One of the biggest new things in Pioneers of Pagonia is that it does a much better job of teaching players how to actually play the game. It does this through its campaign that focuses on teaching you just about every aspect to some degree, ranging from the basic stuff like making sure your citizens aren’t homeless, all the way to more complex concepts, like how you can go about building a military that can then be used to further expand your borders. The title also hasn’t left behind one of its biggest gameplay differentiators when compared to other city builders out there: the fact that you have a border marking your own territory, and that you can expand this border to give you more room to build around.

"One of the biggest new things in Pioneers of Pagonia is that it does a much better job of teaching players how to actually play the game."

While the borders serve as an interesting way for Pioneers of Pagonia to distinguish itself from other city builders out there, let’s talk about the core gameplay first – the building. Generally speaking, it feels like something of a mixed bag. While things operate largely how you would expect, like putting down resource gathering centers for your citizens to start getting you more building materials, Pioneers of Pagonia still feels strangely incomplete even in its 1.0 form. This comes down to the fact that a few gameplay mechanics that one would take for granted feel sorely missing here.

Chief among this is the fact that there’s no universal “demolish buildings” tool, like a brush or construction mode where you could demolish several buildings in one go. As it is in the game right now, if you ever want to go about replacing some of your buildings, or even just move them to a new place, you are going to have to manually click on the building to find the demolish button. This also means that large-scale remodels of your town can feel, at the best of times, incredibly tedious. While landscaping tools being missing might fall in line with the overall goal of Pioneers of Pagonia to promote players building their towns to be in harmony with the natural world around them, it still often ends up feeling frustrating, since you’ll find your city building blocked off by the presence of trees or rocks. And while you can tag some of them as a major priority for your Pioneers to start chopping or breaking them down, this still ends up adding more waiting time to an already-slow game.

The closest thing there is to another solution to this problem is by creating blueprints—layouts consisting of roads and buildings that you can save in advance. Using these blueprints automatically tags any obstruction like trees or rocks that might be in the way for destruction. However, this feels like more of a workaround than an actual solution.

"As it is in the game right now, if you ever want to go about replacing some of your buildings, or even just move them to a new place, you are going to have to manually click on the building to find the demolish button."

These issues, along with the fact that the grid you use to place building feeling quite inconsistent start to feel especially frustrating when you’re trying to plan out your town when you first load into a map. These problems get further exacerbated when you eventually want to expand your town and population, and for some strange reason, there’s no way to upgrade housing to house more people without first demolishing what was first there and then putting down the bigger house in its old place. To that end, the larger houses also start feeling more inconsistent in how they can be placed along the grids, making what would essentially be a host of smaller issues spiral into larger-scale problems.

Pioneers of Pagonia is also an incredibly slow game. Now I’m not demanding that city builders should be as fast-paced as a multiplayer match of StarCraft that demands over 100 actions per minute to not instantly lose. However, Pioneers of Pagonia does have your buildings – especially in the earlier parts – often take literally entire minutes to build out. For example, at standard “1x” game speeds, it can often take well over 15 minutes for you to go from building your first house to getting some border expansion happening through Guard Towers. Building a strong military takes even longer, and even getting some basic soldiers rather than guards can extend the play time into the 30 minute mark. Thankfully there is a way to speed up time, but that essentially feels like more of a band-aid for a more fundamental problem with the game in terms of its overall speed.

It is also worth noting that Pioneers of Pagonia features co-op gameplay for up to four players, even in the campaign mode. While this is a pretty interesting addition to a genre that largely tends to focus on single-player gameplay aside from a few games here and there, the co-op in Pioneers of Pagonia doesn’t add much more than just giving you a chance to enjoy more time with your friends. Owing to the generally slow pace of gameplay, it’s not like there are many chances to delegate specific duties to different players—a faster-paced title would have been great where one player could handle military while another handles food production, for instance. Things can also sometimes start getting chaotic, especially in the early game sections since you have a relatively limited amount of space to build in until you expand your borders. While a co-op mode in any game tends to be a welcome addition, in practice, it feels like a way to just hang out with your friends more than something to sink your teeth into.

