Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection (on PC)

When the remastered duo launched for PS5 in January, it debuted in fifth place on Gfk’s UK physical sales charts. Pretty good, even if it didn’t hit the top 20 for The NPD Group’s best-selling games for the month. Its PC version is a completely different story, though, hitting a peak concurrent player count of only 10,851 on Steam when it was released in October. Either because there wasn’t much hype around it, or other big titles took all the attention, the collection just didn’t resonate.

CrossfireX

With a whopping 38 out of 100 Metascore and lacklustre marketing, it was somewhat expected that CrossfireX wouldn’t do great. Lo and behold, it didn’t chart anywhere in The NPD Group’s February 2022 sales rankings, nor did it warrant a mention in Gfk’s physical charts for the UK. However, given how popular Crossfire’s multiplayer is in China and South Korea (with over $1 billion in revenue each year since 2014), this won’t hurt Smilegate’s bottom line one bit.

Monark

You could call Monark another victim of Elden Ring’s overwhelming presence, especially in Europe, where it launched on the same day as the Souls-like. That’s probably why it wasn’t mentioned anywhere in Gfk’s physical sales charts for the week. It also had only 177 peak concurrent players on Steam in the West. Then again, when released last year in Japan, it barely hit 16,000 units sold on PS4 and Nintendo Switch. Couple that with poor critical reception, and its failure is understandable.

Ghostwire: Tokyo

Tango Gameworks’ Ghostwire Tokyo was one of the premiere PS5 console exclusives this year and sadly didn’t perform up to par. It debuted in 12th place for The NPD Group’s March 2022 charts, and in 11thth place for Gfk’s UK physical game charts. Not only that, but it sold 80 percent less than The Evil Within 2 in the UK, which was considered to have performed poorly at launch. Though it managed sixth place in its debut in Japan, it only sold 10,144 units in its first week. Even the Steam numbers were nothing to write home about, with a peak concurrent total of 14,086 players in its lifetime.

Shadow Warrior 3

Shadow Warrior 3 was intriguing in how it not only went with a super-linear approach to its levels but also stuck to previous-gen consoles and PC. Blame it on the lack of marketing buzz, the shadows of Elden Ring and Horizon Forbidden West, or something else, but when released on March 1st, 2022, it was nowhere to be seen in Gfk’s UK physical sales charts or GSD’s digital sales charts. Even the peak concurrent player count on Steam was a mere 1,651 players.

GRID Legends

Another game which likely suffered due to releasing too close to Elden Ring and Horizon Forbidden West is Codemasters’ GRID Legends. It debuted in 18th place in Gfk’s UK physical sales charts and was pretty much never heard from again after that. Yes, not even in The NPD Group’s best-selling titles for February and March 2022. SteamDB reveals a peak concurrent player count of just 455, which is just a few days after it launched.

Roller Champions

Roller Champions’ success is a bit harder to measure since, well, it’s a free-to-play title. That being said, its digital revenue hasn’t warranted any mention this year. It launched to very little reaction on PC, Xbox One, and PS4, and the Switch release did nothing to help this either. Lest anyone thinks the recent Steam release would aid in a resurgence, it has had a peak concurrent player total of 141. Such was the response that reports quickly circulated of the game being sunset, which Ubisoft denied.

Marvel’s Midnight Suns

One of the big three releases of December, Marvel’s Midnight Suns has a lot going for it with the XCOM team involved, strong critical acclaim, and some well-known Marvel heroes. It even had 15,500 peak concurrent players on Steam. Sales-wise, the story is less positive, as it debuted in a mortifying 26th place in the UK physical sales charts. Granted, Firaxis is known more for its PC player base (as seen with the Steam user count), and the digital sales could help, but the Xbox Series X/S and PS5 numbers can’t be entirely discounted. Maybe it was just the victim of too many big releases on the same day, as evidenced by The Callisto Protocol performing way better.

Need for Speed Unbound

Due to its release timing, we won’t know how Need for Speed Unbound performed in the US until next month. As for the UK, its launch week physical sales were down a staggering 64 percent compared to Need for Speed Heat, earning it only 17th place. This may seem expected, but it’s the tenth-biggest IP in the region’s history. Things hardly improved the next week when it slipped to 19th place following a 19 percent sales drop. Steam player numbers aren’t so great either, with a peak concurrent total of only 14,063.

