God of War Ragnarok

If it wasn’t clear already after the onslaught of media in November, God of War Ragnarok is a massive experience. The base game’s story involves exploring the Nine Realms, including new ones like Svartalfheim and Vanaheim. But even the returning locations like Midgard and Alfheim have plenty of new things to see. Each realm is packed with Favors to complete, Yggdrasil Rifts, optional bosses, armor, Runic Attacks, weapon attachments, upgrade materials, you name it. The story isn’t even close to the end as a massive new area opens up in the post-game.

Elden Ring

Mechanically, Elden Ring takes many cues from developer FromSoftware’s previous works, Dark Souls being the most prominent. Influences like Berserk are also prominent throughout the design, but nothing could quite prepare Souls fans for the sheer breadth of The Lands Between. Limgrave appears unassuming enough but contains enough horrors to keep you honest. Caelid is a nightmarish wasteland, Leyndell is a sprawling capital city…and that’s only a taste of what the entire game has to offer. Bosses, unique enemies, loot, whatever the hell is going on in Volcano Manor – there’s a lot to see, and kill.

Horizon Forbidden West

You’d think that exploring the world of Zero Dawn would prepare you for Guerrilla Games’ next. However, the sheer scale of Horizon Forbidden West is incredible to behold, even when you’re a ways off from the shores. Horizon Forbidden West expands on everything from its predecessor, whether it’s the side quests and gear variety or the number of collectibles, secrets, and Machines to hunt.

Throughout all of this, there are thick new jungles to explore, arid wastelands teeming with terrifying Slitherfangs and Thunderjaws, snow-covered mountains, and of course, the gorgeous beaches with their Tiderippers. It’s a stunning game, and being able to go just about anywhere – yes, even the ruins of the Golden Gate Bridge – is incredible.

Need For Speed Unbound

Lakeshore City, the setting for Unbound, is based on Chicago and leans even deeper into the street culture scene than previous entries with its Tags, graffiti art, and personalities. As you race through the streets, you’ll encounter a variety of locales, from the City Pier and Kennedy Test Track to the picturesque Mountain Road on Kennedy Drive. Everything looks vibrant and alive, especially at night when the cops are in pursuit, and the dozens of cars and events will keep you busy.

Ghostwire Tokyo

Unlike its previous efforts, Ghostwire Tokyo by Tango Gameworks is a completely open-world game. Set in Tokyo, facing a constant downpour in the wake of the Visitors’ abduction of most residents, it’s a stunning game teeming with gorgeous lighting and reflections. But there are also tasks to complete, Torii Gates to cleanse and visit, spirits to assist, cat merchants to buy from, and rooftops to grapple on. The mix of grounded and ethereal presents enough to keep you busy.

Sonic Frontiers

The “open-zone” format in Sonic Frontiers is most decidedly not open world. But each region is incredibly huge, teeming with puzzles, Koco to rescue, time trials, roaming enemies, and much more, whether you’re gathering Memory Tokens or the Chaos Emeralds. There are also various Cyber Space Stages, fishing with Big the Cat, and massive Titans to battle. It’s expansive but still well-paced and fits Sonic’s overall sense of speed. Except for that grass-cutting mini-game, probably.

Dakar Desert Rally

Is this a great racing game? No, and the controls aren’t exactly going to satisfy rally enthusiasts. But the open world is fun to explore, with weather effects like blizzards and sandstorms mixing up the vistas in unique ways. It’s gorgeous to drive through, as long as you ignore some of the more lacklustre gameplay elements.

Gotham Knights

The Gotham City in Gotham Knights may not live up to that in Arkham Knight, but the fidelity is impressive enough. Even if you stick to one hero, enough is going on in each district, from crimes in progress to challenges, to keep them occupied. If nothing else, it’s still nice to perch up high and gaze upon the city’s lights, soaking up the atmosphere.

