First Play Review: indiana Jones and The Great Circle (2024)

In addition to creating Star Wars, the great George Lucas paid homage to the thrilling action adventure serials of the 1930s by creating Indiana Jones, the the fedora-wearing, bullwhip-cracking adventuring archaeologist immortalised by Harrison Ford and defining action/adventure movies of the 1980's and beyond. He is considered with the likes of James Bond, Robin Hood, Superman and Rocky Balboa as one of the greatest characters of all time.

Much like Star Wars, Indiana Jones has also been enjoyed by video gamers since the most early forms of consoles and PCs beginning with a Raiders of the Lost Ark adaptation in 1982 for the Atari 2600 to the highly acclaimed point-and-click classic Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis for the PC, Mac and Amiga in 1992. His 3-dimensional adventures beginning in 1999 with Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine and later games came under increasing competition from Core Design's Tomb Raider franchise with Lara Croft quickly upstaging Indy as gaming's principal antiquity acquisition adventurer.

LucasArts' sequel to 2003's Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb for PC, Xbox and Playstation 2 was to be ready for the 'latest' Xbox360 and Playstation3 consoles by 2006 but missing that deadline meant a new usurper in the form of treasure-hunter Nathan Drake in Naughty Dog's first Uncharted game hit shelves in 2007. LucasArts pulled the plug on Indy, leaving only Traveller's Tales to produce Lego Indiana Jones games to keep the franchise alive to some degree. Bethesda Game Studios honcho Todd Howard pitched an Indiana Jones idea to Lucas in 2009 but as they were working on Skyrim, Bethesda didn't have the resources to develop it, wanting instead to publish, a role only LucasArts would accept for themselves. 

At this point I'd probably mention that despite loving the first three movies, reading about and knowing something about some of the Indiana Jones games, I hadn't actually played any of them. The games weren't the types of games I played during their time of release. Only The Fate of Atlantis ever caught my interest as I liked Interplay's Star Trek point and click games from the same era but never obtained any of LucasArts' ones. It wasn't until the surprise first teaser trailer for a new Indiana Jones game dropped in 2021 that I took note despite not knowing anything about what to expect.

 

In the interim, the Disney acquisition of Lucasfilm in 2012 shuttered LucasArts before long and Disney/Lucasfilm not intending to remain in video game development instead became open to licensing their IP to external publishers. Howard re-pitched his idea to a now much more receptive audience in 2019 and Disney/Lucasfilm were happy to license Indiana Jones to him and allow Bethesda to produce the first non Star Wars game since the acquisition. 

It is fair to say that in 2021 it was expected by everyone that a traditional 3rd-person action game would be created for Indiana Jones similar to Tomb Raider and Uncharted, especially with both popular franchises essentially dormant and out of the way by then, but that was not the case. With with his own house hard at work on Starfield, Howard enlisted another studio in the Zenimax family, namely Machine Games as developers. It made sense as they had experience with games involving Nazis with the Wolfenstein franchise but their first person shooter experience didn't suggest a 3rd-person action game. Instead, it was fully revealed in 2024 that using an adventure-first inspiration from The Fate of Atlantis with a gameplay structure similar to Metro: Exodus, Machine Games crafted more an immersive sim that leveraged first-person gameplay with 3rd person cinematic-quality cutscenes to create Indiana Jones and the Great Circle to tell one of the most engaging stories in modern video games.

Set in 1937, chronologically between movies Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle casts Troy Baker (The Last of Us, Death Stranding, Metal Gear Solid V) as the titular hero as he embarks on adventure following the theft of an artifact from his university museum by Locus (the legendary screen actor Tony Todd, in his final voice-role) a literal giant speaking Latin. His adventure takes him and plucky reporter Gina Lombardi (Alessandra Mastronardi) to The Vatican in Italy, Gizah in Egypt, and Sukhothai in Siam (now Thailand) among several other locations as he discovers a Nazi operation led by radical archaeologist Henrich Voss (Marios Gavrilis) to harness the power of The Great Circle, a theory which joins a group of mysterious sites around the world for some unknown purpose.

