Apple debuted Apple Arcade earlier this year on iOS, iPadOS, MacOS, and TVOS as a way to sort of level the playing field between free-to-play games and premium experiences, as far as player attention goes. It’s far from the first pay-for-access subscription library of its kind, but the platform-bound nature of the Apple device-exclusive service, and the semi-exclusivity of many of its games, made Arcade an interesting space for mobile games in 2019.

The impact the $5 per month subscription model stands to have on mobile games as a whole in the long run is something to keep an eye on in 2020 and beyond, but in the shorter term developers look to have benefited from signing on with an Apple Arcade project, with Apple reportedly paying out hefty sums to fund the development of games headed to Arcade.

Apple Arcade’s curated library launched with a number of captivating titles, and those ever-growing ranks include several games that wormed their way into the daily lives of Gamasutra’s editorial team and our various devices. So on top of our usual Best of 2019 coverage, here are editors’ personal picks for the best games currently on Apple Arcade.

There are few action games on mobile phone that are as responsive and mechanically sound as Luis Moreno Jimenez’s Bleak Sword. In fact, Bleak Sword‘s combat is just as good as a lot of traditional controller-based action games. Its impressively intuitive one-thumb dodge-block-attack gameplay and unforgiving death loop together serve as a worthy tribute to Dark Souls, while the simple, beautiful pixelated graphics and animations set a tone that turns your phone screen into a window to a foreboding world that you want to come back to over and over again. Bleak Sword shows that when a designer truly respects the constraints — and capabilities — of a game’s respective hardware, small miracles can happen.​

– Kris Graft

Dear Reader takes troves upon troves of literature and combines that wealth of source material with its own varied word-based puzzles to create a game that’s as difficult to put down as a good book. One puzzle might task you with arranging lines from a chapter Pride and Prejudice into the proper order, another might see you removing errant words from an Emily Dickinson poem. It can be an interesting way to piece apart otherwise familiar works while playing on the more leisurely difficulty, or a challenging way to flex your literary know-how on higher, timed difficulties. But all in all the nature of the puzzles themselves offer a fun way to explore each book, whether it’s your first time seeing that particular story or you’re working your way through an old favorite.

– Alissa McAloon 

Like many great games, there was a lot of time between the initial idea of Capy’s Grindstone and actual release but it was absolutely worth the wait. Grindstone is a star of the newly launched Apple Arcade and for good reason. It is a finely-tuned, immensely satisfying puzzler that is a bit like strategically setting up a zigzag of fleshy dominoes, knocking the first one over and watching them burst in colorfully gory explosions. It’s puzzler perfection.

– Kris Graft

In Guildlings, Sirvo Studios brings the same design sensibility that made Threes a phenomenon to reinvent the classic turn-based RPG for the mobile format. Made to be played in portrait mode, Guildlings embraces the ‘chill and relax’ goal that most phone games are designed for. Its aesthetic is a clever mix of fantasy vibes with chill modern life and its characters jabber at each other like kids at play on a Saturday afternoon. It’s relaxing, it’s charming, and it’s a fantastic reinvention of a classic game genre that adapts to the mobile format not only in its controls, but in the adventure it delivers for players.

– Bryant Francis

I hate cars. I hate how they get stuck in traffic jams. I hate the fact those yellow ones insist on crossing that goddamn river. I hate that they don’t use the motorways I want them too, and how they need traffic lights to get ANYWHERE in a vaguely orderly fashion. I hate this game and I love this game. This gorgeous, frustrating, chaotic, unbeatable video game. That’s the maniacal beauty of Mini Motorways. No matter how much you try, you will lose. The very vehicles you’re attempting to chaperone from A to B will betray you like the Caesars of old. Stabbing you in the back with a congestion-shaped knife. And then you’ll come back for even more punishment. This time you’ll believe that maybe, just maybe, you’ll be able to build a road network worthy of song. A Michelin star spaghetti junction that could be served up to Massimo Bottura himself. You won’t, of course, and after enough attempts you’ll realize it’s not the high scores or pursuit of perfection that makes Mini Motorways great — but rather it’s ability to make you believe the impossible is finally within reach despite all the failed attempts. Just one more go, you’ll whisper, before cursing the very roads you built. One. More. Go…

– Chris Kerr

In the game’s relatively short development cycle, its story about being the last human rideshare driver in a fictional city dominated by driverless cars has only felt more current and more urgent. If Heaven’s Vault gives us a fresh take on the adventure game, Neo Cab is a radiant revision of the visual novel. Told through a sequence of vignettes in the form of different fares, and with a dash of resource management thrown in, you exercise choice in part through who you pick up, where, and when you decide to stop, as well as whether you prioritize personal contacts over fares. It’s slick, beautifully done, and shockingly well written at times with biting satire of tech culture, urban progressivism, late capitalism, gender norms, and much besides caught in the game’s low cyberpunk glow. On that note, this is a game that remembers what that punk part of “cyberpunk” means and lays the stress on it. Neo Cab a neon satire of the gig economy that is not to be missed.