Saints Row

Saints Row may falter in several aspects, but Santo Ileso is still a worthwhile playground for some mayhem. From the bustling lights of El Dorado to the deserts of the Gehenna Badlands and skyscrapers of Lakeshore, there’s a good variety of environments as you wingsuit or recklessly drive through them. The amount of activities and Criminal Ventures is also pretty healthy, and thanks to a recent patch, they should be less grindy and more palatable.

Sniper Elite 5

Sniper Elite 4’s levels were already embracing larger, more sandbox-like scenarios, but Sniper Elite 5 is on another level. Karl Fairburne is again battling the Nazis in various missions set in WW2 France, but the scale and the overall number of opportunities are much higher as you search for that perfect sniping spot. The visuals and attention to detail are stunning, and aspects like deeper weapon customization, shortcuts for future kills, and Invasion Mode, where another player enters your game as a rival sniper keeps things interesting.

Pokemon Legends: Arceus

Though technically not an open-world title, instead employing giant regions that are connected, Pokemon Legends: Arceus still offers a massive, captivating world to explore. Hisui is based on Hokkaido, Japan in the early times and offers a variety of incredible vistas to explore. They’re also teeming with danger from regular Pokemon to Alpha and Noble Pokemon, and being directly involved in the battle makes each experience more visceral. Despite having “only” 242 Pokemon, the journey to capture all of the same, through various story and side quests, and post-game activities, is still incredibly fun.

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet

Say what you will about the performance and fidelity, but Paldea in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet is a pretty massive place. Whether you’re pursuing the Path of Legends, fighting Titan Pokemon or facing down Team Star, there is a wealth of content available, from the four main Provinces to the mysterious Great Crater. You’ll discover hundreds of Pokemon, and maybe a few Legendaries if you’re intuitive enough. Also, unlike Pokemon Legends: Arceus, the entire world is seamlessly explorable in co-op with up to three other players.

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga

The sheer number of delays for this game is due to its massive size. Covering all nine mainline films in the series, from Episode 1: The Phantom Menace to the Rise of Skywalker, it also features hundreds of characters, upgrades, secrets, collectibles, side quests, space battles, and more. It’s a lot to take in, and while it may not offer as much freedom as other games on this list, The Skywalker Saga is still a huge experience.

Dying Light 2 Stay Human

The City is a big step up from Harran in terms of size and scale, with numerous detailed buildings to enter – some teeming with Infected Nests – and characters to interact with. Even with some aspects being stripped back, there are several side quests to undertake, and the sheer expanse lends itself well to challenges, time trials and so on. The improved controls and parkour mechanics make it much more seamless to explore.

The thousands upon thousands of square kilometers that Dakar Desert Rally offers players to race in is immediately impressive, but more importantly, the space’s use goes beyond just being visually striking. Most of the time, cutting through the dunes and trails of the game’s many tracks can lead to some interesting results, such as shaving off a few fractions of a second from your time, and perhaps being the difference between earning a podium finish or not. Other times, sadly, the exploration is punished with small objects like logs, bushes, and rocks bringing your vehicle of choice to a complete stop when it’s pretty obvious that you should be able to trample over them.

"Fans of rally style racers of either the arcade or simulation persuasion are catered to more-or-less equally and there is no question that the racing itself is quite good most of the time. Still yet, with some questionable physics and inscrutable logic driving some of the game’s core mechanics and a general performance that isn’t nearly as consistent as it should be on the PS5, the claims made in the game’s marketing that Dakar Desert Rally is some sort of pinnacle of the off-road racing genre do ring a little hollow."

A small penalty for hitting things is certainly to be expected, but the way this game either lets things slide entirely or punishes you to the fullest extent, with very few instances of anything in between, can discourage taking advantage of the vast landscapes more often than it should. I also found some of the slipping and sliding to be a bit over the top, as even a mild to moderate slip up with braking or accelerating improperly can result in a complete 180 or even worse, making small problems into massive ones in the blink of an eye. Even for the obviously sandy and snowy physics, grip is lost far too easily and too often in Dakar Desert Rally. Adding a pinch of salt into that wound is that, despite being beautifully designed, some races go on just a bit long.