Star Ocean: The Divine Force

Compared to Valkyrie Elysium, Star Ocean: The Divine Force performed decently when it launched in Japan, with over 44,000 units sold on PS4 and PS5. The problem? It’s the weakest game launch in the series. The first Star Ocean in June 1996 sold over 81,000 copies on the Super Famicom, for crying out loud. The Divine Force failed to crack Gfk’s top 10 in the UK and debuted in 14th place for the US, according to The NPD Group, before quietly fading away.

Gungrave G.O.R.E.

Gungrave G.O.R.E. launched a few weeks after Sonic Frontiers and God of War Ragnarok, and days after Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. Shock of shocks, it neither charted in the UK nor the US. On Steam, it has a peak concurrent player total of 138, which says it all.

Harvestella

This one hurts, simply because I loved Livewire’s Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights. Sadly, Harvestella matched up in neither sales nor critical acclaim. It debuted in second place in Famitsu’s Japan sales charts with 26,644 units sold on Nintendo Switch, but only reached 38,704 sales before dropping out entirely. On PC, it had a measly 3,395 peak concurrent players via Steam.

The DioField Chronicle

Square Enix may have some heavy hitters coming in 2023, but this year has been rather disastrous for the publisher. It released a flurry of underwhelming titles and commercial flops, like The DioField Chronicle. The strategy RPG launched at 17th place in Gfk’s UK physical sales charts and sold about 12,068 units in its first week in Japan across Nintendo Switch, PS4, and PS5. SteamDB notes 1,272 peak concurrent players over its lifetime, which is pretty sad.

Sackboy: A Big Adventure (PC)

Considering how valuable the PC market has been for Sony with Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War (2018), and Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered, it was expected that Sackboy would follow up on that success. Alas, it wasn’t to be. It recorded a meagre 610 peak concurrent players since launch, far less than even Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection. Sony hasn’t revealed sales numbers, and maybe it’s unfair to expect much out of a lesser-known IP on PC. Nevertheless, it’s still disappointing.

New Tales from the Borderlands

Released on October 21st, 2022, you’d expect a new Borderlands title, much less the follow-up to Tales from the Borderlands, to get a decent response. But either due to the lack of marketing, Telltale not returning, the premise or a flurry of other releases, New Tales from the Borderlands came and went with very little response. It wasn’t mentioned by Gfk in its UK physical charts for the end of October and throughout November. Even worse, it didn’t even chart in The NPD Group’s US sales charts for October and November.

CrossfireX

Based on Smilegate’s super-popular free-to-play shooter, CrossfireX garnered attention because Remedy was behind its campaign. However, this was little more than two short “Operations” with bad writing, cliched and boring gameplay, and terrible AI. The studio’s trademark panache was missing here, though the Northlight Engine looked decent, and the “revamped” multiplayer didn’t offer much either.

Gungrave G.O.R.E

Some games are developed for years, and you hate to see them launch as Gungrave G.O.R.E has. Any notions of style that Overdose may have had all those years ago are overridden by an ugly visual style, from the characters to the levels. The story sounds like it could make for some B-movie-level fun but ends up confusing and outright time-wasting. Gameplay-wise, the sheer amount of jank in animations, movement, and combat are just awful all around.

Source of Madness

In theory, Source of Madness sounds cool. It uses procedural generation to create its Lovecraftian-esque nightmares and neural network AI to animate them. Unfortunately, this results in unpredictable enemies, further adding to the brutal difficulty alongside the shoddy controls. Even if you can appreciate the aesthetic, the sheer lack of strategy that enemies display, horrible bosses, and lackluster progression ensures little payoff for surviving this nightmare.

Winter Ember

As a dark fantasy stealth title, Winter Ember felt pretty ambitious with its 30 arrow types, 70 passive and active skills, and open-ended gameplay. The interesting aesthetic and setting are hampered by poor combat, awful enemy AI, shoddy cover while sneaking, and the same repetitive gameplay loop. Even the audio design, an essential part of a stealth experience, is not good, executing any hope one could have for this mess.

XEL

A sci-fi adventure inspired by Zelda with an appealing art style – what could go wrong? As XEL proves, quite a lot. The sheer number of bugs and lack of polish will put you off immediately. Once you make it further in, the combat and visuals can be somewhat satisfying, but the awful story undercuts them. Too much repetition and some baffling design decisions will further kill your interest if you’re still somehow playing.

The Last Oricru

Serving as one of the poster games for the new Prime Matter label, The Last Oricru takes clear inspiration from other Souls-like titles. But that’s all it is – a shallow inspiration where everything sticks out for all the wrong reasons. It may be the annoying main character, user interface, controls or how clunky everything looks. Whatever it may be, The Last Oricru doesn’t feel good to play, look at or think about.