– Katherine Cross

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Sayonara Wild Hearts is a beautiful pop album wrapped in neon, a Rez-tier rhythm game with a killer soundtrack, and a striking example of how music and game design can take each other to new heights.
As usual, it’s like nothing else Swedish developer Simogo has ever made, and more importantly, it’s like nothing else you’ll find on the App Store. Blending luscious, hungry electropop beats with vibrant imagery that evokes everything from Killer7 to the Major Arcana, Sayonara Wild Hearts is an Apple Arcade must-try; you can see most of what the game has to offer in an hour or two, and if you love the music (available as an album from composer Daniel Olsen) the levels add a wonderful new dimension to the experience of relistening to a favorite album from start to finish.

– Alex Wawro

What the Golf is a game a about breaking expectations, building up new ones, and breaking them all over again. The game, and its first level, starts off with a simple gag: instead of opening the game by hitting the golf ball off the tee, the moment of impact of club against ball instead flings the golfer forward and your goal becomes propelling that rag dolled figure to the hole for victory. Each and every level offers some different play on the idea of golf along those lines, to an extent that seems infinite. It’s an interesting example of endlessly iterating on an idea until it takes on a life of its own and somehow, dozens of holes, still manages to surprise, and find humor and fun in an ever-evolving gag.

– Alissa McAloon

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Welcome to a festive edition of Box Art Brawl, where regional box art variants battle each other for the honour of your vote. Christmas is over, New Year is approaching, so it’s time to hit the slopes as the snow settles in the interim.

Last week Star Wars Episode I: Racer raced itself to the podium and t’was decreed by you lovely people that the Japanese variant was worthy of first place, with the subtler European version picking up the silver medal and North America nabbing bronze.

Sticking with the Nintendo 64 this week, we’re racing once again with the rather excellent Snowboard Kids. We can honestly say that this rivals Mario Kart when it comes to comical racing, and that’s not some underhanded snipe at Mario Kart 64, either – Atlus’ downhill racer is really good enough to rival the plumber when it comes to multiplayer mayhem. It also gains extra respect for not succumbing to the tired convention of turning the ‘S’ on that Kids plural into a ‘Z’.

So, without further prevarication, let’s join Slash, Nancy, Jam, Tommy, Linda and Shinobin on the slopes…

Japan

Starting in the east, the cover of Snobow Kids as it was known in Japan features Slash front-and-centre with the rest of the gang positioned around him as they shoot down the slope. The portrait orientation works well here and the cover gives you a good idea of the sort of colourful racing contained within.

Not much else to note here, really. Colourful, energetic – we like it.

North America

The North American variant takes the exact same elements and moves them around to work in the landscape frame. The standard red strip comes in on the right side and the logo moves down while gaining a hot new colour scheme and a little Fido Dido-style smiley.

The same elements reframed, then. We also like this.

Europe

The European version features the black border – elegant or intrusive depending on your point of view – but also has some alternative art for Jam and Nancy, along with a totally different background. The sun appears over the mountain tops and Slash sprays up some powder as he winks at you.

Similar colourful elements, different configuration; it’s another ‘like’ from us. But which one’s a hit with you?

---

So, there we are! Click the ‘Kids that you think are most deserving and hit the ‘Vote’ button below:

That’s it for this seasonal edition of the brawl. We hope you’re enjoying the holidays – we’ll catch you in 2020 for another round!

Although 2019 was another fantastic year for Nintendo in terms of sales, all of this positive news has been somewhat soured by ongoing controller issues. In case you need a refresher, a class action lawsuit was filed against Nintendo of America in July for its allegedly faulty Joy-Con.

It led to Nintendo responding to the uproar, saying it was ”aware of recent reports” and encouraged anyone experiencing “drift” issues to visit its support page. In some parts of the world refunds and fixes were offered.

Now, as a result of this drama, the French consumer’s association has called out Nintendo as one of the worst companies of 2019 and labelled the Switch as the most fragile product of the year. Of course, the main issue it had with the system was linked to Joy-Con drift.

