Astor: Blade of the Monolith

Astor: Blade of the Monolith is a third person action-adventure game by a Colombian developer, C2 Game Studio. The game is colorful and straightforward simple fun -- as I expected/hoped it would be. The only truly negative aspect that hampered my enjoyment was how 100% completion involves a collectible hunt, with very little aid provided by the game.

Dead Island 2

Dead Island made an impression back in the day with its 2006 E3 trailer. The game itself, released in 2011, wasn't as well received. It nor its 2013 standalone continuation, Dead Island: Riptide, never piqued my interest. Especially after having played 2015's Dying Light, going to a more co-op focused zombie whacker without parkour didn't seem all that exciting. All these mentioned games were developed by Techland, though I think the Dead Island IP was always Deep Silver's.

Luna Abyss

My latest Game Pass plans went kind of belly up for a couple of reasons and it was looking like I was beating only one title for the 13€/month the service is currently (on PC). That's not an amazing value proposition for a singular game you even lose access to. But then, like a week before its release, Luna Abyss was announced to be on Game Pass on day one and I got more worth out of my month.

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.

The Pathless

The Pathless is yet another title published by Annapurna Interactive with these simplified, stylized visuals. This one was developed by Giant Squid who are also known for Abzû and last year's Sword of the Sea. The studio was founded by a few former people of Thatgamecompany, known for Flow and the 2012 hit Journey.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong

I reckon video games utilizing the Vampire: The Masquerade and the other long-name World of Darkness RPG licenses should emphasize the franchise title on their cover art less and maybe otherwise, too, mention that the first part is just the licensed IP, the actual name of the video game being at the end. It annoys me quite a bit when at least half the comments I read anywhere are by tourists who think VTM is originally a video game franchise born with VTM Bloodlines and keep repeating the full title litany every time (even developers themselves in marketing videos)  -- or giving up halfway through and calling any of the video games just Vampire: (The) Masquerade (or simply Vampire) which to someone in the know looks like they're talking about the tabletop RPG.

Sands of Aura

Sands of Aura is a top-down soulslike action RPG developed by Chashu Entertainment. The game was up for grabs on Prime Gaming (now Amazon Luna) about a year ago. After having beaten it, I feel free (Prime trial) was a fitting price for the game. It has some cool ability and item design but levels and gameplay have problems that make the experience occasionally rather infuriating. I suppose that's not uncommon for a soulslike, though.

Hogwarts Legacy

I read the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling once back in the day when they were coming out hot off the press. Beyond that I have by happenstance watched maybe one of the film adaptations but otherwise that's where my following of the Wizarding World stopped. In 2023, Hogwarts Legacy by Avalanche Software (not to be confused with the Just Cause developer Avalanche Studios) provided an entirely new addition to the universe in the form of a third person action roleplaying game. It looked cool enough to play and was just recently added onto PC Game Pass.

Ghostrunner 2

At its core, Ghostrunner 2 provides largely the same first person action-platformer experience as the first game. However, about every aspect was touched in some way and these changes seem to have been divisive among the player base. Some sizeable additions are the game being bigger, having few large non-linear maps, and introducing a motorcycle.

Strayed Lights

I was sold on Strayed Lights for the same reason as Batora: Lost Haven -- shiny colors. Gameplay had seemed competent enough but once again it was proven that visuals alone won't carry a game. But pretty Strayed Lights is. There's again a duality of colors -- blue and orange -- but purple also makes an appearance as the color of corruption as is tradition.

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.

Batora: Lost Haven

I suppose Batora: Lost Haven by Stormind Games had looked enough like Darksiders Genesis for me to buy it: a stylized top-down twin-stick hack and slash shooter. Visually the game didn't disappoint; I really liked the purple-orange dual color theme. Gameplay turned out to be pretty basic, however, and mechanics rather shallow. But the game's biggest problem is its writing.

The Entropy Centre

It had been a while since I last played an entirely new (for me) first person puzzle-platformer. While I had played a few in the past and we're not exactly lacking in these chamber-based Portal-without-portals games, they don't always look entertaining enough. The Entropy Centre by Stubby Games did, however. Its gimmick is rewinding objects backwards in time.

Scars Above

I feel video games wouldn't need to be so bound to having artificial gravity on spaceships. They're not restricted by real life, not filming real actors that need to be dropped down and up aboard a plane (or whatever technique they use) to float about. Of course, it might take some unusual work to animate characters (zero-g motion capture?), script scenes, and design ship interiors and movement for microgravity but it's been done before. I think it would add to immersion and you wouldn't need to increase the expected level of in-game technology to something so high. If humanity had the ability to create artificial gravity within ships, surely they would be able to send something bigger than a small, mere 4-person ship to greet a colossal alien object that has arrived to Earth's orbit like in Scars Above.

Industria

I recall vaguely watching Industria (or INDUSTRIA, as it is stylized in caps) being played. What I remember clearly, though, is that one of the game's few developers from Bleakmill was in chat and said that they had ran out of money and the finished product (funded by the Epic grant apparently) is a third of what they had wanted. I thought that was the end of Industria's story. But then a sequel was announced. I put the first game on my wishlist, Epic shortly after offering it for free.

Dolmen

I'm not willing to play every single, somewhat interesting-looking, third person soulslike action roleplaying game ever made -- not quite. There is a bar of quality and production value the games has to pass. But... the bar is pretty low: Dolmen passed it. It was developed by a small Brazilian team called Massive Work Studio -- who have disbanded now, I believe.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthblood

There is untapped potential in video games utilizing the many tabletop roleplaying games under the World of Darkness series. There actually exists quite a few titles using one of the licenses -- Vampire: The Masquerade being easily the most popular -- but they're largely not very high profile ones: interactive fiction games, visual novels, VR games, etc. Another truly remarkable, single-player roleplaying experience on the level of Bloodlines is yet to be made. Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthblood is not that either.

Tiny Tina's Wonderlands

Tiny Tina's Wonderlands is a Borderlands series spin-off, kind of a sequel to the Borderlands 2 DLC, Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep (which has been later released as a standalone game as well). Tiny Tina is again the bunker master for a game of Bunkers & Badasses, the Borderlands equivalent to Dungeons & Dragons. My impression is that Wonderlands was well received but its poor post-release support and monotone endgame soured its repute. The publisher 2K's recent EULA changes have also caused many to leave negative reviews on all of their games on Steam.

Thymesia

Thymesia is one of the now-many third person soulslike action RPGs. It's from a small Taiwanese developer OverBorder Studio and turned out to have even lower production values than I had expected -- the game features no voiced dialogue in any language. However, even if modest in its scope, Thymesia was reasonably entertaining, its gameplay feel solid enough for a good time.

The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition

The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition is largely just a bundling of the base game and its two story DLCs -- for which I bought it -- by the game's publisher, Private Division. The original developer, Obsidian Entertainment, had very little to do with it; the extra work there is, was done by Virtuos Games instead.