Dolmen

Like The Last Oricru, Dolmen is a Souls-like but sci-fi with cosmic horror. It’s also terrible, with combat missing many key features and melee combat feeling janky and poorly tuned overall. Despite how interesting the sci-fi premise looks, it’s all fluff with no real purpose or sense that fails to hook you.

MX vs ATV Legends

MX vs ATV Legends isn’t bad enough to be truly awful, but it’s enough to be annoyingly mediocre. Multiple types of vehicles to race with? Good. The slippery controls and haphazard AI? Bad, though the former has reportedly improved. The open world aspect? Good. The lack of anything to do in it? Bad. We could go on with the physics, sound design, polish, and so on. While the new Trails mode and regular tracks are decent, it’s not enough when everything else is undercooked.

The House of the Dead: Remake

With all the remakes we’ve seen in the past few years, The House of the Dead: Remake could have been something good. Maybe not great, but still good. Developer MegaPixel Studio kept almost everything as is, but the visual upgrades look too dark and ugly. The remixed soundtrack comes across as bland, and the lack of much new content (save for the missable horde mode) makes it feel overpriced. The less said about the controls and performance issues, the better.

Diablo Immortal

Maybe it’s fun on mobile, but Diablo Immortal on PC is a travesty. Its user interface is horrid, with annoying pop-ups – especially during gameplay, resulting in misclicks – and the combat is an even more dumbed-down version of Diablo 3. The campaign is there, but any interesting plot is offset by the stupid progression blockers and grinding required. The sheer scale of monetization is also appalling, to the extent that certain end-game activities are just locked off to free players. Even without it, Diablo Immortal would still be a mess as opposed to the ongoing trainwreck.

Monark

Lancarse’s track record has been a bit spotty this year, as anyone who played The DioField Chronicle will attest. There was some hope for Monark, developed by a few former Shin Megami Tensei series members. It has a school setting, Egos, and an Otherworld to explore, just like SMT and Persona. It differs, however, in the awful pacing, repetitive gameplay, and troubling characterization, to say nothing of the shallow visuals and environments. With so many other great RPG efforts this year, like Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Trails from Zero, and so on, Monark hardly warrants a look.

LEGO Brawls

A platform fighter based on LEGO sets sounds appealing in theory. The execution leaves a lot to be desired. Originally released for iOS in 2019, LEGO Brawls made its way to consoles and PC this past September. Despite its looks, the gameplay quickly becomes boring (with little difference between characters), and the sheer grind required to unlock things is a chore. The lack of stuff to do doesn’t help either.

ELEX 2

I found ELEX to be a drag, but Piranhabytes’ sci-fi action RPG garnered a dedicated cult following after its release. ELEX 2 seemed a good time to capitalize on this and deliver something better. Sadly, it’s also full of clunky combat, dull writing, boring open-world design, monotonous side quests, and an underwhelming presentation. Being able to fly with a jetpack doesn’t count for much when there are so many bugs, and the DirectX 12 rollout is a whole other rigmarole on its own.

IKAI

Despite its low production values, IKAI could have been a nice little horror title, weaving in Japanese folklore in unique ways. Alas, it falls flat. It’s very short, the plot makes little sense, and it abruptly ends with almost no payoff. This wouldn’t be too terrible if the gameplay and horror were up to par, but the former is too restrictive and lackluster, while the latter offers bland jumpscares.

Blackwind

In some alternate universe, Blackwind would have been a decent twin-stick shooter/action RPG hybrid. Unfortunately in this timeline, its premise can’t withstand the horrible story, mind-numbingly dull exploration and progression, and awful combat. The glitches and poor controls further hamper your attempts to squeeze any enjoyment out of the experience.

The Waylanders

Developer Gato Studio’s recent The Waylanders is an interesting concept with hints of promise here and there, but all of these good aspects come with their own sets of caveats. While the story is interesting on some levels, it’s marred down by unimpressive voice acting and pacing that’s all over the place. Then there’s the gameplay, which is engaging but is plagued with bugs and glitches galore. Taken as a whole, however – it’s recommended that you pass on this game.

Monark is set in Shin Mikado Academy, an ordinary high school stuck in extraordinary circumstances. An ethereal barrier surrounds the school, preventing anyone from going in or out, while a mysterious mist enveloping the area is slowly driving everyone within it insane. It falls to you, an amnesiac student, to dive into the daeomic realm known as the Otherworld, figure out what’s causing this whole mess, and then put things right.