"The title’s focus on small-scale supply chains that we first got to see in its Early Access release is still alive and well"

Thankfully, there is still plenty to enjoy here for fans of city builders and management sims. The title’s focus on small-scale supply chains that we first got to see in its Early Access release is still alive and well, and has seen some excellent improvements thanks to the new tech tree that encourages you to keep building out your town and discover the things in nature around it. You basically unlock new tiers of buildings by discovering different materials; get your hands on some iron and you’ll start being able to make better tools and weapons, for instance, while building a quarry and getting stone blocks allows you to build grander buildings.

The military systems have also seen some major improvements since the Early Access release with the addition of a host of different kinds of soldiers and heroes you can hire to be part of your armies. Each one of these soldiers even has some specialities. Rangers, for example, are stronger against thieves than regular guards or soldiers would be. Blade Dancers are similarly strong against well-armoured foes who can tear through your Rangers. While you still don’t get fine control over your soldiers like you would in an RTS, the added options to make up your military does end up offering some level of depth. Don’t expect that you’ll be waging wars against other cities, however. Militaries are largely only useful for taking on progressively-stronger variants on raiders and bandits.

There have also been plenty of upgrades made to the overall UI of the game, especially when it comes to how the various buildings are grouped up in specific categories that end up making quite a bit of sense once you get used to them. The only thing missing here would be some more hotkeys to switch between the different categories, or even a specific hotkey for just the road tool considering how often you have to use it, but these are all minor issues in what is otherwise a pretty fun game.

"While, just like most city-builders, Pioneers of Pagonia is especially fun to play in its more free-form sandbox mode, the campaign also adds plenty of worthwhile gaming time."

Pioneers of Pagonia’s exit from Early Access also marked the fleshing out of its main campaign mode, and it is absolutely a massive addition to the game. While I briefly mentioned the campaign earlier in this review in reference to how it does a decent job of teaching you the basics of gameplay, the campaign is also a generally fun adventure in its own right. Over the course of its 30+ hour campaign, you get to learn about the history of Pagonia – a continent that was shattered into several islands and enshrouded in fog due to a mysterious magical event. Large parts of the campaign revolve around you and your merry crew of Pioneers sailing around the islands to find other Pagonians in an effort to establish friendly communication, trade and unity, especially in light of dangerous raiders, bandits and thieves popping up that are trying to take advantage of the situation to line their own pockets. While, just like most city-builders, Pioneers of Pagonia is especially fun to play in its more free-form sandbox mode, the campaign also adds plenty of worthwhile gaming time.

The overall objectives of the campaign tend to be largely simple. While the first three missions focus on teaching you all of the mechanics, future missions tend to revolve around you hitting certain production thresholds, taking out a specific number of bandit or raider camps, and sometimes finding a specific character or town. Every now and then, however, the campaign starts focusing more on the military aspects of the game by presenting boss fights. While these bosses can often be simplistic, essentially demanding that you throw every single soldier, ranger, and other military unit you have at them, they can also sometimes offer more interesting objectives, like fortifying a position before the boss gets there, or even just defending your own town until a timer expires. These tend to do well to shake things up in what is otherwise quite a slow-paced game.

"Things are a lot more detailed this time around without Pioneers of Pagonia having sacrificed any of the distinct personality it had built up thanks to its art direction and style."

The campaign also presents unique challenges that can throw some wrenches in your plans to wrap up objectives. This can come in a variety of forms, from a strange fog blocking any option you have for exploration and expansion—prompting you to find another path—to the presence of terrain or bandits. Along with this, the campaign also places a bit of emphasis on finding magical artifacts which further drive the story forward, while also giving you some neat bonuses here and there. Generally speaking, however, these unique challenges aren’t major mechanics so much as simply being more interesting ways to frame objectives.

Pioneers of Pagonia’s campaign also comes with the option of various difficulty modes, which could make things simpler or more difficult depending on your choice. While difficulty modes on their own aren’t a particularly major thing, there is also a special Story difficulty mode that pulls back on the challenges, allowing you to simply focus on building your idyllic towns without too much stress. While there are still bandits and raids to handle, they aren’t nearly as aggressive in Story mode than they would be otherwise.

Along with the sheer amount of content you already get through the campaign and sandbox modes, Pioneers of Pagonia also features a full-fledged map editor that lets players come up with their own unique islands, which can then be shared in the form of challenges to other players. While the 1.0 release having just happened means that the custom maps section of the menu is largely populated by the studio’s own works showcasing the map editor’s capabilities, the feature is bound to foster a strong community to further strengthen the amount of play time you can get out of this city-builder.

