Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden

Yet another video game took me to the New England region of North America, this time to the end of the 17th century. Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is a third person action RPG from Don't Nod. The game is quite similar to the studio's 6 years older title Vampyr. The games are even set in the same universe, albeit the actual connections are almost nonexistent: one collectible note confirming the fact, one piece of gear called "Red Goddess" -- and maybe one of the protagonists saying once: "It's locked, alright", like Dr. Jonathan Reid in Vampyr stated every damn time upon encountering a locked door.

Necromunda: Hired Gun

Necromunda is one of the spinoff games from Games Workshop's Warhammer 40,000 miniature wargame. Likewise played with miniatures, Necromunda is about small scale skirmishes between the gangs of the titular hive city/world that produces weapons and such for the Imperium's vast military forces. As a first person shooter, Necromunda: Hired Gun is a video game adaptation more of the Necromunda (sub-)setting than the actual tabletop game.

Othercide

I bought Othercide, developed by Lightbulb Crew, purely for its aesthetics -- a decision I came to regret. I think at the time I wishlisted the game, I still fancied the noir visuals: the grayscale with one or two colors. But now I no longer find it as attractive.

Atlas Fallen: Reign of Sand

Atlas Fallen was released in August last year to a lukewarm reception. Exactly one year later, it got a big update that came with the subtitle Reign of Sand. And a month later from that, the game arrived on Game Pass, giving me a chance to play this cool-looking yet not that well received title from Deck13.

Evil West

Like Shadow Warrior 3, which I already played, was Evil West also a 2022 release from Flying Wild Hog. Evil West is a similar experience too: straightforward, linear entertainment.

Atomic Heart

I wonder what is it with Cyprus in particular that makes it a desirable place for Russian game developers to allegedly start operating from, but both Owlcat Games and Mundfish have opened an office there: to hide their nationality that is currently very unpopular in Europe, and maybe to have an easier time with transferring finances with the sanctions and whatnot. I doubt that either company have actually moved an entire studio's worth of personnel to another country -- I think some sort of "façade office" scenario is more likely.

Of Orcs And Men

There was still one more older Spiders game I was slightly interested in: Of Orcs And Men (2012) that Spiders co-developed with Cyanide Studio. The latter went on to make two prequels to it later on -- the Styx stealth games I have already played.

A Plague Tale: Requiem

Everything I wrote about A Plague Tale: Innocence applies to its 2022 sequel, Requiem, as well. I don't know myself how one would exactly expand the adventure-stealth gameplay but you'd expect that at least the story would have some progression. But even that in Requiem is pretty much the same thing all over again.

Silverfall: Earth Awakening

Years ago, I eyed up Silverfall, an isometric action roleplaying game developed by a now-defunct French company Monte Cristo, wondering whether I should buy it. I decided against it -- which was a smart decision because there are dozens of more interesting and entertaining titles in the genre out there, especially these days. However, last year I saw someone on my Steam friendlist pick up the game and its standalone expansion Earth Awakening -- most likely entirely for collection purposes -- while they were next to free on sale. Against my better judgment, I bought them too but with the intention of actually playing through them. (Don't do that.)

Curse of the Dead Gods

Curse of the Dead Gods, an isometric action roguelike by Passtech Games definitely got overshadowed by Hades. The games were concurrently in early access for a time but Hades released fully 6 months earlier and became a massive hit: not much room to succeed after that. I do wonder though if Curse sold more copies simply because people (like me) wanted more Hades.

The Technomancer

I suppose there's no reason to play The Technomancer if you want to just play the best game (so far) by Spiders; GreedFall is better in about every way. The only thing that The Technomancer has going for it over the latter game is perhaps its scifi setting over fantasy but even that's not that interesting. The coolest part was left for the ending to raise questions that then never get answers.

Mars: War Logs

I was pretty much out of new games to play outside game pass and thought that I should buy The Technomancer, the Spiders game I had skipped. However, before getting to play it, I read that another, even earlier game by the developers was set it in the same universe. The story of Mars: War Logs is not directly related to The Technomancer, but I reckoned I might as well pick it up too since it was cheap and going back to an older game after playing a later entry in a series is rarely pleasant.

The Council

Developed by a French studio called Big Bad Wolf, The Council is a 5-episode third person mystery adventure game set in 1793. You play as Louis de Richet, a member of the Golden Order, a secret organization interested in the occult and such. You have been invited to the private island of enigmatic Lord Mortimer somewhere off the coast of England: your mother Sarah de Richet -- also a member of the Order -- has gone missing.

GreedFall

I guess it was for the better that EA Play being included on the PC Game Pass was postponed (on the supposed launch day of all days) because I wouldn't have had the time to play STAR WARS Jedi: Fallen Order after all. DOOM Eternal took longer than expected and then GreedFall was a proper-length RPG. I managed to beat the latter on the day before I would've needed to renew the subscription at a 15 times higher price.

The Surge 2

As far as video game sequels go, The Surge 2 is a fairly good one. It has the familiar gameplay of the previous title but also introduces new features and improvements. I even liked the game enough to immediately replay it. New game plus mostly offered just bigger numbers though: I had been so thorough on my first playthrough that an alternative final boss armor set was pretty much the only thing I was missing.

A Plague Tale: Innocence

It was again time to knock few games off my wishlist by playing through them on the game pass. The first one was A Plague Tale: Innocence, a third person stealth adventure game from Asobo Studio. They're a French developer whose name I don't remember seeing before but they have been in the business for some time now. Currently they're working on Microsoft Flight Simulator which should increase their renown.

The Surge

Here's another of them methodical third person action roleplaying games. I actually played The Surge a bit last fall already during my second month of Game Pass but then ragequit and uninstalled after dying and dropping a considerable amount of scrap which is the game's main resource. I had just spawned the first boss who appears between you and the level's medbay which is your respawn point. I thought there was no way to get to the scrap in time with how I would need to beat the boss first. I now know it would've in fact been quite simple to go around, although I don't remember if I had unlocked a particular shortcut then.

Vampyr

Microsoft announced and launched Xbox Game Pass for PC at this year's E3. For a monthly fee you get access to a selection of games on the Microsoft Store. The initially available ones included three titles from my wishlist so I thought I might as well spend the 1€ for the first month to try and maybe even play through them.

Bound By Flame

Bound By Flame is a third person action roleplaying game developed by a French studio called Spiders and published by Focus Home Interactive in 2014. It didn't look like the most expensive production but I hoped it would still be able to provide entertainment.

Styx: Shards of Darkness

I suppose it isn't that surprising that Styx: Shards of Darkness is so much like Styx: Master of Shadows. Why try to fix something that isn't broken. Still, I wasn't expecting it to follow the same formula to this degree and to retain so many of the old features -- some of which I'm not that fond of. There are few improvements and some whole new things too, though.