Every verdict in the pen

30 reviews — played start to finish, scored with both nostrils.

Fear The Timeloop
Survival Horror Sep 7, 2026

Fear The Timeloop

A cheap, scrappy Resident Evil 2 tribute with one real trick up its sleeve: you have fifteen minutes to live, and dying is how you learn the map. It wears its influences on its sleeve and its bugs on its face, but the loop makes failure feel like progress — a rare thing in the genre.

1666: Amsterdam
Adventure Sep 2, 2026

1666: Amsterdam

First impressions after twelve hours: the Assassin's Creed game that never was, finally real — a moody occult sleuth with a brilliant cat-familiar hook. Rough, unfinished, and shadowed by an AI-asset misstep, but genuinely promising.

The Sinking City 2
Horror Aug 31, 2026

The Sinking City 2

Frogwares trades the first game's open-world detective work for tight, Resident-Evil-flavored survival horror — and mostly nails it. The Lovecraftian dread is superb; the clunky combat and thin human drama are the cracks in the foundation.

No More Room in Hell 2
Co-op Shooter · 🔄 Aug 30, 2026

No More Room in Hell 2

A broken Early Access embarrassment reborn as one of 2026's most terrifying co-op experiences. The quiet, supply-starved dread is unmatched — held back only by weak gunplay and lingering technical jank.

Meat Grinder: Hotdog Simulator
Simulation Aug 23, 2026

Meat Grinder: Hotdog Simulator

First impressions after five hours: a gleefully grim 'sell hot dogs by day, source meat by night' sim with a killer PS1 aesthetic and a premise to match. The vibe is great — the horror and the story barely show up.

Lootbound
Roguelike Aug 17, 2026

Lootbound

A dark-fantasy roguelike where your inventory IS your build — the loot-packing puzzle is genuinely brilliant, wrapped in gorgeous Blasphemous-flavored art. Undercut by shallow combat and some heavy-handed RNG.

Car Wash Simulator
Simulation Aug 13, 2026

Car Wash Simulator

A genuinely therapeutic cleaning loop buried under Early Access jank and an unanswered AI-content question. The foam is satisfying; almost everything around it needs another few months in the shop.

Killing Floor 3
Co-op Shooter Aug 11, 2026

Killing Floor 3

The gunplay still hits and the gore is glorious — but after nearly seven hours, this feels like a leaner, live-service-flavored shadow of Killing Floor 2. A solid Early Access launch wearing a full-price coat.

Quantum Odyssey
Puzzle Aug 9, 2026

Quantum Odyssey

A Zachlike that teaches you to design real quantum algorithms without writing a line of code. Brilliant, gorgeous, and genuinely demanding — but it fights you as hard as its puzzles do.

Anomaly President
Roguelike Aug 7, 2026

Anomaly President

First impressions after four hours: a wonderfully unhinged 'candidate by day, vigilante by night' roguelite with real style. A promising, early snapshot — not a final verdict.

Don't Freeze: A Winter Card Survival
Survival Aug 3, 2026

Don't Freeze: A Winter Card Survival

The Long Dark rebuilt as a card game — a tense, atmospheric survival loop with a clever deck-driven twist, still visibly wearing its Early Access coat. Promising, chilly, and not quite finished.

Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater
Stealth Jul 29, 2026

Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater

One of the greatest stealth games ever made, rebuilt in Unreal Engine 5 and handled with reverence bordering on fear. It's the definitive Snake Eater — and it plays it almost too safe.

Pass the Fear
Roguelike Jul 28, 2026

Pass the Fear

A build-crafting bullet-hell that hands you a god-run and dares you not to grin. The gun toybox is a joy — it just runs the same bosses at you in the same order every single time.

Victoria 3
Strategy · 🔄 Jul 26, 2026

Victoria 3

The economic grand-strategy game nobody else dares to make, finally living up to its own spreadsheet. Four years of patches turned a fascinating failure into one of Paradox's best.

Dispatch
Adventure Jul 25, 2026

Dispatch

The best superhero show of the year is a video game. Ex-Telltale devs made the interactive TV format cinematic again, and the found-family writing lands every punch.

Farming Simulator 25
Simulation Jul 24, 2026

Farming Simulator 25

The most comprehensive farming sim ever made, held back by the same jank it's carried for a decade. Rice paddies and terrain deformation are lovely; pallet physics still want you dead.

Shift At Midnight
Horror Jul 23, 2026

Shift At Midnight

A one-person debut that mashes gas-station sim with doppelganger horror and lands both. The dread of the day shift outclasses the monsters of the night — in the best way.

Resident Evil 4
Horror Jul 21, 2026

Resident Evil 4

The gold standard for remakes: reverent where it counts, ruthless where it needed to be. Capcom rebuilt a masterpiece and somehow improved the parts nobody thought were broken.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2
Action Jul 20, 2026

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2

The loudest power fantasy on the market, and the rare licensed game that actually feels like the thing it is licensing. Two years of free updates turned a good campaign into a genuine live game.

Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon
RPG Jul 17, 2026

Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon

A small Polish studio built a Skyrim-shaped world out of rotting Arthurian myth — and the exploring is so good you'll forgive the combat. Mostly.

SnowRunner
Simulation Jul 16, 2026

SnowRunner

The most relaxing game about total misery ever made. Six years and eighteen seasons later, the mud simulation is still unmatched and the herd is still winching.

Cities: Skylines II
City Builder · 🔄 Jul 12, 2026

Cities: Skylines II

The bones of the best city builder ever made, still waiting for the muscle. Two years of patches helped — but the simulation still cuts corners.

Hades II
Roguelike Jul 7, 2026

Hades II

A sequel that had every excuse to play it safe and instead rebuilt the formula around resource magic and two full parallel routes.

Starfield
Space RPG Jul 4, 2026

Starfield

A thousand planets, and the magic is on maybe six of them. Bethesda's space epic is competent everywhere and transcendent almost nowhere.

Baldur's Gate 3
RPG Jul 1, 2026

Baldur's Gate 3

The rare hundred-hour RPG where every hour respects your time. We broke the story in ways the game not only allowed but rewarded.

Helldivers 2
Co-op Shooter Jun 26, 2026

Helldivers 2

The best co-op chaos machine of its generation — a satire of fascist space patriotism where the friendly fire is the punchline and the point.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
RPG Jun 25, 2026

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

A debut studio walked up to the JRPG genre, painted over its dustiest rules, and delivered the best turn-based combat in years wrapped in a story that hurts.

Balatro
Roguelike Jun 22, 2026

Balatro

Poker hands, illegal math, and 150 Jokers that break the game on purpose. The most dangerous 'one more run' button ever shipped.

Hollow Knight: Silksong
Metroidvania Jun 19, 2026

Hollow Knight: Silksong

Eight years of waiting, answered with a game that is faster, crueller, and more generous than its legend demanded. Worth every one of those years.

Split Fiction
Co-op Jun 17, 2026

Split Fiction

Hazelight's genre blender at full speed: two writers trapped in each other's stories, a new mechanic every twenty minutes, and the best couch night of 2025.