even more so in places when considering Bond's scar in this version...

Building on this again, IO Interactive treats us to a globe-trotting adventure that takes us from MI6 headquarters and London nightclubs, to serene Vietnamese islands, to European manors, and even into the Arctic and Antarctic Circle. This is a truly ambitious game in regards to where it takes the player in the shoes of Bond, and the way each biome and location is presented is full of such colour and life that you can't help but marvel over how effective the Glacier Engine continues to be.

But here's where we start to experience a few hiccups as for all of the things that 007 First Light does exceptionally, there are also a host of things it does simply well. IO Interactive has never proven itself to be a particularly effective storyteller through the Hitman franchise, but that was never an issue during those games due to the emphasis on freedom of play. 007 First Light needs to be razor-sharp on its narrative edge, dishing out tight and effective dialogue and weaving character development for both its heroes and antagonists in a flawless manner. Unfortunately, this game doesn't have that level of refinement. The story doesn't quite pack the punch you hope it would and the villains, for one, lack the memorable aura all the great Bond villains usually do. I will note that IO Interactive clearly has grander ambitions to expand its story further, so perhaps this is simply the first act of a wider tale, but still, 007 First Light could have benefitted from a tighter narrative and dialogue setup.

Likewise, and this is perhaps 007 First Light's biggest vice, it seems to be facing a bit of an identity crisis from a gameplay perspective. It's not a catastrophic issue by any means, but this game exists in a sort of limbo where it is neither a stylish and thumping action-adventure game like Uncharted but it also lacks the versatility and freedom-of-play of Hitman. And yet it attempts to give you the best of both worlds and unfortunately no one wins from this decision. There are a handful of staggering set piece moments but not enough to catapult it to Uncharted and even Tomb Raider's heights. There are sandbox-like areas where you are given more freedom to complete a task at hand, but compared to Hitman, it's almost on rails and it's very hard to deviate from the plan in place or even to fail the mission. Then all of this is stitched together by unnecessary driving sequences through London or North Africa, which feels more like an interactive commercial for Land Rover than it does a key part of the wider experience.

The point is 007 First Light works from a gameplay perspective but its sandbox and player-agency-focussed elements are a shadow of what Hitman offers and similarly its top action-adventure moments fail to leave much of an impression, sometimes even feeling a tad unlike a Bond story altogether. After rolling credits, it's clear IO Interactive needs to either lean more into what it does best by offering rich and almost infinite sandboxes or focus entirely on the more linear action-adventure design, because this middle-ground and balance doesn't come across as a marriage that will be able to carry additional stories.

Ultimately, the parts of 007 First Light that impress the most are typically the bits where the gameplay takes more of a backseat and you find yourself trying to convince a pirate king not to feed you to his alligators or driving up to a stunning manor in the Montenegrin mountains. It's when it lets loose and asks you to navigate a restricted area, seeing you take down oblivious enemies with the same takedown techniques, or even simply run-and-gun like a chapter of a Call of Duty story, these are the times when 007 First Light slips and stumbles. If you didn't know better, you could be convinced that 007 First Light is a different developer's attempt to emulate IO Interactive's Hitman formula...

So yes, 007 First Light has plenty of hits and plenty of misses. In answer to the question earlier, there is enough in this game to give you confidence in IO Interactive and its broader vision for this style of a James Bond game, with plenty of ambition and quality oozing out of every crack. But there is clear room for improvement too, areas that would take this game from being simply an enjoyable and great action-adventure project and elevating it to be something truly unmissable. As it is, you'll enjoy 007 First Light, but it's no Uncharted 4 and it's no Hitman 3, either.

Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus II

patrik@gamereactor.eu (Patrik Severin) — Tue, 26 May 2026 12:00:00 +0200

It sometimes happens that I play a sequel and feel frustrated by what I've experienced. This dystopian sequel to a fantastic predecessor is a prime example of that. There is an adventure beneath the surface that is genuinely good, which is why it's a bit of a shame that the developers have occasionally chosen the wrong path to take. Mechanicus II does exactly what all sequels do, ramping up the pace, scale and grandeur. It does so somewhat at the expense of its unique character as a Warhammer 40K strategy game. Once again, we're treated to a vibrant soundtrack that's fantastic, with a lovely mix of phenomenal sound design. This time, we'll once again be issuing orders to the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Necrons. However, not everything is as it seems, and much has changed since the first time we got to plunder ancient high-tech bases from a bygone era.

The first thing that stands out is that there are now two campaigns. Both offer you a distinct perspective on the same conflict. The Adeptus Mechanicus settles on a world that happens to be a resting place for the Necrons - a form of high-tech machines reminiscent of the pharaohs of Egypt. Vargard Nefershah has awoken and is attempting to mobilise his forces against what he sees as intruders. This sparks a massive conflict that engulfs the entire planet. It falls to you to resolve the situation, either as the intruders or as the original settlers. Both campaigns are entertaining, each offering a unique perspective on the conflict.

The opening prologue, which you can easily skip, initially led me to believe it would work like the first one.

I started as the Adeptus Mechanicus, which allows us to see some familiar faces from the previous game. This time, we're designated as shock troops and our job is to strike targets that no one else can reach quickly enough. The first thing that struck me was that everyone spoke English, which is a complete departure from the previous game. However, it was easy to change the settings so that they spoke the code language, just like in the previous game. The same does not apply to the Necrons, though; they speak English with an accent. I would have liked to see them given their own language in the same style.

One of the biggest changes is your input and how the battles work. In this game, you choose a hero from the Adeptus Mechanicus. They are all designed with different abilities and upgrade trees. This means that after missions, you can choose how to develop these characters. Each mission involves selecting a hero and then unnamed troop types with different abilities. This is also my main criticism; I would have preferred more heroes with more dialogue and comments to each other during the missions.

You have a certain number of troop types to choose from, and these can be upgraded via a technology tree. This is also where you unlock more and stronger soldiers. To do this, you need special resources obtained through missions, mission modifiers, and buildings in the campaign world. I like the resource management system; you really need to think about how much you spend on each mission so that later missions don't force you to use only troop types that are free. It can be disastrous for a campaign if you lack the ability to recruit more advanced troop types.

The graphics are brilliant, and the characters are well-detailed with a great colour scheme.

When you start a mission, your character begins moving after a short intro. You have no control over the action; instead, you watch a timeline showing when events and battles will occur. In my opinion, this is a mistake. One of the great joys of the first game was being able to choose rooms, avoid traps, explore the environments and sometimes avoid battles altogether. In the sequel, everything is even more scripted and on rails. This also means that the chances of survival and mission failure increase. You cannot avoid the battles and must therefore make the most of events and avoid costly losses during the mission. You also need to keep an eye on a gauge which, if it fills up, results in more enemies in the next battle. If your troops are wounded, the battle can become unnecessarily difficult.

The battles are slightly different from the first game in that you have more troop types on the battlefield and fewer heroes. Because the battles don't offer the same complexity as their rivals, such as XCOM 2, they quickly become repetitive. As mentioned, battles are unavoidable and frequent. The battles themselves aren't bad, but there are simply too many of them. I believe Mechanicus II would have been better served by fewer but more significant battles and more events during the missions. However, you can utilise the terrain in a way the first game never allowed, and both factions play so differently that it remains entertaining nonetheless. And let's not even get started on the Leagues of Votann, who appear quite early in the campaign. These creatures with highly advanced technology are quite entertaining, and I hope an expansion to the campaign will let us play more as these unique space dwarves.

The missions run smoothly, and you'll need to manage the health of your troops and heroes. If your hero dies, you'll need to reload the latest save file or restart the mission.

It might sound as though I'm dissatisfied with the campaign, but it does have its good points too. I enjoy building up the planet and trying to gather more resources. I like being able to let heroes handle certain things on their own. This means you have to manage your key characters carefully and choose which ones are best suited to send out. They're often away for a round or two, which makes the choice important. I like upgrading my characters and unlocking troops. On the surface, it feels like a board game in some respects. Although the doomsday clock isn't present in the same way as in the first game, the music, dialogue and characters all make the situation feel critical.

If there's one thing that deserves praise once again, it's the music designers, sound designers and 3D artists, including those behind the voices, design, music and sound. It both looks superb and sounds fantastic. Not having voice acting was a way to save money in the first game, but Bulwark Studios did such a brilliant job of giving these characters and this faction a voice that I can't imagine it any other way. They really captured the essence of what the Adeptus Mechanicus is and how they sound in their game. This works just as well, of course, in the sequel. Sometimes I even think they sound a bit better.

The battles offer cover and objects you can blow up or use to inflict damage on the enemy.

Technically, just like the first game, this runs smoothly on a computer and boasts sharp graphics. The detailed characters and user-friendly interface contribute to a great experience. It's hard to go wrong, and there are tips for just about everything you could think of in the menus should you need them. The game has so few menu layers that I wouldn't call it a difficult strategy game. The hardest part of the game is that some campaign missions vary quite a lot in terms of difficulty. Some early missions are significantly harder than some later ones. Despite this, I didn't encounter any notable bugs. The only thing I came across was a sound glitch where the character skipped a line of dialogue.

Looking at the bigger picture, we have an adventure where each campaign takes well over 20 hours, depending on the difficulty level and how many extra side missions you undertake. Depending on how things go, you may also have to play defence missions as your opponent doesn't stand still on the campaign map. These can extend the playtime slightly. You're also treated to fantastic sound design and beautiful graphics with an easy-to-use interface and detailed visuals. It's hard not to get swept up in this conflict between two mechanical factions. I love the dichotomy in what these two superpowers believe in, even though they are both more mechanical than organic. There are also several other factions that make shorter and longer appearances during the campaigns. Some of these even make your own characters feel weak in comparison.

You can also toggle a filter to make it easier to see what's going on in the battles.

Mechanicus II isn't bad, but it makes certain choices that I feel detract from the experience rather than elevate it above its predecessor. My main criticism is that everything feels too scripted in a way that I felt the predecessor avoided by giving you more freedom in how you move through the various buildings on the campaign map. The choices in the sequel have been moved from the missions to the campaign map between these missions. Above all, some of the mystery is lost if you know when everything happens - for example, battles, events with multiple choices and other elements during a mission. This is probably not something that will change, as it is fundamentally tied to the basic structure of the campaigns.

The story itself is interesting, well-crafted on both sides, and features a couple of factions that are currently being heavily promoted by Games Workshop. I love moving Necrons around the battlefield. They're a real joy to play as, no matter where they turn up. Despite complaints about the structure, I like the game even if it isn't perfect. The developers are trying to experiment and improve on their core design from the first game. Looking back, it turns out they haven't quite succeeded fully. However, I would argue that it succeeds well enough to give it a go if you enjoyed the predecessor. Although the Necron campaign could have had slightly more interesting upgrade trees, the battles are a bit too frequent and the missions are on rails, the package as a whole is more than passable.

The Necrons are superb both as protagonists and antagonists.
Skill trees are the system you use to upgrade the abilities you can take onto the battlefield. You can also upgrade buildings on the campaign map to generate more resources.
As well as a good selection of difficulty levels and what each one entails, you can tailor your own. This is exactly the sort of thing I wish were standard practice in the gaming industry.

Bubsy 4D

fredrik@gamereactor.eu (Fredrik Malmquist) — Thu, 21 May 2026 15:00:00 +0200

Let's rewind to 1995, when my two older brothers and I first encountered the red-haired Bubsy. I was seven years old and remember how we carefully browsed through the selection of games for hire at the local video shop, and for some reason, we were drawn to the cheerful bobcat on the cover. After that, my strongest memory is a mixture of frustration, disappointment, and resignation. The game was simply too complicated for my seven-year-old self, and I seem to recall that we didn't get through very many levels.

My acquaintance with Bubsy could have ended there, and many reviews of the later games suggest that probably should have been the case. But some game series have a knack for clawing their way back into your consciousness and popping up every now and then like a jack-in-the-box. Sometimes Bubsy made an appearance via YouTube channels like Angry Video Game Nerd, and other times in lists of terrible games. Despite this chequered history, there was something appealing about {Bubsy 4D} when it landed on the list of upcoming review copies.

Yep, he's back again.

Now, just over thirty years later, Bubsy has landed at the New York-based game studio Fabraz, where this follows Atari striking a bulk deal with the former publisher Accolade in 2023. Fabraz is an indie studio known for titles such as Demon Turf, Slime-san, and Planet Diver, and with hindsight, I'm delighted to report that Atari's gamble in handing the reins over to them has given us something as rare as a genuinely good Bubsy game.

Fabraz has certainly done their homework. Bubsy is lightning-fast, the Woolies still love yarn, and the worlds whizz by at breakneck speed. On the surface, everything feels very familiar to those of us with experience of the series' earlier instalments, but the developers have also delved deep into the archives and unearthed characters such as Oblivia, Terry, and Terri, who originally featured in the ill-fated 1993 TV series. Gone are the nightmarish enemy placements, gone is the bobcat that runs off-screen, gone is the feeling of being reduced to nothing after just one unfortunate hit from an enemy. Fabraz has taken note of what was most frustrating about the original games and allowed something new to emerge.

The cel-shaded graphics are impressive.

Bubsy 4D begins with the gang sitting at Bubsy's house playing with his old video camera. Suddenly, the rat scientist Virgil bursts in and announces that the Woolies are back, and this time, they're stealing the planet's sheep instead of yarn, with the aim of creating their own golden super-yarn. However, the plan goes awry and the sheep overthrow their captors and build "Baabots", an army of sheep-like robots that return to seize all the golden yarn. Naturally, this cannot be allowed to continue and soon the gang are drawn into an intergalactic chase.

The plot is deliberately trivial, and the dialogue pokes good-natured fun at both this and the series' chequered history. The voice acting is mostly thoroughly entertaining, and the character's classic catchphrase "What could possibly go wrong?" is delivered with more finesse than ever.

A demo version has been available for just over a month on consoles and since last autumn on PC, where the reactions have been surprisingly positive, especially compared to the series' previous flops. One detail that has really stood out is the praise for the game's tight controls, something I was initially sceptical about, but was intrigued all the same as a central part of Bubsy 4D is speedrunning; grinding through the levels to climb the global leaderboards. A few levels in, I was struck by the fact that it took me a full 25 minutes to complete a level, only to then discover that the world record stood at just over two and a half minutes. I had time to think: What is so fantastic about these controls? A few hours later, when I'd finished the game, the penny dropped. It's simply a matter of throwing yourself into it, committing the button combinations to muscle memory and daring to "let go".

A demo is now available if you'd like to give it a go.

There is so many positive things to say about the controls that I want to start with the very basics: the response feels spot on. Bubsy can turn on a sixpence, execute rapid attacks on the fly, and glide gracefully through the air. On top of this, there's a new ability where the bobcat curls up into a ball and whizzes through the levels. Admittedly, it took quite a few restarts and a string of expletives before I mastered the system, but once the controls are second nature, the game really comes into its own, and then it becomes a fantastic joy to revisit the various planets.

Along the way, you can also purchase new abilities and skins from the cousins Terry and Terri. Some upgrades improve climbing and jumping, which changes the entire gameplay dynamic, whilst cosmetic choices let you customise Bubsy's appearance, or even make him look exactly as you remember him from back in the day. Plus, Bubsy doesn't shy away from breaking the fourth wall. He comments on things happening whilst you're playing, and even when you pause or make changes in the game's menu system. If you turn off his dialogue, he accuses you of censorship and if you pause at the wrong moment, he complains about your timing. Beyond that, there are many other little hidden gems for you to discover for yourselves.

Bubsy loves to break the fourth wall.

Visually, Fabraz has opted for a cel-shaded style that gives the game a lovely, cartoonish feel. This works brilliantly for the cast of characters and the enemies, but unfortunately not quite as well for the environments they inhabit. I fully understand that a game with such a strong focus on speedrunning must prioritise a flawless frame rate, but when this comes at the expense of detail, it's a minus in my book. The worlds are certainly colourful and charming, but at times feel rather empty, as the level design is open with plenty of alternative routes for the adventurous and clearly marked paths for those who prefer to play it safe. The adventure also spans three unique planets made of yarn, corrugated cardboard, and rubbish respectively. Each new world introduces new challenges and enemies that turn the bobcat's life into a sweaty ordeal.

The worlds are sometimes rather empty.

Over the years, I've grown rather tired of platform games that hold the player's hand. Super Mario, for example, is no longer as unforgiving as it was on the NES, but in Bubsy 4D, I soon realised that Fabraz has struck a delicate balance, landing firmly on the right side of the challenge scale. A platformer should be tricky, but it shouldn't give us grey hairs or post-traumatic stress. There were definitely times when I switched the game off out of sheer exhaustion at the difficulty level, but when I later returned to the same level, equipped with a better understanding of the controls, I instead felt a huge sense of joy at how far I'd come. That said, the game isn't entirely unforgiving. There are plenty of save points in the form of cat boxes, and you rarely need to replay large sections to get back. However, before you've got the controls down to a tee, certain obstacles can feel almost insurmountable.

Of course, wanting more is basically a good sign, but it should have been longer.

The setup follows a traditional platformer formula where you work your way through four or five levels and are then pitted against a boss. In my book, a good boss fight is one that requires several attempts where you fail miserably at first, but with each additional try you learn the boss' patterns and find a way forward. When the boss finally falls, an incredibly satisfying feeling spreads through your heart, and that's exactly how it is here. Bubsy 4D is challenging in the very best way, and yet unfortunately, the adventure is a bit on the short side. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for future DLC that adds more worlds as in total, the game took me 4-5 hours to complete, and on a second playthrough, I think most people could easily halve that time.

Summing up Bubsy 4D is a much more enjoyable task than I'd ever dared to hope for. Sure, the short playtime, the occasionally barren environments, and the visual compromises made for the sake of frame rate prevent the title from reaching the very highest echelons of platforming. But once the controls are where they should be and you're whizzing across the screen with a smile on your face, the graphical shortcomings fade into insignificance. Fabraz has achieved the seemingly impossible: they've removed the old source of embarrassment and made the red-haired Bubsy relevant again. It may not be a ground-breaking and flawless masterpiece, but it is a genuinely strong, challenging, and incredibly entertaining platforming gem that far exceeds expectations. For that seven-year-old who once sighed in despair in front of the rental game, the vindication is total. "What could possibly go wrong?" Bubsy once asked himself. This time, the answer is: surprisingly little.

Will: Follow the Light

conny@gamereactor.eu (Conny Andersson) — Thu, 21 May 2026 10:00:00 +0200

The type of games we tend to lump together as "walking simulators" can vary quite considerably, but I would argue that there is one thing they often have in common: they require patience from the player. They are often quite slow-paced, and unsurprisingly, require you to enjoy exploring environments. In recent years, we've seen a number of titles that all manage to offer excellent entertainment. Among the newer ones, we have, for example, Still Wakes The Deep and Herdling, and among the slightly older and also very popular ones, there are Firewatch and What Remains Of Edith Finch. If you want to stretch the boundaries a bit, you could also argue that the Death Stranding series falls into this category, although I personally think that's taking the comparison a bit too far.

Will: Follow The Light is, in any case, as much of a walking simulator as it really can be, although we don't just walk, but actually travel by sailing boat just as much. But we'll wait a bit before talking about that specifically. The most important thing here, at any rate, is to announce that the indie studio TomorrowHead has created a tranquil adventure where you journey forward and solve puzzles to progress.

Molly, your trusty sailing boat, takes you through a variety of settings. It's a rather refreshing way to get around, as opposed to just trudging about.

In the shoes of the title character, Will, you set out on a journey to find your son. It all begins on a small island where you work as a lighthouse keeper. A storm is rapidly approaching, and you're abruptly torn away from your workday by the news that your hometown has been struck by a disaster. From this starting point, Will's search for his son begins. It's a rather uneven narrative that quickly highlights what is perhaps the game's biggest problem, namely, that it is disjointed and unpolished. Still, beneath the somewhat rough, yet still charming, surface, there is actually quite a lot to enjoy.

