For starters, The Plucky Squire, which is due out next week, will also be available via PlayStation Plus Game Catalog day and date, as previously announced. It will be joined by a handful of acclaimed narrative-driven adventure games in the form of Night in the Woods, Road 96, and Under the Waves, The Farm 51’s survival horror action RPG Chernobylite, 7v7 arcade football game Wild Card Football, Ubisoft’s open world first-person shooter Far Cry 5, colourful action-adventure title Ben 10, and voxel-based sci-fi sandbox game Space Engineers.

Additionally, PlayStation Plus Premium subscribers will also get access to a PS VR2 title in the form of Pistol Whip, and some returning legacy titles with Secret Agent Clank, Sky Gunner, and Mister Mosquito. All aforementioned titles will become available starting September 17.

Yagata Forest – Ghost of Tsushima

According to legends, the spirits of fallen samurai reside in the trees of Yagata Forest, apparently whispering among themselves. Jin will eventually investigate the legend and encounter hanging bodies before fighting off bandits. The bandits are revealed to be leveraging the legend and causing trouble for anyone who stumbled into the forest. But even with that aside, it’s the quiet, foreboding atmosphere that contributes to the spookiness more than anything else.

There aren’t many deals as good as Xbox Game Pass right now. Extending to the Xbox One, PC and now even to mobile via Xbox Cloud Gaming, it offers a pretty unprecedented amount of games for you to play. September has already seen quite a few games added, but Microsoft isn’t done yet, as a lot more is still slated to come.

The company announced a new slate of September titles to look forward to starting this week. First and foremost, on the 17th, you can get the RTS title Company of Heroes 2 on the PC version of Game Pass. On the 22nd is a double whammy of the shooter kind as you’ll be able to get access to Destiny 2: Shadowkeep and Forsaken on Xbox One and Android as well as Halo 3: ODST on PC and Android. On the 24th, you’ll get access to the indie sensation Night in the Woods across all three versions of Game Pass as well as the 4-player co-op action title Warhammer: Vermintide 2 for Xbox One and Android.

You’ll be able to have access to those title listed above soon, and you can read more about them as well as a list of most recent additions as well as soon to leave titles through the official website here.

Drakengard

The endings for Drakengard range from tragic to straight up “WTF”. In one ending, you can choose to seal the Watchers, the main antagonistic force, away in another dimension. But this requires protagonist Caim and the dragon Angelus to give up their own lives. It also doesn’t help that Caim’s sister Furiae, who he’s trying to rescue, is also killed. Even in the default ending, the world is saved from The Watchers but Angelus sacrifices herself to become the new seal (plus Furiae still dies).

In this feature, we’re going to take a look at what we feel have been the fifteen best adventure games so far this generation. Given how many of these there are to choose from, missing out on a few great ones was unavoidable on our part, so if one (or some) of your favourites got left out, let us know in your comments. With that out of the way, let’s get this started.

DETROIT: BECOME HUMAN

Adventure games are largely the domain of indie developers or studios with smaller budgets, but not exclusively so- David Cage and his team at Quantic Dreams have been making masterful adventure titles for several years now. And with Detroit: Become Human, they truly hit the ball out of the park. With a story that was meaningfully branching, choices and consequences that truly made the player stop of think, and excellent setting, and some of the best visuals we’ve ever seen in any video game, Detroit: Become Human ranks among the best of the best of this genre.

Update: The game is actually coming out on February 1st. Rebekah Saltsman (CEO and Co-Founder of Finji) reached out to GamingBolt and clarified that the original date on the eShop was a mistake.

Original Story:

One of the best games from last year- the excellent Night in the Woods, which stands as one of the best examples of in game writing, storytelling, characterization, and atmosphere we have had in a while- has finally been announced to be coming to the Nintendo Switch. The game originally launched on PC, before getting a release on PS4 and Xbox One late last year.

At that time, a Switch version was teased- and now it’s here. A listing for the game has gone up on the eShop, announcing a January 18 release date (that’s Thursday!) and a $20 price- a veritable steal for one of the best games of 2017. The download will be 6.2GB- so you better clear some space up or get an SD card. or both.

Check out a trailer for the game for yourself below. Night in the Woods, in addition to the impending Switch release, is also available on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

Paradigm

The number of adventure games that hinge on having outlandish premises is too high and it feels like Paradigm is in the same vein. The story revolves around a mutant named Paradigm cast out by his creators, only to develop a love for electronic music. It isn’t long before a candy spewing sloth comes calling and Paradigm must save the world. For all its quirks and retro-futuristic tendencies, it’s actually an extremely solid adventure packed with hilarious writing.

Nominees:

Hollow Knight

Team Cherry’s Hollow Knight doesn’t break much new ground. However, with its gorgeous art-style, stellar combat, massive and mysterious storyline and excellent environment design, it’s one of the finest Metroidvania titles ever. The aesthetic will immediately grab you before pulling you under into a dark fantasy world full of adorable (and deadly) insects. No matter which platform you’re on, Hollow Knight must be experienced.

Paradigm

Something is up in Krusz, an Eastern European country with mutants and genetically modified sloths. The game centres around Paradigm, a cast-away mutant who develops a love for electronic music before having to save the world. It’s bizarre, sure, but Paradigm is also memorable, embodying a retro future aesthetic and world design that’s best described as “Pixar meets Fallout”.

