System Shock Remake (2023)

System Shock is considered to be one of the most important games of its time, as it was one of the earliest pioneers of systemic game design applied in a first-person space. But even apart from it, System Shock is an impressive game with a gripping story and a detailed world with plenty of lore to surround it all. Nightdive was hard at work on a full-fledged remake of the original, and System Shock Remake was finally released earlier this year to great reviews. It does a great job of modernizing this classic with plenty of clever design tricks and changes that make this experience a more digestible one for fans accustomed to modern first-person games. 

Frey Holland – Forspoken

Ella Balinska is an incredibly talented actress, but even she couldn’t salvage the horrible writing and characterization that ruined Frey Holland, Forspoken’s protagonist. When the demo was first released, we thought it was just the frequency and quality of the ambient dialogue that was bad (and thankfully, you could reduce it with an in-game setting).

Unfortunately, despite an interesting set-up and reveal near the end, Frey is almost completely unlikable in her general outlook and how she deals with people. The excessive cursing doesn’t help, and even if the final game is allegedly nothing like what was originally pitched, she drags down an already problematic experience.

The Definitive Edition adds some brand new content with Survival Mode, with players fighting off hordes of enemies in three arenas. Each one offers a new weapon skin on completion. For those who haven’t played since the base game launched, the campaign now has New Game Plus, Hardcore difficulty and Hero Mode for some additional challenges.

Xbox Series X/S and PS5 players also benefit from 60 FPS and 4K/30 FPS graphics modes. Support for the DualSense’s haptic feedback and speaker is also included. For more details on Shadow Warrior 3, you can check out our review of the PC version here. It’s unknown if any more updates are planned, so stay tuned in the coming months.

February 9 sees Madden NFL 23 joining the service’s catalog for console and PC via EA Play, while SD Gundam Battle Alliance arrives on the same day for console, PC, and cloud. On February 14, TaleWorld Entertainment’s acclaimed strategy RPG Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord becomes available for subscribers on console, PC, and cloud.

On the next day, February 15, city builder Cities: Skylines will be added to the service for cloud and console (Xbox Series X/S, specifically), while February 16 will bring the recently-announced Shadow Warrior 3: Definitive Edition to subscribers on console, PC, and cloud.

Finally, the biggest release of the batch, Atomic Heart, will be added to the service day and date upon launch on February 21 for console, PC, and cloud.

The Definitive Edition offers two modes on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S – 60 FPS and 4K/30 FPS – with support for the DualSense’s haptic feedback and controller speaker. In addition to the campaign with Chapter Select and New Game Plus, there’s Hardcore difficulty for a much tougher challenge. There’s also Hero Mode, a modifier which limits Wang’s respawns. You can earn more with Finishers, but running out of lives means game over.

Finally, there’s the new Survival Mode, which provides three new arenas to fight in. Rise to the challenge, and you’ll earn three new weapon skins. Check out the reveal trailer below and stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks. You can also read our review of the PC version here.

That’s because it looks like Shadow Warrior 3 could be headed to Game Pass. As reported by several people on Reddit, the Game Pass app has been sending push notifications to users that claim that Shadow Warrior 3 is now available on the service.

Of course, that’s not something that’s officially happened yet, and neither Flying Wild Hog nor publisher Devolver Digital have made any such announcement. There’s always the chance that the aforementioned notification was only an error, but if the game is indeed coming to Game Pass, one would imagine the announcement will be made soon.

In our review of Shadow Warrior 3, we gave it a score of 7/10, saying, “Shadow Warrior 3 strips away much of the extra fluff from its predecessor for a short, straightforward thrill ride packed with violence. Its humor doesn’t always land and the narrative can be slipshod but the gameplay is very fun and backed by solid level design. Just don’t be too surprised at the overall campaign length.” Read the full review through here.

Shadow Warrior 3 is available on PS4, Xbox One, and PC, and is also playable on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S via backward compatibility.

Gotham Knights

Gotham Knights may not rank among the worst DC superhero storylines out there (that honor still goes to Countdown, personally), but its ending is pretty terrible. Remember the Court of Owls? Irrelevant to the actual villains, aka the League of Shadows/Assassins/Idiots. The final boss? Talia al Ghul, because Ra’s is on extended leave in the afterlife, and no other major villains are available.

But the absolute worst is all those months of the developer convincing us that Bruce Wayne is dead and gone. And he is, but then they bring him back to life with a Lazarus Pit in some brainwashed state, after which he’s beaten back to his senses, and then dies again in a heroic sacrifice. It was absurd to the point of comedy.