Unreal Engine 5 renders, albeit somewhat flat, environments that are at least occasionally truly beautiful to navigate through. It's a visual style that admittedly lacks quite a bit of character, but for a game where you move forward through various environments, it does manage to impress at times. Elements such as water, weather effects, and some indoor environments are fantastically stylish, whilst much of it feels very contrived. It becomes very anonymous, and the feeling that it's more of a tech demo creeps in at many moments. When something in the environment moves, for example, it feels more as though the animation is a cutscene that feels completely disconnected from the rest. Similarly, the characters you encounter are as stiff as dolls and you simply have to accept that it's really more like a backdrop you're walking through. Yet there are still plenty of moments that look quite visually striking.

The game doesn't have many 'lively' environments. It's rather stiff, but there are some nice details indoors.

Aside from the storytelling, which unfortunately, is lacking and rather uninteresting, there are plenty of puzzles on offer. I would probably go so far as to say that it is at least as much a puzzle game as it is a walking simulator. Unfortunately, there is also an overall feeling here that things haven't quite been polished enough. On console, the controller works downright poorly at times when you have to pick up pieces to put something together. Some puzzles do feel quite clever, but most are also very quickly solved. There are also some puzzles that involve simply trying things out until you've figured out the right sequence to solve them. So, it's not exactly the genre's best puzzles on offer, but at the same time, there's a lovely variety in that you're not just travelling through environments but actually get to puzzle things out every now and then.

I mentioned that, as well as walking, you also get around by sailing. These two modes of transport aren't actually the only two in the game, but I'll let you discover the third one for yourself in a short sequence. You spend quite a lot of time aboard your boat, Molly, which is what takes you between most of the journey's more remote locations. I actually quite like the sequences on board the boat, mainly because there's a bit of excitement and pace to them. You can even go down into the little cabin, where among other things, you can have a look at collectables - including small model boats - that can be found throughout the game's chapters. It's a simple way to stretch out the playtime a little if you so wish.

The weather effects are one of the game's absolute highlights, and they're actually quite stunning.

The game is only a few hours long, yet it manages to pack a surprising amount into that time. It simply feels just the right length, and you get to experience quite a lot, so the game certainly doesn't drag its heels.

Despite its somewhat mediocre rating, I must still point out that Will: Follow The Light is actually a good experience. At the same time, it's a bit too unpolished in several areas and has a few other issues that prevent it from truly justifying a higher score. It's essentially an okay game where a few technical glitches, uninspired puzzles, and an anonymous narrative partly overshadow the otherwise entertaining journey you embark on. There are moments that feel very cinematic, where the atmosphere is thick and the journey truly feels entertaining, but there are a few too many things that get in the way of its lofty ambitions. As mentioned earlier, it also feels a bit too often like an at times flashy tech demo, but on the other hand, that can also be quite a significant advantage in a linear experience like this.

So, if you've already played through the big names - or simply love this type of game and are keen for something new - it's still quite easy for us, as fans of this kind of experience, to recommend Will: Follow the Light. It offers really lovely weather effects and the chance to sail, and those things alone actually make it an adventure worth settling in for during the hours it takes to complete.

Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core Early Access

alex@gamereactor.eu (Alex Hopley) — Wed, 20 May 2026 18:00:00 +0200

Helldivers II, Warhammer: Vermintide II, Left 4 Dead 2, and the recently released Far Far West are all co-op hits that have one thing in common: they incentivise their players to embrace the chaos, to ramp up that difficulty and stare down hordes of oncoming foes. They're forced to have each other's backs, or face the dreaded defeat screens. Deep Rock Galactic has fostered an incredible community with a similar formula in its base game, and now seeks to add a roguelike spin in Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core.

Even in Early Access, Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core succeeds in this main task. Taking us back to the main setting of the first game, we're now faced with mining facilities overrun by strange creatures coming in through interdimensional tears in reality. The Core Spawn are deadly aliens unlike anything you'll have seen in the base game, and it's up to us and our fellow dwarves as the Reclaimers to kick them off of Hoxxes and restore the deep mining facilities so dwarves can get back to using their pickaxes in peace.

As you could probably tell from the title, Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core has a roguelike structure. You do have permanent character progression through certain upgrades you can acquire, but otherwise you start a run with a clean slate, grab a weapon, a gadget, a grenade, and then upgrade or swap out your stuff as you go on. Through the course of a run, you'll delve through multiple levels, facing deadlier foes and powering up until you're ready for a final confrontation with the boss of the level.

You can sum up Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core's loop with kill, move down a level, and kill some more, but that would be doing the game a disservice. There's a very satisfying gameplay loop at the heart of Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core, and it strikes a great balance between getting upgrades and spending time on doing it. The longer you spend on a level, the more likely it is you'll get swarmed. But, if you don't risk chasing down that upgrade for your gun or character, it might be you won't be strong enough to face the next level or the boss. The more facilities you free as well, the further you can go in subsequent runs, meaning you're having to strategize each time you want to up the ante. I also want to highlight the game's loot system, which led to plenty of cooperation and a few arguments with my fellow teammates.

Essentially, in Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core, whenever you get your guns, or your grenades, or some equipment, you'll be greeted with five options on a full party. The game randomly picks who chooses their loot first, so you not only have to be concerned with your own build, but you're also watching out for your friends, too. Sure, you can be an arse and just nab the best upgrades all the time, but that's not for the good of the team or the run. It's a really nice addition to the game, that helps you feel even more like a team when playing with friends. That said, I will also mention while we're on the topic of loot how at the moment, a lot of the game's improvements feel incremental, rather than game-changing.

There's a lot of upgrades that add percentages, rather than things that feel like they truly affect the way you play or even how a gun, character, or gadget works. It can make the runs start to feel a bit samey, as there's not really the potential for you to get incredibly wacky with certain upgrades and combos. It's something that can be changed, as this is an Early Access title at the end of the day, but it's a point worth considering, nonetheless.

At times, it doesn't feel like Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core is in Early Access, though, as the game has a lot of polish you'd expect from a full release already. As mentioned, the gameplay and shooting is tight and satisfying, the level design is really solid, with it being difficult to get lost even with much of your surroundings being similar cave layouts. The classes are distinctive and each powerful in their own rights (I have a particular fondness for the Spotter at the moment). But, if there's one thing that really makes Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core feel more like a full release than an Early Access one, it's in the personality shining through the game, especially in its hub world. There's a fully functioning gym with minigames attached, a juke box, and of course beers to down at the end of a shift. Things like this let me know Ghost Ship Games is cooking with gas, and will continue to do so as this game digs its way to 1.0.

Before that release, we do have some issues to fix. The audio design feels quite off at the minute, especially for enemy sounds and for combat in general. There's not enough oomph in a lot of the weapons outside of a select few, and enemy noises sound distant, even if they're right next to you. There are problems with the UI at the minute, too. Not being able to see player's names above their heads is detrimental to the co-op experience, particularly with friendly fire being on. The amount of times I shot a friend in the dark because I didn't know they were a friendly was shocking, but even if that's weirdly intended, I'd still argue for player names just to make it easier to find the friends who are in trouble before they're downed. Playing as the Spotter, for example, I could throw an ammo crate down (which is seriously helpful considering how limited ammo is in the game). However, when one of my teammates is calling out for ammo, it's seriously difficult to find which one needs it among the swarms of Core Spawn. Player names above heads would do away with that issue.

Also, the tutorial is really odd at the minute. It's a simulation, so the map has a weird digital effect over it, but it's also not a simulation because it just looks like a regular level, which means the digital effect is just an eyesore. Either get rid of the filter or make it more of a simulation without the use of a regular environment. That might sound like a proper nitpick, but it's the first thing people see when they play the game, and it doesn't leave a great impression.

Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core is in Early Access, and so there's plenty of time for it to be polished from a good to very good experience into an amazing one just like the original game. It has all the right stuff at the minute: great gameplay, tonnes of personality, a rewarding loop and playable dwarves. A few minor issues are holding it back, but if we know anything about Ghost Ship Games, it's that they listen to the fans, and will deal with the issues presented to them.

Total War: Warhammer III - Bhashiva Character Pack

alex@gamereactor.eu (Alex Hopley) — Wed, 20 May 2026 16:00:00 +0200

I'm beginning this review with a confession: forgive me Sigmar for I have sinned. I have not played Total War: Warhammer III in a good while. The game's great, as were the two that came before it. It's an amazing feat that Creative Assembly recreated pretty much the entirety of Warhammer's Old World and placed it into a video game format, letting you envisage epic battles without having to fork out hundreds on miniatures. Still, I haven't had the time of late to get stuck back in and start painting the map the colour of my choosing, which is why I was very glad to have the excuse for a fresh campaign with Bhashiva, the Desert Tigress.

Bhashiva heralds not only the addition of a new Legendary Lord to the Cathayan roster, but she also marks a unique occasion for Total War: Warhammer and Warhammer Fantasy, as while tiger people aren't exactly new lore, Bhashiva's inclusion has given them a lot more detail, and now lore enthusiasts have an idea of how powerful Tiger Warriors are, and what their purpose is in the overarching setting.

Our Desert Tigress has an oath of loyalty to the Iron Dragon Zhao Ming, as has every White Tiger before her. This gives us our first unique essence of a campaign played as Bhashiva, as in one way you could view it almost like starting as a vassal state. You don't owe any debts to Zhao Ming or anything like that, nor are you controlled by his decisions in-game, but the way it's framed in the lore is that you're a bit more of a supporting faction. Of course, you're free to deny that as quickly as you please. But, should you wish to be best mates with a dragon, then you'll gain access to specific missions, which when completed give Bhashiva access to the wider Cathayan roster. Otherwise, she's quite limited in the units she can take, unless of course you just want to spam Tiger Warriors.

That's exactly what I did when I first played as Bhashiva. In the DLC, you get access to three new unit types. Tiger Warriors, anti-infantry, dual-axe-wielding monstrous infantry, Tiger Warrior Stalkers, who are armed with ranged throwing discs, and Iron Claw Tiger Warriors, who are the hardier version of the base Tiger Warriors with anti-large weapons. You also get a Tiger Warrior Clawspeaker as your hero and a mix of melee might and magic for your army, and the Tiger Warrior Sawai as a generic lord. A lot of tigers, fleshing out the Cathayan roster with some much-needed heavy hitting infantry. These lads are bigger, faster, and stronger than your average Jade Warriors, and it's fitting that you start going up against Ogres, so you can test out who is the better monstrous infantry.

Mechanically, the Tiger Warriors are quite interesting, too, as they don't rely too much on the Harmony mechanic that defines the Cathayan armies. They'll get some benefits and can buff other units using it, but it means you can just doomstack Tiger Warriors without much concern about losing out on harmony bonuses. Again, this is what I focused on, as I wanted to see how strong these units were, and I doubt they'll disappoint any player who wants to see massive tiger people crashing into combat against Orcs, Ogres, and anyone else that thinks they're tough enough to take them on.

You'll also be impressed by Bhashiva herself. It's tough standing out when there are so many pre-established and beloved characters in Total War: Warhammer III, but Bhashiva's amazing teleporting animations and ability to slash through infantry like they're made of butter makes her an impressive lord on the field of battle. As mentioned before, too, her campaign is very unique with its mechanics, and it does feel like Creative Assembly has put in a lot of effort in making sure you're not just spending the money on a few tiger units. You're paying for the campaign more than the units here, in my opinion, and the campaign is a fun one. The Tiger Court is a grand excuse to go and pillage settlements for relics, and the buffs it offers once again lets you feel like you're fully committing to the tiger bit.

It's hard to drum up other things to say about this DLC, really. Unlike other, bigger packs you just get the one Legendary Lord here with a regular lord, hero, and three units, but you also get Bhashiva and her campaign for about half the price of individual characters in the Lord Pack DLCs. It's not an offensive price, especially when you see it's only a quid dearer than the Blood for the Blood God DLC. It's honest in what it offers, which isn't a complete overhaul to Cathay, or a game-changing experience in a campaign. It's a side quest, if the Faction DLCs and Lord Packs are main story content. Mechanically, it's unique and interesting. Visually, it's a treat to watch tigers kill everything. A good time if you want it, but if you don't, it doesn't feel like you'd be robbing Cathay of some highly important units.

Thick as Thieves

alex@gamereactor.eu (Alex Hopley) — Tue, 19 May 2026 17:00:00 +0200

It might sound a bit lofty to compare Thick as Thieves to the likes of Dishonored and Thief. It's a small, indie game priced at just £5, so what can we expect, really? That said, it does have the father of Deus Ex, Warren Spector attached, so you'd hope for something special. Unfortunately, Thick as Thieves falls way, way short of the standards set by the best of stealth action and immersive sims, tumbling below what we'd wished for from developer OtherSide Entertainment's latest release.

From the trailers, Thick as Thieves looks cool. It really does. The world of Kilcairn is alluring, mixing an alternative urban layout with mystical elements, much like Valve's Cursed Apple in Deadlock. While that city is uniquely American, Kilcairn has quite a Scottish vibe to it, complete with a lot of the guards having a bit of a twang to their accents. It's a bit Dunwall, but isn't nearly as fleshed-out nor as diverse in its environments and people. We get two maps in Thick as Thieves, the Elway Manor, and the Constables Guildhall (basically police HQ).

You go back and forth between these two maps over the course of the short campaign, completing missions in the "story," which consists almost entirely of text pop-ups thrown at you in your hideout between missions and at the start of your escapades. Thick as Thieves doesn't hide anything about its length. It's a short game, letting you beat the campaign in around 4 hours, but you really feel those hours. The loop is simple: find a way into your target location from one of a few spawn points, track down the thing you need, then find the exit, which randomly spawns at various points in the map as well. Turrets, pressure plates, wandering mystical eyes, guards and ghostly versions of them all block your path, to varying degrees of frustration.

It seems to me from playing Thick as Thieves that the game wants to avoid directly being compared to Dishonored so badly that it decides to make its gameplay worse to dodge accusations of copied mechanics or enjoyment. This is entirely to the game's detriment. Some of the level design is solid, but you feel like you can't experience a map to its fullest potential as you lack a lot of fun mobility. Your character moves at a glacial pace, especially when crouching, which is what you'll be doing most of the time in a stealth game. The mobility tool you have, the grappling hook, has such a short range and little momentum that it's baffling you'd even think to include it. Seriously, you can't even go from the bottom to the top of a staircase with the thing. It definitely makes you feel slow when you get spotted by a guard and try to sprint away, only to see them activate turbo and slam their truncheon into the back of your head, catching up almost instantly.

Sure, a smoke bomb gets you out of trouble, but you've only got one and you might be far from a refill.

The slowness to Thick as Thieves might make you think it requires more strategical planning around your gameplay, and to the game's credit there are moments where you feel like you're on your way to becoming a master thief. Then a guard stands back up after you took them down. It's an interesting idea, but to have enemies spring back up and then act like nothing happened after you choked them out just feels like half the job was done in exploring this idea to its fullest. Also, there's no other way to fight back against the guards, or take them out permanently, so if one gets up at the wrong time (which you can't monitor), you can be screwed walking out of a vault you just looted, as I was.

Thick as Thieves made a pivot fairly recently from being a PvPvE game to just co-op and PvE. You can really tell. There's no quick save function in single-player, so if you mess up thanks to buggy enemy AI or just feel like you want to maximise your stealth potential, you're forced to sprint away, ridding yourself of any progress as you dive back to a safe spot in the shadows. The guards reviving is another thing where it may have worked if you were dealing with other players as well as your own mini thieving squad. However, as the game is now it's a lot of ideas left largely unpolished. Co-op feels like a waste, too. It's bad enough trying to see anything in the game without the handy gem you pick up in the tutorial (you have to bring that out to use it), but when testing co-op with a friend I had to send them away in a map so I could spot them through a wall, rather than have them by my side.

The most pointless grapple hook in all of gaming?

This game is ridiculously dark. I'm not talking edgy; I mean literally dark. Flick out the lights in a room and you're lunging towards the screen, trying to see where you have to step next. It's even more annoying because there's an entire mechanic about how you're more likely to be seen if you're in the light. Again, interesting concept, but wasted execution that serves to detract from a player's overall enjoyment. The fact there's not a brightness slider in the visual options, nor a motion blur filter for that matter shows Thick as Thieves could have done with nailing the basics before worrying about adding things like gramophones being able to counter the ghost enemies.

What we have left from the old PvPvE game is an experience that feels muddled and has mechanics that are juxtaposed to the idea of a player enjoying the game. The contracts, AKA your main missions, are quite interesting, giving insights into the world I wish we'd have seen more of, but you can't leave an area without completing the arbitrary secondary missions like looting a vault or just grabbing £4,000 of loot. It ruins the idea of this being a focused mission, part of a wider story that actually has payoffs and meaning. Instead, you get the impression what we're playing is what Otherside Entertainment could jumble together after abandoning the PvPvE element.

There are parts of Thick as Thieves I enjoyed. The world has a strong stylistic core and some of the background elements in the story piqued my interest, too. It's also quite hard to bomb on a game that does just cost £5. However, it is a drastically disappointing project, too. When we're a decade removed from Dishonored 2 this year, I would have loved for a game, any game, to try and take its place. Good level design is appreciated in Thick as Thieves, but it's hard to really praise when you've only got two levels. But hey, I could just be a grump about this, and for the price Thick as Thieves is at, it may be worth trying, just to see if you enjoy it more.

Yoshi and the Mysterious Book

palle@gamereactor.eu (Palle Havshøi-Jensen) — Tue, 19 May 2026 15:00:00 +0200

It's been a long time since I've played a game more family-friendly than Yoshi and the Mysterious Book. This is a platform game with virtually no difficulty, as you can neither die nor take damage, and there are no enemies to watch out for. Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is a game aimed at younger players, but it is also likely to be a game that divides opinion.

A huge book with a rainbow monocle and a big moustache, known as Mr Encyclopedia, or simply Mr E to his friends, falls from the sky and lands right where Yoshi and his other Yoshi friends live. Mr E has always been curious about what is actually written on his pages and, as a book, as we know, cannot read itself, Mr E asks the curious Yoshis if they would like to help him explore his pages.

Of course they're happy to, and you now set off to explore a series of different themed pages/worlds, inhabited by a variety of mysterious animals. Each animal has its own level, and the levels are centred around the individual animal in terms of gameplay. For example, there might be a frog with a large round mouth that can make huge soap bubbles, which Yoshi can jump into and thus float up to high platforms that he would otherwise not have been able to reach. That is why the level is designed very vertically. It might also be a large carnivorous plant that Yoshi can ride on its back, and that level is filled with butterflies, various insects and other things that the hungry plant can pounce on with Yoshi's help. The levels are thus designed to fit perfectly with the animal in focus and its special characteristics.

You have to figure out for yourself what each animal's special ability is, what you can use it for, and what other creative activities the course has to offer. The game doesn't help, as you have to figure it out for yourself by exploring, playing and being creative. It's easy enough to work out what the animal's special ability is, but what does the carnivorous plant like, for example (apart from butterflies)? What happens when you jump on it? What happens when you throw it - for example, into a lake full of fish? What happens when you throw a chilli into its big mouth? What does it actually taste like? What actually happens when you hide in the tall grass? What happens if it eats the little happy clouds floating around? These things, and many, many others, you have to figure out for yourself, and that's the whole appeal of Yoshi and the Mysterious Book: you have to play your way to all the answers.

In each level, there are plenty of things to explore and try to find - younger players might be content to find just a handful of these things and then move on, as there is virtually no progression in the game. You do, however, earn stars for every discovery you make, and these stars help unlock new worlds; but the game is very generous with these stars, so it doesn't take long before a large proportion of the different worlds have been unlocked. If you're a more experienced player, on the other hand, you can try to find everything in the levels - and that requires you to be both patient and quite resourceful, but it's not something that can really keep an adult hooked.

Several of the levels (and their associated creatures) work quite well, but there are also some that work far less well. The carnivorous plant mentioned earlier is really fun to play with, as is a comical angler creature, and there is also a small, feisty animal that turns redder and redder the longer you carry it, before it eventually explodes, which is also quite entertaining.

On the other hand, there are others that are far more ordinary, and some of them are downright boring or frustrating to play - for example, some confused seagulls that are neither particularly inventive nor particularly fun to play with. So it's a bit of a mixed bag on the gameplay front, but fortunately you can always jump to another level without it affecting your progress in the game.

