PLAY TEAM PICKS

Welcome

As the sun sets on the first year

Happy first birthday, PlayStation 5!

The new-gen console is now one year old. We look back at its highs and lows

REPLIES

NATE EXPECTATIONS Aren’t you being a bit hard

READERS’ MOST WANTED

Which games are bleeping loudest on your radar?

Taylor- made news

Oscar Taylor- Kent’s news slap

Head to head

Zany Warner Brothers platform fighter coming to PlayStation in 2022

New signs of alien life

Mass Effect teasers are Geth-ing interesting

Cyberpunk serenade

Nana Moon explains how Keylocker lets you kickstart an anti-capitalist rebellion with some epic guitar shredding

PlayStation voices

The month in mouthing off

Fierce competition

PS5 wins Best Gaming Hardware at this year’s Golden Joystick Awards

Having a Ball

Beat Dragon Ball villains in this asymmetric survival game

Mines of more-iah

Deep Rock Galactic blasts onto PlayStation

Numbers Game

We do the maths

Which kids’ book would you turn into a game?

Traumatised by fairy stories as children, the team decide which villains they’d like to thump as adults

Musical moments

Times when we had the perfect song to go with an epic PlayStation moment

“GETTING A PS5 IS STILL HARD – BUT DO WE NEED ONE RIGHT NOW?”

With PlayStation committed to cross-gen for the year ahead, wait

“UBISOFT COULD, AND SHOULD DO MORE THAN CHASE THE LATEST TRENDS.”

XDefiant and Ghost Recon Frontline indicate a publisher stuck in a rut

2022 PREVIEW SPECIAL

81 essential games Illustration ©2021 David Nakayama you

HORIZON FORBIDDEN WEST

A finely honed sequel

2022 PREVIEW

FORMAT PS5, PS4 ETA 2022 PUB PLAYWING LTD

FORSPOKEN

Sorry publishers, this game is already spoken for

THREE MORE NEW WORLDS

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: GOLLUM FORMAT PS5,

GHOST WIRE: TOKYO

Fiendish folklore

SUICIDE SQUAD: KILL THE JUSTICE LE AGUE

Blowing away the competition

2022 PREVIEW

FORMAT PS5 ETA Q2 2022 PUB BANDAI NAMCO

TINY TINA’S WONDERL ANDS

Grab your dice, grab your guns

2022 PREVIEW

KARTRIDER: DRIFT FORMAT PS4 ETA 2022 PUB NEXON

STRAY

Everybody wants to be a cat

WE ARE OFK

Toe tapper

ELDEN RING

The bell tolls for thee

THE KING OF FIGHTERS XV

Kick and collect the ultimate fighting crown

STAR OCEAN THE DIVINE FORCE

To the stars and back

BABYLON’S FALL

Burning the candle four different ways

DEAD SPACE

Dismember of the series returns

GRAN TURISMO 7

Road rage

GOD OF WAR R AGNARÖK

Happy Father’s Day

THREE MORE IN THE WORKS

BOMB RUSH CYBERFUNK FORMAT PS5, PS4 ETA 2022

DYING LIGHT 2: STAY HUMAN

A real no-brainer

STRANGER OF PARADISE: FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN

Kill Chaos

LIT TLE DE VIL INSIDE

A long-awaited journey

WEIRD WEST

Cowboys, cults, and the restless dead

MARVEL’S MIDNIGHT SUNS

Play your cards right

GOTHAM KNIGHTS

Two owls with one stone

2022 AND BEYOND

Here’s the best of the rest

Battlefield 2042

EA gambles on another roll of its DICE; wins big

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition

Bethesda’s RPG is back, bigger and faster than ever

Ruined King: A League Of Legends Story

An excellent entryway to the world of the PC hit

Call Of Duty: Vanguard

Chewing through enemies leaves a Nazi taste in the mouth

Sherlock Holmes Chapter One

The adventure of the imaginary Jon

Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – Definitive Edition

Oh *blorp*. Here we go again…

Hermitage: Strange Case Files

Little bookshop of horrors

A Short Hike

A tweet adventure

Treasures Of The Aegean

Striking gold in Santorini

Grow: Song Of The Evertree

This charming adventure sim will grow on you

Jurassic World Evolution 2

A sequel genetically engineered for roaring success?

Röki

A fairy tale with a bite

Epic Chef

All in good taste

Blue Reflection: Second Light

Enjoying school? Weirdo

Death’s Door

An undead world full of life

THREE TO PLAY

PSN games you might have missed

TOP FIVE ONLINE GAMES

Team up with pals or take on the world

First Class Trouble

LA Noire meets… Among Us?

Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl

As empty as the official voice lines

Riders Republic

Pretty shallow and pretty fun, dudes

Tiny Tina’s Assault On Dragon Keep

The Bunker Master moves in for a second strike

Alter vista

New Horizons freshens up Outriders

LIVE GAMES

Online games still holding our attention

PS5 Hall of fame

THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO THE NEW GEN’S GREATEST GAMES

THE GAMES GLOW UP

PlayStation 4 hits replayed on PS5. This month: head off to Horizon Zero Dawn

PS4 Hall of fame

THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO THE LAST GEN’S GREATEST GAMES

STILL PLAYING

Games that continue to hold our attention

PSVR Hall of fame

THE VIRTUAL REALITY HITS YOU HAVE TO PLAY

WHAT’S NEW PLUS-SY CAT?

Digging into the random acts of gaming a lengthy PS Plus subscription offers

Steambot Chronicles

Robots, music, and a dash of Vanilla

Jak And Daxter: The Precursor Legacy

An iconic duo celebrate two decades of adventure

Max Payne

The third game’s incarnation of the character shouldn’t be overlooked, Dashiell Wood argues

EVIL DEAD: REGENERATION

Speaking with some of the game’s groovy dev team, James Dyson hails the inventiveness of this schlocky horror

Duke Nukem Forever

Bringing back his (rusty) balls of steel

Lego games

Block out some time to educate yourself

Blood in the snow

Agent 47’s attempt to contain a deadly virus brings Hitman’s stealth action to fever pitch

ELDEN RING

Get in the Ring, and prepare for an epic fight