"Pioneers of Pagonia’s campaign also comes with the option of various difficulty modes"

In terms of visuals, the differences between the Early Access release and the 1.0 release are quite obvious; things are a lot more detailed this time around without Pioneers of Pagonia having sacrificed any of the distinct personality it had built up thanks to its art direction and style. It’s also a lot easier to tell different gameplay-related things apart, be it trees that provide different kinds of lumber, or rocks with veins for different materials. It also helps that Pioneers of Pagonia is not a game that is particularly demanding on your hardware. It was quite easy to manage a steady frame rate throughout my time with the city builder on an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU, a Radeon RX 7800 XT GPU, and 32 GB of RAM. However, this hardware is obviously well over even the recommended specs listed on the Pioneers of Pagonia Steam page. It is also worth noting that even developer Envision Entertainment has made a note of compatibility issues with Intel Integrated Graphics chips across the UHD and Iris Xe lines. The studio has also warned that the company’s Arc graphics cards might also face similar compatibility issues.

All in all, Pioneers of Pagonia has definitely made quite a few improvements over its Early Access release. However, a universal demolish tool along with better ways to deal with overgrown forests would go a long way in easing some of the frustrations. Aside from that, however, Pioneers of Pagonia can be quite fun thanks to its emphasis on small-scale supply chain logistics and simple military systems.

This game was reviewed on PC.

Players familiar with the genre won’t find anything confusing about how Pioneers of Pagonia plays. Despite an in-depth tutorial system lacking, the game feels pretty intuitive about how you can do some of the basic building and planning you’ll be required to do at the beginning of the game. You’ll start things off pretty simple. Figure out a residential district where your citizens can live, and try to fulfill some of their most basic needs, like food and water. As you start putting down hunting camps, wells and taverns, however, you’ll discover that you’re running low on one of the game’s most basic resources: wood. Putting down a lumber camp solves this problem in the short term, and you’ll soon want to further refine all of your lumber into more usable planks.

"Players familiar with the genre won’t find anything confusing about how Pioneers of Pagonia plays."

Owing to its emphasis on supply chains for various industries rather than outright city planning, Pioneers of Pagonia’s building system is surprisingly naturalistic. Sure, there’s a grid system, but it acts as more of a suggestion than a hard rule to follow, which ultimately means that, at least early on, your cities are going to be an unplanned mess, despite still managing to function incredibly smoothly.

In a way, Pioneers of Pagonia teaches the player how it’s played by making use of the simple concepts of supply and demand. Since the game lacks a real, structured tutorial at the moment, players will inadvertently learn through trial and error how its systems work. For example, you’re going to eventually start needing stone, as well as a mason that can shape the stone into more usable blocks, leading you to ultimately send out explorers that might find you the ideal place to build your quarries. In the process, you might discover rich iron veins just beyond your borders, which means that you’re going to have to expand your borders in order to advance up the tech tree to start making use of iron.

A lot of the process of learning how to play Pioneers of Pagonia revolves heavily around trial and error. Like I described above, you’re going to notice that you need something, and then you’ll start going through your list of buildings to see what you can and can’t get right now, which in turn will lead you into figuring out how you can go about getting what you need. That’s not to say that Pioneers of Pagonia is a complete free-for-all city-building sandbox in the vein of Dwarf Fortress, however. The game provides players with small objectives that sort of act as a guided way to learn how some of the game’s mechanics work.

"A lot of the process of learning how to play Pioneers of Pagonia revolves heavily around trial and error."

Rather than being a full-fledged tutorial, the beginner map gives you objectives that lead you into figuring out the various supply chains you’ll need to learn to be able to operate a successful settlement. The major downside to this approach, however, is that it puts too much into the player’s hands without giving them a lot of information that can be incredibly vital to building a functional settlement. It’s easy to make major mistakes as you try and figure things out, with various aspects getting messed up early on, like the layout of your early-game city. For example, I decided to get a Forrester quite early, giving me a renewable source of lumber. This had the unfortunate side effect of rendering most of my starting-zone unusable, since every bit of free space was taken up by new trees growing up, and I was left to the mercy of my Lumberjack camp to eventually clean the area up so I could put down a tavern.