In an interview dating back to November, Nintendo of America President Doug Bowser made the following comments about how the company was handling the Joy-Con issue:

Our goal is always, always to create quality products, and products that ensure gamers are having a great experience. We are continuously looking at ways to improve our products as we go forward, but in the end we want consumers to have a great experience. And if in any case they’re not having that experience, we encourage them to contact our customer support groups and we’ll do our best to help them through that. That has been how we’ve been handling our consumers over the last few months as issues like this have arisen, and we believe that consumers are finding their way back to great gameplay experiences.

As nice as it is that Nintendo is offering support to consumers in select areas, it is unfortunate drift continues to be a problem. With any luck, a future hardware revision can resolve the issue once and for all.

Yo-Kai Watch 4 may not have been localised for the Switch yet, but that doesn’t mean Level-5 hasn’t been busy on other projects. In September the Japanese company revealed it would be bringing the series to the PlayStation 4 and this followed with the announcement of Yo-Kai Watch 4++ in October.

If that wasn’t already enough for all of the Yo-Kai Watch fans out there, earlier this week, Level-5’S CEO Akihiro Hino announced a new title called Yo-Kai Academy Y, by sharing a screenshot of the game on his Twitter account.

According to Siliconera, this new game will “look and play differently” to the previous Yo-Kai Watch games. The screenshot above features Jinpei Jiba (a human version of the Yo-Kai Jibanyan) outside of Y-Academy.

Yo-Kai Watch Academy Y is a spin-off that started out as a movie earlier this month known as Yo-Kai Watch Jam the Movie: Yo-Kai Academy Y – Can a Cat be a Hero? (see video above) and an anime was released earlier this week – Yo-Kai Academy Y: Encounter with N – continuing the story. Yo-Kai Academy is focused on Jinpei and his friends, who are all human in this alternate Yo-Kai world and attend a supernatural school where they investigate mysteries requiring them to fuse with Yo-Kai.

At this point in time, no platforms have been announced for this new Yo-Kai Watch game. Given the series’ history, there’s a good chance the game will come to the Switch.

In June, Apple revealed the Mac Pro and announced iPadOS at its annual WWDC, and then admitted that Chief Design Officer Jony Ive was leaving the company.

More than any other month in 2019, it’s hard to know where to start with June. We were expecting WWDC to offer up some surprises, and it was certainly one of the most successful WorldWide Developer Conferences that Apple has done. We just never saw that Jony Ive would choose now to exit stage left, pursued by a freelance contract to keep advising Apple.

In between the surprises of WWDC and Jony Ive, though, there was one related yet rather sad moment. This month, it was revealed that Cupertino’s Flint Center was to close forever.

We all know what happened in that building. It was in the Flint Center that Steve Jobs unveiled the original Mac to shareholders. That was ahead of the grand public unveiling a week later, but he was back at the Flint Center for the public launch of the iMac.

It was at the Flint Center that Tim Cook stood on stage in 2014 to announce the Apple Watch. And to gift us all a U2 album.

The Flint Center is going to be turned into student accommodation now.

WWDC 2019

AppleInsider took you to Apple Park and behind the scenes for the event

The event itself didn’t have surprises that came entirely out of left field. Just about everything was hinted at or leaked before, but the volume of detail on the day was impressive. There were revelations that seemed good at the event but are likely to be the ones we ultimately look back on as being huge.

As far as leaks go, easily the very last one to squeeze in before Tim Cook stepped out on stage was the news that we might get an iPadOS. We did.

“It’s become a truly distinct experience,” Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, said afterward. “It’s not an iPhone experience. It’s not a Mac experience. The name is a recognition of that.”

What Apple didn’t appear to recognize was just how much people would leap on one single facet of iPadOS. It’s only intended, so far, as an accessibility aid, but you can now connect a mouse or trackpad to your iPad.

Sidecar and macOS Catalina

The new macOS Catalina introduced Sidecar, the ability to use your iPad as a second display for your Mac, just as you’d been able to do for years with solutions from third-party developers.

We all had the same thought when Sidecar was revealed. “Sherlocked,” we said aloud. After the event, we talked with many developers who’d seen their apps gain a pretty massive new competitor in Apple’s macOS features.

Apple zoomed through the unveiling of macOS Catalina, packing in feature after feature that sometimes blurred the lines between its different OSes.

That included the way that macOS now followed iOS in having separate apps for Music, Podcasts, and TV. It was true, iTunes was gone —which sparked a lot of incendiary headlines making people think they were going to lose all the music they’d ever bought.

