Back in October 2024, it was rumoured and quickly confirmed by Ubisoft that they are indeed working on some kind of project in the Rayman franchise. While I was convinced the rumour was for both a remake and a new game, going back to the topic it seems it was only ever a remake. Not that I’m complaining.

We’ve reached the end of 2024 and naturally it’s time for the Game of the Year rankings. All in all, a decent ear I’d say. It had it’s big releases but also feels a little bit like the calm before the 2025 storm. For those that don’t know, I try to do a top 21 games rather than a top 10. That isn’t the case this year but there is the Top 10 and the Runner’s Up that just missed out.

2024 comes to an end and 2025 starts. With it, it's bringing a whole new slate of video games for us to get our hands on, too many to count. Here's a selection of the games I'm excited for releasing next year

Well that was a pleasant surprise wasn’t it? Admittedly it was spoiled a little bit for me when I saw a rumours roundup that had “Elden Ring Monster Hunter” which admittedly I wrote off as fake. Turns out it was real in some capacity but the real thing is so much better.

The Game Awards’ 20th Anniversary was just over a week ago and it proved to be one of the best shows Mr Keighley has ever hosted. After some deliberation, here are my highlights from both it and Day of the Devs!

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind remakes and remasters. They can be seen as cynical cash grabs but at worst they’re a necessary evil and at best they’re actually great ways to reinvest in old classics that through obscurity or older hardware are not available any more. Recently though, they’re kind of taking the piss a little.

Astrobot came out around a month ago now and it’s been on my mind ever since. It’s probably going to be my Game of the Year and I eagerly await even the small time trial update. That being said, while it will be many people’s first experience with the character, there’s actually been a few games. I’ve played Playroom VR, Rescue Mission VR, Astro’s Playroom and now Astrobot, so despite this games success, I believe we could move it on.

DLC is as established a concept in games as the pause button at this point. Games get new map selections, entire new campaigns and worlds, smaller content drops, sometimes all of the above and more. By their nature, DLC has to come after the games release. Day one DLC is absolutely a thing but I’m not here to disparage or encourage that. For the most part, DLC comes out a fair while afterwards, encouraging players to step back in. The question is, do you?

With rumours of Secret Agent Clank being on the list of PS+ Classics to come and Sly Cooper 2 and 3 looking to be out before the end of the year, the Premium tier of Sony’s service looks like it’s finally worth a lick of salt. The consumer is ever hungry for more though, these are the games I want to see added to the system.

As they do every month, Sony announced the games coming to Playstation Plus in each of the services three tiers. Only the premium tier interests me as that’s the rereleases of all the old stuff. Consider my surprise when I saw Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier in the offerings for March. So far the offerings have either been first party or more obscure third party titles of the era. While Sony do own Jak and Daxter, the Lost Frontier was handled by High Moon Studios. The announcement got me excited – I know the community thinks the game is the worst of the series but it’s one of the two titles I hadn’t yet played – the other being Daxter. The Jak and Daxter fandom have been begging for acknowledgement from Sony, and while this wasn’t a new game, it was something right?

Is the next Souls game hand to hand combat themed? I've got no idea personally, but these are the things I think the next major Soulsgame will have:

E3 Season has passed so it’s time to revisit the most wanted list for this year and see how it stacks up for the rest of the year.

Ever since the death of E3 and the rise of Summer Games Fest, it’s gotten harder to keep track of everything that gets announced, in no small part due to the asinine number of streams that happen – everyone wants a piece of the pie and a special place to show off their game. Like, I get it but it makes it hard to keep track. I struggle, how does the average Joe manage? Regardless there was actually a decent amount of games shown off over the various shows that I’m interested in playing.

As I write this, the DLC is 11 days away but at the time the article comes out, the DLC should only be a day away (give or take). Here are my last minute hopes, just to get them out there.

My point being, they’ve done it before and Elden Ring’s open world formula would have been perfect for an enemy that follows you across The Lands Between. They would appear in a multitude of places, culminating in a super boss for the final encounter.

Elden Ring has a lot of bosses, 165 to be exact. It feels like sometimes you can’t go two steps without stumbling upon another dungeon or field boss. Yet, there are certain areas in the game without bosses that I believe could really benefit from having one. Here’s my list.

I’ve been playing video games for 20 years now, and while I’m no developer, I feel I’ve gotten a good feel for what I see as good or bad design. In this series, I’ll cover a range of topics on how I would go about making games and the elements that comprise them. There’s no objective fact here but some well researched ideas. Welcome to “What makes a good …”

Oh, Elden Ring! At long last we have had both a reveal trailer for the much anticipated Shadow of the Erdtree as well as a release date - 21st June. The new trailer and accompanying Interviews have given us a lot to chow down on.

Of course I could talk about being excited to see Halo or Gears of War on Playstation, or upcoming games like Indiana Jones or South of Midnight, but really it’s the smaller games I’m looking forward to seeing.