The Callisto Protocol

After Jacob discovers the truth behind the virus, he goes up against the mutated Leon Ferris, now known as Subject Alpha, to synthesize a vaccine for an infected Dani. He does so, but because he effectively played a part in the outbreak on Europa, Jacob decides to remain in the prison while Dani escapes and Black Iron self-destructs. Of course, that’s not the end, as Dr Caitlyn Mahler suddenly intervenes, revealing that the two can escape if they work together. Ferris suddenly does a jumpscare scream, and we cut to black.

If the characters were better developed over a longer period, this ending wouldn’t have felt as abrupt or unsatisfying (especially with how many questions still lingered). But it also doesn’t help that there’s story DLC in development, making it feel like you need to pay extra for the “real” ending, if not to see what happens in the sequel.

New Tales from the Borderlands

New Tales from the Borderlands suffers from many problems, like being worse than the first game in almost every way. It also has a multitude of endings, each more underwhelming than the last. But the best ending, which sees the core cast (and LOU13) survive to form Galactic Healing Incorporated with the help of Rhys, doesn’t feel like a decent pay-off at all. Contrast this to how the first game ended and how well each character was written (including Rhys, who’s beyond ruined), and it’s just insulting.

Dying Light 2 Stay Human

The whole climax of Dying Light 2 revolves around the X13 lab and how Waltz, the main villain, will launch missiles on Villedor, The City. Aiden enters the lab to stop him and discovers that Mia is Waltz’s daughter and not his sister. X13 is keeping her alive, and stopping the missile strike means shutting down the facility, which can kill her. After Waltz is defeated, you can either save Lawan or Mia. The former results in the city being destroyed, so that’s no good.

The latter sees X13 destroyed and Mia dead, but Villedor survives, and Hakon may even save Lawan if the right choices were made. Aiden ultimately leaves, presumably to a better ending. Overall, very anti-climatic and unsatisfying, especially the final fight.

Shadow Warrior 3

I wanted to like Shadow Warrior 3, even if it failed on its one premise – Zilla and Wang teaming up – to focus more on Hoji. It all leads to Wang assaulting the dragon again in the finale. However, this time he gets inside, activating Hoji’s Chi cannon and destroying it from within. There’s a deeper message about Wang getting his mojo back, which isn’t given enough time to develop so it’s hard to care.

By the end, Wang, Hoji, Zilla and Motoko celebrate the dragon’s death by eating parts of it. What about Kamiko, implied to be the dragon when Shadow Warrior 2 ended? What about the world at large? Doesn’t matter, don’t ask.

Scorn

The “story” of Scorn involves two factions of the Homunculi waging war on an alien planet, one using biotech cyborgs and the other using exosuits. But none of that matters. Your story begins after the war is over and the planet’s ruined. First, you play as a character who tries to reach the citadel and fails, becoming a parasite. Then you play as another character, eventually infected by a parasite (which may be the first protagonist), and then undertake a big ol’ journey.

By the end, the parasite completely envelops the character, and they’re stuck in that form, seemingly for eternity. Who? Why? What was the point of any of this? Your guess is as good as ours.

ELEX 2

The plot of ELEX 2 surrounds the coming of the Skyand, responsible for the comet that struck the planet Magalan and unleashed ELEX upon the populace. Jax must gather allies to fight them, but it’s revealed that ELEX was stolen from a cosmic being called the Singularity and the Skyand fear its return. The Skyand attempt to reshape the planet and maybe stand against the Singularity, or something, it’s hard to say. When they’re defeated, Singularity is seemingly the next threat for Magalan’s people.

If this sounds like Horizon Forbidden West’s ending, then you’re more or less correct. Just imagine it with worse characters, a much worse final battle, lame choices, horrible presentation, bugs, and lots of jank, and you’ve got ELEX 2.

Salt and Sacrifice

There’s some decent lore in Salt and Sacrifice, but ultimately it boils down to the Undone Sacrifice becoming such to stop the gods’ wrath. However, this results in the prevalence of Magehood, and Mages aren’t very nice, judging by the sheer number you need to hunt. In the end, upon defeating the Undone Sacrifice, you can either take its place and perpetuate the cycle or devour the tree it hangs on, causing the world to end. All in all, it just pales in comparison to the first game’s set-up and ending.

Martha is Dead

Martha has died. Who killed her? Well, her twin sister Guilia did. But actually, Martha isn’t dead. Guilia is Martha. The former is her alternate personality, formed through childhood trauma. She’s taken to the asylum and eventually slits her arms, regardless of your choices. It’s revealed later that Guilia has recovered, and a message says there’s always something to live for.

It comes across as a powerful message at first but is also out of left field. So much is made irrelevant, like the photographs, the gruesome dissections, and the last hours of the story. Opinions may vary on the usage of mental illness as a major twist in a horror story, but it feels awkwardly implemented here.

Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands

The problems with the ending of Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands are rooted in the Dragon Lord’s character. Throughout the story, it’s implied that he exists independent of the Bunker Master, aka Tina. However, this isn’t the case. As it turns out, the Dragon Lord was originally Tina’s character when she still played, who turned evil when she used the Sword of Souls to wipe out all evil in the game.

This caused Tina to rage quit and the Dragon Lord to swear vengeance on her…to no avail since she controls everything as the Bunker Master. None of this matters as the player defeats the Dragon Lord, uses the Sword of Souls to revive the Queen, and effectively spares the villain. He’s sentenced to 200 years of imprisonment for his crimes and seems mostly fine. Riveting stuff, indeed.

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.

Diablo Immortal

The day it was announced, nearly everyone expected Diablo Immortal to be a pay-to-win shitshow. The final product somehow exceeded their wildest expectations with a battle pass, premium battle pass, empowered battle pass, materials, bundles, cosmetics – anything and everything was for sale. Let’s not even get into entire endgame mechanics – like Awakening – only accessible by spending money. The real tragedy is that even if that was all stripped away, you’re left with a middling, dumbed-down clone of Diablo 3 with a terrible UI and loot.

New Game+ also adds special challenges that change the game in various ways. If you slay rabbits at any point, you’ll receive damage in addition to a permanent curse. Special Oni-Hanma demons will also appear more often throughout the game and in greater numbers. Upon completing a challenge, players receive a Warrior Point.

These go towards your Warrior Rank which can unlock new weapon skins from the Rewards section. For more details on other changes and bug fixes, check out the patch notes below. Shadow Warrior 3 is currently available for Xbox One, PS4 and PC. Check out our review here for more details.

Shadow Warrior Patch 1.05 New Game+

Full Patch Notes:

Fixes

• Fix for a bug where ledges near the grappling point in the Ancient Cock arena weren’t transitioning the player into a climbing animation.
• Fix for a bug where enemies were permanently stuck in their floating animation after being struck by the Seeking Eye.
• Fix for a bug where the rabbit outfit immediately disappears from the Cursed Oni-Hanma’s corpse once it is killed.
• Fix for a bug where the Cursed Oni-Hanma could spawn without its rabbit outfit.
• Fix for a bug where a weapon’s projectiles could bounce off a Cursed Oni-Hanma’s bunny ears.
• Fix for a bug where enemies frozen by a Brain Freeze would keep playing their idle animation.
• Fix for a bug where the player was not killed when jumping down to the previous traversal to the left of the temple arena on the Doomsday Device level.
• Fix for a bug where a permanent freeze could occur after opening and closing the Pause Menu right after using the Grapple during the Way to Motoko level tutorial.
• Fix for a bug where the next-used Swarm Launcher might stop dealing damage after discarding the previously used Swarm Launcher.
• Fix for a bug where the last surviving enemies were not highlighted properly in various arenas.
• Fix for a bug where loading screen elements would not scale when changing resolution.
• Fix for a bug where using wall climbs in the Laser Shogun’s intro arena might sometimes not allow the player to climb the same objects in Motoko’s Thunderdome arena.
• Fix for a bug where an incorrect amount of available upgrade points was shown in the Chapter Select screen for the Midnight Snack level.
• Fix for a bug where the notification for picking up an upgrade point was missing after loading a level via Chapter Select.
• Fix for a bug where the Hattori remained alive after performing a Finisher on it while it was also reacting to a hit.
• Fix for a bug where Hattori corpses had the wrong shader applied.
• Fix for a bug where aim-assist could slow down controller movement too much.

New Additions!

New Game Plus

• Additional challenges added.
• New weapon skins added as rewards for completed challenges.

Quality of Life improvements

• Added Discord icon to the menu.
• Audio volume range on PC has been extended.
• Last wave enemy highlight option has been added.
• Subtitles size option added.
• Hide HUD option added.

Optimization

• VFX optimization for the Walking on Eggshells level.
• Asset optimization for Midnight Snack level.
• Blast mesh code.
• Finisher indicator code.
• Kill triggers mechanic.

Quality of Life improvements

• VFX optimization for the Walking on Eggshells level.
• Asset optimization for Midnight Snack level.
• Blast mesh code.
• Finisher indicator code.
• Kill triggers mechanic.

User Interface improvements

• Fix for a bug where loading screen elements could blink erratically.
• Fix for a bug where leaving and re-entering Way to Motoko via the Continue option after the last
  checkpoint of a level had been saved was causing the UI prompts to appear over inactive buttons.
• Updated Credits list.

Localization

• Fix for a bug where subtitles size was incorrectly translated in Polish.
• Fix for a bug where we had missing spaces in control bindings when in Simplified Chinese.
• Fix for a bug where we had missing dots in some descriptions in Polish.
• Updated text for Hero Mode.