The other major addition is Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, the last mainline title in the franchise, which further embraced the turn-based combat introduced in Yakuza: Like a Dragon. Other notable additions include A Little to the Left, art of rally, Expeditions: A MudRunner Game, The Exit 8, and Darkest Dungeon 2 – all playable on PS5 and PS4.

Meanwhile, A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead is exclusive to PS5 players. Though not the best survival horror/stealth title by any means, it could be a worthwhile experience for those who like the movies. Meanwhile, Premium subscribers, only one PlayStation Classic is coming – Ridge Racer, playable on PS5 and PS4.

It features all the usual classic features, including quick save, rewind, up-rendering, and custom filters. And really, what more can you say, other than it’s Ridge Racer? Whether you’re playing through Time Trials or battling it out against the AI in, well, Battle Mode, it’s the classic arcade racing experience that you (hopefully) know and love.

This follows its addition to Game Pass Ultimate, Premium and PC on January 20th, so you can likely expect it to go live on the same day. With Resident Evil Requiem launching on February 27th, it’s the perfect time to catch up on the series, even if it’s more about revisiting the tragedy of Raccoon City than the Winters family.

PS Plus is also one-upping Game Pass by allegedly including Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. As you may recall, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio said there were no plans to add it to Microsoft’s subscription service. It seemingly has no issues adding it to Sony’s, though. Both titles will reportedly be available for PS4 and PS5.

Of course, that’s not all. You can also apparently expect Expeditions: A MudRunner Game, The Exit 8 and art of rally for the same platforms as well. Meanwhile, PS5 players gain exclusive access to A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead. The official announcement will apparently go live in a few hours, so stay tuned for updates.

ANIMAL WELL 

The golden age of Metroidvanias continues to deliver modern classics, and Animal Well has surely joined that list. With no combat whatsoever and a striking pixel art aesthetic, it allows itself to stand out in a crowded genre, while its finely crafted and dense world, which remains a constant joy to explore from start to finish, is also a highlight. For fans of Metroidvanias, this one is unmissable.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl

GSC Game World’s sequel isn’t a particularly challenging survival experience when managing hunger and radiation. However, patience and endurance are key, whether deducing and defusing anomalies, surviving encounters with Mutants or managing your inventory and dealing with the encumbrance. Doing all this without any fast travel is just the cherry on top. The lethality of firearms also goes both ways, ensuring each gunfight could be fatal with proper preparation.

Expeditions’ Season 1 has gone live, bringing with it a handful of major new additions. The headline introduction is co-op, with four players now being allowed to play with each other and collaborate as they explore, plan routes, share information, use tools, and more. Cross-play is also confirmed, so players on all platforms can play with each other. 

Season 1 also brings with it a challenging new biome in caves. While exploring caves, players will have to make use of non-traditional ways of traversal, smartly utilize their tools, and choose the best vehicles for the job. On top of that, players can also expect three new vehicles, two new Specialists, a helipad upgrade for your base, the new GPS tracker tool, and more. Check out the trailer below for more details. 

Expeditions: A MudRunner Game is available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC. 

On September 4th, Age of Mythology: Retold, a remake of the 2002 real-time strategy classic, will go live for cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X/S. Following last week’s advanced access launch, it’s garnered a “Very Positive” rating on Steam based on 3,421 user reviews.

September 5th sees the launch of Expeditions: A MudRunner Game for cloud, PC, and consoles. As the latest title in the MudRunner series, it takes a more adventure-heavy approach, with players mapping out regions and surmounting obstacles in the wild.

Riders Republic follows on September 11th, with the multiplayer title offering numerous outdoor sports like bike racing, skiing, snowboarding, and wingsuiting. There are also massive races in which up to 64 players can participate. Train Sim World 5 closes out the wave when it launches on September 17th for cloud, consoles and PC.

Check out the titles leaving the service on September 15th:

• Ashes of Singularity: Escalation (PC)
• FIFA 23 (Cloud, Console, and PC, EA Play)
• Payday 3 (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Slime Rancher 2 (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• SpiderHeck (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• You Suck At Parking (Cloud, Console, and PC)

The leaker claims the game will be available for subscribers on both PC and Xbox. Though a specific date for its arrival is unknown, it is supposedly set to arrive this month. Previous leaks have claimed that Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy is also set to arrive for Game Pass on August 8, so if that is true, it’s possible that both titles get announced together. 

In our review of the game, we awarded it a score of 9/10, saying, “When it comes to the joy of off-road driving, few games can capture the feel as expertly or effortlessly as Expeditions: A MudRunner Game.” Read the full review through here.