It’s an engaging narrative premise, for which Monark deserves a lot of credit. Unsurprisingly for a game made by former Megami Tensei devs, the story here can often get deeply philosophical, and the emphasis it places on its theme is an overriding defining trait of the entire experience. That’s often let down by the writing, which can feel a bit too on-the-nose and ham-fisted at times, while the voice acting is also wildly inconsistent, but there’s more than enough to Monark’s story to keep you engaged for as long as you can put up with its gameplay.

"More often than not, Monark feels like a half-baked experience, one that could have done so much more with many of its genuinely intriguing gameplay ideas if it had been thought out better and polished up a little bit more."

I say “put up with it”, because there’s so much about the game that will feel actively hostile one way or another, either because of mind-numbing repetition or just poor design decisions. Monark’s larger structure sees you going from one building of the school to next to clear it of the fog that envelops it by defeating the Pactbreaker presiding over that area, and conceptually, it’s a task fraught with risk and tension. Spending too much time in the mist will drive up your insanity meter, and when it reaches its maximum limit, it’ll be game over- except it’s hardly anything more than a minor inconvenience, because when you restart, you can just fast travel back to a checkpoint that’ll put your pretty close to where you were before.

It doesn’t help that the actual act of exploring quickly gets boring. Outside of combat, the bulk of the game focuses on meeting with students, learning more about them, and then using that knowledge to solve puzzles- only the puzzles range from being ridiculously easy and requiring little to no engagement to being frustratingly opaque and blocking progress for far longer than they need to. The environments that you explore all quickly blend into each other as well, because there’s nothing visually interesting going on in most of them- it’s all just a collection of desks, hallways, and classrooms. It’s a shame that the game’s level design doesn’t show nearly as much ambition as its story does, leading to frustratingly repetitive structuring and gameplay.

Combat, on the other hand, does have some redeeming qualities. Blending a tactical turn-based JRPG system with free movement, Monark’s combat makes use of its Madness mechanics in interesting ways, and that, combined with things such as your positioning, your party members, and more can lead to some surprisingly complex and intriguing battle mechanics. Sadly, this is another area that is let down by other significant deficiencies.

"The environments that you explore all quickly blend into each other as well, because there’s nothing visually interesting going on in most of them- it’s all just a collection of desks, hallways, and classrooms. It’s a shame that the game’s level design doesn’t show nearly as much ambition as its story does, leading to frustratingly repetitive structuring and gameplay."

For starters, the enemy variety here is abysmal. More often than not, you’ll be fighting the same (or similar) skeletal enemies again and again, and that repetition quickly rubs the appeal off of Monark’s combat systems. More importantly, and more egregiously, this is a ridiculously grindy game. You level your characters up using a currency known as Spirit, which you get at the end of every battle, but you don’t have a fixed party in Monark, which means you’ll often be wasting Spirit on characters who’re not going to stick around for long anyway.

Worse still is the fact that often these new characters that temporarily join your party are severely under-leveled, which means you’re pretty much forced to grind and bring them up to a respectable level. Repetition is an overriding theme for much of the experience, as you may have gathered by now, and that excessive reliance on grinding is something else that adds to that. Again, it’s a real shame, because on a mechanical level, there’s a lot to like about Monark’s combat system- it’s just never allowed to flourish the way it should have been.

Monark’s issues are egregious no matter how you look at them, but they feel doubly so because on paper, there’s a lot to like here. The way the game uses its seemingly typical Japanese high school setting and blends it with its philosophical bent is very reminiscent of the Shin Megami Tensei games, but even more impressive is how it sprinkles in elements of psychological horror throughout the experience. The first few times you’re traversing through the fog, it feels genuinely unsettling. Your initial encounters with students who’re slowly losing their minds are creepy in all the right ways, and the palpable dread of not knowing what awaits around the corner, all while your own insanity slowly creeps up, makes up for a very unique vibe that we don’t get enough of in this genre. Sadly, it all falls apart as you get deeper into the experience.

"Your initial encounters with students who’re slowly losing their minds are creepy in all the right ways, and the palpable dread of not knowing what awaits around the corner, all while your own insanity slowly creeps up, makes up for a very unique vibe that we don’t get enough of in this genre. Sadly, it all falls apart as you get deeper into the experience."