 

Gameplay wise, it did take a little while to get used to. The first-person perspective of a game like this was indeed a little jarring as it's certainly an adventure game not a shooter. You traverse the environments, a mix of both linear and open areas areas puzzle solving, platforming, stealth, and of course combat. As Indy you do sometimes do a bit of shooting but it's not the point of the game, not something Indiana Jones canonically did a lot of and there are so many better, more satisfying and far easier ways of dealing with situations than shooting. Picking up a conveniently placed tool like a shovel or a hammer to beam an enemy with never got old and there's probably a conveniently placed tool for every enemy in the game. Sneaking around and accomplishing your goals without drawing attention (often by just wearing a disguise) is also generously supported. The main tool you have is Indy's signature bullwhip which he uses to attack, distract and just as often help him traverse the environment as well as pulling switches with it to solve puzzles.

Puzzles are revealed though exploration and the environment often pulls you in to exploring it yourself as opposed to pointing the way. One nice touch I recall is when opening an area untouched by humans for centuries, you have to manually illuminate the environment by lighting torches or candles. Too often games or movies feature existing light sources in areas where it makes no sense, and while done for the purposes of the medium, it has always annoyed me. There are other way where the game doesn't insult your intelligence; clues can be based on mathematics, cyphers, shapes etc. and require manual working out (I kept some notes on paper). You pick up a plethora of clues by taking photographs with Indy's camera and finding some note or tablet which points to a solution to a puzzle which is needed to open a door to continue or perhaps reveal treasure which is most often used to enhance Indy's abilities as the game progresses. Your journal is your information hub, it contains all the notes and clues you pick up, acts as your map to aid in exploration or reaching your destination and details your quest log.

Baker's rendition of Ford's Indy was pitch perfect, Indy's on-screen mannerisms were all captured here from the exclamations he makes when something goes awry, his vocal thinking out loud and his pauses for the penny to drop for his revelation moments. In addition to the cast mentioned before, special mentions must go to prolific voice actor David Shaughnessy who lends his voice to Marcus Brody portraying him as the more serious character seen in Raiders as opposed to the comedic turn in The Last Crusade, and Enrico Colantoni (Galaxy Quest) whose voice and likeness were used for Fr. Antonio Morello. Gordy Haab, a composer used to re-orchestrating John Williams' work for the Star Wars: Jedi games did so here for some of the themes including Marian's Theme and the Raider's March, but his original compositions blended in well with the style of the game.

 

Things were made very clear from the intro sequence to the game that this was a game made by people who were certainly fans of the original Indiana Jones trilogy. The intro sequence is a faithful shot-for-shot retelling of the opening to Raiders of the Lost Ark (with some input by you) which introduced the world to Indiana Jones both on screen and now in the game. While the intro is just a flashback and the remainder of the game continues on an original narrative, Machine Games keep the same level of detail and respect for the source material in a way that had been somewhat forgotten by the makers of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and nowhere to be seen by the Dial of Destiny.

Final Verdict: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (with The Order of Giants DLC) is a superb adventure with an astonishing amount of player agency giving life to one of the most legendary screen characters ever created. Here a unique new Indiana Jones adventure to compliment the original trilogy and their sense of adventure, humour and heart was delivered through both your actions and more than 3.5 hours of beautifully crafted and expertly acted cinematic cutscenes that make you forget the last two movies - THIS should be considered as the fourth great Indiana Jones adventure.

Technicals: 40.3 hours through Steam on Windows 11 with an RTX5080 @ 3440x1440 175Hz. Average  FPS: 100 on Ultra Graphics Quality, Path Tracing, DLSS Balanced, 2x Frame Generation.

Bugs: There were a number of crashes in the game after playing for several hours while using a system with an i7-12700K processor in January 2025. While I believe the errors with Intel Processors have been mitigated I restarted the game in 2026 with an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D system upon which no crashes occurred.

Purchase Options: Available on Steam for €69.99 (Premium edition €99.99 / Order of the Giants DLC €29:99) Review copy (Premium Edition) purchased from Fanatical for €81.47 in Jan 2025.

Indiana Jones PC games with original stories:

• Indiana Jones in Revenge of the Ancients (1987, Mindscape)
• Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (1992, LucasArts)
• Indiana Jones and his Desktop Adventures (1996, LucasArts)
• Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine (1999, LucasArts)
• Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb (2003, LucasArts)
• Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (2024, Bethesda)
• Indiana Jones and the Great Circle: The Order of Giants (2025, Bethesda)

First Play Review - Sniper: Ghost Warrior (2010)

You may recall that in 2022 I reviewed Polish developer City Interactive's initial game in the Sniper: Ghost Warrior series entitled Sniper: Art of Victory. While it had some interesting ideas, it suffered from woeful execution and its production value even from a budget game was bad even for 'slavjank' standards. Budget games were something the developer abandoned in 2008 to begin work on their first AA offering - Sniper: Ghost Warrior.