Yoshi's moves are largely the same as in other games featuring the little green dinosaur; he can eat items that give him a supply of dino eggs to throw, he can jump and glide over long distances with his familiar "Flutter Jump", and he can stomp hard on the ground to smash crates and other objects. As a new feature, however, he can also pick up objects or various animals and carry them on his back - and in doing so, he can make use of these animals' abilities, which is the central mechanic of Yoshi and the Mysterious Book.

The game has a rather distinctive look, as the graphics almost resemble a hand-drawn comic, and although the style is quite consistent, it never really captured my imagination. On the other hand, the design of Mr E's book is really lovely, as are the many sketch drawings of the discoveries you make along the way, as they are written into the pages of Mr E's book. The audio is, unfortunately, rather mediocre; the soundtrack is repeated far too often, and the sound Yoshi makes when performing his 'Flutter Jump' can drive you mad after a while.

Yoshi and the Mysterious Book isn't really my sort of game, but I can see - and appreciate - what Nintendo is trying to do here: namely, to create a game for younger players in which virtually all barriers have been removed. The gameplay has its ups and downs; it's a game that encourages play and exploration, but the non-existent difficulty level will likely divide opinion.

More experienced players CAN certainly play this, but the challenge consists solely of finding everything in every level, and you have to be prepared for the fact that the game has virtually no difficulty level if you choose to dive into Yoshi and the Mysterious Book for the Nintendo Switch 2.

Zero Parades: For Dead Spies

joel@gamereactor.eu (Joel Pettersson) — Mon, 18 May 2026 18:00:00 +0200

The rain lies like oil over the streets of Portofiro as Hershel Wilk steps off the night train after five years in exile. At first, the city looks almost unreal in its beauty, with neon lights flickering in the puddles, late-night bars still buzzing with whispers and cigarette smoke, trams screeching through the darkness as if they already know the next disaster before it has happened. But beneath that alluring surface lies something else, something feverish, something wrong. For Portofiro does not forget people. The city stores them away, chews them over slowly and waits patiently for them to return.

And Hershel does not return as a hero, she comes back as a problem, a former agent with a tattered reputation, gaps in her past, and far too many people who seem to know details about her life that she herself no longer remembers. As old contacts begin to emerge from the shadows - some friendly, others almost uncomfortably helpful - the suspicion grows that the whole town is playing a game where the rules were changed long before you even got to sit down at the table. In {Zero Parades: For Dead Spies}, espionage isn't about saving the world. It's about realising how many versions of the truth can exist at the same time and how many of them ultimately want to see you dead.

Hershel is a nice person but she's got NO style. And no, there's no such thing as transmog in Zero Parades.
Plenty of dialogue and passive dice rolls.

Nor is it the violence that does the most damage in Zero Parades, but the people, the words and the voices in your own head. The game is a paranoid thriller steeped in cheap booze, ideological decay, and psychological erosion. Every conversation feels like an interrogation and every friendship reeks of betrayal before it's even begun.

It's hard not to draw comparisons with {Disco Elysium}, even if that might be unfair on some level. ZA/UM's role-playing game still casts a long shadow over the entire genre, a game so literary, broken, human, and politically charged that it felt like a banned novel smuggled into the gaming world. But after its launch, the success story quickly turned into something considerably darker. Reports of internal conflicts, legal proceedings, and creators leaving the studio began to trickle out, and suddenly the entire legacy of Disco Elysium splintered in several different directions.

Perhaps that is why games like Zero Parades feel so immediately fascinating, not just because they are reminiscent of Disco Elysium, but because they almost feel like the echo of that whole explosion. As if an entire generation of developers are still trying to understand what actually happened with the game that changed everything.

The lighting in Zero Parades is truly effective. Technically speaking, it's actually quite impressive.

First and foremost, I want to be clear that Zero Parades is not a new Disco Elysium. It doesn't reach the same heights, but then again, that's not what I expected. I went in with a rather negative attitude; "this is going to be an attempt to make a carbon copy of Disco, completely devoid of soul and individual expression", but I soon realised I'd been a bit too harsh in my judgement. For although ZA/UM's masterpiece hangs like a heavy fog over the entire experience, Zero Parades still stands firmly on Portofiro's cracked asphalt.

Hershel, or Cascade as her codename is, bears many similarities to Harrier "Harry" Du Bois from Disco Elysium. She doesn't wake up in the same total mental disaster, but just like Harry, she fumbles around in the remnants of her former self. When Cascade arrives, the agent who was supposed to brief her - Pseudopod - is stuck in a vegetative state, and large parts of the mission instead turn into a desperate search for clues, people, and half-truths. This is also the whole point of Zero Parades; paths open up, others close, and you can never really be sure how, where, or why.

There are many players in Portofiro, each with their own goals, motives, and hidden agendas. Without giving too much away, we have, among others, the greedy megabank EMTERR, the criminal organisation Weeping Eyes, fans of L-pop, and the 66 Wolves anime, as well as fashion fascists who have established a cultural blockade where only sufficiently "cool" people are allowed to pass. Ideologically, politically, and economically, things are pulling in all directions, yet the world is still held together by the same twisted logic. At times, Portofiro is a city where every ideology has become a subculture and every subculture has eventually evolved into some form of cult.

You can sit up here and that's exactly what this chap does 24/7.

One of the clearest differences between Zero Parades and Disco Elysium lies in the badge system, which is the game's equivalent of perks, personality traits, and mental specialisations. Whereas Disco let different parts of Harry's psyche speak directly to the player, badges function more as identities that Cascade actively begins to adopt depending on how you play her. So it's less about voices in your head and more about the kind of spy you're gradually being shaped into.

Some badges are unlocked through specific actions, be that how you behave during interrogations, which people you manipulate, which lies you tell, or how often you resort to violence, charm, or paranoia to solve problems. Others feel almost more psychological, as if the game is observing your behaviour in the background and, step-by-step, begins to categorise who you are becoming. At times, Cascade feels less like a human being and more like a dossier under constant update.

Mechanically, badges function as both bonuses and narrative filters. They open up new dialogue options, change how certain characters react to you, and can grant access to alternative solutions during missions. But just like so much else in Zero Parades, there's almost always a downside. A badge that makes you better at manipulation might simultaneously make it harder to form genuine relationships, whilst another enhances your intuition at the expense of stability and control. It's a system that fits the game's paranoid spy theme perfectly.

Here is the folder containing the various badges. It's a more complex system than you might think at first glance.

Perhaps the most stress-inducing system in the whole of Zero Parades, however, is the one centred around Fatigue, Anxiety, and Delirium; three mental and physical strains that constantly simmer in the background throughout the game. Unlike a traditional health system, it's not about how many bullets Cascade can take, but about how much pressure her mind and body can withstand before something starts to break down for real.

Fatigue represents sheer exhaustion; sleep deprivation, physical stress, and the feeling that the body is gradually starting to give up. Anxiety, on the other hand, is the paranoid thread running through the entire game, the suspicion, the stress and the feeling of being watched from every dark corner of Portofiro. Delirium is the most unpleasant of the three and acts almost as a measure of how close Cascade is to mental breakdown, where reality begins to feel increasingly unreliable.

Your inventory therefore quickly becomes a walking medicine cabinet full of alcohol, cigarettes, and various drugs that raise or lower these values depending on the situation. Almost the whole of Portofiro is also littered with substances, medicines, and strange little objects that encourage constant "scavenging" rather than traditional loot hunting. Alongside this, there are also plenty of clothes and equipment that alter your badge attributes, including everything from cheap wigs and fetish gear to futuristic astronaut suits that make Cascade look like someone who's fled straight from a failed space programme.

'Aerial creep', who could it be?

On top of that, you also collect various tools and odd gadgets along the way. For example, I ran around with a toy sword for much of the game, although the tool kit almost always had to come along as it lets you pick locks, pry open passages, and cut through locks that would otherwise shut out large parts of Portofiro.

The genius lies in how the game lets you actively use these states through what's called "Exertion". During crucial dice rolls, you can push Cascade beyond its limits and deliberately raise, for example, Anxiety or Delirium to force better odds. It's a fantastic system because every decision feels desperate and short-sighted in exactly the right way. You start to think like someone trying to survive an impossible mission rather than a player who just wants to "min-max" stats. The only problem is that the consequences become permanent if you push too far. When any of the gauges reach their limit, you're forced to sacrifice parts of Cascade's abilities, and skills deteriorate, attributes are downgraded, and certain aspects of her personality begin to feel scarred. The game doesn't just want you to fail sometimes, it wants those failures to linger in your body afterwards.

The third major system is called Conditioning and functions somewhat like the game's own, considerably colder version of Disco Elysium's Thought Cabinet. Through various events, dialogue, and mental crossroads, Cascade can begin to anchor herself in specific memories, thought patterns, and behaviours that gradually change who she is. Some Conditioning paths unlock new dialogue options or passive bonuses, whilst others gradually twist her personality in unsettling directions without you really noticing until much later. The beauty of it is that Conditioning never feels like a standard skill tree. Rather, it feels as though you are, bit-by-bit, reprogramming a person who is already broken from the start.

However, the aspect that makes Zero Parades shine brightest of all is the freedom. Hershel's journey constantly swings her between despair, hope, and sheer desperation, depending on how you choose to play her. Just like in Disco Elysium, the dialogue choices are genuinely significant, and your playthrough doesn't have to resemble mine at all, partly because the choices actually affect the world around you, but also because the amount of side quests and optional content is enormous.

'The quest for it' is definitely something one should live by.

You get to infiltrate secret prisons, have very strange phone sex via the Miracle Line, and scavenge for scrap copper at a derelict missile silo. But almost everything in the game revolves around conversation. Words. Interrogation. Manipulation. In Portofiro, people rarely kill each other with bullets, as they do it with conversations instead. Furthermore, the journal rarely gives you any clear instructions on exactly where to go next. Instead, Zero Parades works more with fragments; names, places, hints, and loose observations that you must piece together yourself. The game almost never points the way with a heavy hand, as instead, much of it involves connecting the dots yourself, following your gut and trying to understand which people or places are actually worth investigating further. It can be frustrating at times when several leads are open simultaneously with no obvious direction forward, but at the same time, this is also a major part of why Portofiro feels so alive. You're not playing an all-knowing hero with a perfect overview. You're playing a spy feeling your way through lies, half-truths, and fragmented information.

It also helps that Zero Parades is exceptionally good at making failures interesting. The dice rolls can be brutal and sometimes entire plans collapse before your very eyes, but the game almost never treats a failure as a traditional "game over". Instead, you're forced to improvise, find new ways forward, or live with the consequences of something going completely to hell. This makes every decision significantly more nerve-wracking because you never really feel safe, whilst the world feels more dynamic when the game actually dares to let things go wrong for real.

Dr Gonzo is mad, completely, utterly mad. After meeting him, you might want to have a beer to calm your nerves.

The exploration is also significantly better than I first thought. Portofiro is vast, densely packed, and at times, almost confusingly laid out, which means you sometimes get completely lost between different missions and side quests. But after enough hours, the city slowly starts to settle in the back of your mind in the same way that real places do. The streets become familiar, shortcuts start to feel natural, and eventually, you navigate almost purely on instinct. The fact that the game also allows you to fast-travel between areas means the pace never falters, despite the city's size. It also helps that Portofiro constantly rewards curiosity. New areas, locked passages, and little secrets are hidden all over the city, and almost every detour leads sooner or later to some strange character, a hidden quest, or a new opportunity to manipulate the world around you.

At the same time, this is also where Zero Parades sometimes loses a bit of momentum. Portofiro is structured as a web of half-clues, broken people, and loose ends that constantly pull you in different directions at once. There are almost always several storylines running in parallel, but the game isn't particularly good at signalling which of them actually drives the plot forward. The result is that you sometimes find yourself drifting between neighbourhoods, returning to old conversations and chasing people who might be sitting on important information, or perhaps just another dead end. Sometimes this reinforces the feeling of actually playing a disoriented agent in the middle of a conspiracy where no one really seems to be speaking plainly, but at other times it just gets tedious as you wander around without really understanding what the game actually wants you to do next.

Phone sex? Why not?

For an uninitiated player, the sheer volume of dialogue can almost feel off-putting, but if you give the game time, read carefully, and listen to the strong voice acting, you'll be richly rewarded. Lore, humour, and clever references are mixed with razor-sharp social commentary aimed at politicians, mega-corporations, and capitalism. Zero Parades: For Dead Spies isn't a game you rush through. It's a game you sink into.

The soundtrack is also really good, and the heavy soundscape adds enormously to the overall experience. The music often hums in the background like a broken shortwave message from a city on the verge of losing its mind, whilst rain, distant voices, rumbling ventilation, and dirty industrial sounds constantly keep the paranoia alive. The atmosphere fits the game's themes perfectly and ensures that Portofiro never feels like a typical game world, but rather like a place that, step-by-step, breaks down the people who live there. Aesthetically and technically, it still bears a strong resemblance to the studio's previous games, but the developers have also polished up far more details than is immediately apparent. The lighting is better, the environments larger, and the animations considerably more lifelike, whilst everything still stays true to that gritty, dreamlike ZA/UM aesthetic that constantly feels half a step away from collapsing before your very eyes.

During the game's more intense moments, you play in this view and make 'moves' until the result is determined.

The artwork is also absolutely stunning. Zero Parades possesses that rare kind of visual identity that makes you occasionally pause just to stare at a background, a menu illustration, or some strange "Conditioning" image for a little longer than necessary. Several of the motifs are so powerful that I could seriously imagine hanging them up as pictures at home. Everything from grimy underground stations and rain-soaked alleyways to surreal psychological scenes and crumbling advertising posters feel hand-painted with the same blend of melancholy, paranoia, and ideological fever that permeates the rest of the game.

The only technical issue I've actually encountered during my time reviewing the game is that it has crashed on a couple of occasions. That said, the developers deserve credit for how quickly they've worked on updates even before release. Several patches have been rolled out whilst I've been playing and much of the most glaring frustration has already been ironed out. Otherwise, Zero Parades is actually surprisingly well-polished for this type of massively dialogue-heavy and system-driven role-playing game. Bugs do occur, absolutely, but the overall experience feels considerably more stable than the genre's history has almost taught us to expect.

A valid question.

I'm actually really surprised here. I didn't think Zero Parades: For Dead Spies would turn out as good as it actually did. The only real downside is that it constantly lives in the shadow of its big brother and the genre's master, {Disco Elysium}, the game that, in a way, redefined the modern CRPG genre after {Fallout}, Fallout 2, and Planescape: Torment laid the foundations, something that is, fundamentally, unfair, but nonetheless a fact. It isn't quite as well-written, never quite as stylish or spot-on, and the characters rarely reach the same heights as Harry, Kim, or Cuno, and had I not played Disco Elysium before, or enjoyed {Esoteric Ebb} earlier this year, I would probably have come away from Zero Parades feeling considerably more underwhelmed than I did. But that also says quite a lot about just how high the standard actually is here.

No, Zero Parades never reaches the same dizzying heights as Disco Elysium, but perhaps it doesn't need to. When I switched off Zero Parades, it almost felt as though Portofiro continued to exist without me somewhere out there in the darkness, as if the city were simply waiting for the next broken player to devour.

Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight

jonas@gamereactor.eu (Jonas Mäki) — Mon, 18 May 2026 14:00:00 +0200

Often, when games are announced, they immediately sound absolutely brilliant, based on a tantalising teaser and brief details highlighting the key points. Sooner or later, however, the hype tends to die down a bit once the developers reveal things that the community doesn't usually get excited about.

In the case of {Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight}, however, there's been no such let-down; instead, it has somehow magically managed to ramp up the hype all the way from its announcement to the moment I've finally got the chance to enjoy the adventure. TT Games has been rapidly revealing more and more exciting features, and they've managed the feat of charming everyone, whether they're Lego fans, fans of the Batman films, those who just read the comics, or those who still dream of the Arkham trilogy.

In terms of gameplay, Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is much closer to the Arkham series than you might think.

In short, the game is packed with content, but like any other adventure, it begins with a single step, where we follow the young Bruce Wayne from being a beloved only child, to becoming an orphan after his parents are murdered, and of course eventually being trained to fight Gotham's worst villains and become Batman. This is, of course, nothing new, and to be honest I'm rather tired of origin stories, but here it serves as a sort of interactive introduction whilst also offering a taste of one of the recurring, slightly more unique elements in Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight.

It's a wild mix of inspiration from various source material and makes no attempt to follow a chronological order. The opening feels inspired by Nolan's beloved Batman trilogy (and includes a fair bit of Ra's al Ghul), but we also find elements from Tim Burton's films, and once in Gotham, there's clear inspiration from the Penguin TV series, before something appears that fans of The Batman will love. And amidst all this, we continue to unlock suits, gadgets and characters from every corner of the Batman universe, where not even I, who consider myself a Batman enthusiast, can honestly say I recognise everything.

Talia al Ghul is the first additional playable character you'll come across.

As if that weren't enough, the game is generously sprinkled with other references that don't actually have anything to do with Batman - I won't spoil the fun for anyone, but I particularly enjoyed a very clever nod to American Psycho. Naturally, this sort of thing goes completely over the heads of the children, who are, after all, the main audience for Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight.

So before I get carried away and start telling you about all the times I've sat there pointing my finger at the TV like Leonardo DiCaprio in that ever-popular meme, let me make it clear straight away that Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is definitely aimed at younger gamers. The standard difficulty level is the lowest (of three), and I chose to play on the middle one and have also tried the hardest. Apart from the odd misstep and the like, I haven't died once in combat. I'm certainly not trying to say that I'm a top-tier power player, but rather that Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is a very easy game - so much so that I really recommend you, with average skills, to play on the highest difficulty setting. It's more fun, and is still quite easy. But that doesn't mean there's a lack of challenges; I'll get to that.

It features iconic scenes from all sorts of Batman films over the years - including the latest one.

For anyone who's played TT Games' Lego games before, a lot of it will naturally feel familiar. The gameplay is the same, largely involving smashing everything with the X button and jumping with the A button. Then 'studs' (the in-game currency) fly across the screen, as almost everything can be smashed to pieces. If you collect enough studs in a short space of time, you get multipliers that give your money an extra boost. For me, at least, this became a sort of game within the game, making it more fun to collect studs and causing me to spend an unnecessary amount of time keeping multipliers active before picking up valuable items like blue or purple studs, for maximum results.

Aside from having one foot firmly planted in TT Games' classic Lego worlds, the other is just as firmly rooted in the Arkham universe. In many ways, this really is like an Arkham game reimagined in Lego. The combat works similarly, where you can take on hordes of enemies by jumping between them, performing counters, dodging projectile attacks and pulling off badass moves. The only negative I can think of is perhaps that the latter doesn't play a major role. Performing a series of combos to fill your focus meter and ultimately be able to attack more powerfully is, on paper, a good idea, but as mentioned, the enemies are so easy that it's not something worth striving for. I often find myself not even using the attacks when I have the chance.

I'm sure you'll recognise the Arkham formula?

Otherwise, it's a thoroughly delightful system, and here we even find features such as the ability to sneak up on enemies and swing up and down with a grappling hook, so that with a press of RB you can take out unsuspecting foes from above. You can also sneak up on opponents from behind or pull them down from ledges if you approach from below. Top this off with fairly varied boss fights, and you've got a really enjoyable gameplay loop.

Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is at its best if you have someone to play with. You can, of course, play through everything on your own, but there are several instances where you have to play co-op with yourself - for example, by taking one character to a location, switching to another character and heading to a different spot, and so on. It's not a problem, but these moments do slow the pace down a bit, and if there are two of you, the screen is split and you can assist each other in the best possible way.

You still have to build with Lego from time to time, and the levels feature plenty of light-hearted elements.

The world is vast and open, yet divided into sections. You and any co-op partner must stay within the same area. These areas are, however, impressively large, and as I mentioned above, there are challenges beyond just combat. TT Games has taken a leaf out of Nintendo's book and included a vast array of collectables, many of which are notoriously hard to find. But it's often worth the effort to look, as a complete set of statues, playing cards, bonsai trees or whatever else it may be will give you extra bonuses, sometimes in the form of gadgets (to pimp your Batcave, if you're into that sort of thing) and sometimes in the form of one of several currencies.