Also coming to Game Pass later this month is Mafia: Definitive Edition, which will become available for subscribers on August 13. 

These games tap into an aspect of driving vehicles that not many other titles tend to use, namely the idea that the second-to-second gameplay of just driving a vehicle can be inherently interesting even without the feeling of competition. With Expeditions: A MudRunner Game, the developer has once more tapped into these aspects. What sets it apart from its predecessors, however, is that it also features a whole lot of everything else.

"Most missions you take on in Expeditions: A MudRunner Game will have you drive to a spot, maybe pick up some cargo, and transport it elsewhere."

To start with, Expeditions: A MudRunner Game is a title I like to refer to as a car-versus-environment game. There are barely any roads to drive on in the game, and most of the time, you’ll be trying to scale mountains and avoid falling off cliffs as you explore the world around you. Expeditions isn’t just meaningless exploration, however, as missions are a core part of how you’ll be spending your time with the game. The core gameplay revolves around completing various missions, earning money and unlocking upgrades for your vehicles in the process.

Most missions you take on in Expeditions: A MudRunner Game will have you drive to a spot, maybe pick up some cargo, and transport it elsewhere. Despite this being the main mission design in the entire game, what keeps things from getting stale is that the minute-to-minute driving in Expeditions never really gets boring.

Expeditions: A MudRunner Game leans heavily on the simulation side of off-road driving. Not only do you have to pay attention to regular things like rocks and cliffs, but you’ll also have to manage your car’s gear shifting, enable and disable your AWD and differential locks as needed, and even adjust your vehicle’s tyre pressure on the fly. Along with all of these options, you’ll also have to make sure you have enough spare parts to repair whatever damage you might take in the treacherous paths you decide to take, and even make sure that you’re carrying enough extra fuel to complete your mission.

"What keeps things from getting stale is that the minute-to-minute driving in Expeditions never really gets boring."

""

All of these smaller systems play quite well with each other. For example, leaving AWD on all the time is a terrible idea since, while your handling capabilities are greatly improved, your vehicle also starts guzzling down fuel at a faster pace. In longer missions, this could easily leave you stranded and need you to call in a vehicle extraction from your base, essentially erasing a whole bunch of progress in the process. Tyre pressure also similarly affects mileage. Thankfully, there are other tools to make life easier, with my personal favorite one being the winch. Essentially, the winch allows you to grapple on to a nearby tree and pull your vehicle through difficult terrains. The winch is also quite versatile, and you’ll eventually find yourself in missions where you’re tasked with retrieving entire vehicles by using the winch.

You’re never really going to drive at blazing speeds in Expeditions: A MudRunner Game, and considering the type of terrain you have to drive through, speed would be a terrible idea anyway. You’re instead rewarded for taking your time and plotting out your routes with several provided tools, which include a drone for some quick scouting, binoculars, and the echo sounder, which lets you figure out the depths of different nearby bodies of water. That’s right, going into water that’s too deep can also be incredibly dangerous, and not just because your car will disappear into its depths; you might just get stuck in a slightly deeper part of the river and be unable to drive your way out.

The biggest change in Expeditions from MudRunner and SnowRunner, along with its choice of maps, is the fact that there’s a much larger emphasis on building your own base up. As you complete missions, you’ll earn money, gather up supplies, and ultimately, be able to build up your base with different amenities that might end up making your life easier, be it fueling stations to make managing longer drives simpler, or the ability to swap out between your vehicles mid-mission.

"You’re rewarded for taking your time and plotting out your routes with several provided tools"

The main stars of Expeditions, however, are its maps. The game provides players with a host of different maps to explore, ranging from archeological sites and forgotten ruins all over Arizona, to the Grand Canyon, and even the Carpathians. The game can look downright gorgeous at times, and there’s definitely something special about spending several minutes trying to force your janky truck up the side of a particularly steep mountain, only to find a plateau, take a deep breath, and enjoy the beautiful scenery all around you. The fact that just about everything you see can also be explored—as long as you’re prepared and determined enough—is just icing on the cake.

It is worth noting that Expeditions relies a lot on a player’s own sense of purpose and drive to explore. There isn’t really much of an overarching story that’s sending you on an epic quest to deliver goods to these mountains. Unlike something like Death Stranding, you’re not going to meet characters that will debate each other about the nature of loneliness and isolation. The closest thing you’ll get to a narrative in Expeditions is in the descriptions for your missions, and even then, you won’t really get any real form of narrative aside from justifications for why you’re getting paid for driving in these remote locations.