While the game did perform well in expected sales numbers, it's fair to say that Ghost Warrior didn't set the world on fire when it was released in 2010 but was certainly a major step up from Art of Victory both in quality and production value - although the bar was certainly low to begin with. The sequel shed the WWII beginnings of the franchise to embrace the the more fictional contemporary conflict trend that all the main FPS games like Call of Duty, Medal of Honor and Battlefield had embraced by that. This pivot proved to be a good move, especially as Rebellion had the WWII sniper sub-genre sewn up with their popular Sniper Elite series.

Sniper: Ghost Warrior finds you playing a few different characters a bit like Call of Duty did but your main avatar is a U.S. Army sniper Sgt. "Razor Six" Wells whose team is sent in to the country of Isla Trueno to end the regime of a dictator who overthrew the democratic government. Elsewhere you play some different characters such as a Delta Force Operator and also a member of a group of rebels resistant to the evil regime to sort of flesh out the extremely lose plot more.

As with Art of Victory, City Interactive modelled wind factors and bullet drop physics into the game meaning that you would have to compensate for one or both of them the longer the shot. I eschewed all this by playing in easy mode which places a red circle in your scope to tell you where the bullet would actually land as that's where a trained sniper would put the round anyway and missing a shot would break immersion. And immersive it is - for more than 95% of the game you play as Wells, the titular sniper and stealthily move about the thick jungle rendered by the impressive -for-the-time Chrome engine watching and waiting for the perfect moment to snipe with your rifle, or take out a close enemy with your pistol or knife. The stealth mechanics are not anywhere close to the likes of Splinter Cell or Metal Gear Solid but still serve you well more often than they fail. When they do fail, it's usually game over because enemies tend to zero in on you quickly if discovered or even triggering an alert is sometimes an auto-fail condition.

While sniping is a joy for the most part, especially the "kill cam" where suitably impressive shots follow the bullet from the rifle all the way into the body of it's intended target, some of the game is not a joy. For just a few other missions you don't play as Wells you're witnessing possibly the worst implementations of FPS shooting you can imagine. It's a stark contrast to the well designed and satisfying sniping mechanics when you occupy a soldier either with the Delta Force or the local resistance fighters with only iron sights in a chaotic firefight with the enemy. The worst part of this is that you're using inaccurate automatic weapons that bring down your score of the game because of course you're no longer shooting as accurately as you are as a sniper where your shot/kill ratio is is closer to 1:1. In another mercifully short sequence, you operate the turret of an armoured car in the slowest chase sequence I've ever encountered. 

The one time where you don't play wells but it is satisfying is when you play as the sniper's spotter and your main tool is the binoculars marking targets for the sniper to take out. This is the only sequence that makes sense for the game because modern military doctrine heavily favours a spotter accompanying the sniper on all missions to provide communications, security, calculation of range and wind factors and usually be the senior qualified sniper of a team able to swap roles to reduce eye-fatigue or muscle fatigue from being in one position for too long. While this is done very well for a lot of the game to be fair, the rest of the time the narrative often removes your spotter in a logical way. Still it would feel more immersive to have your spotter call out the shots and enemy movements more than he does. Doing that may not have pleased the players who like being the one-man-army superman but it's not like that trope isn't represented in the vast majority of FPS games already.

Final Verdict: Sniper: Ghost Warrior is an adequate and immersive modern conflict stealth sniper FPS. It's is absolutely streets ahead of the abysmal Sniper: Art of Victory but also has room to improve even within the AA space. I look forward to Ghost Warrior 2 soon.

Technicals: 6.5 hours playtime through Steam using a Nvidia 4070Ti & RTX5080 @ 3440x1440/175Hz with max settings on Windows 11. Windows HDR provided no enhancement.

Bugs: Like Art of Victory's, Ghost Warrior's opening movies were borked, but rather than a blank screen with sound, these were upside-down. A minor fix corrected this. There was also a bug with Mission 13 where you were given an escape objective but the enemy AI would detect you and kill you much more  unfairly than the rest of the game, this was noted by many other users but a somewhat ridiculous strategy to "outsmart the AI" rather than play as you would have normally was employed to negate.