There are also decent opportunities to customise your Batman (and his sidekicks) to your liking by using a workbench and a sort of experience point system to level up items and the characters. This gives it a bit of a Metroidvania feel, as you can suddenly access things you knew were there but didn't know how to reach. Little by little, you unlock more of the game world and you can, of course, go back to continue searching for things. There's also a fixed travel system, and it's always crystal clear where you need to go next. On top of this, you also have access to classic Batman vehicles, so getting around is quick and easy.

The Batmobile handles surprisingly well, with plenty of grip.

Apart from Batman himself, there are only a handful of other characters you can play as during the adventure. If you're playing with two players, player two will have to switch quite often, as several sections are designed for Batman and one other character, who then has the abilities you need in that particular spot. This makes it a rather unique game in TT Games' Lego range, as these titles have sometimes been known for featuring over 100 playable characters. Personally, I don't see this as a downside at all; rather, it provides a more cohesive narrative and a more clearly defined gameplay experience.

Before I reveal my rating, I'd like to take this opportunity to comment on the graphics and sound. These are, in fact, absolutely top-notch. During the review period, I've barely encountered a single bug, despite the fact that the day-one patch hasn't been released yet at the time of writing. It runs beautifully smoothly, the effects are well-crafted and the animations are top-notch. Climbing right up high and simply throwing yourself down to glide with Batman over Gotham with a magnificent view is actually just as cool in this Lego game as it was when {Batman: Arkham City} was released in 2011. I'd also like to highlight Simon Withenshaw's soundtrack, which is really well-written and significantly darker and more menacing than we've been used to from the Lego series previously. It really ties the presentation together and makes it feel like a somewhat unlikely Batman simulator.

If you're playing with someone else, the screen splits in two and the adventure gets even better.

So... the rating? There have actually been a couple of moments during the adventure where I've wondered whether I should award our absolute top rating (something I haven't done since 2021). Ultimately, the slightly too easy difficulty level and the somewhat unpolished combo system in the battles meant I couldn't quite justify it - but having said that, this is by far the best Lego game I've had the privilege of playing. There is such a vast amount to discover and unlock, and it has such excellent co-op support that I would highly recommend this to everyone.

Subnautica 2 (Early Access)

patrik@gamereactor.eu (Patrik Severin) — Thu, 14 May 2026 17:00:00 +0200

Ever since I played the very first Subnautica, I knew that Unknown Worlds Entertainment had come up with something special. The feeling of seeing the ocean in every direction, knowing that you have to survive completely stranded on an alien planet and utterly alone, is gripping. Using a well-designed resource management system, you had to find minerals, metals, and other materials to craft new tools and all of this took place in beautiful underwater environments. At the same time, the game had a darker side; not all the creatures you encountered were small and harmless as the ocean also contained gigantic predators reminiscent of those that roamed the Earth millions of years ago. You were no longer at the top of the food chain, but significantly further down.

Expectations for Subnautica 2 were sky-high as a result of the brilliance of the first game and the entertaining adventure Below Zero. I enjoyed both previous titles, but I also understand that the standalone spin-off wasn't a proper sequel and was a bit smaller in scale. This time, the scale is back on a par with the first game, and the second is expected to grow during its Early Access period. Here, Unknown Worlds plays with biomes where the ocean completely engulfs you and you can see neither the bottom nor the surface. It is precisely in these situations that exploration becomes extra eerie as you don't know where all the strange noises are coming from, and the shadows engulfing you might be an illusion rather than a giant monster.

The character creator is simple but lets you choose who you are, as well as your colours and appearance.

Just like in the first game, you start with a sort of crash. Your life pod sends you to the surface after a tutorial section and you can quickly get started with resource gathering and exploration. Just like in the first game, your first base is a half-functional escape pod from the mothership. Most things are the same as you upgrade your equipment, acquire basic tools, and venture deeper into the ocean. This time, you don't need to worry about a reactor explosion on the horizon. You will, however, find the remains of your spaceship scattered across the seabed and you cannot build everything in your lifeboat, as instead you need to build a base where you can craft more resources, tools, buildings, and other items. It should be said straight away that base-building is more integrated into the experience this time round and it isn't as standalone as it was in the first game.

However, I have no problem with a greater focus on base-building as I enjoy constructing buildings and creating my own settlements. Materials and other items are also fairly easy to obtain because the buildings are cheap, which means you can quickly set up a functional base. The improvements to the building tool make it less fiddly to expand, rotate, and adjust the base exactly as you want it. It's also the building process required to create a sort of hangar and craft your first vehicle, where the one I tested is called the Tadpole and is somewhat reminiscent of the Seamoth. It is, however, considerably more customisable and you can even tailor the chassis where installing components works much like in the first game. This results in a fairly comfortable gameplay loop where much feels familiar.

You unlock super-powerful abilities by combining DNA from organic life on the planet with your own.
This game gets really dark; you can't see a thing at night, and I absolutely love that. Plants and animals glow in the dark, and the environments are a real treat to look at. You do need to be careful with your torch, though, as the wildlife reacts to it.

I do, however, want to give a shout-out to both the graphics and the atmosphere. It's a beautiful game with a stunningly lovely sky where the sunrise must have been directly inspired by Star Wars: A New Hope with its twin suns, and it's hard not to be awestruck by the visuals. This is a technically competent game with excellent production values, and just like in the first game, the music is electronic with a lovely retro feel. I remember when I jumped into the water for the first time in Subnautica and was spellbound; I'll remember that with the sequel too.

When you're initially battling the darkness, scanning creatures, and trying to understand why things happen on this new planet, the game is at its best. You have all the time in the world to explore and do whatever you like, and yet there is a story. You have an AI called NOA that helps you pinpoint missions and other things to find. It glitched out a bit for me and I'm not getting any more of those missions but it might also be because I've progressed too far. This AI isn't quite what it claims to be and at the same time a mysterious disease is spreading across the planet. You'll see sea creatures and entire biomes covered in this virus and the parasites linked to it. The biggest marker of this is a gigantic tree on the horizon, completely covered in these grey spores and a grey slime. It has replaced the crashed spaceship from the first game as a massive landmark.

If you liked the first one, you'll be in your element.
It's a good idea to scan and learn more about the wildlife and resources in the game. Everything is stored in a database that you can easily access via the menus.

You cannot travel wherever you like in this Early Access version as there are clearly marked areas you cannot explore. You'll receive a warning and you may well die. Thankfully, death isn't the end. Your body is cloned again and you're free to find your capsule and your items, not unlike the system in the first game. It's up to you to investigate why you crashed, what role your AI played, and possibly to cure the disease ravaging the ocean. You will certainly have to escape at some point but I haven't got that far yet, and there isn't that much content in this Early Access version anyway. What is there, however, is very good and engaging. If you don't want to deal with hunger and thirst, there are alternative modes without these and simpler base-building.

I also like how recordings left behind refer to places you've visited. One of my favourite spots was a giant shell that, if disturbed, snaps shut and you can get trapped inside. Finding a log and hearing other survivors and their attempts to escape was entertaining, to say the least. Another place I liked was a completely devastated environment surrounded by rather large and dangerous fish. The current king of biomes is still the starting area as it's just as pleasant, bright, beautiful, and harmless as in the first game. At the same time, you know that beyond these areas lie dangers unlike anything you've seen so far, where one of the most dangerous places I visited was an area filled with lava and volcanic activity. You won't always be able to get everywhere, but there is plenty of help available at the start thanks to oxygen-producing plants. You don't necessarily need your vehicle at the beginning of the game and I managed quite well for over five hours without using such aids.

Twin suns rising on the horizon are nothing new in the media, but they look just as stunning every time.
If you want to create ingots from ore and other materials, you now need a base with specific buildings.

So far, I've been talking about things you're familiar with, but there are also new features. A new addition to the concept is genetics, where you can build up your character with abilities gained through special plants and data banks. This is done in the game by mixing DNA; more specifically, it works in such a way that you have two types of these bonuses. The first is abilities your character gains, and the second is passive bonuses. You'll have a wide range to choose from, for example, at the start you can choose between leaving a trail behind you so you can find your way out of caves more easily, or moving faster when swimming along the seabed. In addition to this, there is also a more story-driven way to gain new abilities and these are the ones you receive from plants you cure of the virus. These grant you quite powerful abilities, such as being able to withstand heat better. This opens up the previously mentioned area with lava and volcanoes for exploration and I hope there are more of these than there are locations, meaning you, as a player, get to make a few choices.

Technically speaking, the experience is more polished than the first game, but there are bugs, including missions that stop appearing, fish that go through the ground, and a few other things. However, it's rarely so disruptive that I think about it. The only one that's affected me is the story-driven bug where I don't get any further guidance on where to go. My suspicion is that either there are no more locations or this version of the game has a glitch. Audio-visually, it's all top-notch; both the music and all the cool sound effects are superb and I like what I see and hear for the most part, despite a few glitches. However, I haven't managed to get the multiplayer mode to work in the version of the game I have. It's co-op with up to four players you can team up with and that's something I'll be testing after the official launch of this Early Access version.

It's a fantastic feeling to swim around at night and see all the bioluminescent plants and marine life.
The plateaus are always tricky. What will I find if I swim over the edge and dive down 250 metres or deeper?

To sum up my time with the Early Access version of Subnautica 2, it's worth playing and will likely turn out to be a fantastic game. Just like with the first game's Early Access version, we don't know how long it will take or what upgrades we'll see in the future. From what I've tested so far, I feel both satisfied and excited about what's to come. It's beautiful, sounds great, and encourages exploration, and resource gathering and base building are both simple and intuitive. At present, your base is mostly affected by whether it has power or is under attack. I imagine future updates might expand on this as it's an aspect, alongside the limited exploration, that demonstrates this is a project designed to be built up as you play. I hope the developers incorporate a wide variety of weather types into the game because I'd like to see a good mix of rain, thunderstorms, sunshine, fog, and much more. I'd also like to see temperatures fluctuate in certain biomes, which would sometimes require you to adjust your choice of DNA.

At present, Subnautica 2 is a limited version offering at least 6-12 hours of gameplay. With the multiplayer mode included, you can certainly get significantly more hours out of it, but over time, the developer will be adding the remaining vehicles, tools, resources, biomes, and narrative. There is a lot missing, and you need to consider whether you want to dive in now or wait until more content is in place. I was quite happy with my time playing, but it's clear that this is far from finished and it may be a while before we see Version 1.0. However, I'm pleased that what's available is in a much better state than in the first game and offers more content. For that reason, I can tentatively recommend this to you, as you'll get it at a lower price than when the 1.0 edition arrives.

The oceans are eerie, and I don't think Subnautica 2 has lost what made its predecessors unique and great. You should be aware, however, that you get very little of the story - more of a starter than a main course and dessert. It's this limited content and technical issues that mean I cannot justify a higher rating. However, I am extremely optimistic about this project and hope to revisit the game once it is released in its full version.

These gloves shoot out jets of water and work a bit like the Seaglide in the first game. It's an early-game tool that helps you get around the environments more quickly, but it drains the battery fast.
I like that base-building is more of a focus this time round. It felt a bit odd having to craft so much inside the escape pod in the first game.
Building bases with views is just as much fun in the second game. It's a bit easier, though, as the tool is more intuitive.
The wildlife is diverse, and the water is home to both peaceful creatures and their deadly counterparts.
Your first vehicle is a bit of an odd one. I like it, though, and it's both customisable and upgradeable. It'll be exciting to see just how much it can be customised in the future.
One of my favourite things about this sequel isn't just the oceans, but also space. The views we get to see are pretty amazing.

Forza Horizon 6

magnus@gamereactor.eu (Magnus Groth-Andersen) — Thu, 14 May 2026 14:00:00 +0200

Fans have been begging for years for Playground Games to finally set a new Horizon game in Japan and it's not hard to see why. Just like with the {Assassin's Creed} series, which also saw a persistent desire for a Japanese chapter, "the land of the rising sun" is dripping with instantly recognisable iconography and exudes culture, religion, and tradition that are known throughout the world.

And now {Forza Horizon 6} is here, and it's good. It's yet another good {Forza Horizon} game, and at times it's actually really good. But whilst Japan is undoubtedly an exciting backdrop for adrenaline-pumping arcade racing, it feels as though the series might, for the first time, be a little unsure of where exactly it's heading. You can feel it, both in the way they've chosen to bring Japan to life, and also in the way this structure has gradually started to creak a little under the weight of the art of repetition.

It is very, very important to emphasise that even though Playground isn't reinventing the wheel, or deviating from the Horizon series' physical, structural, or mechanical framework, {Forza Horizon 6} still feels good thoroughly good to play. That sets the bar quite high here. If the snapshot is decidedly excellent, and the surrounding systems have been honed to perfection over a sufficient number of iterations, then those who have enjoyed what Playground has served up across the five previous instalments will find they like what they're served here.

It's all here: a Horizon Festival, distinct, varied race types, over 550 cars recreated down to the smallest detail, a sea of progression paths, Barn Finds, collectables, the whole shebang. There are small changes here and there, of course, such as the addition of area-specific mascots to find and destroy, but broadly speaking, the experience of playing {Forza Horizon 6} feels much the same as playing Horizon 5, or even 4. And whilst this could easily be seen as a complaint, or even a source of frustration, there remains a fundamental joy in picking up a game that you already know works not just satisfactorily, but brilliantly, and seeing your expectations met.

But at the same time, it's not quite that simple, is it? Because as the number at the end increases, expectations are remixed at the same time. What barely worked last time needs to work better, and at the same time, the developers must find ways to adapt or redefine the content in such a way that it once again feels fresh.

Horizon 6's very basic, fundamental gameplay structure is brilliant, best-in-class even, but Playground has failed to introduce meaningful updates or "remixes" of the content, or the way it is delivered and experienced, and at the same time I'm not entirely sure if this version of Japan was exactly what I'd hoped for, although opinions will naturally be divided on that aspect in particular.

Right, so now Horizon Festival has reached Japan, and let's not waste a single sentence on the flimsy narrative setup, where you and your "friends" Mei and Jordan collectively dream of becoming the festival's undisputed centre of attention. The game even speaks to you, quite often too, and you'd be well advised to ignore it all. Whether it's "just the way it is", or whether you secretly wish that if the game insists on having characters who absolutely must speak at all, then perhaps they could tell us something other than the same old drivel about "being free" whilst utterly demolishing Japanese temples and causing billions of pounds' worth of property damage, but I'll leave that up to you. Structurally, however, the idea is the same. You complete races that earn you points, and these points unlock key events that mark the acquisition of a new wristband. The goal is to get all the wristbands, and that's it. That's fine enough, as such.

These events are the fairly typical selection. You have Cross Country, Circuits, Street Racing, Dirt Racing, and Japanese Touge drift races, mixed with Speed Traps, Drift Zones, and Trailblazers. Combined with the aforementioned Barn Finds, Horizon Chapters (short standalone stories featuring the most forgettable characters you'll ever meet), and collectables, there's, as always, plenty to get stuck into, and each of these races is designed and put together with an eye for detail.

But it's also almost exactly the same selection you've experienced time-and-time again, and only in very minor ways is this content pack actually adapted to the location itself. You drive around Playground's interpretation of Japan, yes, but in only a few places is the actual presentation distinctly Japanese - the user interface is even virtually identical. I gave {Forza Horizon 5} a solid 9 because it feels like the absolute culmination of what this specific formula could achieve, and I noted in that very review that it feels like a conclusion, that Playground Games couldn't squeeze any more novelty out of this specific way of designing and delivering content. Unfortunately, it's clear from {Forza Horizon 6} that I was right. This feels like a sort of Japanese-inspired bonus track, or, to put it bluntly, like DLC.

"BUT", you might be thinking, what about Japan? Well, Japan is beautiful here, no doubt about it. There is a huge variety in this setting, allowing you, relatively quickly, to travel from the Hokkaido-inspired thick, snow-covered ski slopes to the almost tropical Nangan. Drifting through cherry blossoms is a delight; experiencing parts of Tokyo through the windscreen of these gorgeous cars is wonderful; seeing Japanese architecture and iconography brought to life through Playground's ForzaTech graphics engine at 60fps is stunning. And the new local radio station, Gacha City Radio, featuring artists such as Creepy Nuts and Ado, is a welcome addition.

But there are simply problems here. First and foremost, Japan is shaped just as much by the people who live in the country as by nature and architecture, and {Forza Horizon 6} shows only sparse crowds of people, even in Tokyo. This makes sense to some extent when you're racing through at 130 kilometres per hour, even across Shibuya Crossing, but whereas Mexico or the English moors are known for their landscapes, Japan is just as distinctive because of the culture people create, and that aspect is decidedly missing. As you drive over Shibuya Crossing in the game's prologue, I had to stop because, without people in that iconic pedestrian crossing, it lacked virtually all impact. That's how much of Tokyo is, as the landmarks are there but it comes across as a strange ghost town.

Furthermore, this is above all a realistic rendering of the country and there are surely some who will welcome that. But conversely, it also means that the majority of this map consists of dark green forest and brown hills and roads. It doesn't really matter, as such, but this could have been an aspect where a slightly more caricatured, perhaps colour-manipulated approach might have given the game a breath of fresh air? I'm not saying there should be chibi characters dancing around on the bonnet whilst you're driving, but so much of the map is neither Tokyo nor any of the other recognisable, iconic significant settings that set this fantastic country apart from every other on the planet. The point is, once again, that Japan represents a unique opportunity and a challenge, and although Playground presents beautiful scenery and realistic architecture, for technical and artistic reasons the game cannot give you an insight into the country's unique culture. And that's a shame.

And finally; there is a curious lack of variety, even compared to {Forza Horizon 5}. The races are far more restricted, and will dictate which cars you can take to each race, but more than that, I found only two Showcase-style races amongst the main Wristband Events; the rest felt like fairly ordinary races, even when they marked the transition to a new wristband. And you don't unlock distinct race types via the Horizon Festival as in {Forza Horizon 5}, as it's all one big homogeneous pool most of the time, and gone are the distinct Apex, Wilds, Rush, Street Race, and Baja scenes. The campaign structure Playground called "Horizon Adventure" in the fifth instalment is nowhere to be seen, and it's not entirely clear why. There is one race against a Gundam-like mech, and it's a fantastic glimpse of what a {Forza Horizon} game would be like if the game actively explored Japanese culture rather than just architecture and nature. But apart from that, as mentioned, you don't progressively unlock new "stages" with distinct race types, nor do you race to these new stages alongside all the other festival participants. New Wristband events are simply added without any fanfare.

Ouch, eh? There's not enough going on, and the setting that most people had been so looking forward to has been recreated in such a way that it all appears realistically grounded, but less distinctive as a result. That doesn't sound too good, does it? But it's important to return to, and emphasise, the aforementioned point; The Horizon games deliver an open-world arcade experience that no one else in the industry can hold a candle to. You won't find a competitor here that looks as good, sounds as good, is as generous with its content, or is as technically well-crafted as {Forza Horizon 6}. You simply won't. If you're craving more Horizon, you've probably already combed through Horizon 5 for all the content it has to offer, so there's no point in recommending that instead, is there?

No, the truth is more complex, and thankfully so. Horizon 6 disappointed me. Me, who has played all six instalments in the series. I feel some of the progress Horizon 5 introduced is missing; I don't think Playground are willing enough to experiment with everything from progression to UI design; and I don't think Japan comes across well as a setting here. But conversely, this, along with the last handful of Horizon games, is one of the best arcade racers you can find, based on everything this game predictably executes so masterfully. I therefore take the liberty of recommending Horizon 6 solely on the basis that it works as well as it does, although I must once again recommend that Playground Games really take their time to be more ambitious in the future.

Drop Duchy Complete Edition

joakim@gamereactor.eu (Joakim Sjögren) — Wed, 13 May 2026 11:00:00 +0200

The fact that puzzle-solving and tactics go hand in hand is nothing new, but when you combine Tetris-style falling blocks with strategic battles, the result is surprisingly addictive. In the new indie game Drop Duchy, the aim is to shape your own kingdom using puzzle pieces, and here the focus is more on shaping the land you live on rather than directly moving and manoeuvring your military forces. It may sound a bit odd at first, but you'll soon learn that there's a captivating simplicity to the setup, whilst a depth of gameplay lies hidden amongst the forests and fields.