In the grand scheme of things, however, these smaller mistakes don’t really affect your overall settlement too much, since the game doesn’t put too many restraints on where you keep your buildings or how far apart they are; as long as they’re in your borders and close to the resources they need to function, you’re going to be just fine. The building making provisions for my workers didn’t really care that my mining camps were on the other side of the city; they were glad to make the trek. The only thing that really got affected by the provisioners having to make a long trek is that some of my mining operations and explorers got temporarily bottlenecked, waiting for more provisions.

Which brings us to one of the game’s key mechanics: border expansions. Expanding your border, and as a direct result, the area in which you’re allowed to build out your city, is quite simple; put down a guard tower near the border and watch your little workers move the literal border further out into the world. There isn’t really much more to it beyond that, at least until you start exploring further into the procedurally-generated map and eventually meet other factions. Most factions in Pioneers of Pagonia are quite friendly, and interactions with them can range from completing small quests in the form of supply requests, to a fully-fledged trading system that requires a few buildings of its own to function, including a trading house, as well as a place for the employees of your trading house to live between their shifts.

"The winner is decided by who has the bigger, more well-equipped army."

Not everyone is going to be friendly, however, and you will eventually start running into hostile forces. There isn’t really much you can do aside from just having a military, which in itself is an involved process. To begin with, you’re going to need a steady supply of metals and coal, which can then be turned into weapons and armor. After all of that, you’re going to need barracks to train the soldiers. The type of barracks you build will help train different types of soldiers. Things can get even more interesting once you start finding silver, since that means you can now dip into forging some magic weapons and training powerful adventurers to go out there and slay your enemies.

Military combat in Pioneers of Pagonia doesn’t really involve directly controlling your soldiers; rather, the game’s combat system just revolves around making sure you’re prepared for an eventual attack by hostile forces. This essentially means that, when it’s time for your soldiers to face off against the enemies, the two forces are just going to automatically duke it out. You don’t get to micro-manage your units with tactical formations or anything like that. Instead, the winner is decided by who has the bigger, more well-equipped army.

Pioneers of Pagonia is an interesting take on a city building game, since it revolves more around you playing with core mechanics like supply chains and industry rather than the more individual and granular needs of your citizens or even your city. You’re not going to have to deal with crime and your buildings aren’t going to spontaneously catch on fire; at best, all you really need to do is make sure that there’s enough food and water to go around, and then you can focus on what matters most in the game: the supply chains.

While it may not be like other titles in the genre in terms of its core game loop, Pioneers of Pagonia still feels like an excellent entry to the genre. It will make players care about the various supply chains for industries of the city rather than more mundane things like food and water. Given that this is an early access release, the developer will likely improve the game further but as it stands right now, Pioneers of Pagonia is off to a great start.

This game was reviewed on PC.

"The core of the world is based on craftsmanship, the backbone of your army are soldiers and guards to counter thieves and bandits. But mystic rites and ceremonies, faery tale elements, artifacts with unnatural effects or limited magic fit well."

Pioneers of Pagonia has a stunning art style that instantly catches the eye. What was the process like of landing on this like for the game, and what served as your primary inspirations?

Our goal was to create an inviting game world, where you feel comfortable and enjoy the environment and the people. For our Art Director Timm Schwank, who is better known for less optimistic settings, this was quite an unusual challenge, but obviously he delivered incredibly well.

Pioneers of Pagonia’s fantasy setting is another one of its more eye-catching aspects. What sort of a role will that play when it comes to the actual simulation and management mechanics? For instance, can we look forward to combat against different varieties of fantastical creatures?

The setting is medieval with additional fantastic elements. Means we are not realistic, but there is no common high-fantasy-magic. The core of the world is based on craftsmanship, the backbone of your army are soldiers and guards to counter thieves and bandits. But mystic rites and ceremonies, faery tale elements, artifacts with unnatural effects or limited magic fit well. At Early Access, we already have spectres which bring chaos to your villages, and werewolves which can infect your people and turn them into new werewolves. Silver weapons are best suited against the werewolves and the player can enchant some weapons using rare gems.

It looks like meeting with different tribes, gaining their trust, and uniting them will be a key element of Pioneers of Pagonia’s central loop. Can you tell us more about how that will manifest in the core gameplay mechanics?