The truth was in here, though, with AppleInsider explaining what was actually happening and what would actually happen to your music.

While some users were off grumbling about what they thought was happening, Apple revealed update after update. CarPlay had its first-ever significant overhaul, for instance. “Sign in With Apple” got applause as the new equivalent to —but significantly safer and more user-friendly than —signing in with either Google or Facebook.

And then there was the continuing story of Project Catalyst. Introduced in 2018 as a multi-year process, 2019’s episode didn’t seem that groundbreaking. Apple’s Catalyst-based apps —Home, News and so on —were pretty much the same as they were last year, for instance.

Nonetheless, Craig Federighi talked up the project both during WWDC and afterward. He admitted to poor design decisions on Apple’s part for how Catalyst was received initially, but now it is a “no brainer” to use it to put iPad apps on the Mac.

Key to this, though, was a seemingly small announcement at WWDC. The whole week-long event is for developers, of course, but Apple does know the world is watching, so it tends to devote the opening keynote to telling that world what it wants them to hear. This is why you get product releases, why Apple talks up its features.

This time, though, Apple devoted a short spot in the keynote to something no user will ever be conscious of, and yet which every developer we spoke to afterward was most excited by.

SwiftUI lets developers create and test apps in the Swift language, taking away as much of the routine burden of development as possible so that they can concentrate on what makes their app unique.

“It just works,” said Federighi.

About iOS 13 and watchOS 6

During WWDC, iOS 13 sounded like the best thing since, well, iOS 12.

Apple mentioned how HomePod, really part of iOS at the moment, would even gain more music to listen to —over 100,000 live radio stations would be coming.

Where that would give our ears something to listen to, Apple Maps was set on helping our eyes. Alongside greater detail for maps that would be rolling out across the US this year and selected other countries in 2020, there was also Look Around.

Apple can call this what it likes. We just knew right away that it was Google Street View in all but name. Until we saw it in action, and now we know it is what Google’s feature should be. And, in all probability, it will be one day.

We also knew right away, though, that this was a way to demolish your battery life. Except Apple also introduced smart battery optimization in iOS 13 to prevent battery ageing.

There was also a lot new in the watchOS 6 release, too. Alongside smaller features such as new watch faces, an updated calculator, audiobooks, and voice memos, there was also the App Store. As of watchOS 6, you can buy apps directly on the Apple Watch.

Right now, that isn’t quite the giant deal that it was when the App Store first came to iOS. But, the easier Apple makes it to sell your apps to Watch users, surely the more apps will come.

There was much more to say about Apple’s various OSes —including HomeKit getting the ability to store security camera video.

All through the iOS and iPadOS details, such as the new features for Apple Pencil, though, the emphasis was on how this helps pro users. But if you’re talking pro, you’re talking about the biggest hardware release Apple had done on stage all year.

Mac Pro is here, or very nearly

Tim Cook and head of hardware John Ternus showed us the new Mac Pro in detail. There was still much we wouldn’t know until its actual release, such as any pricing beyond the base cost, but there was a lot to say at WWDC.

The new 2019 Mac Pro would come with up to 28 cores and be able to handle up to 1.5TB of RAM. It was also as modular as Apple had previously hinted, and it was to be launched alongside the promised Pro Display XDR.

You could also see for yourself. Even if you haven’t got the budget for the base $5,999 Mac Pro or $4,999 Pro Display XDR —and $999 for the stand —you could see how they would look on your desk. Visit the Apple site on an iOS device and you could use AR to see how they looked at life-size and from any angle.

It might be the closest most of us get to owning a Mac Pro, but Apple isn’t exactly aiming this at Mac mini users. Apple was aiming high, and right from the moment of this announcement, there was enough detail about the Mac Pro that AppleInsider was able to report on who would be buying it.

And then there was Jony Ive

At the end of June, we learned of the end of Jony Ive’s era at Apple.

His exit date wasn’t specified beyond being later in 2019, but Apple was also keen to create a blur around the word “leaving.” Ive would reportedly continue work with Apple in some form from his new company, LoveFrom.

“While I will not be an [Apple] employee, I will still be very involved — I hope for many, many years to come,” Ive said in an interview. “This just seems like a natural and gentle time to make this change.”

“After nearly 30 years and countless projects, I am most proud of the lasting work we have done to create a design team, process and culture at Apple that is without peer. Today it is stronger, more vibrant and more talented than at any point in Apple’s history,” Ive continued.