Tetris - but with a twist!

There is no story to follow in Drop Duchy; instead, after a brief introduction, you are thrown straight into a three-act campaign where the aim is to defeat your enemies and emerge victorious after a couple of intense boss battles. The game is, incidentally, of the roguelike variety, where you undertake so-called runs to gradually improve from one round to the next. If you're into this specific genre, there's plenty of content to enjoy (such as playing as different armies), but you can also appreciate the battles with a more relaxed approach if you want to avoid investing too much time.

As mentioned, each run is divided into different acts, and each act in turn offers a range of challenges. At the start, you can puzzle away in peace and quiet (without any enemies), and this is where you can earn various resources. Because when you complete full rows with your blocks, you can harvest various resources, and if you add different houses and factories to the horizontal lines, the result can also be significantly improved. Incidentally, there is no time pressure to consider, but you do need to think carefully about where to place your blocks, as forests generate wood and timber whilst open fields and farmland provide food, etc.

You can often choose whether to face enemies head-on or take a more leisurely route - though holding off on battles makes the bosses stronger.

The difficulty level then increases as the enemies make their entrance, but Drop Duchy handles its battles with an interesting twist. You are, in fact, constantly in full control, as you are the one who deploys both your own troops and your opponent's forces. However, each unit has different attributes to consider, and they can become stronger or weaker depending on where they are positioned on the battlefield. For example, some units become stronger when near forests, whilst others prefer mountains or other settlements, and it is by maximising your units' abilities that you can both strengthen your own army and make your enemy vulnerable.

The battles always take place once the blocks are in position, and you can decide the order in which the moves are made.
You'll unlock new cards as you go along, and you can then use these as building blocks to create a better kingdom.

There is, incidentally, another aspect to bear in mind when it comes to the game's battles, and that is at the end of each skirmish, when you once again get to decide the order of events. Drop Duchy uses a rock-paper-scissors system, whereby different units have a strength and a weakness. You can then manipulate this to your advantage by first having your archers attack a group of axe-men (against whom they have an advantage) before they join their own axe-men and take on soldiers with swords (which the aforementioned axes often trump). It may sound a bit complicated on paper, but it's an interesting system that means every piece matters in determining the final outcome.

For once the smoke has cleared and the blocks have fallen into place, Drop Duchy offers a charming adventure where cute graphics blend with interesting and engaging gameplay. It may not be a ground-breaking take on the puzzle genre as a whole, but it is nonetheless an exciting concept with a great many clever touches. If you enjoy tactical thinking and relaxing puzzle-solving, this is an obvious purchase, and if you're willing to get to grips with all the complex choices on offer, you'll also find a game that you can spend countless hours playing over the coming summer months.

It's not easy when things get tough.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on Nintendo Switch 2

alberto@gamereactor.eu (Alberto Garrido) — Tue, 12 May 2026 13:00:00 +0200

Let me make it clear from the outset this isn't going to be a review that focuses on how wonderful Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is as a video game. What MachineGames first brought us on Xbox Series, then on PlayStation 5 and, finally, now on Nintendo Switch 2, is one of the best single-player adventures we've enjoyed in recent years. Their seemingly risky decision to offer us a first-person action-puzzle title, where there is hardly any gunplay but plenty of punching and whipping, mixed with stunning open-world areas, full of corners to explore and cinematic flair. In short, we're not here to pay tribute to the content itself again (well, maybe a little), but to decide whether this Nintendo Switch 2 version is worthy of donning the hat and wielding the whip.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a gem, a true masterclass in design that makes excellent use of its approach to tell the story it sets out to tell without ever upsetting the balance between a narrative adventure from a world-famous franchise, an action game, or a game of rather elaborate puzzles. Magnus really enjoyed it when the game was released on Xbox Series, and I followed suit a few months later (for Gamereactor Spain), playing the PlayStation 5 version from start to finish. In between, David went one step further and also told us how much he liked the Order of the Giants DLC. We've covered more than enough of everything there is to say about its content, its verticality, and its myriad details for enjoying the exploration of the Vatican, Egypt, and Sukhothai.

On the Nintendo Switch 2, however, the first thing to bear in mind is that we can't expect the same technical fidelity we saw in previous versions. The Nintendo console, with all its many merits, is a step behind the current generation of Microsoft and Sony consoles, and where those managed to reach and maintain 60 fps, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on Nintendo Switch 2 has to settle for offering a stable (albeit) 30 fps. Nor does it offer the same graphical resolution, being limited to 1080p in Docked mode, whilst in handheld mode the screen offers a resolution of 720p. In the game, where this compromise is most noticeable is in the definition of facial models and a sense of motion blur that is more pronounced than I would like, given what I've enjoyed before.

However, the lighting and the definition of environments and settings do feel well executed. The interplay of light and shadow with lanterns and torches, such as during the night-time foray through Castel Sant'Angelo or the Vatican catacombs, effectively captures the crackling of the flames or the reflections on puddles or metallic surfaces. However, the reduced power means, for example, that there are fewer NPCs, such as maintenance staff and clergy walking around Vatican City, which is the area I've explored most for this technical review.

The good thing about playing Indy on the Nintendo Switch 2 is that, wherever you point, the gyroscope responds with precision. Yes, of course, you can simply use the sticks to focus your search as you would with any other FPS, but here, where careful observation and following subtle clues are necessary to solve puzzles, using the gyroscope to explore felt like a more natural way of doing it. On the other hand, and since we're on the subject of peculiarities, I must say it's not entirely clear to me whether the mouse mode will be a selling point for trying this version. I tried with all my might to 'force myself to use it', but the response wasn't as precise as I'd like, nor did it feel precise enough in moments such as aiming a weapon in the middle of a fight. You can adjust its sensitivity in the menu, but I couldn't find a setting that balanced motion blur with mouse precision.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a great game, as I said at the start, and playing it on the Nintendo Switch 2, even with its limitations, remains a highly recommended experience. It is also further proof that Bethesda is getting better and better at fine-tuning the exact balance to ensure its titles perform well on the platform, following the mediocre Skyrim and the more than satisfactory Fallout 4. If you're also a fan of physical formats and the preservation of video games, you'll be pleased to know that the cartridge contains the full version of the base game and the Order of the Giants DLC (with localised voice acting included), which will surely convince some to pick it up.

If you don't own an Xbox Series X or a PlayStation 5, or simply want to take Indy on holiday with you this summer wherever you go, The Great Circle on Nintendo Switch 2 continues to offer a pure Indiana Jones experience, where its successes in adapting to a less powerful system outweigh the limitations it faces. With a few launch tweaks to improve those platform-specific features, MachineGames still has plenty of treasures to bring to players with the game.

Call of the Elder Gods

alejandro@gamereactor.eu (Alejandro "Deemon" Fandiño) — Mon, 11 May 2026 18:00:00 +0200

If making a stand-alone game - or any kind of artform for that matter - is a herculean task of its own, then trying your hand at the fine yet painful task of crafting a sequel might as well be a particular hell of our own creation, but it's also an alluring one for a reason. This medium's own nature of constant mechanical experimentation offers this beautiful vision of an untouched ceiling, an exercise in both imagination and self-reflection, looking at what came before and not only picturing what's ahead, but also what can be changed.

Out of the Blue Games' Call of the Sea was a couple of things, but to me the word that defines it best is "focused". It's a work plagued by a mystique reminiscent of its Lovecraftian inspiration but one propelled by a sappy melancholy that views a world of impossible knowledge less through the lenses of horror, and more in the eyes of tragedy and beauty. This is of course more of a general framework for the puzzles and riddles that the lost island had to offer, but it also defines its identity both as its own view of the horrors beyond and a character study of Norah and the human aspect and reactions that surround those mysteries. It was brief, it was direct... and in true incomprehensible knowledge fashion, it left a few doors open.

The world of Call of the Elder Gods is defined by its inspirations: the works of Lovecraft, 50s noir flicks, science-fiction literature that shaped the ways we see the indescribable, and of course, Call of the Sea itself, so just making more of it in the literal sense is not really an option - even if it was, it probably wouldn't be the best one - and so Call of the Elder Gods had to face the music: What lies beyond Norah's experiences and character?

The answer turns out to be grandiose... and also quite messy.

From the confines of a puzzle-filled tropical island, the sequel goes all out in every direction, laying forth a world of 50s America idiosyncrasies and Cold War conspiracies presented in a mixture of noir-style pacing and narration with a premise of the likes of 80s Indiana Jones, with a little bit of time travel shenanigans thrown in there for good measure... You know, like the usual Call of Cthulhu campaign! Saying this shake-up in scenery is massive would be an understatement; the collection of jaw-dropping spaces and set-pieces practically define the entire experience, environments that on their own say far more than a thousand lines of dialogue or narration. The 3D texture and model work is on point, and it results in the kind of sense of scale and place you really need to get out of an experience so dependent on its ambience like this one, at which point the excellent lighting and sound design become delicious cherries on top of a cake of visual prowess.

I seriously cannot stress how pretty everything looks, even at its ugliest. The simplified cartoon style looks good on its own right, but spaces like the lair of the secret society or the gardens of Pnakotus transcend their own barriers and sell the illusion of a depth and open-endedness they lack.

Beautiful as they may be, these big rooms and ruins won't amount to much if they don't have something to tell and, more importantly, show, and that's where the power of their riddles comes in. Each major area and chapter is neatly compartmentalised into one or two big puzzles that follow the trail left by their predecessor; it's got the feel of a point & click adventure where your tools are merely the knowledge you amass in your notebook, pieces of deduction that shine the brightest you're left with a plethora of information to distil and fit into a frame awaiting for the solution.

The highlight of the game may just be entirety of Chapter 3, which is the sheer embodiment of the detective-esque spirit hidden within the code, a complicated work of threads and loose clues that rock your brain back and forth till you manage to tie them together, soaked in the dim atmosphere and small narrative of a group of strange individuals that are on the verge of jumping at each other's throats. It's the game's highest point, which makes it a bit of a shame that nothing quite matches it moving forward. I struggle to even suggest that any of the puzzles in Call of the Elder Gods are bad; it's a very competent collection of brainteasers that never repeat a concept, and it is fun to learn how to decrypt the machinations of an Enigma Machine or be guided by constellations, yet the more I sit with it, the more I wished it realised its potential more consistently.

There are a couple of segments that either feel strangely straight-forward and simple or that go on for way too long, be it the lacklustre use of the character switching mechanic that doesn't go past the most basic use-cases imaginable or having to re-tread a lot of dead space through long walks that cannot be saved by the presence of a run button, the latter of which is aggravated by the fact that you know that the only important information is always in your notebook, so having to waste time because you missed a tucked away clue at the other side of the map or because you need a mechanism that's far away is not exactly my definition of gratifying.

These bumps non-withstanding, there's something commendable in how every single one of them realises the small stories that encompass their rooms. These aren't just notes laying down a particular event or decoration, these are clues that tell a story in it of itself, puzzles that make up and resolve an unseen narrative that came before, scattered recollections that form into context. This is what good environmental puzzles achieve, a sense of discovery in every step, something that stems beyond the isolated jigsaw. This is something its predecessor also achieved, but with the added context and sheer variety of ideas and locations, it's perhaps even more impressive here. And it's good that Call of the Elder Gods uses this to its advantage consistently, because otherwise we'd be left with a narrative that for all its ambition, gives very little to latch onto besides its own main characters.

If there's something it's hellbent to achieve compared to its predecessor, is making you actually care about Harry, a character that once only existed through Norah's eyes and recollections and now is given a proper arc and aches, not to mention the rapport he and Elizabeth have with one another, bouncing from each other and injecting the game with an interpersonality that sets it apart from its predecessor, and both of them are the sole hearts of the game. Around them, however, there's a story that seems afraid to go all out.

For all of its references and love for pastiche elements that start off as charming, very little has left an impact by the time the credits roll; Call of the Elder Gods has incredibly cool concepts and ideas that in execution fall short of their full potential, shadows that can be seen from a mile away and twists aren't as smart as they think they are, even when time travel gets involved. It tries to present its plot in a way it'll be understandable for newcomers, which in a way I respect, but it ends up wasting a lot of valuable time and possibilities because of it. The antagonists are basically a non-sequitur despite the game implying over and over again otherwise, a signal flare that points to the game's insistence to deflate a lot of pay offs that Chapter 6 unceremoniously spits out, and it makes me see other stylistic decisions with less grace. Norah's narration starts out intriguing and warm, but by the end the most that it has achieved is making cut-scenes feel way too stilted, and it does very little to add the book/noir narration it was going for, but what may be the worst example are the faux dialogue branches, which have no virtual impact besides changing the order you get to hear things, and in the cases it does affect something, it's less the story itself and more of a slightly different cut-scene that leads to same point. There's no more loop, but what we are left with is a line.

Call of the Elder Gods knew what it wanted to be, but that meant it was also going to be a way more unfocused experience, jumping all over the place and throwing to the wall a fast-paced, grander tale of conspiracies and riddles. Seeing it like that, it's surprising to see just how much it sticks.

The story's closure and major points leave me cold, but I look back on the bulk of it and I'm still left marvelled by the awe-inspiring sights, the creative puzzles that soar in quality at their best, the moments of personal banter between Harry and Elizabeth that made me smile. For every step back it takes, there are two steps forward, and even if some don't cover that much distance, it leaves at a spot that seems worthy of its status.

Directive 8020

jonathan@gamereactor.eu (Jonathan Sørensen) — Mon, 11 May 2026 16:00:00 +0200

"In space, no one can hear you scream." We've seen many variations of this classic tagline over the years. Films like Alien and The Thing have inspired all kinds of pop culture for decades, and now Supermassive has offered its take: "In space, death takes many forms." Supermassive Games is a studio that isn't afraid to make its sources of inspiration plain for all to see. This has been evident in the vast majority of their games, nearly all of which have been pastiches of all manner of horror subgenres. But while their previous titles—especially Until Dawn—have often been a reference-filled romp in the chamber of horrors, Directive 8020 is far more focused and serious in its narrative style. Yes, the game is a reimagining of the classic films from '79 and '82, but out of love for them, the development team has created one of their best games to date.

Directive 8020 is part of The Dark Pictures anthology, but that isn't something they're advertising on the poster, and I've had a hard time understanding why. Apparently, the studio chose not to include it in the title to make the communication around the game clearer. At the same time, there's nothing in the game that makes it necessary for it to be part of the anthology, and it's strong enough to stand on its own, so why Supermassive insists that it's part of the series while keeping it somewhat hidden is a bit confusing. One of the elements present in all the previous games was the overarching narrative held together by the mysterious Curator, who always had a cryptic comment or some incomprehensible advice to offer between scenes. He is nowhere to be found here. Perhaps they plan to tie it into a broader universe later on, but you don't actually need to have played any of the previous games in the series. In many ways, it's good that Directive 8020 has shed that baggage. Supermassive presents a serious and at times thought-provoking sci-fi story here, where they've toned down the quick-time events a bit and placed more focus on classic gameplay elements like stealth and survival horror, but they do so without losing the series' DNA: the narrative tree with all its branches.

Cassiopeia is a spaceship sent ahead of a larger colony ship to observe and determine the location of a new colony on the planet Tau Ceti f, the only habitable planet humanity has been able to find in the universe. Earth is slowly dying, so the establishment of this colony is crucial for humanity's continued survival. As the crew slowly comes to their senses after eight years in hibernation, they discover that the ship has been struck by a meteorite that has burrowed deep into the hull and it has brought new passengers: an alien and mysterious life form. It quickly becomes clear that this life form is not only aggressive and deadly, but that it can also mimic other life forms. We're not just talking about physical appearance; it can also imitate behaviour and personality. Thus, the stage is set for high drama, and the crew must now fight both to keep the ship together and to overcome their mutual distrust.

The classic trick in a thriller or horror film is to give the audience more information than the characters in the story have. Ideally, this should be done so effectively that you feel like shouting, "Don't go in there!" at the screen, and this is where Directive 8020 immediately began to pleasantly surprise me. It must be said, I think the 1979 film Alien is the best movie ever made, so I'm very sceptical when anyone tries to rival it, but that scepticism quickly vanished, and I was engrossed by the suspense. The interesting thing is that you get to make—or not make—some of the choices that you always blame the characters in horror movies for. As the story progresses, however, it becomes clear that as a player, you don't have as much information as you thought and soon the consequences start coming down on you. There's a lot going on beneath the surface of the narrative, and there are things I won't reveal, but I want to emphasise that Supermassive does a better job with their narrative branches in Directive 8020 than in any of their previous games. This is primarily because they're more focused in their storytelling than before. They've often had a tendency to split characters up across different locations with different goals, but here it's kept relatively simple. Just like in the Alien movie, all the characters are in the same boat, and while it's essential to Alien's artistic quality that Ellen Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver, is the protagonist, it's easy to imagine that the plot could practically and mechanically continue even if she were to die during the story. The same applies in Directive 8020. There is more focus on the entire crew's overall goal, and depending on the choices you make and which characters die and when, the path to that goal can vary. It can vary so much that they might not even get there at all.

The very pragmatic motivation for the player allows the narrative to breathe more freely. Often, it can feel artificial when world-building in a game takes place through notes and audio recordings you find scattered around, but here it feels natural and, not least, important. The underlying events and conspiracies that run like an undercurrent beneath the superficial plot gradually come together like a jigsaw puzzle. Every little bit of information can be so important that it actually influences your choices as a player. It's far more powerful and satisfying to make a choice based on your own interpretation of the available information, rather than the system of foreshadowing and flash-forwards that Supermassive has used in their previous games.

Although the setup is strong, it's just as important that all the different storylines come together properly and satisfactorily, and here Supermassive is more successful than they've been before. But this is also where you start to sense the house of cards wobbling. Overall, most plot points are fully resolved, but there were scenes and longer stretches toward the end where I was downright confused and didn't quite understand what was happening. You can quickly figure out that there's probably a scene or dialogue that's been cut out, or that the scene cuts to another one because a character, for example, is dead or in a different location. It breaks the illusion. As things pick up speed and the stakes rise, characters can start dying in rapid succession without much reaction from the other crew members. Of course, it's a complicated and resource-intensive project for a developer to account for all variables, but it's a project they've set in motion themselves, so it's a fair point of criticism. Overall, though, I'd say Supermassive succeeds with their narrative tree.

As a new feature, they've chosen to visualise this narrative tree in a system called "turning points." Here, you can see all the points where you could have gone in a different direction, and you can immediately go back and try another path. I chose to play my first run-through on the "Survivor" difficulty, where this option is locked until the end and I would definitely recommend that. It was tough having to live with the consequences of your actions, but also more satisfying since the story is allowed to unfold naturally. It also makes it more satisfying to go back to specific scenes once you're done. The addition of the Turning Points system might initially seem like it takes away some of the mystery, but it's actually a really great addition. You can complete the game in about 6-8 hours, and you might not feel like sitting through it all again just to see how a single scene would play out differently or to pick up a note you missed in another scene. If you feel the system ruins the suspense, you can simply choose not to use it as there's nothing in the gameplay that forces you to interact with it.

The story is carried by generally good acting and animations. Supermassive's games aren't on the same level or budget as Naughty Dog's, but they've gone out of their way to make the acting as believable as possible. We don't entirely escape the awkward grimaces and blank stares that have appeared in their previous games, but even on this point, Directive 8020 is the best the developers have created so far, and overall, the immersion is maintained. When the plot revolves around doppelgangers, however, it's confusing when a character appears artificial or lifeless; is it because they're an imitation, or is it because the animation isn't quite right? Again, I want to emphasise that most of the time, it works well.

The story and the narrative elements driven by the player's choices are what Supermassive is known for, and that's what set them apart in the industry all the way back with Until Dawn. Where they haven't really shown their stuff yet is in more traditional gameplay sequences like stealth or survival horror, but they're taking big steps in that direction with Directive 8020, and most importantly, they're pulling it off. They're not ground-breaking stealth sequences, as they're kept relatively simple, with a point at the other end of the area you need to reach without being detected. Between the character and the objective, there may be small puzzles or alternative routes, but you aren't overwhelmed. The enemies don't have dynamic AI; they usually patrol predictable routes, but overall I was very pleasantly surprised by how polished these sequences are. Without a doubt, Directive 8020 is the most gameplay-heavy game in The Dark Pictures series and that's a good thing. Supermassive stays within the lines and doesn't take big risks compared to other games, but considering that this hasn't been the studio's strong suit in the past, they've definitely succeeded here, and I'd love to see them go more in this direction in the future.