If Monark had been in development a little longer, it could have turned into something special. Better design could have made the environments more varied, the exploration more interesting, and the puzzles more engaging. More time to work on the game could have allowed the developers to add more variety to the game’s battles with more interesting enemies that actually compel you to use the complex mechanics the way they ought to be. And just plain smarter design decisions could have significantly cut back on the grinding, which artificially pads out the experience’s runtime to an almost ridiculous degree.

As it stands right now, this is a game that seems impressive when you read or hear about it, but falls flat when you actually get down to playing it. Monark has a lot of great ideas, but ideas are only one half of any gaming experience- the execution is just as important, and often even more so, and unfortunately, Monark’s execution is inconsistent at best, and frustratingly bad at worst.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.

Monark launched in Japan in October of last year, and will soon be releasing in the West as well- ahead of that, publisher NIS America has released a launch trailer for the game, giving a brief glimpse of the game’s combat, gameplay, and visual style, while setting up its story a school setting. There’s some emphasis placed on “madness”, which seems to be as important as a gameplay mechanic as it is as a part of the story. Those who enjoy games like Shin Megami Tensei and Persona might find something interesting here. Check out the trailer below.

Monark will launch on February 22 for PS5, PS4, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

Along with being introduced to Shin Mikado Academy, players will also determine their Ego, engage in battles with Daemons in the Otherworld and much more. With a strange fog engulfing the school and driving its students mad, it’s up to the you and your companions to defeat the Pactbearers and restore order. Forging pacts with and commanding Fiends is key but one can also choose a “buddy” that has their own unique story route throughout the game.

Monark is out on February 22nd for PS4, PS5, PC and Nintendo Switch worldwide. To learn more about the combat, how “madness” works and much more, head here.

Set in Shin Mikado Academy, which is under siege by a strange Mist, the player is adorned with the Authority of Vanity and must fight back. Along with various companions, they can venture to the Otherworld and battle the Daemons within. Much like Shin Megami Tensei, the protagonist can make contracts with and command Fiends.

Another interesting feature is Ego which is dependent on the seven desires. Depending on the choices made and which desire the player strengthens, they can change the abilities and appearance of their Fiends. Stay tuned for more details on Monark in the coming months.

As the wielder of the Authority of Vanity, the player – along with four other characters – forms the True Student Council to combat the Mist. Exploring the Mist can be dangerous though as it causes your MAD Gauge to increase (in-battle, this causes your character to go berserk). Along with other humans, the player also commands different Fiends, much like Shin Megami Tensei.

By experiencing different events and exploring, one can strengthen their seven desires, causing the Fiends to become stronger. Monark is currently slated to release on October 14th for PC, PS4 and Nintendo Switch in Japan. It releases in early 2022 for the West which will also receive a PC version via Steam. Stay tuned for more details in the meantime.

Taking place in Shin Mikado Academy where a strange Mist, Pactbearers with Daemonic powers and other phenomena threaten to take hold, the player inherits the Authority of Vanity. Together with four other companions, the True Student Council is formed in order to bring order to things. Using your Authority in combat will provide power but at the risk of raising one’s MAD Gauge which can cause you to go berserk in combat.

With six characters to control, combat relies on superior positioning and combos. You can also wield Fiends of different types based on the seven different desires. In the day-to-day exploration, the player has to manage these desires (comprised of Pride, Wrath, Envy et al) which will develop based on their decisions. As your Ego becomes stronger, so too can your fiends.

Monark is out on October 14th in Japan for PS4, PS5 and PC. Stay tuned for more details on its English release in the coming months.

The protagonist (voiced by Gakuto Kajiwara) joins the True Student Council as its deputy head and to resolve various strange situations in his school. Along with a stuffed rabbit (voiced by Shigeru Chiba), the player can choose from one of four characters to act as a “buddy.” Each buddy has a different route and there are multiple endings to unlock. Shared routes can be skipped when replaying with a different buddy.

The combat system is command-based and has free move turns with “madness” being the core stat. Increased madness offers stronger skills but could make you go berserk and hard to control (along with lashing out at friends). Based on one’s choices, the EGO system will determine the different levels of pride, wrath, gluttony, sloth etc. Like Shin Megami Tensei, you can recruit demons as your underlings while customizing their appearance and voices.

In an interview with Famitsu, it was revealed that there were stories for 100 students and about 40 songs. How this will play out in the main story remains to be seen. Monark will see its debut trailer and background music introduction video debut at 8 PM PST today so stay tuned for more details.