Availability: Sniper: Ghost Warrior is available from Steam for €7.99 or GOG for €5.99 when not in a sale. Review copy purchased from Fanatical (with both Sniper: Art of Victory and Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2) for €0.95 in December 2018.

Series:

•     Sniper: Art of Victory [2008]
•     Sniper: Ghost Warrior [2010]
•     Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 [2013]
•     Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 [2017]
•     Sniper: Ghost Warrior Contracts [2019]
•     Sniper: Ghost Warrior Contracts 2 [2021]

New Game Review - RoboCop: Rogue City - Unfinished Business (2025)

Following on from their superb shooter RoboCop: Rogue City in 2023, developers Teyon released a stand-alone expansion RoboCop: Rogue City - Unfinished Business in 2025. The premise of this is quite similar to Dredd, the 2012 Judge Dredd movie in so far as RoboCop enters the the ground floor of Omni-Tower, an OCP high rise apartment block and has to shoot his way up to the villain (who of course is on the top floor).

This is simplistic, nostalgic and most of all fun! The same attention to detail which impressed me on RoboCop: Rogue City is as evident here. The sights and sounds lifted from the original RoboCop movies return you to feeling like the man/machine himself as Peter Weller delivers his lines with the character's trademark monotone albeit sounding a little older. The UE5 engine has been mostly tamed with a shader compilation on startup that eliminates the level of stuttering that seems to plague other games with the engine. It's not non-existent and there were a number of crashes too but this is all excusable for an AA at €30.

RoboCop doesn't need much more by way of toys than we've already seen but Teyon provide a few new bits and bobs that can be fun if not exactly canon. As before you can pick up discarded bad guy weaponry but this really amounts to a curiosity as you have your trusty Auto-9 with an array of enhancements that you pick up and install along the way. There is a sequence where you're stripped of the Auto-9 and have to use a few other weapons to kill everyone between you and your real weapon.

This is a far more streamlined and less varied game in scope to the parent title; while it does restrict you to to one building, there are a number of sequences in the game where you don't play as Robo as a way of providing narrative context (and a way of preventing you from any burnout from the game's singular Omni-Tower setting). These are mostly flashbacks and include a sequence where you play as Murphy before he's transferred to Metro Central. The best of these is one where an incapacitated Robo takes remote control of an ED-209 unit and has it slowly walk through a level obliterating everything and everyone in a sea of dust, debris and mostly blood!  

While Teyon have produced a bucketload or PC and console games since 2006, it's clear from the success of their Terminator: Resistance game as well as RoboCop: Rogue City that this polish AA studio has found a niche of adapting older movie franchises upon which AAA studios have largely ignored or dropped the ball on. They described RoboCop as their most successful game and with a peak of almost 5000 concurrent Steam users it stands to reason that they don't need mega numbers to be successful and considering that gamers who would have legally seen the original RoboCop in the cinema are at least 57 years old now, that's not too shabby a number. I'm satisfied with what's been put out for RoboCop now, so I'm eager to find out what franchise will get Teyon's treatment next.

Final Verdict: This is essentially a boomer-shooter but with modern graphical fidelity and bells and whistles. It's a shot of both adrenalin and nostalgia and is fun from start to finish. I'll play more RoboCop if they make more but I'd like them to resurrect something else next for variety's sake.

Technicals: 13.6 hours through Steam on Windows 11 with an RTX5080 @ 3440x1440 175Hz. Average  FPS: 120 on max settings

Bugs: 5 crashes in total, usually in cinematics.

Purchase Options: Available on Steam for €29.99. Review copy purchased from Fanatical for €16.24 in Jan 2026.

Series: 

• RoboCop: Rogue City [2023]
• - RoboCop: Rogue City - Unfinished Business [2025] 

First Play Review - Tomb Raider I-III Remastered (2024)

When I reviewed my first play of 2013's Tomb Raider reboot, I remarked that while I had played the free demo from the original 1996 game when it was originally released, I was quite frustrated the controls, lacked the patience to learn and dismissed the game as something people probably weren't going to bother playing. The monumental success of the franchise to this day proved me somewhat incorrect and while that is of course exceedingly rare, in this case it's a good thing. 

