Expelled! review – deliciously daft private school murder mystery
Prove that Verity Amersham is innocent of trying to bump off the head girl in this ingenious whodunnit from the makers of Overboard!
March 2025
Pushing Buttons newsletter
Why bloated budgets mean open world games are starting to think small – but mighty
After years of soaring costs and ever-expanding maps, open world games are getting smaller, and developers are creating richer landscapes in the process
Pushing Buttons newsletter
Back to the feudal: Assassin’s Creed Shadows is the most beautiful game I’ve ever seen
This thrilling trip through Japan is the best the series has given us in years
The sequel to the hit cyborg-on-the-run game is text-heavy and dice-based, but also thrilling
February 2025
‘No micro transactions, no bullshit’: Josef Fares on Split Fiction and the joy of co-op video games
Fares is a refreshingly unpredictable voice, starting as a film director before moving into games; now, he says, working on a movie would be ‘a vacation’
Lost Records: Bloom & Rage (Tape One) review – go back to a riot grrrl summer in clever teen thriller
Friends gather in 2022 to relive a haunting 1995 summer in the woods in Don’t Nod’s fascinating two-parter with excellent period details
Avowed review – Annihilation meets Oblivion in a vast, intricate fantasy
Obsidian’s huge, heavily detailed fantasy world has a lot of variety and texture, and interesting people to meet - but the combat and exploration wear thin
January 2025
The 15 best Xbox Series S/X games to play in 2025
From exhilarating driving through the British countryside to an action romp with ancient Greek gods – Microsoft’s console duo has built a players’ treasure chest
Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders review – fun ski-run challenge has a few bumps along the way
The snowbound successor to Lonely Mountains: Downhill has its downsides but still delivers the same urgent thrills, even if team play isn’t a patch on the solo experience
Billion-dollar video game: is this the most expensive piece of entertainment ever made?
How player-funded development launched a multiplayer game of galactic proportions – and costs – in Star Citizen
December 2024
The video games you may have missed in 2024
Observer critics' review of 2024
Games: Simon Parkin’s five best of 2024
2024 in Culture
The 20 best video games of 2024
Mouthwashing review – 2024’s most difficult game, but not in the way you might expect
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle review – whip-smart, fascist-fighting, open-world adventuring
PlayStation at 30: the console that made video games cool
November 2024
Simon Parkin on games
The Rise of the Golden Idol review – thrilling 70s whodunnit takes sleuthing to the next level
This ingenious follow-up to The Case of the Golden Idol requires all your powers of observation, deduction and reasoning
Am I too old to be a mobster? I played Mafia: Definitive Edition to find out
Dominik Diamond
I finally got to live out my gangster fantasies and found I fit right in with this bunch of jabronis
Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl review – transfixing Ukrainian dystopia built on underlying tragedy
Explore the starkly beautiful landscapes of the irradiated Zone in this foreboding and remorselessly challenging survival adventure
October 2024
‘Our ghost meter went crazy’ : we played horror games all night in a haunted prison
Halloween is coming, and our minds are turning to scary games. But which titles are genuine fright fests? Our writers decided to find out in the most ill-advised way possible