“The team will certainly thrive under the excellent leadership of Evans, Alan and Jeff, who have been among my closest collaborators. I have the utmost confidence in my designer colleagues at Apple, who remain my closest friends, and I look forward to working with them for many years to come.”

It may have been a “natural and gentle time” to leave, but few outside Apple saw it coming. And the moment Ive’s departure was announced, there were two immediate and obvious reactions.

First, there was the inevitable internal email from Tim Cook praising Ive, and then there was the external furor over how this means Apple is doomed.

Not to knock Ive and his astonishing work, but of course Apple isn’t finished.

What was perhaps less predictable was that as soon as Ive’s departure was revealed, we started to get more details of his work at Apple —including some previously secret snippets.

So we finally learned that yes, Apple had actually made a TV set. Not the Apple TV set-top box, not the Apple TV+ service —which did of course get a mention or three at WWDC —but an actual television set.

We’ll never see it on sale. Whatever reasons stopped Apple releasing it before, Ive’s new firm is concentrating on health and wearable technology instead.

That would seem to fit with where Apple is heading these days —and it may well be time the company moves away from hardware releases given all the troubles it’s had with that this month.

Tariffs and China

June’s episode in the up and down story of Apple in China had a good part where we learned that number of users in the country has been increasing. According to Morgan Stanley, China had its fifth consecutive month of year-over-year user growth.

Then Tim Cook told CBS that Apple had not yet been affected by the US/China trade tensions. However, he also made it clear that the disputes and, in particular, tariffs would hit America.

“The truth is, the iPhone is made everywhere. It’s made everywhere,” he said. “And so — a tariff on the iPhone would hurt all of those countries, but the one that would be hurt the most is this one.”

Cook consequently met with President Trump to discuss the issues. He revealed little then of the meeting, but a week later Apple formally requested that the US not impose tariffs on its imported products.

“Apple’s products are used by American families, students, businesses, government agencies, schools, and hospitals,” Apple’s letter to the administration reads, “to communicate, teach, improve health outcomes, enhance creativity and enterprise.”

“The Chinese producers we compete with in global markets do not have a significant presence in the US market, and so would not be impacted by US tariffs. Neither would our other major non-US competitors,” continued. “A US tariff would, therefore, tilt the playing field in favor of our global competitors.”

Keep up with AppleInsider by downloading the AppleInsider app for iOS, and follow us on YouTube, Twitter @appleinsider and Facebook for live, late-breaking coverage. You can also check out our official Instagram account for exclusive photos.

If you’ve been looking for a reason to dust off your Labo headset, Nintendo has just released its 15th free mini-game for Labo VR Kit on the Japanese Switch News Channel. This new game titled Omikuji – which translates to “Fortune” – requires players to shake the Joy-Con and then draw a fortune with the A or R button.

Here are the other games released so far on Japan’s Switch News Channel (thanks, Japanese Nintendo): Christmas, Osushiya-san, Getsumen Tanken, Multitasking Game, Bunbougu Mudazukai Senshuken, Shooting Game, Balloon Fight, Maguro Kart, Capsule Toy, Baseball Board, Kyodai Meiro, Sushi Board, Kaijuu Shooting, and Alien Tataki.

Do you still use your Labo VR on a regular basis? Leave a comment down below.

2019’s almost done! It’s the last year that the Xbox One and PS4 will be referred to as “current generation” hardware, leaving us with a year of studios shipping some really incredible games that get to stand out while some heavy hitters wait in the wings, prepping their biggest, most demanding games for next year.

As always the GDC Twitch channel gives me a chance to try out a lot of titles that would have otherwise escaped my notice, so when thinking about my top games this year, I also thought about my conversations with many of the developers who made them.

Though not all of these games were ones we streamed, they all stand out as incredible titles that define the trends we saw in 2019. Have a look!

Apex Legends is the free-flowing, fast-paced shooter that took aim right at my happy place this year. I did not know that I could love the battle royale format again after my time with PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds ended, but Respawn Entertainment found everything that was good with PUBG and doubled down when making ApeLegs.

The game’s mix of champions with unique abilities and huge maps with ample room for high-velocity shootouts already help it stand out before you even start talking about the oh-so-finely-tuned firearms. It’s an incredible engine for player-driven encounters that leaves you with stories to tell even if you fail to claim victory. Fortnite may reign supreme, but I’m happy Apex Legends gets to live alongside it as a sci-fi battle royale spectacular.