The many scattered tribes on the islands have their own agenda. Some of them need help, some of them want to trade with you, others need to be impressed. Your goal is to turn them into your friends and support each other, which enables you to win the island. We offer a broad variety of different objectives at Early Access, and if you manage to meet all of them, they will even turn into allies: You can merge with them, obtaining all their territory, units, buildings and commodities. But we also offer a “conquer” mode in which you do not get any objectives beside clearing the island of any hostile enemy.

"Beside continuous quality-of-life-upgrades, we plan to have regular content updates, about 6 weeks after Christmas break will be our first one in February. We have already announced the features of the next 3 updates, which include new buildings, new statistics, sub-surface mining and the co-op mode, and these updates will be for free."

What can you tell us about the procedural generation of maps in Pioneers of Pagonia? What can players expect from the size of maps and the variety of environments they’ll find?

The map generator is a powerful tool. It will not only create very different types of landscapes, but also generate the content like the Pagonian villages, the objectives, the trade offers, analyze where the enemies will be located and where the things you need to find will be placed. You can customize a lot of settings and decide on your own which map you want to play next. We support the full range from “I want to build peaceful without any stress, even not with wild boars chasing my brave carriers!” to “I need a serious challenge, it has to be rough, enemies behind every corner, and if I am not efficient, please wipe me out!” and of course anything between. You can also define which clime is there, how many resource deposits or forests exist, and much more. As a great bonus, the also support map IDs which can be shared: If you found a map which was fun, unusual, exciting or challenging, you can share the map ID and a friend can play it too. Beside that people can share the map IDs in our Discord forum.

Looking at Pioneers of Pagonia’s early access period, what sort of cadence of updates and content additions can players expect before the game hits its 1.0 release?

Beside continuous quality-of-life-upgrades, we plan to have regular content updates, about 6 weeks after Christmas break will be our first one in February. We have already announced the features of the next 3 updates, which include new buildings, new statistics, sub-surface mining and the co-op mode, and these updates will be for free. We will always announce what we plan to do in the next 6 months about. There is no timeline for the full release yet, as we plan to work together with the community and we take this seriously, which means we cannot have a finished masterplan at this point because the players will have a major influence on it.

"Since the game does not need a high click rate to be a fun experience, it is more controller-friendly than many other strategy games. But it is too early to announce anything yet."

What will the game’s selection of modes look like once it has released in full? Do you plan on adding multiplayer down the line?

In single player, the game modes can be played with or without objectives and with or without enemies (and of course options for objective and enemy difficulty). Considering multiplayer, we have officially announced that we start with shared co-op mode soon and that we will offer more multiplayer options later. There is no final word yet on other single-player modes, cooperative modes, skirmish-AI, PvP or campaign. For now, we only said that these are not yet in development, but we do not exclude the idea that one or more of these happen later. Stay tuned in 2024.

 Do you have any plans to eventually bring the game to additional platforms?

Yes, we will evaluate those options next year. Since the game does not need a high click rate to be a fun experience, it is more controller-friendly than many other strategy games. But it is too early to announce anything yet.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora

After many open world games that were released in 2023, we have another game that looks to end the year on a high note with Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. Developed by Massive of The Division fame, it sees players traversing the new Western Frontier and meeting the different tribes. Of course, the RDA remains a threat, and thus, the player must fight back.

As a first-person game, players can use firearms and bows to take out enemies. There are other things to immerse players in the experience, from free-running through environments and checking landmarks to finding specific objectives to a mini-game for plucking fruit. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora launches on December 7th for Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and PC, and should be a strong end to a year of blockbusters.

Batman: Arkham Trilogy (Switch)

One of the most acclaimed superhero games of all time and one of the best video game trilogies is finally coming to Nintendo Switch in Batman: Arkham Trilogy. It’s out on December 1st and includes Batman: Arkham Asylum, Batman: Arkham City and Batman: Arkham Knight with all their skins, Challenge Packs and story DLC. Altogether, it requires 53 GB of space on the Nintendo Switch, with the physical version requiring a download of the second and third games. How performance pans out remains to be seen, but Batman: Arkham Trilogy warrants a look for newcomers on the Switch.