Before getting in too deep, Dakar Desert Rally does give you a chance to experience it in your own way, with three general difficulties to choose from. Sport, which will largely resemble other, more arcadey experiences with waypoint beacons on the screen that greatly help prevent you from getting turned around, slightly easier opponents, lower repair costs, and even a checkpoint system that lets you restart from any waypoint you’ve already reached, which is a system I like a lot better than the rewinds we see in a lot of similar racing games today. Despite the loss in authenticity, this mode might be best to get started with, as the other two ratchet up the difficulty quite a bit.

The next level up, called “professional”, steps up the opponent AI to being quite ruthless and difficult, more expensive repairs, and removes the waypoint beacons and replaces them with a far less discernible map system that takes longer to translate into useful information to you than it’s generally worth. But it still lets you keep the checkpoints. The hardest, simulation mode basically just strips away the checkpoints, and further elevates all of the previously mentioned aspects like opponent AI and repair costs. It’s so difficult that the game assumes you would be wasting your time with it at first anyway, and keeps it locked behind the first several hours of playtime. Like I said, unless you really just want to get thrown to the wolves, it’s probably best to start with sport mode and just work your way up. As always when a racing game includes this much flexibility in the difficulty, I appreciate the sentiment, and it probably will result in more players being able to enjoy the game, but it does undeniably come at the cost of the game having a greater sense of its own identity.

"As always when a racing game includes this much flexibility in the difficulty, I appreciate the sentiment, and it probably will result in more players being able to enjoy the game, but it does undeniably come at the cost of the game having a greater sense of its own identity."

Not getting as far into the weeds as other beefy racers tend to, your car tuning and repairs are a fairly simplified system that you can access between events as well as between races inside of events, which is a good thing, as you’ll be visiting both of these areas quite a bit to match your current terrain with the right set up, and keeping your vehicle in good shape to make sure everything works right. Keeping it nice and simple, you can also just select “repair all” and get everything back in order for one flat price. Different types of collisions and other wear and tear do result in different parts of your vehicle wearing down, but by all means if you don’t feel like paying too much attention to that and just want to get back into the action, hitting repair all will certainly get you there if you have the cash, which, if you’re even remotely decent at the game, you generally will.

Purchasing different vehicle types also doesn’t take forever like some other games in the genre, so you can start experimenting with different vehicles pretty quickly if you so desire. I came to be quite partial to the quad bikes myself, but each type feels pretty good to race as. Unfortunately, each also can fall victim to the fickle physics and the fragile balance of speed and stability often felt like a monkey on my back that I had to placate than a fun challenge to overcome. I wasn’t able to try the multiplayer mode in my review build, but I shudder to think of what could go wrong if any sort of systemic network problems get thrown on top of these other issues.

Dakar Desert Rally is without a doubt one of the most beautiful looking racers I’ve played on the PS5 so far. Sunsets absolutely glisten on the wet sand of tropical beaches, and palm tree leaves woft in the distance and foreground in a near photorealistic way, and I just can’t praise that aspect of the game enough. It has absolutely nailed the look and feel of all of its surprisingly varied assortment of tracks and locales. Results like this can only come from a formidable combination of real-world knowledge of how these locations work and top-notch video game artistic acumen, and it’s always a pleasure to take in a new location in the game, if only the game could run these areas properly when the action gets thick. Don’t get me wrong, most of the time, in performance mode, things were smooth enough. But almost every race did have a moment or two where the frame rate took a nose dive due to too many opponents crashing into each other at once and/or when too much water was being rendered at once. I suspect with the bit of ongoing support Dakar Desert Rally will likely get, this will be mitigated to some extent, but right now it’s tough to ignore.