Asobo Studio took a big gamble on an original game this year with the release of A Plague Tale: Innocence, a game that seemed as impossible to describe as it was compelling to play. It’s a teen adventure set during the ravages of a fictional medieval plague that manages to borrow all the right gameplay tools from Naughty Dog’s toolbox while building its own identity as a stealth-driven story. By the end of the game, its “rat logic” is so second-nature that when you finally get to turn the rats on the Inquisition, you feel you know these creatures as friends even though they’ve tried to kill you the whole game.

Blue Manchu’s Void Bastards is systemic chaos finely bottled in game form. The descending layers of system-driven shooter gameplay on display here are maddening to comprehend. It’s as if you were playing BioShock except as if you were in front of a slot machine, and every time a different level popped out you still felt you’d won. The traits that define the player character, the traits that design the ships, all interweave in a beautiful mess of randomness and Cockney gibberish to leave you giggling and compelled to crack open just one more ship.

Remedy’s Control isn’t just an incredible testament to the New Weird, it’s video game validation for lovers of the unknown, the haunting, and the unsettling images that hang out at the corner of your vision. “You were right,” Control tells you, “there were monsters under the bed. There is a conspiracy at work. All of it is real, and now it is your domain.” Control’s beautiful aesthetic and whip-snap-boom gameplay make you feel like an avenging angel cutting through a pencil-pushing beaurecratic world, pushed along by a well-crafted narrative that celebrates not only the horror of an otherworldy invasion but the delight of uncovering the cover-up of that invasion too.

Apple Arcade became the subscription-based game model that promised to restore order to an App Store overwhelmed by free-to-play timesinks. And it did! Sirvo Studio’s Guildlings is just one of the many weird experiments that would struggle to stand out if it weren’t for Apple’s work making a curated garden, and it stands out in particular for being such a great translation of the classic RPG format to a mobile device. Its battles are short and snappy, its modern-setting-meets-fantasy-world premise is delightful and relaxing, and it’s a perfect game to poke at while falling asleep. It’s only shipped its “first episode” but I absolutely can’t wait for what comes next from Sirvo.

Respawn Entertainment is here, again! After kicking off the year with a surprise announce-and-release for Apex Legends, they took more time to properly cook the best single-player Star Wars experience we’ve had in ages. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is a surprisingly robust adventure that revisits the tragedy of Order 66, following a group of characters coping with the massacre of the Jedi and struggling to survive in a terrifying new world. Respawn shows their chops not only at strong level design but also their ability to carry the long-held tradition of reskinning Star Wars onto other game genres–in this case, a Dark Souls-like with a touch of Metroid influence that makes every nook and cranny worth exploring.

I can’t stop playing Fire Emblem Three Houses. After agonizing over which house I’d lead into battle and investing over 40 hours into one campaign, I immediately started a second run because this game is just so rewardingly playable. By tweaking its narrative formula to utilize a fictional academy setting and giving players a choice over which faction they’d like to align with, Intelligent Systems has made a blockbuster strategy game that constantly delivers new strategy scenarios for players to unpack. By the time I’m finally done playing Three Houses, they’ll probably have announced the next one.

Obsidian’s return to the world of first-person, choice-driven RPGs is a welcome one. Not only have they returned to the fold with a fantastically deep RPG with a clear point of view and setting that informs every single character you encounter and creates surprises around every turn, they’ve made a game that’s actually really funny! Every time the game rewards “player choice” it does so by leaning into the unexpected and the surprising at every turn. The characters are great, the worlds are beautiful, and it’s the right mix of cynicism and anarchy for a corporatized future that doesn’t feel too far from our own.

It’s one thing to reward player choice with unexpected outcomes, it’s another to effortlessly respond to player choices while teaching them an entire language. While most choice-driven games feel like choosing an alternate set of doors, inkle’s Heaven’s Vault feels like a trip down its own interplanetary river. It’s a fantastic experiment for what can be done with evolving narrative and deserves to be held up as a high-water mark for commercially released experimental work that will inspire developers for years to come.

Video games have been slow to touch the work of Shakespeare in part because it’s almost the opposite of what the target audience wants. But the team at Golden Glitch Studios went ahead anyway and not only adapted the tragedy of Hamlet into video game form with Elsinore, but broke it down, created a motivation-driven system for all of its principal characters, and created a Hamlet remix simulator that lets players take the Bard’s tragedy well off the rails and into the world of pirates, spies, and other fanciful tangents. The timeline feature is inspiring, re-centering Ophelia as the lead is an incredible choice, and even as its developers move on to other projects, the work they’ve done here should be celebrated experimenting with the edge cases of what can be done in games narrative.