On the technical side, Directive 8020 is also solid and it's their best-looking game to date. This is due to the graphical quality, but can also be largely attributed to the art design. The spaceship is stylish, yet also appears technically feasible and not overly futuristic. The sharp, artificial lines create a good contrast to the organic and mutating forms that gradually grow and spread throughout the ship. If I may once again compare it to the Alien universe, the style is closer to Prometheus than the 1979 film. Cassiopeia looks like a ship that functions technically, and its design is therefore relatively subtle, yet it still has a strong visual presence in the game.

On the PS5, I noticed that the game—and especially the audio—stuttered when I started a new episode or at the beginning of a new scene. It's not something that ruins the experience, but it's noticeable enough that hopefully it can be fixed quickly with an update. The audio is also strangely mixed. Of course, this can vary depending on your equipment, but some action sequences feel like amateur theatre because the sound effects are too low and the characters' grunts and groans are too loud and this should be improved. Much of the time, the game almost feels like a AAA title, but these glitches reveal that it isn't. I have a lot of respect for what Supermassive manages to do, but I wish they could iron out the kinks completely so you don't have to cringe at an awkward scene every now and then. On the other hand, they manage to use the PS5 controller's built-in speaker extremely effectively, as radio communication comes from both the TV and the controller, creating a spacious and authentic feel.

It should be mentioned that there is a multiplayer component, but it's just standard "pass the controller." There are no parallel sequences, not even when playing online. The Dark Pictures series has been easy to introduce to people who aren't very used to gaming. I think it might be a bigger challenge here with the more demanding stealth sequences, so the most experienced player might need to take over the controller there.

I'm tempted to call Directive 8020 Supermassive's best game. It probably doesn't surpass the blast that I thought Until Dawn was, as in many ways, it was far more kitschy and downright cheesy, but it worked well as a sort of party horror game. Directive 8020 is a serious sci-fi story. It doesn't surpass its sources of inspiration, but it doesn't pale in comparison either. All the gameplay mechanics Supermassive has worked with before work better here than ever. It's also undoubtedly the game in the series with the most traditional stealth gameplay, and fortunately, the developers show that they know how to do it here too, even if they aren't taking any big risks. If you're a fan of Supermassive's games or sci-fi horror, Directive 8020 comes highly recommended, and for that matter, it does for everyone else as well.

Outbound

emily-maisy@gamereactor.eu (Emily-Maisy Milburn) — Fri, 08 May 2026 16:00:00 +0200

Do you dream of escaping the mundane of everyday life and exploring the great outdoors in a kitsch campervan? Then look no further than Square Glade's cosy camping sim Outbound. With launch almost here, we've got a taste of what Outbound has to offer and it is definitely more than meets the eye!

From the surface, it would be safe to assume that Outbound was a story-driven game in which players explore the countryside in their campervan, but Outbound is so much more complex than this. Opening with a scenic drive throughout the countryside, the tone of the game is set immediately as birds chirp and the sun beams through the window. It's peaceful and relaxing. After a short drive, you are asked to set up camp somewhere within the forest and one of the first things I did was find the nearest bush, pick some berries, and feed them to the bunnies that were loitering around my campervan. This was a small but lovely detail added by Square Glade, which I think sums up the game perfectly, and they definitely know their audience.

The open-world aspects of this game are exciting, and your nifty to-do list always keeps you in check. Areas require unlocking; for example, a bridge may need 10 planks of wood, or you may need to obtain a blueprint from one of the signal towers to gain a crafting recipe to fabricate certain items to unlock areas. Leading on from this, the crafting system is easy to navigate and very beginner-friendly. I found that it wasn't hard to grasp what to build and how to build it, and I had a ton of fun customising my little campervan.

Another aspect of the game that was really enjoyable was exploring all of the important landmarks on the map, such as the Windmill and the Treehouse, both of which contain puzzles in order to unlock signal towers to download blueprints to progress the game. I liked the core foraging aspect of this game, and it never got too repetitive having to find fibres or wood to power my car, and it felt rewarding collecting enough materials to create a cog to power the Windmill, for example. The lack of stakes to this, however, made it so that crafting food did not become a priority for me, as when it gets dark, Sprint Boots are enabled, which allow you to run across the map and back to your van to get to sleep. Even if you don't make it back in time (which I have yet to do), your character faints and awakens back in the van anyway. This negates any need for food or planning in order to ensure that trips out of the safety of your RV and into the wilderness are well prepared for in order to make it back before nightfall.

I also found that the inventory space was too small, and this meant I had to rely on my campervan being near me at all times to deposit anything that I picked up. This became difficult quickly as the van devoured electric charge at rapid speeds, meaning you can't drive very far until you have to stop and forage for more materials to recharge it. I became tethered to my van at some points due to a lack of inventory space, and I would have preferred having the option to explore the map further on foot with a larger inventory, as foraging is such a core aspect of the gameplay in Outbound.

The world itself is quite simplistic and easy to navigate, which is useful for trips in your campervan but also quite stagnant, with the same biomes and areas being repeated across the entire map. In addition to this, there is little to no soundtrack, which can be nice for those who wish to play with a jaunty personalised Spotify playlist in the background; however, this adds to the isolation felt throughout the game, making it quite bland. The lack of NPCs within the game did make it feel slightly empty, and the only communication is through letters that are scattered throughout the map that the player can read, exclaiming that the homeowner has gone to the flower festival or that the area needs repairing, and they hope that you can figure it out on your own. This did make the world feel slightly isolating, and I think that the game may have benefited from the addition of some quirky NPCs or companions.

The game is peaceful, almost too peaceful at times... Leading me to want something more from the game, like a run-in with some forest creatures or an interaction with another camper. In a similar vein, the voice acting is mediocre but nothing overly annoying or repetitive, just bland, leading me to eventually switch it off in favour of the chirping birds and babbling brooks.

If you are a newcomer to gaming and open-world games, then Outbound is a reasonable first recommendation for you to play. It's simplistic, low-stakes, cosy camping fun with accessible puzzles and foraging elements that are even better experienced as a multiplayer game. Yet, I do feel that there is something missing, as it's almost too simplistic at times, lacking any real dialogue, soundtrack, or NPC interaction. Sadly, Outbound falls short for me in terms of creativity and innovation, and I was hoping for something more.

Marvel Maximum Collection

jonas@gamereactor.eu (Jonas Mäki) — Fri, 08 May 2026 12:00:00 +0200

Although film-based games from the past were almost always nothing more than dreadful shovelware that left no one happy (with the possible exception of crafty bosses), games based on comic books and cartoons were an exception. Here, on the other hand, there is a wealth of classics, but the {Marvel Maximum Collection} is missing several of the best Marvel games from this era as they were developed by Capcom, who are keen to release their own collections. There are still a couple of gems, however, and to make things even better, several of them are available in multiple different editions, allowing you to compare and play the version that best matches your nostalgic memories.

For my part, I took the opportunity to do the exact opposite, and have finally had the chance to enjoy the versions I DIDN'T play back in the day, such as the Mega Drive version of Spider-Man/Venom: Maximum Carnage, which I owned and played on the Super Nintendo back then.

Marvel classics, particularly those from Capcom and Sega, are missing, which is a huge loss.

So which games are included in this collection, and in which versions? Let me start by telling you what you get for your money, in chronological order:

Silver Surfer (NES, 1990)

Captain America and The Avengers (NES/Arkad/ Mega Drive, 1991)

X‑Men: The Arcade Game (Arkad, 1992)

Spider‑Man and the X‑Men in Arcade's Revenge (SNES/Mega Drive/GB/GG, 1992)

Spider‑Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage (SNES/ Mega Drive, 1994)

Venom / Spider‑Man: Separation Anxiety (SNES/ Mega Drive, 1995)

All games also offer features such as the ability to remap controls or rewind time. It's effective, but of course it comes at the expense of challenge and engagement. On the other hand, it does make Silver Surfer a little more bearable, given that it's one of the absolute hardest games of all time, and in many ways virtually unplayable without cheating. Strangely enough, it is nonetheless a well-crafted title with graphics that were impressive for the era and good music, but I doubt anyone will regard this as anything other than a curiosity.

The Silver Surfer reminds us that things weren't necessarily better in the past.

Captain America and the Avengers is the second-best game in the collection, a fairly classic beat 'em up featuring four different characters (Captain America, Hawkeye, Iron Man and Vision) and co-op mode, where the aim is to beat up Red Skull. The arcade version is by far the best, but I really like the other versions too, as they clearly show how things could be in this era when multi-platform releases could sometimes be entirely separate games (the best example being Aladdin). Here, Data East made the game for the Mega Drive, whilst a lesser Super Nintendo version was made by Mindscape - whilst the NES version is, broadly speaking, a separate title.

Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade's Revenge is, in many ways, a slightly frustrating action platformer, though I find it interesting because it includes four versions of the game - including Game Boy and Game Gear. This once again offers a glimpse into the diversity of multi-format titles, and demonstrates just how different Nintendo's and Sega's handheld options were in terms of performance. You can play it using Rewind, but as I said, it's not exactly a showstopper, even if the 16-bit version does offer some rather smart pixels.

Maximum Carnage is still great fun, largely thanks to the comic book it's based on and a killer soundtrack.

Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage is the game I played the most back in the day out of all the titles in this collection. I played it to death on the Super Nintendo and seem to recall actually managing to beat it, something that feels completely incomprehensible when I play it today. It's based on the legendary Marvel crossover of the same name, and is, quite simply, about defeating the madman Carnage. Unfortunately, it only features single-player, and would have benefited from co-op, but it's actually still quite fun today

Venom / Spider-Man: Separation Anxiety I missed this one when it came out; the PlayStation and Saturn had been released and 16-bit was as hot back then as fidget spinners and Damn Daniel are in 2026. It got pretty rubbish reviews when it came out, and I can see why. It really is a beat 'em up of the lowest common denominator, and there's nothing about it that stands out. You can play with two people, mind you, but it's really lacklustre.

X-Men: The Arcade Game - this is ultimately the only one that's really worth your time.

Finally, we have the real gem of the collection: X-Men: The Arcade Game. It actually supports up to six players online, though I haven't been able to test this as I don't know anyone else with the collection. Fortunately, that's not necessary, as it's great fun even in local multiplayer. This is a pure arcade game developed by Konami, drawing inspiration from the Turtles games. It doesn't quite measure up to Turtles in Time or The Hyperstone Heist, but it's a solid beat 'em up that's easy to recommend.

Ultimately, X-Men: The Arcade Game single-handedly saves the score to a six, because without it I would have given it a five. Silver Surfer is, at best, interesting as a stylistic exercise, and the other four are rather mediocre and, at times, too similar to one another. It's as if Limited Run Games had plucked them from a bargain bin, where Sega's Marvel titles, Capcom's X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse and The Punisher, among others, had already been snapped up. As mentioned, the aforementioned X-Men stands out with its fury, gorgeous pixels and genuine entertainment value, but otherwise it's too little, too late.

Mixtape

ben@gamereactor.eu (Ben Lyons) — Thu, 07 May 2026 15:00:00 +0200

There's a special place in my heart for director John Hughes' movies, particularly his earlier projects that truly set the foundations for what we now regard as a "coming-of-age" story. The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Ferris Bueller's Day Off... These are iconic films that continue to stand out for their sheer charisma and heart, and the reason why I'm bringing this up to begin my review of Mixtape is because Beethoven & Dinosaur's latest project feels like a John Hughes' story in every sense of the word.

What the team who made The Artful Escape has cooked up with Mixtape is a lovely and passionate story that follows three teenagers as they go on one final adventure. We're not talking about saving the world or a grand road trip crossing continents, this is one story that happens over the course of one day while set in one town and following three incredibly well-written young adults. It's down-to-earth and honest, sweet and nostalgic, and it hits and evokes all of those emotions you get when watching a John Hughes film.

The premise of the adventure is basically to prepare for one final blow out party before the summer comes to an end and the beloved friends head their separate ways to start their adult lives. Achieving such a goal means ticking off many challenges that all teenagers have to deal with, including securing booze despite being underage, evading trouble, dealing with new emotions, you get the gist. And all of this is set to an amazing soundtrack where each song plays its part and effectively defines the 'chapter' of the story you are experiencing, which could be an event in the present day or a brief memory providing a bit of narrative exposition for why we don't like a certain character, Jenny 'freakin' Goodspeed, for example.

This idea of marrying plot points and music and doing so effectively is one of the elements that makes Mixtape stand out from the competition as this game simply breathes personality and charm. Every single scene feels authentic and charismatic, even important to the wider story, and perhaps this works so wonderfully because Mixtape also doesn't waste your time as a player. This game is a few hours long at best, but it's so intricately and purposefully put together that nothing feels out of place and you will become lost and entranced by the wider story.

The trio of leading characters are also excellently sculpted, with each individual, be it protagonist Stacy or her two close friends Slater and Cassandra, standing out as personas who simply could be real. Again, they feel like characters taken directly out of a John Hughes film, as though either of the three could be dropped into The Breakfast Club and feel like they belong. They're flawed and irresponsible, caring and passionate - they are three people who you'd like to meet and join in on their wacky hijinks.

And speaking of 'wacky hijinks', Mixtape has plenty for fans to enjoy. You can see the inspiration from where Beethoven & Dinosaur has done its research, as we find chase sequences through the town and neighbourhood backyards that feel authentically Ferris Bueller, all while chaotic shopping cart escapes provide a more unique flair that still feels as though it belongs in this genre. The wonderful part about these more action-oriented gameplay sequences is that they don't drown out the wider story, they simply stand out as stunning set pieces while still leaving ample space for the moments where the pace slows down and you get to enjoy good company and skip rocks on an isolated lake. Mixtape never reaches a break-neck pace where you struggle to hold on, but it does have highs and lows that Beethoven & Dinosaur effortlessly navigate to create a story you won't want to put down or step away from.

So yes, as you can probably infer, Mixtape is a mostly narrative-geared experience where you get to follow the core story and essentially serve as a passenger in this coming-of-age tale. But there are plenty of moments where you take control, be that in more relaxing scenes where you choose how to paint the door of your hideout or instead when skateboarding around the local town, simply basking in its artistic beauty as you duck and weave around oncoming traffic.

This is a game, which while not particularly mechanically complex, has been crafted with such a clear creative vision that it's hard to fault. Every part of Mixtape feels as though it belongs, be it the stop-motion-like animated characters, the picturesque and colourful artistic direction, the straightforward but refined narrative premise, the incredible use of music that has been expertly curated. Mixtape is a movie brought to life in a way few can rival and while it may be over in a flash, what Beethoven & Dinosaur has presented with this game will leave a noticeable impression on you long after the credits roll. Seriously, go and play Mixtape. You won't be disappointed.

Europa Universalis V: Fate of the Phoenix

patrik@gamereactor.eu (Patrik Severin) — Thu, 07 May 2026 13:00:00 +0200

The Byzantine Empire, or the Eastern Roman Empire, is something that has fascinated me for years. It is one of the last remnants of the ancient world. We know that this empire fell and its final cities were conquered in the 15th century. It is this state that I have had the pleasure of trying out in the Europa Universalis V downloadable content pack, Fate of the Phoenix. Let me inform you that this primarily alters a nation that is already playable. You won't see sweeping improvements for many of the other empires in the base game. The focus of this review is on the improvements that have been added, and these affect the Byzantine Empire for better or worse.

I love map layers, and there are so many in this game that you can flick through them just like the pages of a book.

I haven't dared to play a full campaign as this nation in the base game because of how brutally difficult it usually is. In the fourth instalment, it took me quite a while before I cracked the code and made it to the end. In that game, the experience was significantly enhanced by its corresponding downloadable content pack. In the fifth instalment, it's a completely different experience. The base game is quite different from the gameplay elements of the fourth instalment and somewhat more complex. It is on this foundation that this downloadable content builds upon various features. As you know, I liked the base game so much that I gave it a nine in my review. That's a rating I still stand by. That's why I've been longing for a bit more content, and this is a typical early piece of extra content for the series.

The game looks really good and is probably the best-looking in its genre.

Fate of the Phoenix is the first new content update to expand the Eastern Roman Empire with new events, an improved religious system, new ways to shape the empire, and thematic changes. The clearest dichotomy that arises whilst playing concerns the conflict between new ideas and old. Do you want your empire to remain more Roman with Greek influences, or to become more aligned with Western values and the Catholic branch of Christianity? You are constantly faced with choices regarding reforms, changes or preservation, and this is fascinating from a historical perspective. Several of your choices also have an indicator showing what the historical counterpart chose to do. However, if you wish, you can ignore this and make your own choices. We know, with hindsight, that the historical Eastern Roman Empire didn't always make the right choices.

The hardest and perhaps most rewarding part is trying to survive for over a hundred years. You're placed in a real bind right from the start, with poor legitimacy, huge debts, natural disasters that have struck parts of the kingdom, and various estates that refuse to pay taxes due to bureaucratic rules instituted by previous leaders. If you want to remove these, you have to pay enormous sums of money, and that's something you don't have much of at the start of the game. Much of the opening hours involve making bad choices rather than even worse alternatives and trying to reverse the downward spiral. This is because almost nothing works well, apart from the fact that you have relatively strong armies and fleets at the start. You also have great potential to build even more powerful forces so that you can reclaim your fallen kingdom.

The new system for the Orthodox Church is really well done. There is also a system for the older Roman religion.

Early on, I decided to focus on building legitimacy, stability and control. I also attempted to annex Epirus and deal with the growing threats around the world. Pretty soon, a rival kidnaps an heir to the throne and tries to make Epirus independent again. This results in a conflict that I eventually win, but shortly afterwards I face a rather powerful coalition led by the Ottoman Empire, and I lose quite quickly. The peace that follows plunges me into an unsustainable spiral of debt and more war. It took me a couple of attempts before I found a strategy where I managed to grow a little. That, in turn, meant I could start doing things like creating conflicts I wanted and demanding money, paying off debts and starting to remove the wretched privileges the estates have. I also try to change the state religion in the kingdom and replace the Orthodox faith with the older gods. However, they aren't as developed in this expansion as the conflict between Catholicism and the Orthodox Church; you can literally resolve the schism and unite the different branches of Christianity if you're skilled. I do, however, find polytheism more interesting than monotheism. I have, however, tried out several religions.

Paradox has woven together choices, unit types, cosmetic, cultural and religious elements quite well in a way that lets you decide what you want to do. I would, however, emphasise that this is difficult; if you don't have the basics of the game down, I don't even think you should attempt the Byzantine Empire and this pack unless you frequently play as Christian Orthodox states. On the other hand, if you've been playing for a while and you're doing quite well with other nations, this is worth your time. I think the Byzantines have an exciting starting position and a fantastic geographical location. You can control trade, fight pirates and expand slowly in various directions. After a while, the Black Death, colonialism and much more will affect you. You'll certainly also want to address the question of whether to trade with China, as trade is vital.

Events and character-driven moments are common and add a bit more narrative depth to the experience.

One of my favourite stories from the Byzantine Empire is about how two Orthodox monks are said to have smuggled out silkworm eggs and helped to establish silk production back in their homeland. This story is probably not true, and there is speculation that the monks were actually in India. This is the sort of thing that makes it exciting, as you can decide what to trade in and which resources to invest in. At some point, you'll have to prioritise and make choices. The empire is on the brink of collapse; where do you spend your precious money and resources? Trade and/or diplomacy may be one path; war another. However, you cannot do everything at once, and this became extremely clear to me when I tested this very aspect. You need a well-thought-out strategy. In many ways, it reminds me a little of the Total War: Attila campaign as the Western Roman Empire. Just as in that campaign, you needed to destroy, tear down, regroup and restructure your empire if you were to have any chance of survival. However, you'll be spared Attila and his Huns in Europa Universalis V; instead, you'll have to deal with the remnants of the Mongol Empire if they attack you.

