Edge

Jen Simpkins editor Andrew P Hind art editor Miriam McDonald operations editor Chris Schilling contributing editor Sam Barlow, Nathan Brown, Matthew Castle, Edwin Evans-Thirlwell, Ollie Hoff, Tony Mott, Jordan Oloman, Emmanuel Pajon, Jeremy Peel, Ste

Now Panic has so many interested parties, it’s thinking about how to make sure a broader variety of people are happy with Playdate. “We have this particular vision, and we want to push people a little bit,” Sasser says. “But we also don’t want to mak

bit.ly/flatgame After releasing one of 2020’s best debut games, Irish microstudio Dreamfeel could be forgiven for taking it easy until the New Year. But having made a game about erasure, it’s perhaps fitting that the If Found creator should feel the

NYU Game Center director Frank Lantz once suggested that “games are basically operas made out of bridges”, the process of making them combining the hard parts of both. Working in this medium demands aptitude in both artistic and technological discipl

Professor Vincent is the brains of the operation; it seems as though the resources in his study might play a key role in helping you gather intel for missions. He and Dr Oliver will sometimes accompany you on your quests – Neostream isn’t keen to say

While small, Forza Polpo’s levels will house plenty of secrets. Track down ‘crypto pixels’ to earn decorations for your character’s bedroom, which serves as the game’s mission hub. Here, you can also patch up Polpo and shoot the breeze with Mey, your

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart PS5 With Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales showing what Insomniac is capable of when it comes to making cross-gen games, the prospect of the studio delivering a blockbuster without having to cater to older hardware is exc

It’s all fun and games until the demo ends on Edwin’s literal nightmare, a horrifying sequence in which his anxieties taunt him. The art style’s charm disappears, leaving us trapped in a claymation Silent Hill. “I actually didn’t realise it was that

Lake has been in development for three years, so we have to ask Bouman: how did it feel when Death Stranding revealed itself to be a fellow delivery simulator? “It was funny! We were totally surprised by it.” They’re very different games, obviously –

Developer Froach Club Publisher Poppy Works Format PC Origin US Release TBA Melon Journey 2’S standout marketing line is a phrase of such arcane power and influence that it has not left our brain since we first heard it during a recent Asobu showcase

It’s refreshing to play such a lo-fi game at the moment the shiny new consoles are launching. “I really pushed for us to keep developing MJ2 in such an old engine with all its limitations, and a big reason for that was I wanted to measure just how mu

Developer Midwinter Entertainment Publisher Improbable Format PC Origin US Release 2021 Very few of us have come out of the maelstrom of the past year looking good. But Scavengers, a Halo Warzonestyle multiplayer showdown in which the frigid environm

Working in a much more direct collaboration with Improbable’s SpatialOS is how the team has managed to scale up Scavengers so efficiently. They’ve built an offloading feature in tandem with the cloud computing platform, allowing Midwinter to run all

When he was making his 2017 idle game Universal Paperclips, Frank Lantz wasn’t setting out to explore the concept of making a ‘boring’ game. He wanted to make an entertaining game about being an AI programmed to make paperclips. But he realised its s

Game balance is often misunderstood. It’s not really about making a game fair, it’s instead about keeping a game interesting: ensuring there is never only one legitimate response to a given situation. When players call a competitive game broken, they

Almost all games will eventually become boring. For some it comes quickly; many last a few hours; and a tiny number seem never to succumb to it. A metric for how soon a game will become boring is depth, a concept of which you’ll have an intuitive gra

You’ve talked about how important pre-production was to this project. How did creating these animals figure into that? When we set out the vision and pillars of the game, one of them was, obviously, the focus is on the animals. They’re the star of th

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim PS4 We hear you. There have been a fair few calls for Edge to cover Vanillaware’s ambitious hybrid of visual novel and mech strategy, but with our free time at a premium we’ve had to chip away at this sprawling sci-fi tale ove

The ninth console generation is finally upon us. With Microsoft playing the long game, it’s left to Sony to provide us with that shiny, new sensation – and from the pristine surfaces of Astro’s Playroom (p110) to the ray-traced skyscraper reflections

Developer/publisher Ubisoft (Montreal) Format PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series (tested) Release Out now Ubisoft’s open-world model was made for Vikings. What were Norse raids if not the original collectathons? You call them pillagers; we see aggre

Tested on Xbox Series X, Valhalla provides a taste of the new gen largely missing in Microsoft’s launch lineup. A promise of 60 frames at 4K causes screen-tearing strain in busier cities, but the doubling of framerate over the last generation version

At a certain point in the story, you need to raise a large sum of money. The best way is via an enjoyable (if poorly explained) property management game. You begin with a single store, Ichiban Confections, before expanding to take over other business

A whopping 19 unlockable suits give you a range of movement and combat-boosting perks. You’ll gain a few during the story, but most are locked behind level progress, with a few reserved for New Game+. To purchase these, you’ll need tech parts liberat

Given that it’s a showcase firstparty launch title, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that Demon’s Souls has a photo mode, as incongruous as it may seem at first sight. PS5 builds on PS4’s philosophy of sharing is caring, so it makes sense that you c

Including one last gloriously unexpected throwback in the form of an extended final boss fight, you’ll likely reach the credits within three hours. Still, it’ll probably take a good few replays to find every jigsaw piece, and to gather enough coins t

Cold War continues Call Of Duty: WWII’s startling flirtation with the Hitman series. One level sees you roaming the KGB’s headquarters as a double agent, looking for a keycard: you might do this by persuading a captured prisoner to assassinate a gene

Before you’re able to take them on, the beasts make their presence felt by rampaging around within a storm cloud – the battle royale genre having an influence even here. Even if you outrun the encroaching squall, it sporadically teleports around, mor

Young Horses’ stated goal is making games that appeal to kids and adults alike, meaning Pixar is an inevitable – though unfair – comparison. Bugsnax certainly isn’t at that level of polish (though it one-ups Pixar with its queer rep) but it has a sim

Swearing in games is usually a cringeworthy attempt at sounding ‘mature’ that achieves the exact opposite. Legion’s pottymouth works because it knows swearing is ridiculous and the creativity of the cursing would have Armando Iannucci giving a two-fi

Online, a co-op mode lets four players join forces, taking turns at the ones and twos, those waiting their slot able to throw in emotes or song requests. Battles mode, meanwhile, has players fight for control of the decks: the game dynamically assign

You’ll want to upgrade your warbird to deal with the most challenging missions. But even this process is entwined with the heady politics at play on The Great Ursee: you need permits to purchase upgrades from certain vendors. The three main varieties

A goat popping up to sing the ‘woo!’ from Uptown Funk’s chorus is a hilarious standout moment in the Rayman-cribbing musical levels. Here, you jump around as the stage moves to the rhythm of a pop song, but linger to gather collectables and the vocal