In space, no one can hear you miss a deadline or two

At its most challenging, making videogames can feel

Playing with fire

From Microsoft’s cloud servers to EA’s new owners in Riyadh, the industry is testing players’ consciences

Room to breathe

Against a tough industry backdrop, Airlock Games has a plan for making game production more sustainable

Opening the industry to all

How is the IDGA Foundation pushing for a more global, diverse set of game-makers?

BACK TO LIFE

Herobeat Studios hopes for redemption in the face of environmental collapse

Soundbytes

Game commentary in snack-sized mouthfuls

ARCADE WATCH

Keeping an eye on the coin-op gaming scene

THIS MONTH ON EDGE

Some of the other things on our minds when we weren’t doing everything else.

DISPATCHES CHRISTMAS

Issue 416 Dialogue Send your views, using ‘Dialogue’

Trigger Happy

Shoot first, ask questions later

The Outer Limits

Journeys to the farthest reaches of interactive entertainment

Making it weird

Often, horror is an effect of the weird.

HELL LET LOOSE: VIETNAM

A tougher, smarter FPS where kills hardly matter

SLEEP AWAKE

An experimental, mind-bending night terror

TUROK: ORIGINS

Three’s a crowd? Not for hunting dinosaurs

THERE ARE NO GHOSTS AT THE GRAND

DIY made easy, and weird

ASTROBOTANICA

Dodos plus aliens? In the Pleistocene, anything is possible

HORSES

Developer/ publisher Santa Ragione Format PC Origin Italy Release

ROUNDUP

MARVEL’S WOLVERINE Developer/publisher SIE (Insomniac Games) Format PS5

RETRY.EXE

Inside the long and gruelling journey of Lunar Software's sinister sci-fi horror

FEAR EFFECT

From Crow Country to Resident Evil 9, horror games are still in their ascendancy. But what are the tricks behind making players scared? And can the popularity last?

COLLECTED WORKS JERK GUSTAFSSON

From making Quake maps to reviving Wolfenstein, with a master of firstperson videogame design

THE OUTLAST TRIALS

Smirking, sinister and sadistic, Red Barrels’ gruesome multiplayer experiment became its biggest hit

SNAPSHOT GAMES

Inspired by a close-knit dev scene, the man behind XCOM has a fresh strategy

PLAY

REVIEWS. PERSPECTIVES. INTERVIEWS. AND SOME NUMBERS

Masters of one

For a developer, is it preferable to be

Resident Evil

Almost three decades on, the defining survival horror game has much more to offer than scares

Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles

A progress report on the games we just can’t quit

Battlefield 6

Developer/publisher EA (DICE, Ripple Effect Studios, Criterion Games,

Post Script

Battlefield 6’s singleplayer offering wouldn’t have matched Call Of Duty in 2011

Ninja Gaiden 4

Developer PlatinumGames, Team Ninja Publisher Xbox Game

Post Script

Everything takes place in Tokyo, in contrast to

Hades II

The influence of Hades in the years since

Absolum

No sooner have we said that nobody beats

Little Nightmares III

One of our most persistent, and horrid, assailants

Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds

With tongue resolutely in cheek, Sega revived an

Stray Children

F or the past decade, Onion Games’ output

Keeper

K eeper ’s central themes are all extravagantly

Baby Steps

Resembling a bed-headed blend of Gabe Newell and

Ball X Pit

Developer Kenny Sun Publisher Devolver Digital Format PC (tested), PS5, Switch, Xbox Series Release Out now

Spooky Express

Complete the main puzzles in any of the alliteratively

Dreams Of Another

Lost auras are the closest the game has

Godbreakers

Initially, the colourful world and hit-and-run combat encouraged