"Dakar Desert Rally is without a doubt one of the most beautiful looking racers I’ve played on the PS5 so far."

At its core, Dakar Desert Rally does have more going for it than not. With equally gorgeous and gigantic racing environments to enjoy, intuitive management systems, and it’s obviously unique position among other modern big-budget racing games, it’s certainly nothing to sleep on. Most racing fans should give it a look at the very least. Getting hung up on a small handful of little things might slow it down a bit, but for most, I suspect Dakar Desert Rally will provide at least some, if not many hours of fun.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.

In addition to various vehicles, from cars, trucks and quads to SSVs and motorcycles, Dakar Desert Rally features more than 30 stages from the 2020, 2021 and 2022 seasons. Players can compete in Professional and Simulation modes for a realistic experience or jump into Sport mode for some arcade racing.

The highlight is the sheer size of the open world, which allows a good amount of freedom. However, you’ll also have to deal with weather hazards like rain, snow, and sandstorms. Along with all four seasons, Dakar Desert Rally also have day/night cycles, further adding to the challenge in terms of visibility. Stay tuned for more details on the title, including any updates, in the coming days.

LEGO Bricktales

While LEGO Brawls was all about combat, Clockstone’s LEGO Bricktales is a more chilled-out experience. You explore gorgeous LEGO dioramas, from deserts and a castle to Caribbean islands, solving puzzles and receiving new skills to spice up your grandfather’s aging amusement park. The main appeal is being given bricks and figuring out the solutions.

It’s an interesting mix of engineering and sandbox gameplay with five biomes to explore, multiple collectibles and side quests and a dedicated Sandbox Mode to tinker around in. LEGO Bricktales launches on October 12th for Xbox, PlayStation, PC, and Nintendo Switch.

Persona 5 Royal (Xbox, PC, Switch, and PS5)

After garnering critical acclaim on the PS4 for two years, Persona 5 Royal is finally coming to Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC, Nintendo Switch and PS5 on October 21st. As an enhanced version of Persona 5, Royal offers new story events, a new Palace, Ultimate Persona, quality-of-life features, a third semester, and a new party member in Kasumi. All previously released DLC is also included for free, and it’s also launching on day one for Game Pass.

If you’re yet to fall in with the Phantom Thieves and experience one of the best RPGs ever, then Persona 5 Royal is worth a look.

Dragon Ball: The Breakers

Ever wanted to play an asymmetrical, Dead by Daylight title but with Dragon Ball characters, running in fear from overpowered villainous beings? Dragon Ball: The Breakers is your oddly specific ticket, pitting seven ordinary humans against the likes of Frieza, Buu and Cell. Venture to different regions for keys to activate the Super Time Machine and either avoid the villains or use Dragon Change to fight back as legendary heroes like Goku, Vegeta, and Trunks.

The villain’s role is simple: Hunt down the survivors, level up and become stronger, and destroy any means of escape. That means decimating entire parts of the map, wrecking the time machines and beating survivors to a pulp. Dragon Ball: The Breakers is out on October 13th for Xbox One, PS4, PC, and Nintendo Switch.

New Tales from the Borderlands

Gearbox Entertainment returns to the adventure-style format (sans Telltale Games) with New Tales from the Borderlands. Out on October 21st for Xbox and PlayStation platforms along with PC and Nintendo Switch, it features three new characters – scientist Anu, her brother Octavio and Fran, the owner of a frozen yogurt store. Together, they’ll search for a Vault Key while hopefully surviving against Pandora’s various hazards and corporate entities.

As with the first game, quick-time events and dialogue choices can affect the narrative, resulting in different outcomes. Will it have Rhys and Vaughn in cameos? One can always hope.

Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle was already a stellar title that fused two unlikely intellectual properties together in a strategy RPG bonanza. But Sparks of Hope looks to be even bigger, featuring multiple planets to explore, massively expanded exploration with puzzles, side quests, and secrets, and a new antagonist in Cursa. Combat has been overhauled, doing away with the grid-based movement and adding new abilities along with the Sparks for elemental damage.

If that weren’t enough, new characters like Edge, Rabbid Rosalina and Bowser join the roster for even more unique squads. Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope launches exclusively for Nintendo Switch on October 20th.

Gotham Knights

Batman is dead, guys. For really real. As a result, it’s up to the Fumbling Four – er, the Bat Family to protect Gotham in his absence. Unlike the Arkham series, Gotham Knights is an action RPG with four playable characters – Nightwing, Robin, Red Hood, and Batgirl – each with unique abilities and play styles, gear, and stories to experience. As you fight crime, you’ll encounter classic villains like Harley Quinn, Mister Freeze, Clayface, and the mysterious Court of Owls.

Gotham Knights is out on October 21st for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC with support for two-player co-op.

A Plague Tale: Requiem

As the follow-up to Asobo Studio’s breakout action-adventure title, A Plague Tale: Requiem sees Amicia and Hugo on the run again. This time, the siblings must travel to a mysterious island, seeking a cure for Hugo’s disease before it consumes him. Things are far from ideal as mercenaries hunt them, and the plague rats are as hungry as ever.

With new weapons like a crossbow, alchemical potions, and Hugo’s ability to control the rats for devouring any foes, A Plague Tale: Requiem promises a much bigger experience. It releases on October 18th for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, PC, and Nintendo Switch via the cloud, along with Game Pass.

Scorn

What do you get when you combine “ick” with a whole lot of “yuck”? Probably Ebb Software’s Scorn, a first-person survival horror title with a biopunk aesthetic inspired by the works of H. R. Giger and Zdzisław Beksiński. Explore fantastical, disgusting structures made of machines and flesh, implant various weapons into your body, and seek answers for this whole mess across a non-linear story.

Scorn may require around 6-8 hours, probably more, on your first playthrough, but there’s nothing like it. It launches on October 21st for Xbox Series X/S and PC, along with Game Pass.

WRC Generations

KT Racing’s final WRC racing game is out on October 13th for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, and PS5, with the PC version releasing in November. It’s the biggest one yet with brand new hybrid model cars and revamped physics, 37 Legendary Cars, and 750 km of tracks spread across 22 countries. Progression has also been revamped, tracking tasks completed across the game, and the Livery Editor returns with more options and the ability to share your creations with other players. There sadly won’t be any post-launch content, but at least the new Leagues mode should satisfy fans for the long haul.

Dakar Desert Rally

If one rally racing game isn’t enough, there’s Saber Interactive’s Dakar Desert Rally. Promising the “biggest and most epic off-road rally racing adventure ever developed,” it offers 30 stages from the 2020-2022 Dakar Rally races. Players can race across a massive open world with officially licensed SSVs, quads, trucks, and much more while tackling dynamic weather like rain, snow, and the blazing sun.

With a Career mode, online multiplayer events, and four seasons to experience, Dakar Desert Rally launches on October 4th for Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PS4, PS5, and PC.

Marvel Snap

Are your current Hearthstone and/or Marvel needs not being met? Worry not, because Marvel Snap releases on October 18th for PC, Android and iOS. Developed by Second Dinner Studios, which consists of Hearthstone veterans, it’s a 1v1 multiplayer CCG with over 150 unique cards to play (and more coming post-launch).

Matches play out in random locations with different effects and players can “Snap” to effectively double down in a match. Whether it overtakes Hearthstone and Legends of Runeterra, the fast-paced gameplay and gorgeous comic book illustrations make Marvel Snap worth checking out.