I won't give too much away in this review, but I think the events are interesting, offer you choices and can help you shape the nation you're playing as. They're also neatly woven into decisions you can make regarding whether you want to build a modern city or preserve the old. That balancing act is just as much of a challenge as everything else in the game. If you manage to survive the first hundred years, some events offer quite substantial bonuses. However, I made more use of the toolbox when playing as the Byzantines than with many other nations. You need to assess your economic options, identify which diplomatic avenues might be advantageous, and figure out how to reclaim your lost empire. It becomes a much easier campaign once you've paid off your debts, turned your financial losses around, and have forces capable of fending off enemies in all directions. Militarily speaking, this nation becomes extremely powerful with its technologies and unique unit types.

Dealing with everything that goes wrong is a full-time job.

From a technical point of view, this isn't any worse than the base game, and I've had a relatively good time with it. There are micro-lags when clicking on provinces and when a lot is happening at once. I've also spotted the odd visual glitch and the occasional gameplay bug with text explanations. It hasn't bothered me noticeably, but it might affect weaker computer systems more than mine. The new music is quite good, and I've always loved the music in this particular game series. They are sweeping, well-crafted tracks that blend in with everything else. In the fifth instalment, there's a handy player right within the user interface so you can choose what to play and what not to. If you can overlook a few technical issues, there's a good expansion of one of the game's factions in this downloadable content pack.

The most rewarding aspect of this downloadable content pack was surviving longer than its historical counterpart and resolving historical events we still live with today, such as the schism between the Orthodox and Catholic churches. I've had quite a bit of fun with this pack as I enjoy the challenge of playing as this kingdom. I don't think Paradox should make the experience any easier. Countries in the game need to be unique, with their own challenges and difficulty levels depending on their starting position in the 14th century. Although the technical aspects haven't changed, it's still a solid game at its core, and this downloadable content makes this kingdom even more fun to play as. It's one of the more difficult, if not the most difficult, of the major nations in the game, and it requires patience, a plan, and the willingness to lose if you're going to enjoy this new content. If you don't feel confident with the basics of the game, you should skip this until you feel more confident. If you're looking for a challenge or simply want to play as the Eastern Roman Empire, this is an excellent pack for that very purpose, which I can highly recommend.

It takes a while to get your finances back on track, but once you do, things start to look up.
Natural disasters can strike at any time, and one I encountered early on resulted in damage to a landmark. I could either pay several hundred coins or choose to wait. At that point, I was so deeply in debt that I had no choice but to wait. Often, there is a small book in the answer options that reveals the historical choices made by this fallen empire.

Sudden Strike 5

patrik@gamereactor.eu (Patrik Severin) — Thu, 07 May 2026 11:00:00 +0200

Sudden Strike 5 isn't your typical real-time strategy game. Even though you command hundreds of troops on screen at once, call in air support and request reinforcements in real time, it's more of a puzzle game. I'd describe the Sudden Strike series as a slower, more strategic experience wrapped up in a visually impressive package. Each mission in the campaign requires you to utilise different abilities and choose the right general for the job. You can't just rush in and get the job done. You usually have 3-4 generals to choose from, and these provide you with different bonuses. On top of this, you can spend points to bolster your troops with extra abilities. The enemy is usually so well-prepared and positioned that your troops will be turned into mincemeat if you don't think through what you want to do.

You need to make use of all your troop types and the terrain to get around the enemy and defeat your counterpart on the enemy side. This is also where some of the issues become apparent. The enemy is either in full defence or in full attack against you. There is no middle ground. However, you can trigger counter-attacks if you capture certain positions on the map. This means you almost always have plenty of time to outflank the enemy and defeat them relatively painlessly. When defending, however, you are dependent on how you position your troops, whether you counter-attack and capture certain objectives on the map or remain in areas you can easily defend. Your computer opponent struggles to adapt to your actions, which sometimes makes certain situations too easy. At the same time, the missions are long and you often have to capture many positions in succession, meaning that even if individual battles are straightforward, you must conserve your forces for your final objective.

In the campaign, you choose a general, then you can select a powerful bonus and even upgrade it. If you have enough points, you can also purchase more than one ability.

Even if you can overlook your computer opponent's skill level, you'll still be challenged thanks to the lengthy missions. The graphics are a significant upgrade and the game boasts some impressive visual effects. The visuals help turn the whole thing into a spectacle to watch, which means I sometimes overlook a certain passivity on the part of your opponent. When the action kicks off, buildings explode and tanks and soldiers are hurled into the air. It is this balance between working out solutions and watching the effects unfold that is the game's strength. Some of the missions are also quite well-crafted, with varied objectives and challenging gameplay mechanics. For example, I found the first German missions to be rewarding in a good way. You are dropped in with limited resources and have to steal vehicles and other supplies until you have a position sufficiently protected to start calling in heavier weapons. It's tricky and difficult to have enough soldiers to capture the final town on the map. However, I was a bit disappointed when I had to play the same level again on the Allied side.

Although some missions are easier, I found that certain missions were genuinely challenging even on lower difficulty levels. If you're not particularly experienced with these games, it might take a few attempts before you can complete a mission. One of the early German missions involved repairing your vehicles up to a certain limit whilst the enemy continuously attacks you in waves with their vehicles at full health. It took me a few attempts before I found the right solution, and that's what makes this more of a puzzle game than an old-school real-time strategy game. You need to think through what you're doing and why. Sometimes it might be better to lose so you can adjust your strategies and try again. Once the enemy starts winning, it's hard to salvage the situation. You have no built bases to retreat to; instead, you simply move troops and can order reinforcements or aircraft to carry out missions. This means the game has a strict military focus. In this respect, it is somewhat reminiscent of the Blitzkrieg series.

Different biomes also change the appearance of your troops.

However, Kite Games has managed to make this sequel feel more serious and tactical than its predecessor. I like all the little details, such as ordering troops to take cover or tanks to close their hatches. The simulation is relatively in-depth; your troops have fuel, ammunition and other supplies to keep track of. On the maps, there are usually opportunities to supply your troops with what they need. You can also load up trucks that follow behind your forces and, if necessary, carry out repairs, provide ammunition and refuel. If your units run out of any of these, they become extremely vulnerable. It is this that gives the game a certain depth beyond the simpler gameplay systems we see in, for example, Company of Heroes 3.

Although the AI opponent isn't always great, it's a spectacle that is at times challenging and showcases the conflict. The focus in this sequel is primarily on the single-player experience, which offers 25 missions. Almost every mission takes around an hour to complete, so the game offers a decent amount of playtime if the campaign mode is what you enjoy most of all. Unfortunately, many of the maps are reused, meaning there aren't quite as many unique missions as it first appears. As for the multiplayer mode, there are also issues with the number of maps. The base game has two to four maps for multiplayer, and two of these are locked to the Deluxe Edition. There is also a fairly small player base, which creates a combination that can make it difficult to find players at times. For that reason, I wouldn't recommend this to you right now if you're interested in multiplayer. It's unclear how many new maps we'll get in the long run. At present, the focus is on the single-player experience. It is primarily through the campaign that you will get the most out of this product.

Each part of the conflict has one or more missions, each lasting an hour.

Strange as it may sound, this is a strategy game you buy to play on your own against a fairly decent computer opponent. Although the AI isn't particularly strong, it's saved by a few challenging levels and various pre-programmed events that make the missions more engaging. I'm still finding it a bit hard to decide whether I prefer the fifth instalment or the fourth. The fifth instalment is something of a return to the older titles, with a greater focus on the simulation element and the tactical aspect. If you like strategic and tactical real-time strategy games, this might be for you. The missions require patience and time on your part, but you can always save whenever you like. However, there are several shortcomings in the fifth instalment that you need to bear in mind, such as a lack of game modes, maps, repeated maps in the campaign, and few maps in multiplayer mode. You jump between various famous battles, which means there's no overarching narrative thread; instead, you carry out missions on different battlefields. It doesn't get any more engaging than that.

I'm happy with both the music and the graphics. You've got sweeping musical pieces that work perfectly with all the explosions on screen. The music never gets in the way and doesn't take over the experience. The graphics are an improvement on what we had in the fourth instalment and look good, even if the infantry lacks a bit of detail. I wrote in the preview of the demo version of the game that the ricochet effects were some of the best I'd seen in a game of this type. I stand by that now that I've tested the full product. Some of the effects look absolutely fantastic. However, it can be a bit hard to make out; the troops are quite small on the map and are camouflaged. This means it isn't easy to find all your troops and move them around quickly. For many, this will be a problem. I found it was sometimes unnecessarily difficult to see my units, and I don't have a straightforward solution to the problem. Perhaps there should be an option to make the outlines lighter, or some other visual cue that makes it easier to identify what you've selected and where. Even if you've selected a tank, it isn't always easy to quickly see what type of vehicle or infantry unit you've clicked on.

Buying troops is easy. The points you use can also be used to call in bombing raids or air strikes. You need to use your resources wisely.

Sudden Strike 5 is a game that doesn't quite live up to its price tag. It costs £45 and offers a limited amount of single-player content. There is a lack of variety in the missions themselves, and the multiplayer mode is underdeveloped. However, the elements that do work are really good. Several of the missions are genuinely entertaining in the German, American and Soviet campaigns. Despite a few missteps in reusing some mission maps, there was potential to show the conflicts from each perspective. This isn't utilised well enough in this game. The narrative is really only used to give you an excuse to move your troops around and blow things up. It's a bit of a shame, considering how well Company of Heroes used storytelling in its campaign.

If you can live with the shortcomings, Sudden Strike 5 is a competent strategy game. In many ways, it is an evolution of the fourth instalment. At the same time, I'd like to put in a word for the fourth game and its downloadable content packs. I currently think it offers better value than buying the fifth instalment. The fourth game introduces elements such as the Finnish Winter War, the Pacific War and much more through its expansions. It is unclear what the fifth instalment will offer on that front at present. I am honestly torn about what I think of this game. On the one hand, it develops concepts and deepens gameplay elements compared to the fourth instalment; on the other hand, its predecessor offers more interesting conflict zones. If Kite Games continues to expand the fifth instalment, it could have significantly more to offer. However, I haven't come away from the experience dissatisfied, nor am I entirely satisfied. My favourite thing about Sudden Strike 5 is probably its ricochet effects. If there's one thing you see a lot of, it's this, as shots bounce off armour regularly. It's also mesmerizingly well done.

The maps look decent, and you can make use of both buildings and trenches in the terrain.

If you're like me, you might be better off waiting a bit before getting the fifth instalment. The fourth is still quite decent and, with its expansions, remains entertaining even today. The fifth needs a bit more content and a couple of updates before I can fully recommend it. Everything from the graphics, music and sound to the tank simulation and much more has been improved. At the same time, there are still areas for development, such as the AI, more maps, the user interface, the visibility of your troops, and a more content-rich multiplayer mode. There are also certain aspects of the balance between the troop types that need reviewing. For these reasons, my rating lands a little lower than what I would give the fourth instalment today, with all content included. When it works, it's good, but at present there is room to improve even further.

The campaign map shows you which missions you have completed and which ones you will unlock. The shortest of the three is the Soviet campaign, and the longest is the German campaign.
There are two game modes and two maps per mode. They're decent game modes where you have to capture points on the map.
In Dominion mode, you need to hold key points. It's a bit like Company of Heroes.

Constance

palle@gamereactor.eu (Palle Havshøi-Jensen) — Wed, 06 May 2026 15:00:00 +0200

Fans of the Metroidvania genre have had plenty to enjoy over the past few years—just look at the list of some of the best games in the genre released recently: Hollow Knight: Silksong, Mio: Memories in Orbit, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, The Rogue Prince of Persia, and Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree, to name just a few.

Constance was released on PC last autumn, but now it's finally coming to consoles. It comes from the small German developer Blue Backpack, who most recently brought us the charming The Berlin Apartment, and if you've played that game, you'll probably realise that Constance is something entirely different. It's also something as unusual as a Metroidvania with a message, and if there's one thing I personally love, it's games that tackle real-world issues and try to convey a message, showing it doesn't have to be all fantasy and magic.

That said, Constance may not have a clear-cut message, but it certainly draws on and focuses attention on topics like mental health, work-life balance, stress, and workplace pressure, as well as dreams and personal growth. These are quite relevant topics that many of us can probably relate to.

You take on the role of the young woman Constance, who often finds herself in two different worlds. In her daily life, she works as a graphic designer and experiences constant pressure from demanding clients, bosses, project managers, and tight deadlines. It's not that anyone is directly mean to her; she simply feels pressured and stressed at work. This is expressed in some rather nice little sequences where, among other things, she sits in front of her computer and watches messages pour in while she complies with clients' requests to make the logo on the latest publication 15% larger and move it up slightly, and this applies to all files for the client, by the way. Of course, it all has to be ready in just a few minutes, but she also has to remember to send a report to a project manager, and another client really wants a promotional video for approval right away.

When all of this becomes too much, Constance retreats into her other world—a fantasy world where she is the heroine, where she uses her passion for art and creativity to defend and liberate the fantasy world's population from various robot-like creatures. These robots "coincidentally" resemble objects from her real world, that is, the world that pressures and stresses her. It could be an old-fashioned telephone, a coffee machine, or something else typically found in an open-plan office. It sounds silly, but it actually works quite well.

Naturally, you spend the vast majority of your time in this fantasy world, which is designed as a surprisingly traditional, yet quite well-played, Metroidvania. Here, you journey through truly beautiful and magical worlds, filled with these dangerous robot enemies, hidden treasures, and deadly traps. You gradually gain access to new abilities, upgrades, and new ways to move, which open up new parts of the vast map. These are fairly traditional Metroidvania mechanics, even though several of the abilities are rooted in art, creativity, and other similar concepts. For example, a dash move is one of the first abilities you gain access to, and it works because Constance can turn into liquid paint, so she doesn't take damage when dashing through dangerous spikes or enemies. She can also dash through narrow openings, as the liquid paint simply adapts to the tight passages.

As in most other games in the genre, there are also complex and challenging platforming sections where you need to be quick on your feet and time your jumps and dashes perfectly. Constance is by no means an easy game, so don't be fooled by its beautiful and charming visuals, as it can definitely pack a punch. If you find the game too difficult, you have the option to adjust various settings, including having enemies deal only half damage (or no damage at all), and I must admit that a couple of the boss fights forced me to turn it down to half damage, as they are quite challenging.

Unlike Mio: Memories in Orbit, where the bosses gradually got easier the more times you were defeated by them, Constance has a slightly opposite mechanic. When you die, you can choose to return to the last save point—which may be relatively far away—or be revived in the immediate vicinity of where you died, though this will give the enemies an energy boost, making them even tougher when you try again. It's a nice risk/reward mechanic, though it can feel a bit harsh at times; however, it can also be turned off in the game's menus if you prefer. Constance isn't an easy game, and it's nice that you can dial down the challenge if you're not the type who loves being tossed around "Silksong-style" by your game.

The designers at Blue Backpack has really nailed a beautiful visual style with Constance. You pass through many beautiful areas, and there are plenty of details in the surroundings, especially in the animations, which are beautiful and silky smooth. It's simply a pleasure to watch Constance in motion, and these screenshots don't do the visuals justice at all. Check out the trailer at the bottom of this page, where you can see just how beautiful it looks in motion.

Constance is a pretty nice Metroidvania, yet another one for the collection, one might be tempted to say. It feels good to play; for the most part, everything just works as it should and it actually touches on everyday topics that many can relate to. You might wish for a bit more innovation, since the game plays it safe within the Metroidvania genre, but a game doesn't necessarily need to set new standards to be entertaining and worth your time, and Constance is a great example of that.

Constance is definitely worth checking out if you haven't yet had your fill of the many great games in the genre that we've been spoiled with over the past while, and it's priced quite reasonably, at just around £17.

Far Far West

alex@gamereactor.eu (Alex Hopley) — Wed, 06 May 2026 12:00:00 +0200

In the days of friendslop, where you get a new co-op, PvE game trying to make its way to the For You page of TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter/X, you do get some real stinkers. Games based on a gimmick alone, that won't last the test of even an hour, making you regret getting your friends to spend their pocket change on racing to the toilet or running a restaurant as a rat. It's unfortunate that we have some games leaving stains on co-op PvE titles, as then you get something like Far Far West, which makes you feel like you're playing not for a gimmick or because you need an excuse to speak to your mates. Instead, you're spending hour after hour battling against hordes of crafty undead simply because the game is barrels of fun.

Described as Deep Rock Galactic meets Sea of Thieves, I'd actually compare Far Far West more to Helldivers II, with a firm third-person lock unless you're riding on your horse. Then again, Evil Raptor has done enough to show you while it knows and understands what makes indie co-op hits shine, it also has enough personality to stand out on its own.

You and your posse play as robotic cowboys, venturing around the Far Far West. Across a variety of maps, you'll be tasked with completing a main objective (anything from crafting a gas bomb to firing a massive laser or protecting a payload), and then defeating a boss (again, anything from a massive necromancer to an evil train), before extracting home. In one sense, I suppose you could call this game an extraction shooter, but it dodges the worst elements of extraction shooters for me, which is where a random player comes and mugs you for all your best kit. Instead, Far Far West operates on a Helldivers II and Vermintide II style of core loop, where getting out isn't always possible, especially at higher difficulties. But, in the chaos of the Nightmare and Very Hard modes, you find the game reaches its greatest potential.

The movement and shooting in Far Far West is incredibly quick and tight. You can hop around with ease, leading enemies behind you in a train like Call of Duty: Zombies. Or, if you're not someone who can deal with all the motion of dashing this way and that, you can just change your playstyle depending on the weapons, spells, and perks you pick up. Far Far West doesn't have classes, instead allowing you to be your own build alchemist. I've tried a few different styles of play, but have to say that leaping around with a shotgun at a frenetic pace is my favoured option. It's simply too easy to get ganged up on if you prefer to stay still, but there are ways to make your position more fortified. In short, the options available to you are varied and fun. Some weapons might feel stronger than others straight away in your hands, but others can become just as powerful with some perks added on. The variety added onto an expertly crafted shooting core makes Far Far West simply satisfying to play.

The maps are each unique, too, offering you different landscapes filled with obstacles to encounter and quests to complete. A lot of the basic side objectives are similar to your main objective, involving some sort of collecting minigame or remembering certain things. However, the NPC side quests are full of character, letting you take a horse parkour exam or help an old technician pimp out his weapon. It'd be nice to see some more of these types of quests arrive in the full release, but there's plenty of time for Evil Raptor to add these things in. The map design is as deliberate as the core gunplay, and hopping on a robot horse to explore is incredibly quick, keeping up the fast pace of the game. It is annoying that horses tend to snag quite easily on trees, cacti, and other objects that pop up in your path, but again, these feels like something that can be avoided in the full release.

Far Far West is very zoomer core, I suppose. It doesn't waste a second, constantly telling you "hey shoot this thing" or "remember this sequence." Even when you think you might have a moment, you'll soon be surrounded by wandering skeletons. At higher difficulties, too, these guys come in all shapes and sizes, and storms wait like traps on the ground, spawning waves of difficult foes for you to beat. There's always an activity, or a reward waiting around the corner, which is why I was a tad disappointed to see the progression fall off over time. Don't get me wrong; I don't need to see a bar ding every time I beat a mission, but compared to Vermintide II, for instance, Far Far West can feel a little slow in its progression, especially when you've just spent an incredible mental load fighting through the game's hardest difficulties. The risk to reward ratio doesn't feel quite right yet.

There are some snags. Some elements that feel like they'll be ironed out over time, which is perfect for an Early Access release. Right now, Far Far West is an easy-to-recommend game, that has the potential to be a must buy if you're into PvE co-op experiences. Its gunplay requires a good dose of skill, but you can balance your lack of of a solid trigger finger with luck thanks to the Joker cards you can pick up during a run. Its design oozes personality, and while I'd love to see more of it shine in more NPC quests scattered in a map, they can come in time. Far Far West would be a good game if it was a full release right now, but as an Early Access title, it gives me hope it can make itself really incredible in a short amount of time.