Ultimately, none of that matters, however, since the core experience of driving in Expeditions is enough to carry the game on its own. The mechanical complexity achieved by the game by having several of its vehicle-management systems interact in interesting ways, all while you try to plot the least dangerous route through incredibly dangerous locations lends itself quite well for emergent narratives to form. You won’t really care about why you’re driving to a place and delivering some supplies. Rather, you’ll fondly remember all the trials and tribulations you faced while making the journey, and some of the smaller details, like how you almost ran out of fuel, or how you’re glad you had the foresight to bring a spare tyre for the trip.

"The mechanical complexity achieved by the game by having several of its vehicle-management systems interact in interesting ways"

""

Expeditions is far from a simple game. It is, however, quite an easy title to enjoy. The emergent narratives that pop up thanks to the game’s systems interacting in fun ways, along with your own sense of wanting to explore gorgeous cliffs and epic mountains, is what makes playing Expeditions: A MudRunner Game fun. The only real downside is that one of the best parts of MudRunner and SnowRunner—online co-op—won’t be making it into the game for a few more months after release. Aside from that, however, Expeditions: A MudRunner Game is still one of the more fun and interesting titles out there.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.

Expeditions: A MudRunner Game throws players into the shoes of an off-road driver as they brave the fierce and beautiful wilderness. Players will have to make use of tools and high-tech gadgets in order to navigate through muddy terrain, rocky hills, and lush jungles, as they partake in missions to deliver cargo and set up research facilities.

While it borrows quite a bit from its predecessors MudRunner and SnowRunner, Expeditions: A MudRunner Game introduces new systems to place the focus squarely on aspects of exploration. The game features more than 40 expeditions across different biomes. There are also plans for the studio to add a host of content to the game with post-launch updates, including new zones, vehicles, and specialists.

Hi-Fi Rush (PS5)

Step aside Starfield and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle – the true best Xbox exclusive is coming to PS5 on March 19th. Tango Gameworks’ Hi-Fi Rush already cemented itself as one of the best character-driven, hack-and-slash action-adventure titles ever made when it suddenly dropped last year. The addition of rhythmic elements to the combat with a gorgeous art style and fun humor, made it all the more endearing, but PS5 players can experience the Arcade Challenge! Update! for more challenges and replay value right out the gate.

Outpost: Infinity Siege

If you’re a fan of sci-fi tower defense and base-building, then Team Ranger’s Outpost: Infinity Siege may be worth checking out. Story details are lacking at the moment, but it involves gathering resources, managing units and fighting for survival across multiple sci-fi zones with unique hazards, with a mix of first-person gunplay and overhead commands. You can customize your Protoslag Gun in different ways and team up with friends in co-op, including an endless Horde-mode style mode. Outpost: Infinity Siege is out on March 26th for PC.

Winter Survival

Between Palworld, Sons of the Forest, Enshrouded, Nightingale and Pacific Drive, there are plenty of survival crafting games to jump into. DRAGO Entertainment’s Winter Survival is another potentially worth noting as players fight for survival on a hike gone wrong in Mount Washington State Park. Hunt the wildlife, stave off the cold and hunger, and explore the area to find refuge. Random events can also occur, for better or worse, but the real challenge is managing your sanity, especially when hallucinations start to manifest. Winter Survival launches on March 6th for PC via Steam Early Access, where it will remain for at least six months.

Lightyear Frontier

Of course, those seeking something less stressful can look into Lightyear Frontier. The farming title sees players venturing to a far-off planet for farming purposes. Despite having a mech, it’s more of a multi-purpose tool, allowing you to plough the fields, clear out pollution, plant new trees, and much more (and yes, you can also build a home). With co-op support, it should be interesting to see how Lightyear Frontier fares when it launches into early access on March 19th for Xbox Series X/S and PC.

WWE 2K24

Controversies loom heavily for the WWE following a lawsuit against its former chairman, Vince McMahon. Wrestlemania season rolls on regardless, though, and a new WWE 2K title is out on March 8th for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5 and PC. Visual Concepts’ WWE 2K24 offers a new 2K Showcase highlighting 40 years of memorable Wrestlemania matches; new match types like Ambulance, Gauntlet, Special Referee and Coffin; and various new features for MyGM, MyFACTION and Universe Mode. Even Backstage Brawl has been revamped to feel more brutal.

Dragon’s Dogma 2

Dragon’s Dogma 2 is out on March 22nd for PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC. Combat is real-time and includes new Vocations like the Mystic Spearhand, Warfarer and Trickster, powerful skills and Pawn actions, the world has limited fast travel and a hefty amount of side content that players may miss. Dragon’s Dogma 2 could be a stand-out RPG in this highly competitive quarter.

