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Resident Evil Requiem is two excellent horror games in one. First, you have a return to the series’ roots with Grace Ashford’s terrifying escape from a creepy Care Center. Then, you have Leon S. Kennedy returning to the ruins of Raccoon City to face his past and slay hordes of zombies in the process. That divide is a meaningful one: “It returns to the Raccoon City incident, both in its classic survival horror gameplay and story, to allow its characters to finally unpack decades of grief, regret, and survivor’s guilt,” I wrote in my review. It makes for a mournful but always exciting horror game about the different ways people confront trauma.

4

Reanimal

Image: Tarsier Studios/THQ Nordic

Release date: February 13

Where to play: PS5, Switch 2, Windows PC, Xbox Series X

It’s not that Tarsier Studios’ Reanimal is doing anything too radically different from Little Nightmares, the small-scale horror series that the indie studio built its name on. It’s more that it is fully realizing that idea’s potential in extraordinary fashion. The co-op horror game is an atmospheric tour de force, taking players through a nightmarishly surreal journey that goes to some truly dark but magnificent places. “Horror games have no business being this beautiful,” Marloes Valentina Stella wrote in her review. “No, scratch that; horror games have every business being this beautiful.”

5

Mewgenics

Image: Edmund McMillen/Tyler Glaiel

Release date: February 10

Where to play: Windows PC

As far as passion projects go, Mewgenics is one hell of a creative swing. The cat-breeding tactics-roguelike from Super Meat Boy co-creator Edmund McMillen is so full of wacky ideas that you’ll start to feel like there’s no bottom to it. It’s so easy to get mesmerized by it as a result. “I’ve found myself consumed by this game, dreaming about combat grids and sinking hours into trying to create the strongest cats this world has ever seen,” Deven McClure wrote in her review. “It’s a true feat for a game to walk the line between juvenile and complex, and Mewgenics does it deftly.”

6

Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined

Image: Square Enix/HexaDrive

Release date: February 5

Where to play: PS5, Switch 2, Windows PC, Xbox Series X

In an age where we’re flooded with video game double-dips, few remakes are as delightful as Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined. The new version of Square Enix’s classic RPG isn’t out to provide players with a faithful remake, but a completely new experience that puts the series’ childlike heart at center stage. Joyful visuals and a breezier pace turn a daunting RPG into one that players of all ages can fall in love with. Michael McWhertor put it best in his review: “With an infectious enthusiasm, the game beckons a new generation of players to find their inner hero, to save the world through the eyes of those who long for adventure and aspire to make their own destiny.”

7

Cairn

Image: The Game Bakers

Release date: January 29

Where to play: PS5, Windows PC

Cairn is an incredibly challenging game, but maybe not in the way you’re expecting. Yes, the free-climbing adventure can be traditionally hard as its protagonist, Aava, tries to scale slippery mountains while gusts of wind and sudden rainstorms try to thwart her journey. But Cairn’s challenge is more found in its tough lessons. “There’s a gentle suggestion here that focus and determination come at a human cost, and that all ascents aren’t inherently noble,” Oli Welsh wrote in his review. “This is a survival game that’s more about walking away from comfort and ease than trying to reclaim it. Cairn is hypnotic and rewarding, but it can be tough and bitter, too.”

8

Perfect Tides: Station to Station

Image: Three Bees

Release date: January 22

Where to play: Windows PC

Few video game creators today cut straight to the heart like Meredith Gran. Her latest game, Perfect Tides: Station to Station, is a gorgeously meditative narrative adventure set against the backdrop of 2000s hipsterdom. “A familiar college coming-of-age story puts its ear to a human heart that used to beat a little differently before the age of mass communication,” I wrote in my review. “It’s a return to a time when an indie rock record and a late-night AIM conversation with a crush were one and the same: precious sounds that belonged only to you.” Even if you’re not nostalgic for that era, Station to Station’s sincere memories of it will begin to feel like your own.

9

TR-49

Image: Inkle

Release date: January 21

Where to play: iOS, Windows PC

For my money, no studio working today is as creatively exciting as Inkle. You’ll understand exactly why I feel that way when you play TR-49. The inventive puzzle game turns codebreaking into an act of deduction, as players search an old computer’s database to piece together truths obscured by fascism. “To solve TR-49 is to reconstruct a reality that was rewritten in real time,” I wrote in my review. Through cryptic text logs and nods at the history of censorship, Inkle finds fierce political commentary in small-scale puzzles.

10

Mio: Memories in Orbit

Image: Douze Dixièmes/Focus Entertainment

Release date: January 20

Where to play: PS5, Switch, Windows PC, Xbox Series X

It’s not often that you play a game that nails its genre as well as Mio: Memories in Orbit. The stylish Metroidvania does just about everything you’d want from a game like it. It’s full of secrets, gives you surprising traversal abilities, contains tons of challenging bosses, and features a striking art style that leaves you hungry to explore just so you can marvel at the world. “It is committed to the act of exploration to a surgical degree,” I wrote in my review that praised its use of genre conventions. “To survive its ship full of rogue machines is to become a digital cadaver of a gorgeously intricate digital world.