Despite my failure to adopt the original game into my library, its puzzle solving and Indiana Jones vibe did resonate with me enough to at least outwardly observe the franchise's evolution from the original Core design games all the way to the "Survivor Trilogy" from Square Enix/Crystal Dynamics, the first part of which I played and enjoyed but I understood from word of mouth that it was very different from the originals. When developers Aspyr created a well-regarded remaster of the first three original games in 2024 with updated graphics but especially updated controls, I knew I had to at least sample where the franchise had begun.

A remaster should only ever update the visuals, perhaps audio too and add in some quality of life features that allow newer players to enjoy the 'old game' on modern systems without being forced to deal with the outmoded jank that can't/won't work or look nice today. It shouldn't alter the hero's journey, or the story in any way. The original vision must be preserved or you risk annoying those that play the game for nostalgia's sake. Thankfully Tomb Raider I-III Remastered ticks all these boxes, it looks much better, Lara moves more fluidly than before and it's as difficult as it was ever.

The games are uncompromisingly old school, they don’t offer a map, waypoints or mark yellow paint to indicate this is where you go. You have to actually explore and try out things and any new thing you try can  lead to reward or death. The feeling of navigating ancient tombs is palpable. The remaster itself is treated with the utmost respect. The updated visuals clean everything up while keeping the original block-like geometry intact. Even with the enhanced textures and updated Lara and enemy models, these are still very much games from the late ‘90s and Lara's stiff animations reveal she is still following an invisible grid.

Purists will likely continue to use "Tank Controls", which are so called because they actually follow the movement principal of a tank. You head (turret) may look independently of the direction (tracks) your moving in. I think unless you used these because you had to in the original versions, it's not intuitive or worth trying to master them now when you don't have to. Controlling Lara is still a little awkward to get used to even with the "modern controls" scheme, but only because the game was designed around the tank controls. However once it's mastered it becomes more fluid and before too long it's like second nature. Once it clicks, platforming becomes less about reflexes and more about precision and planning.

You can switch from the original graphics to the modern graphics at any time.

While unlike most other games, combat here is something that happens every now and again rather than a purpose. The PS1 era lock-on is quite alien to someone not used to this 'console crutch' but there's no other way to play so one just has to suck it up. You have infinite pistol ammo but ammo for other weapons is scattered throughout levels and often your reward for exploring; just ignore the fact that for some reason magazines of 9mm ammo is lying in sealed ancient sarcophagi for thousands of years! While you can be shot by NPCs or mauled by animals, the greater threats you face in Tomb Raider is the environment itself. Most levels are littered with deadly insta-kill traps that would make Gary Gygax jealous. All can be avoided or disabled somehow but usually through trial and error and after you die to them once which is the bast way to reveal where they are.

Playing the three games back-to-back highlighted the level of experimentation that was happening at the time. Each entry refines ideas and mechanics, sometimes brilliantly but sometimes not. The first game is mainly an Egyptian adventure and has the most reason to have "tomb" in the title as that's where you spend the majority of the time. It's the most iconic setting which is why it was remade as Tomb Raider: Anniversary in 2007 and a second remake Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis is scheduled for release this year. Tomb Raider II in contrast didn't have a lot of tombs and mostly firearm equipped human enemies were more annoying than the awkward combat required to eliminate them. A lot of the game features underwater levels which additionally made you fight sharks and divers underwater with a speargun that never had enough spears and was an exercise in frustration when you ran out of breath. Thankfully Tomb Raider III turned it around introducing sprinting and crouching into the mix with some enemies that could poison you and while it was a harder game and didn't have a lot of tombs it had more interesting environments than the second game.

Final Verdict: While not everything has aged well; Tomb Raider I-III Remastered was worth my time exploring. Core Design's strong philosophy was obvious: trust the player, make the world hostile, and reward curiosity, especially when they're totally lost and Aspyr have redelivered this flawlessly with a new coat of paint.

Technicals: 84.7 hours though Steam using a Nvidia 4070Ti & RTX5080 @ 3440x1440/175Hz with no adjustable settings on Windows 11. Windows HDR does not engage for this title.

Bugs: None

Availability: Tomb Raider I- III Remastered is available from Steam or GOG for €28.99. Review copy purchased in Feb 2024 for €21.29.