SteamWorld Build

Image and Forms’ SteamWorld series returns with SteamWorld Build, which launches on December 1st for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, PC and Nintendo Switch. Unlike previous entries, this is a city-builder with elements of Dungeon Keeper thrown in. As part of a group of robot settlers, you build up a town, aiming to excavate Old Tech from the mine to find a way off the dying world.

It’s your job to hire Workers, expand the town, rebuild the train station and mine, bring in Engineers, manage resources and expenses, and much more on the surface. Meanwhile, you mine different resources below, fight off dangerous creatures (including giant worms with an appetite for robots) and explore relatively unknown paths while delving deeper.

The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria (PS5)

Despite its flaws, The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria is an interesting take on Tolkien’s world and launches on December 5th for PS5. Set in the Fourth Age, players create their custom Dwarf and venture to Moria to reclaim it. One doesn’t simply walk in, even with the word “friend”, so you must navigate its once-grand halls, desolate caves and abandoned quarters filled with Orcs, Goblins and other nasties.

As a survival sandbox adventure, gathering materials and crafting new weapons and armor is necessary, especially when encountering powerful bosses like the Watcher in the Water. There’s plenty of mining, though staving off the darkness, eating and establishing bases throughout is also important.

Baldur’s Gate 3 (Xbox Series X/S)

Probably the biggest release of the month already available on other platforms, Baldur’s Gate 3 is a headliner for Game of the Year. The game features an intriguing journey with multiple quests, unique consequences and an incredibly reactive world, including the titular city itself.

With hundreds of different ways to play, a typical playthrough can take about 75 to 100 hours, depending on the player. The Xbox Series X/S version is out next month, with the developer to announce a proper launch date at The Game Awards on December 7th. Local split-screen won’t be available for Xbox Series S at launch, but it’s still in the works.

Terminator: Dark Fate – Defiance

As a “gritty” real-time strategy game, Slitherine’s Terminator: Dark Fate – Defiance focuses on future wars between humans and Legion in the Dark Fate timeline. As the Founders’ commander, you must fight back against the deadly machines, battling across maps and recruiting allies to your cause.

Between different tactics, unit training, vehicles, weapons and more, you can also make decisions that influence a faction’s behavior towards you. If that weren’t enough, physics-based destruction allows for even more mayhem, while Skirmish and Multiplayer allow for playing as the Resistance and Legion. Terminator: Dark Fate – Defiance launches on December 7th for PC.

The Day Before

After delays, a shift to Unreal Engine 5, even more delays, a trademark dispute, and – you guessed it – delays, Fntastic’s The Day Before is finally launching on December 7th for PC…via Steam Early Access. Players can explore New Fortune City and its surrounding areas, purchase and customize weapons, scavenge resources and fulfill requests for Woodberry Survivor Colony’s residents.

There’s an extraction shooter vibe, especially since you can encounter other players while battling against hordes of zombies. We won’t believe it until it’s in our hands, but The Day Before has our attention. Time will tell if the gameplay can keep us hooked until more updates roll out.

Custom Mech Wars

Craving mech combat action, especially after clearing Armored Core 6 three times? Need something to fill the void? D3 Publisher’s Custom Mech Wars probably isn’t the answer, but it looks like a fun time. Launching on December 14th for PS5 and PC, you can customize whatever mech you want. It can result in hilarious combinations, from tanks with legs to oversized arms and much more with no restrictions. A story mode with support for up to four players is available, promising a “variety” of missions.

Pioneers of Pagonia

Between SteamWorld Build and Against the Storm, it’s a month of city-builders, and Pioneers of Pagonia is yet another to add to the list. It’s set in a world of numerous islands, as you build a settlement, make alliances and explore the world (with maps procedurally generated). Of course, you’ll need to deal with bandits, wild creatures and more while helping fellow tribes. Launching in Steam Early Access for PC on December 13th, there are over 40 buildings and 70 goods to manage, along with a map creator and difficulty options.

Trinity Fusion

Currently available in Steam Early Access, Trinity Fusion is a rogue-lite action platformer where players control their parallel selves on a mission to save the multiverse. Levels are procedurally generated, with “hundreds” of custom rooms, though some hand-crafted areas and challenges are also in play.

There are three different parallel versions, each with unique abilities, and their worlds offer different biomes to explore, from caverns and labs to cities in the sky. Overall, the visuals look good and the gameplay smooth – we’ll see how the final version fares when it launches on December 15th for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5 and PC.