Assuming it’s not retelling an existing story, a game set in a world built with small plastic bricks doesn’t need a complicated or intense setup, and Lego Bricktales knows that. Off the bat, it doesn’t take itself too seriously and benefits from that decision. The setup is that your grandpa has asked you to revitalize his abandoned theme park, and you need to use a portal he created to acquire energy to power the new rides. This takes you to five unique worlds, ranging from the simple jungle world to the more entertaining medieval and Caribbean worlds, where your goal is to retrieve a Happiness Crystal to supply energy, usually by doing some busywork for characters in these worlds.

"While the actual brick-by-brick building falls into the same pitfalls on a controller as many strategy games have in the past, the story and open world around the building mechanic really bring the game to life, despite being overly cheesy and self-aware. It’s not a game that’s going to give you much of a mental strain or a deep, immersive world, but for a Lego building game set in a Lego world, it does its job well enough."

A good number of these small tasks see you taking control of a Lego set and building something to help you out in the world. These usually fall into two categories. The first is to build a specific object, like a generator or a drone, with specific guidelines needing to be met. Some of these builds even resemble real-life Lego sets, albeit pared down significantly, by making you reconstruct an item piece by piece to match exactly as the instructions say. The other type of build is a more interesting, creative affair where you are given a certain number and type of blocks and told to make some kind of structure, like a bridge or staircase, without it collapsing. The game is relatively generous with the pieces it gives you, both in number and in type, but I certainly felt the most challenged and engaged when I was given more freedom in my building. Regardless of build type, you have a good amount of license as to how much creativity you want to put into each structure. Do you want a flat bridge that gets you from one place to another, or do you want a complicated, multi-layer masterpiece? The choice is yours. There’s even a free build mode that removes the limits on piece amounts or types.

The difficulty level for building any of the required structures can vary, though with a couple notable exceptions, they’re mostly relatively straightforward. The mechanics of actually building a structure can be a bit frustrating, though, and it takes some patience to get used to it. Building at the level of precision needed to build with Lego’s has never been a strong suit of either a controller or console, and it suffers here. The automatic depth snapping is relatively intuitive, but when it doesn’t work, depth perception can be almost impossible to read. Especially with smaller pieces, it usually takes some trial and error to even put the block in your intended spot.

Testing structures can take unnecessarily long, too. The game does a performance simulation with robots, but it doesn’t do a great job at telling why something broke or when a ledge or gap is too much for them to handle, which makes for a good amount of time wasted with fruitless simulations. It’s also worth noting that as the game went along, response times during builds began to slow down, and I’d be waiting a second or two each time I tried to select a block. It might not seem like a huge difference each time, but combining the few extra seconds without immediate feedback makes for a sometimes frustrating build experience.

"As the game went along, response times during builds began to slow down, and I’d be waiting a second or two each time I tried to select a block. It might not seem like a huge difference each time, but combining the few extra seconds without immediate feedback makes for a sometimes frustrating build experience."

Outside of builds, Lego Bricktales has a surprisingly interesting open world, despite it having very few original ideas. Each world will have you visiting a main person, such as a scientist in the city world or a king in the medieval world, and fulfilling an ultimate request to acquire the Happiness Crystal. The writing does its best to give the characters some personality, especially your robot partner, who plays a Clank-like role and drives most of the conversations. However, almost every conversation boils down to what task a certain person wants you to do for them, regardless of how much the game directly acknowledges it.

While many of the tasks require builds, there are a few other interesting gameplay mechanics that come into play. In each world, you gain a new superpower, like seeing invisible objects in the world or spraying water, and these allow you to both solve puzzles around the world and reach new or hidden areas with collectibles. These superpowers allow you to travel back to any of the worlds you’ve been to and find new secrets or puzzles. None of the puzzles at any point are particularly difficult, but they definitely make use of the mechanics well, and the collectibles strike a great balance between being commonly visible and difficult to acquire.

None of the worlds are particularly large or filled with content. I was able to get through each of the five main worlds’ stories in 1-2 hours each with around a 60% overall completion, but in doing so, they never get boring or overstay their welcome. While it’s difficult to say the worlds are graphically impressive, they are all about as visually unique as different Lego environments can be and cover a surprising amount of verticality. Traversal can be a bit annoying when the isometric camera gets in the way, but it’s an overall relatively easygoing gameplay experience that makes the most of the time between builds.

"None of the worlds are particularly large or filled with content. I was able to get through each of the five main worlds’ stories in 1-2 hours each with around a 60% overall completion, but in doing so, they never get boring or overstay their welcome."

Lego Bricktales rides the wave of successful Lego games but makes one of the more pure Lego experiences I’ve seen in a game by focusing heavily on the building aspect, and as such, the building experience is a good amount of fun. There’s nothing incredibly special about its mechanics, nor does it do everything right, but with its idea of giving you freedom to build how you want and, more often than not, what you want, there’s a lot of creative license you can take to build like you would in real life, with the same frustrations and trial and error a real Lego set would bring. The game attempts to contextualize everything with a surprisingly successful, if not entirely unique or immersive sequence of worlds, especially with some of the surprisingly thoughtful puzzles and use of superpowers. This isn’t a game that’s going to blow you away in any single aspect, but it’s a highly relaxing, satisfying experience that allows you to build your own creations and see them come to life in a true Lego context.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox Series X.

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.