Rise of the Ronin

Rise of the Ronin is Team Ninja’s biggest project yet and seven years in the making. It’s an open-world action RPG that takes several combat cues from Nioh, particularly its Styles and weapon types while adding a glider, Grappling Hook and even character switching. As a Veiled Edge in the Bakumatsu era of Japan, players must side with different historical figures and carve their path, with multiple decisions deciding their fate.

Forming bonds with characters can alter the course of the story and unlock new endings. However, the developer also promises extensive side content and detailed cities like Edo, Yokohama and Kyoto. It’s out on March 22nd, exclusively for PS5, and with a character creator, four-player co-op and different difficulty options, we can’t wait to see how it pans out.

MLB The Show 24

It wouldn’t be a year of sports follow-ups without a new MLB The Show. Launching on March 19th for Xbox One, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and Nintendo Switch, MLB The Show 24 offers 400 new animations, including new pitcher animations, revamped base sizes, and multiple other gameplay improvements. Modes like Diamond Dynasty, Road to the Show, Franchise, and March to October also return, while this year’s Storylines sees the addition of Derek Jeter’s 1995 to 2000 seasons.

Outcast – A New Beginning

Appeal Studios’ Outcast – A New Beginning is a dream come true for long-time fans of the 1999 adventure classic, especially after the cancellation of Outcast 2: The Lost Paradise. Cutter Slade returns to Adelpha, and he’s once again on a mission to save the Talans. With extensive weapon customization, different abilities, a large open world with secrets to uncover and extensive wildlife, and a jetpack for quick exploration, A New Beginning promises an extensive amount of freedom like the original. It launches on March 15th for Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and PC.

Contra: Operation Galuga

The Contra series hasn’t had the best track record lately, especially 2019’s Contra: Rogue Corps. However, Contra: Operation Galuga is a vast improvement, as WayForward embraces the 80s-style run-and-gun action complete with big bosses, several playable characters, three difficulty options and eight stages for players to test their mettle. New weapons, Overlord abilities and stackable upgrades also sound enticing, and there’s even support for up to four players in Arcade Mode. Contra: Operation Galuga arrives on March 12th for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, PC and Nintendo Switch, with a free demo currently available.

Expeditions: A MudRunner Game

If you liked Snowrunner and wanted more of the same, Expeditions: A MudRunner Game…isn’t exactly that. Instead, it’s more of an exploration title where you work with a research team to explore three massive maps. Unearth treasures, transport equipment, help other truckers – the list goes on, with several new tools to help navigate the dreaded landscape and Specialists to lend their knowledge. Expeditions: A MudRunner Game is out on March 5th for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, Xbox One, PS4, PC and Nintendo Switch.

Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition (PC)

After Horizon Zero Dawn, it’s now the turn of Guerrilla Games’ Horizon Forbidden West to launch on PC. The Complete Edition includes the acclaimed base game and expansion, The Burning Shores, while supporting 21:9 and 32:9 displays alongside 48:9 triple monitor set-ups. PC players can also look forward to Nvidia DLSS 3 and DLAA support, in addition to AMD FSR and Intel XeSS being supported. If nothing else, Nixxes Software being in charge should mean a much better port than the original when it arrives on March 21st.

Princess Peach: Showtime!

Princess Peach finally gets her time to shine as the protagonist again when Princess Peach: Showtime! arrives on March 22nd for Nintendo Switch. The action-adventure title sees her utilizing various transformations to defeat Wicked Grape and the Sour Bunch, from the deadly Ninja Peach to the martial arts of Kung Fu Peach. You can even don a detective hat as, well, Detective Peach and duel with Swordfighter Peach. Overall, Princess Peach: Showtime! looks like a massive step up from 2005’s Super Princess Peach in every way.

Planet Zoo: Console Edition

A console re-release of a Frontier Developments’ management title on PC from 2019? Odd as it may be, Planet Zoo: Console Edition is out on March 26th for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. It features the same content that fans of the original love, from creating different habitats in your dream zoo to caring for various animal species (complete with console-centric controls). The Frontier Workshop also gets cross-platform sharing, providing even more content to download, but there’s also a Season Pass for a whopping 14 additional DLC packs for console players.

Open Roads

Previously set to launch in February, Annapurna Interactive’s Open Roads is now out on March 28th for PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC. The story of Tess and her mother, Opal, still looks endearing as they embark on a road trip and revisit the past (unearthing some secrets along the way). With a uniquely gorgeous art style and an atmosphere that evokes the nostalgia of simpler times, Open Roads should be worth checking out for adventure game fans.