Overwatch 2

Blizzard Entertainment’s Overwatch 2 finally launches on October 4th for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, PC, and Nintendo Switch…as an early access, free-to-play title. It’s pretty much an update to Overwatch 1 with three new heroes – Junker Queen, Sojourn and Kiriko; six new maps; and the new Push mode. Assault is out, and teams now consist of five players with only one Tank. A seasonal model of content releases is also in effect, meaning no more loot boxes but yes to an in-game store and Battle Passes.

Time will tell how it pans out. All players will need to enable SMS Protect while new players have to unlock each hero and play 50 Quick Play matches to unlock Competitive (not to mention unlocking Kiriko and future new heroes in the Battle Pass). But at least it supports crossplay and cross-progression with all Overwatch 1 cosmetics carrying over.

PGA Tour 2K23

Two years after PGA Tour 2K21, the next edition of 2K Games’ golfing simulator will release on October 14th for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC, PS4, and PS5. Aside from the usual PGA Tour mode and MyPLAYER (which offers new skills and archetypes), male and female pros are now playable. The Course Designer also returns with cross-platform support and online sharing. With multiple control options, online multiplayer (including Divot Derby) and Online Societies for Clubhouses, it should be a sizable leap over its predecessor.

NHL 23

Also launching on October 14th is EA Sports’ NHL 23. Along with mixed women’s and men’s teams in Ultimate Team mode, the hockey sim offers new gameplay features like Last Chance Puck Movement. It allows for hitting the puck even after tripping, with players taking advantage of new Stumble Actions to score. Enhanced goalie AI, on-ice projections, more customization in HUT to go with new reward tiers in the rotating HUT Rivals playlist, and more also await. NHL 23 will be available for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, and PS5 at launch.

Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed

Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed is IllFonic’s latest asymmetrical multiplayer title, which sees a squad of four Ghostbusters taking on a single mischievous Ghost. As the Ghostbusters, one must explore a map and track down the Ghost, taking care to calm civilians in the process. Meanwhile, the Ghost must terrorize everyone, possessing objects to stay hidden and ultimately evading capture to haunt a location.

With crossplay, original actors like Dan Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson reprising their original roles, and co-op and offline play, Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed should be a fun diversion when it launches on October 18th for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, and PC. And remember – don’t cross the streams.

Bayonetta 3

The Umbra Witch finally returns as Bayonetta 3 launches exclusively for the Nintendo Switch on October 28th. While the basic hack and slash combat remains, the sequel introduces several new mechanics. Demon Slave allows for directly controlling Infernal Demons to bash giant foes, while Demon Masquerade sees Bayonetta fusing with a demon to gain new abilities. Throw in new weapons, a new playable character Viola, and a multi-world threat in the form of the Singularity, and Bayonetta 3 promises to be the series’ most explosive title yet.

Second Extinction

Systemic Reaction, which has been in the news for its upcoming open-world rogue-lite Ravenbound, will finally release its co-op dinosaur shooter Second Extinction on October 20th for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC. The idea is to survive against hordes of dinosaurs with two other players, and there are six heroes, 11 weapons and multiple missions to tackle.

The real twist is War Effort where the threat level of a region increases or decreases based on how the community performs. If you’re still holding out for a new Dino Crisis, then this could make the wait easier.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Along with the campaign, fans can look forward to multiplayer with new modes and weapons along with a revamped Gunsmith. There are also co-op missions for two players and Raids that offer in-depth puzzle solving and firefights for three players. If battle royale is more your speed, Warzone 2.0 will launch just a few weeks later and offer a new Gulag and AI foes.

GRID Legends

While the GRID reboot didn’t exactly reignite interest in the franchise, Codemasters’ GRID Legends is looking a lot better. It features a new story mode called Driven to Glory with a professional cast and protagonist Nathan McKane finally being voiced. There are also over 130 tracks and more than 100 vehicles from electric cars to trucks competing in numerous events, though players can also create custom races that throw every vehicle type together. GRID Legends is out on February 23^rd for PS4, Xbox One, PS5, PC and Xbox Series X/S.