Wax Heads

palle@gamereactor.eu (Palle Havshøi-Jensen) — Tue, 05 May 2026 15:00:00 +0200

I clearly remember that there used to be a fantastic record shop in a basement in central Copenhagen. The shop was called Loud Music, and you were always made to feel very welcome there in a way you don't really experience in many places anymore. I spent many hours in front of the Technics 1210 turntables, listening through records I was planning to take home. The owner would often come over to me with suggestions for other music he thought I should hear, and it was so lovely to spend most of a Saturday morning at Loud, surrounded by people who were passionate about what they did.

With these fond memories in mind, I was therefore very excited to see if I could relive some of that same feeling in Wax Heads, which is a small "slice of life" game, or a "cosy-punk narrative sim", as it is also described by the developers themselves. You've just been hired at the small record shop Repeater Records, where you take part in the various tasks in the shop, such as putting up merchandise, helping customers find exactly the music they need, and also keeping up to date with the latest music by reading music reviews.

Helping the eccentric, and sometimes almost chaotic, customers is clearly what you spend most of your time on. They come into the shop and each has their own story to tell, but ultimately they are always on the lookout for a very special record that means something to them or to someone they care about. However, they can't always remember exactly what the record is called; perhaps they can only remember the name of one of the band members or one of the tracks on the record, or perhaps they're more indecisive and simply need a record that can put them in a better mood.

The gameplay is simple. You move around the shop using navigation arrows on the side of the screen and then you have to browse through the various records the shop has in stock. Perhaps the solution lies in the name of one of the tracks on a particular record. It's not always easy to find the right record, and sometimes you have to resort to online music reviews or a post on the social media platform Phonogram to get on the right track to finding the perfect record for the customer.

It's a rather cosy little gameplay loop, and you gradually get to know the records in the shop well, even though new releases are coming in all the time. Unfortunately, the difficulty level sometimes seems rather inconsistent. Some of the clues customers provide can be complete nonsense, leaving you with no idea which record they're looking for and you end up taking a shot in the dark, with a high risk of leaving the customer dissatisfied. A subsequent customer, on the other hand, might be very precise about what they're looking for and can almost immediately tell you the name of the record. But perhaps that's how it is in real life too; in a game, however, these uneven jumps in difficulty are a bit frustrating.

Life goes on at Repeater Records; you chat with the other staff in the shop, you listen to the new music arriving in the shop's jukebox, and as several of the staff also work with music in their spare time, you tag along to clubs or venues to hear them perform. It's quite cosy living life as an employee in this little record shop, even though a specialist shop of this kind is always under financial pressure and from large developers who want to buy the building the shop is in, so they can build a shopping centre or car parks instead. And then there's the fact that the owner of Repeater Records used to be in a band where the members fell out, and that also plays a part in the running of the little record shop. I won't reveal any more here.

As mentioned, the gameplay is very simple and it might well become a bit monotonous over time. Wax Heads is best suited to being played in shorter bursts, but on the other hand, it's also quite good and relaxing entertainment. The positive thing is that you get to hear a lot of great music, and the small developer Patattie Games, consisting of just two people, has put together a really good soundtrack here, featuring music across several different genres.

The visuals are very distinctive and probably rather "hit or miss". The style didn't really appeal to me, but I was quite impressed by the many covers and sleeves they'd had made for the more than 80 records featured in the game. It's been quite a huge undertaking, and they've pulled it off really well.

Wax Heads is a cosy, relaxing little game and especially if you're a music fanatic, it's lovely to potter about running the little record shop. The simple gameplay is perhaps a bit too simple, and the challenge lies in the vague clues the customers give, so it can all get a bit monotonous. However, I think Patattie Games deserves credit for trying something new, and it's actually a great idea they've come up with here and the fact that it's all been created by just two people with help from only a handful of external contributors is even more impressive.

If you enjoy good music and are looking for a relaxing and cosy game that's particularly well-suited to your Switch or Steam Deck, then Wax Heads could be a really good choice, and you can try a demo on Steam if you'd like to check it out before you buy.

Invincible VS

martin@gamereactor.eu (Martin Carlsson) — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 16:00:00 +0200

Many of us on the editorial team are fans of the TV series Invincible; Prime Video's superb superhero epic about "the guy next door" - Mark "Invincible" Grayson, who during his teenage years realises he is invincible. Also, he's the son of an extraterrestrial force of nature known as Omni-Man from another planet - a world protector gone rogue who cannot quite come to terms with humanity's flaws, whereupon Invincible is faced with a series of dilemmas. A narrative that tackles themes that are down-to-earth and mature, whilst being skilfully animated and hyper-violent. Skybound Entertainment, together with Quarter Up, felt that this would work very well as a fighting game where we battle a diverse array of unique superheroes with distinct character traits, and as it turned out, they were spot on.

Expect to both take a beating and dish one out.

Invincible VS is no ordinary, classic 1-on-1 game; instead, it's all about 3 vs 3. The focus is on tag battles, making it a frenzied affair of dynamic proportions. It's not entirely unlike Marvel vs Capcom 3 in terms of structure, and shares many similar gameplay elements, such as power gauges and special moves. The team behind it was involved in Microsoft's new version of Killer Instinct for Xbox One, so there's no doubt about their experience in fighting games, with fine influences serving as a foundation.

The graphics do justice to the source and are definitely up to standard.

The first thing I did was dive straight into single-player mode, because it features a deliciously gory and well-executed story for solo play - something that's far from a given in fighting games and the genre as a whole. The team behind the TV series was brought in to write and direct the narrative and it shows. This could easily be a three-part episode in terms of length and playtime, capturing the essence of the source material. Invincible, Omni-Man, Atom Eve, Rex Splode, Robot, Cecil, Monster Girl and everyone you've come to know so far are on board - 18 fighters are available, with more to come via the annual pass. Although a few voice actors have been replaced (Steven Yeun as Invincible and Walton Goggins as Cecil are not featured), the majority return, with the replacements skilfully imitating their originals so no criticism should be levelled at them. An interesting new character created by Robert Kirkman is also introduced here - Ella Mental - who harnesses the four elements: fire, water, air and earth.

The game's story is engaging and also introduces a new character - Ella Mental - alongside some familiar faces.

It's more than adequate and well-animated, offering a new art style that blends a form of digital rendering with more realistic environments - which differs slightly from the series, but works perfectly well in a gaming context. Mortal Kombat and Tekken have also invested in well-thought-out campaigns over the years, but in my opinion, Invincible VS does it a cut above its competitors, which can be attributed to the level of ambition with the TV crew involved between the fighters, weaving in and breaking up the narrative. It is a well-written side story that requires no prior knowledge and aligns well with the source material.

The gang faces a new and unprecedented threat. The solution is violence.

Tag-team battles are on the agenda, with up to three fighters to battle alongside. The basic formula is easy to get to grips with, but requires dedication to master. Nothing unusual in itself when it comes to fighting - but something I personally found a bit tricky at first is how the game's and characters' combos and moves have been labelled. This is because the game uses a localised language and, based on the controller layout, has chosen to name the buttons something other than cross, square, circle, R2 or whatever they might be. Not a huge concern, but slightly illogical for no good reason. Confusion set in before I learnt to think clockwise about the face buttons, with square as 'Light' (L), triangle as 'Medium' (M) and circle as 'Heavy' (H). R2 is called B here, as in 'Boost'. Once you've managed to reprogram yourself, however, the gates open to a decent beating, but I hadn't questioned whether the buttons were labelled as they're actually called or characterised by.

Battle Beast lives up to its name, and the cutscenes are packed with fistfights.

The combat system is based on relatively simple manoeuvres that link together naturally and in a relatively straightforward manner, rather than command sequences requiring ten inputs. Added to this is the three-fighter tag-team system, where your passive fighters in the background can jump in to spice up your combos with special moves. This setup means that virtually anyone can play and enjoy this brawler, where even the most die-hard fans will find deeper systems for effectively knocking out the active opponent and replacing them with one of the opponent's other fighters, creating a degree of strategy and dynamism from both sides when you least expect it. Switching between your three chosen fighters is also the key to success, as inactive fighters regenerate health within their health bar, visible via a secondary gauge within it.

Did I mention that Invincible VS is violent?

Kicking the opposition's arse builds up your gauges, which are used not only to perform more extensive and upgraded versions of available combos, but also special attacks that rely on them. The violence we've come to love from Invincible is palpable, with blood and clothing splattering and tearing apart in real time, along with the environment. It's fast, hard-hitting and visceral. In addition to the campaign, there are also arcade ladders to climb, ranked and friendly online matches (with cross-play, if you so wish), as well as character cosmetics to unlock. Technically, it runs smoothly and the online code has also been satisfactory during my time with the game.

There is a fighter available.

Invincible VS came as something of a bolt from the blue for me personally; it's surprisingly accessible, yet also offers deeper mechanics in the form of reversals, counters and strategic elements to outwit your opponent and their chosen fighters. However, certain graphical glitches have marred my gameplay, with arms and legs sometimes twisting and 'clipping' through bodies, which I'm sure a patch or two can fix. It's packed with profanity that rains down alongside the sarcasm we recognise from the series, featuring a colourful cast of characters that does justice to the Invincible universe in a fighting game that anyone can play regardless of prior experience, and have a right good laugh in the process.

ZPF

sebastian@gamereactor.eu (Sebastian Lind) — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 14:00:00 +0200

They say a short, concise name is a strength; there's a certain weight to it, you see. I'm thinking of games like Doom or Heretic, or Ignition. These are titles that immediately bring to mind a particular theme or mood. In the shoot 'em up genre, on the other hand, the names are often incomprehensible or downright nonsensical. Often brilliant games, but who actually chooses to name their game Drainus - voluntarily?! ZPF follows in this proud naming tradition of gibberish and is a really well-made and cosy retro-flavoured space shooter from the developers who previously gave us - er - Super XYX...

ZPF is the result of a successful Kickstarter project and is therefore available on Mega Drive cartridge, though it's also available in more modern formats. Our Sega-loving editor Jonas is actually the proud owner of the lovely Mega Drive edition, but I had to make do with Steam. What we get is a handful of levels with various themes, such as a futuristic urban setting, a lush and enchanted forest, and a medieval castle. If there's any sort of story in the background, I've completely missed it, but what's harder to miss is all the visual treats the game liberally sprinkles throughout. We're talking about truly beautiful 16-bit pixels that fill the screen in a cascade of colours. The colour palette is vibrant, garish and very much 90s, and I wouldn't want it any other way.

What the game lacks in cohesive theme, it makes up for tenfold in sheer creativity, as the levels feel completely unique and have their own visual identity. One problem that often comes with more detailed 16-bit graphics, however, is that clarity and readability become a bit muddled. There is simply so much visual clutter on the screen at once that enemy fire sometimes gets lost in the parallax-scrolling backgrounds and you die - sometimes in frustrating ways. Visual clarity is something I value highly in my shoot 'em ups, and you never quite get fully used to it, even though it becomes easier the more time you spend with the game.

There are three different ships to choose from, and at least two of them follow the pattern of firing widely or in a more focused and powerful manner. The third variant is geared towards close combat and offers a completely different playstyle. Here, you have to get close to the enemies to hit them, which is obviously risky but also very rewarding once you get the hang of it. Each ship also has a special bomb attack. Personally, I found the ship with the spread shots suited me best, whilst I never quite managed to get to grips with the more melee-oriented ship.

Like most shoot 'em ups, ZPF can be completed in an hour or so. But the replay value here is high, as every level has hidden secrets and to access the definitive ending, you need to find them all! The money you earn by blasting enemies can also be spent between levels. A fun addition, where you can make your ship more powerful, get clues about secrets, or simply boost your score multiplier to reach the very top of the high-score list.

So, to sum up, where does all this leave us? Well, ZPF is definitely a shoot 'em up worth taking a closer look at. Technically speaking, it's very impressive, and had it been released on the Mega Drive during the console's heyday, we'd probably have mentioned it in the same breath as classics like Galenancer, Thunder Force and Truxton. It gets most things right and really only falls short in that there is sometimes a bit too much happening on screen at once, and that the game's wildly varied environments don't quite give it a sense of cohesion. But with its satisfying upgrade system and a highly customisable difficulty level, it's a must-have for any shoot 'em up fanatic's collection.

Heroes of Might & Magic: Olden Era (Early Access)

alberto@gamereactor.eu (Alberto Garrido) — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 16:00:00 +0200

I am not, nor can I be, impartial when I speak of Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era. It is (yes, in this year of 2026, brimming with gems) one of my most eagerly awaited games of the year. And of the decade. Heroes of Might and Magic, as a series and almost as the leading exponent of a genre—that of turn-based army strategy—has been a series that has defined me as a player. I wanted to make this clear from the outset so that you understand how I approached such an important game, and one from which I was going to demand a great deal personally.

Although HoMM has been very important to me, in reality it's only the second and third instalments of this Might and Magic spin-off series that have been. I still have Heroes of Might and Magic III: Complete Edition installed on my PC, because it's always a pleasure to switch off from everything and everyone for a couple of hours to play a quick random game. I said two hours... which can easily turn into six or seven. That's how it goes. And although I love the game, it's been in need of a worthy successor for decades. And now, at last, it looks like it's going to get one. For now it's only in Early Access, but this Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era already has practically every element I could ask for in a successor.

One of the best things about this Early Access build is that we already have six factions available to explore and optimise. Joining the classic factions of the Sun Temple humans, the Necropolis undead, the Dungeon monsters and the Forest faeries are the new factions of the Schism (which we now finally know, according to the game's lore, is a splinter group from the Dungeon that went into exile in the depths of the sea) and the Hive. Each of these has seven different types of basic units, with the exception of the Hive, which has eight. But almost all of them can be upgraded to stronger variants, which can also be customised to have characteristics that best suit your playstyle and your army. You can also have units from different factions under your command, although this comes with some penalties to troop morale.

This Early Access version features a multitude of maps and setups for enjoying quick matches against the AI, where for now you can customise the faction, but not the starting hero or resources. I enjoyed giving the tutorial a brief try, though it will only be useful for those new to the series. Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era plays practically the same way it has for the past 30 years. You have one (or several) heroes at your disposal, and with them you gradually clear the fog of war on the map turn-by-turn, with each turn representing a day in the game. With the help of an entourage of creatures, you can recruit more along the way in exchange for gold and resources, which you in turn acquire through exploration and combat. You can then reinvest those resources into upgrading your castle(s), which serve as a stronghold, a recruitment post and the hub for upgrading your hero's spells.

This gameplay system is actually a web of smaller systems within which the magic of this game lies. It's not just about swelling the numbers in your army and then sending them charging in a straight line against the opponent. There are a thousand and one ways to gain an advantage or fall into traps that can cost you dearly. Not having enough resources at the start of the week to recruit more troops can give your opponent a crucial few turns' advantage, and ruin a game lasting hours because of a single bad decision. In Olden Era there are far more variations than in previous games, and I like that one of the options on the main menu is 'Challenges', which are like tutorial missions much more specialised in the game's subsystems.

There are four main game modes for quick matches in Olden Era. Arena Mode gives you a hero who is already quite high-level, with spells and high stats, and a full army ready for battle, and what you do there is face off directly in battle against another AI-controlled hero. The aim is to make the most of the terrain, your hero's strengths and the synergies of your troops to secure victory in closely matched encounters. Then there's Classic Mode, where you must explore a map, gather resources and protect your base whilst conquering the bases of the other players (controlled by the AI, though we hope multiplayer servers will arrive soon), and a more difficult and streamlined variant of Classic Mode called 'Single Hero', where you can only have one army on the field and, if you lose it, it's game over. Finally, there is the Scenarios game mode, which consists of standalone maps taken from the game's campaign, but without the terrain or objective limitations found there.

And since we're on this subject, this is where Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era has stirred up the most excitement in me. I wasn't expecting much from the campaign, but the missions currently available (we can only play Act 1 of it) have already won me over more than any previous attempt in the series to construct a coherent narrative. Both the characters and the way the missions unfold (which are packed with optional but equally interesting side objectives) have really won me over, and the studio Unfrozen has even dared to add genuine RPG elements to it. Without a doubt, for now this is what I'd most recommend enjoying until new content updates arrive for the game.

For now, I don't have many complaints about the current state of Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era, although I have noticed some slowdowns in combat that simply shouldn't be there. Animations that stutter, but which the GPU quickly recovers from. Nothing major or overly serious, but they are something to bear in mind for future patches. Furthermore, for now I think what is a bit more urgent is to adjust the difficulty levels the game offers, which I currently find unbalanced. I played a quick game on Normal and the enemy simply wiped me out completely by the eighth turn. That's almost right at the start of the game!

In short, Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era is practically everything I could have asked for in a new game in the series: an experience familiar enough with the past to connect with my fondest childhood memories of keyboard and mouse, whilst adding new features such as factions and game subsystems to make me think and immerse myself fully in its universe and gameplay. It's a new era for strategy, and I'm delighted to be back on this path.

MotoGP 26

johan@gamereactor.eu (Johan Vahlström) — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 14:00:00 +0200

If there's one thing motorcycle games have going for them, it's choice. Unlike other sports games, where one title dominates and there's no competition, this genre offers several games to choose from. Most of them, however, are developed by Milestone. There's Ride, MXGP (though the latest instalment was released in 2024), Monster Energy Supercross if you prefer that type of bike, Speedway Challenge, and other older but still popular games such as MX Bikes (from 2019, but which still has 3,886 concurrent players on Steam at the time of writing). And then there's the official MotoGP game.

Heading towards this year's launch.

To be honest, the recent instalments in this series tend to blend together a bit, and that applies to this year's version too. If you'd launched MotoGP 26 and said it was MotoGP 25, I wouldn't have argued for a second. The main reason for this is that this is a game with an official licence, which means it can't be as wild as Ride. However, Milestone usually tweaks and hammers away at the content a bit every year and offers a few minor updates.

The Career situation is dire.

They don't need to tweak the actual motorcycling much, as it's one of the best in the genre, and the only real difference this year compared to last year is that the "Pro" experience has been changed to focus more on the rider. "Rider-Based Handling", as they describe it. Just as the name suggests, the physics are now designed to let the player control the rider directly rather than the motorbike. Just like in real life, where it's you who leans and the motorbike follows. The bike doesn't start leaning to the side on its own to turn and apparently this has made it necessary to update certain animations for the riders. Having tested both versions - this rider-based physics and what's called "Arcade" - I can say there's a big difference. According to the developers, "Pro" is supposed to "make it easier to learn to ride". I feel exactly the opposite, that it's harder than controlling the bike in the Arcade setting, but that's a matter of personal preference. The other new feature is that the Moto3 and Moto2 bikes have had their audio updated.

You can ride different types of motorbikes if you feel like it.

So, not a great deal has changed on the track, but perhaps there have been changes elsewhere instead? The Career mode, where I reckon most players will spend the bulk of their time, is pretty much the same. You can once again choose to start in Moto3, Moto2, or jump straight into the big league of MotoGP and then work your way up to the title. After that comes an opening press conference where you get to choose what your goal is for the year, and perhaps you create a rivalry, ride well enough to secure a contract with a better team, or ride for prestige. One thing I like is that you can develop your bike to compete with the best and all bikes can reach maximum performance if you spend enough time developing them during test days and debriefings. So Ducati and Aprilia might need to watch out.

The Career is then structured on a weekly basis with an official race schedule (if you so wish). Week one might consist of a practice session, qualifying, a sprint, and the race, while week two is the same on a different track. Week three could then be a so-called Race Off, where you get the chance to ride a bit more casually with other types of motorbikes, such as minibikes and motards. A new venue, Canterbury Park, has been added, bringing the total to three, alongside the existing Mont Lagard and Borgo Caselle. Now, I'm no expert on how professional riders spend their free time, but this is apparently meant to give us an "insight into real riders' training routines".

Unfortunately, MotoGP 26 has been a bit too cautious when it comes to new content.

If, on the other hand, you're someone who prefers multiplayer, you can play locally in split-screen mode with two players or in online races for up to 22 players with full cross-play between Steam, the Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. The single-player experience offers everything you'd expect beyond the Career mode and there are Grand Prix events, championships, solo races, and time trials.

MotoGP 26 remains a very strong game in a series that does justice to the real-life MotoGP, and gameplay-wise it's entertaining, but unfortunately it feels as though the series is starting to slow down a bit too much. There simply isn't enough new content, nor does it feel sufficiently different from last year's title.