Cuphead

Fleischer-style animation meets swing music across a range of devilishly tough bosses and stages. Studio MDHR’s Cuphead is simply a triumph in visual design, embodying the 1940s seamlessly into its gameplay while presenting a unique platforming shooter for old and new school fans alike. It’s difficulty might push some people to the edge but if you stick with it, Cuphead is immensely satisfying.

SteamWorld Dig 2

Instead of the randomly generated areas of the first game, SteamWorld Dig 2 takes a decidedly more Metroidvania approach. As Dorothy, players are tasked with finding Rusty, the protagonist of the first game. That means digging through rocks, harvesting minerals, purchasing upgrades and solving the mystery of all these darn earthquakes. SteamWorld Dig 2 packs charm, enough freedom to make your own path and tons of challenges for the Metroidvania fans among us.

Statik

What happens when you’re tasked with solving puzzles in virtual reality? It sounds innocuous enough but Statik places a box around your hands, challenging you to figure out which button corresponds to which mechanic. There’s an intriguing story in the background, which also serves to provide hints to the puzzles, but Statik otherwise uses its VR premise to immerse you in a strange, hostile world with plenty of intrigue.

Night in the Woods

A talking cat traversing a nightmarish landscape while asleep and trying to make sense of her life while awake – that’s only the beginning of the rabbit hole that is Night in the Woods. This side-scrolling adventure game set in the town of Possum Springs sees protagonist Mei returning from college and trying to make sense of, well, life in general. Despite its relatively slow pacing, Night in the Woods scores with its aesthetic, quality of dialogue and strong character interactions. Greg rules, okay?

Nex Machina

Housemarque’s Nex Machina: Death Machine could be described as part Smash TV, part Robotron, three-fourths of a frantic action game and all arcade. It imbibes the spirit of old-school shoot ’em ups with a variety of weapons, screens full of enemies and a dash mechanic that adds some much needed mobility to the action. With its neon aesthetic and addictive gameplay bent, Nex Machina will eat up many, many hours of your life.

Thimbleweed Park

A dead body has turned up in Thimbleweed Park and two agents are on the case. But there’s a clown running about, a game developer torn between ambition and family, ghosts and much more swimming in the background. What is going on? A grand adventure from Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick, the legendary developers behind Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion, that’s what. Come for the old-school visuals and stay for the laughs in this bizarre yet compelling puzzle adventure.

What Remains of Edith Finch

A great narrative in today’s world, especially in the realm of gaming, is tough. What Remains of Edith Finch makes it look easy, floating seamlessly from one perspective to the next, exploring lives across time and space. The narrative style is simply breath-taking; the aesthetic is one of the year’s best; and the story will affect you in more ways than one. Needless to say, go in blind and be ready for an incredible experience.

Far From Noise

Games that focus purely on dialogue aren’t uncommon in the indie space and few are as effective with it as Far From Noise. Set on a cliff with two characters trapped in a car, a discussion begins about the nature of life, the likelihood of death and making peace with one’s self until the end. It’s involving, interesting and worth a look, especially if you’re up for a casual playthrough about life, the universe and everything.

Winner: Cuphead

When recommending Cuphead, we often fall back on the fact that despite not being for everyone, this is a game that everyone should play. Cuphead isn’t just a beautifully animated, imaginative title filled with heaps of awesome boss fights. It’s not just tribute to the 1940s style of cartoon making or the swing music that influenced countless legends. The game itself is a glowing return to the days of run and gun platformers that tested your wit, reflexes, muscle memory and most importantly, your attention to detail. Forget about being the Dark Souls of platformers – Cuphead is a love letter to fans of Mega Man and Mega Man Zero, proving that run and gun gameplay with a fairly high skill ceiling is still an experience unlike any other in today’s industry.

Cuphead is delightful in that its very aesthetic invites players in while the compelling gameplay keeps pushing them forward. It’s a heady, addictive mix and even with a difficulty that prevents most people from immediately picking it up, Cuphead is subliminally impactful and wonderfully charming. It may not be reinvent the wheel as far as action platformers go but in terms of visual design, production, presentation and setting, Cuphead can’t be missed.

Note: GamingBolt’s Game of the Year categories, nominations and awards are selected via an internal nomination, voting and debate process. You can check the rest of categories and the respective winners here.

Infinite Fall’s Night in the Woods is easily one of the most underrated games of the year, providing a side-scrolling adventure with a beautiful aesthetic but haunting themes. Thankfully, despite the game’s cult status, the developer is updating it with some new content. Players can look forward to the Weird Autumn Edition, a director’s cut of sorts which will appeal to “first-timers and those who’ve played the game alike.”

As a free update to those who own the base game, the Weird Autumn Edition will include Longest Night and Lost Constellation. These are essentially side stories to the main game and contain their own intriguing mechanics. The Weird Autumn Edition currently has a release date of December 13th.

Those interested in checking out Night in the Woods can pick it up on Steam. It focuses on Mae, a college drop-out who returns to her town of Possum Springs to sort some things out. Of course, sinister things are afoot but that’s just part of the ride.