The Tomb Raider Franchise (mainline only)

• Tomb Raider [1996]
• Tomb Raider II [1997]
• Tomb Raider III [1998]
• Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation [1999]
• Tomb Raider Chronicles [2000]
• Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness [2003]
• Tomb Raider: Legend [2006]
• Tomb Raider: Anniversary [2007]
• Tomb Raider: Underworld [2008]
• Tomb Raider [2013]
• Rise of the Tomb Raider [2015]
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider [2018]
• Tomb Raider I - III Remastered [2024]
• Tomb Raider IV - VI Remastered [2025]
• Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis [2026?]
• Tomb Raider: Catalyst [2027?] 

 

Last Play - Anthem [2019]

It's actually my first play, but I felt it was more significant an event for saying "Last Play" as by the time this is being read, Anthem, Bioware's failed attempt at a live service game is permanently offline and unplayable forever.

A significant amount has been written about Anthem, specifically it's monumental failure for both Bioware and EA Games and I don't feel it necessary to delve too deeply into it but what I do believe was that Casey Hudson (then General Manager of Bioware) pitched the idea to EA as a departure from the Mass Effect and Dragon Age IPs to merge a live service service looter-shooter with Bioware's classic storytelling. As Bioware only had experience with the latter and the team had no experience with Frostbite - EA's engine of choice, the writing was on the wall for an unmitigated disaster.

Reviews were not as bad as they could have been averaging 6/10. Praise was heaped on the combat mechanics with particular attention to flying. But criticisms were levelled against it's mostly unfinished state, boring loot, repetitive game play loop and lacklustre endgame, the death sentence of a live service title. Most egregiously slighted however were the die hard Bioware fans who showed up for a new sci-fi story but were met with a half-baked plot that didn't hold much water after 30 hours of game with no traditional companions (romanceable or otherwise) for your nameless, unmodifiable!!! character. It was the latter issues that I picked up on in the reviews and decided then that it just wasn't something I would be devoting time to.

I didn't miss much. The first (delayed) post-launch content Cataclysm, the first of three acts of a story was released in August 2019. By September this was canned and instead "seasonal updates" were promised which would address the game's massive problems instead. By February 2020 this was also cancelled in favour of a complete 'reboot' of the entire game similar to FFXIV's A Realm Reborn. By February 2021 Bioware announced that all future work on Anthem had ceased. In July 2025 EA announced that the final nail in Anthem's coffin was to be hammered in on 12th January 2026 as the game's servers, essential to deliver the game's online-only content to the game clients, were to be sunset, so last week I installed the game I picked up from a sale that appeared after it ceased support.

An hour in the game gave me a look inside the vision for this new IP. As expected from Bioware the lore was laid on thick but clearly open to be expanded upon as one would progress. A plethora of proper nouns were introduced in a way that you would know that this was going to be your lingo for your foreseeable future. The opening cutscenes lasted more than 5 mins before you were given control of your Javelin (exosuit), the narrative being you crashed and have to reinitialise each "new" system one by one.

Once you have full control and all of the abilities you were going to get for the prologue though, I will say that the gameplay was thoroughly enjoyable. The Frostbite engine was made for shooters as opposed to RPGs so I think it looked far better here than when EA forced Bioware to leverage it for Mass Effect: Andromeda. Shooting, jumping and of course the flying all felt amazing and I found myself disappointed not that the game would be shutdown in a few days but because even if it wasn't, the game from all accounts would after a a few hours offer no incentive to progress.

 

Hudson's folly was the original pursuit of a live service game. Had he pitched the same setting and mechanics but as a traditional Bioware RPG, EA may have greetlit it based on the success of both the Mass Effect and Dragon Age franchises as story-rich choice-driven RPGs. In the aftermath some have suggested that a reworking from it's live-service to single player RPG model may have saved it but after seeing the failure of Dragon Age: The Veilguard to do the same (as that was originally also set to be a live-service game) I doubt it would have worked. With Anthem and Dragon Age's failure the entire future of Bioware now rests on the next Mass Effect.

Final Verdict: Some great ideas were woven in to some impressive early gameplay and story that reportedly dies as one progresses towards an unremarkable endgame. We can only be left wondering if EA had given Bioware the time and resources to fix or reboot the game, could it have seen a revival like FFXIV, No Man's Sky or Cyberpunk 2077? Sadly we will never truly know.

Availability: You're too late, it's gone forever. Review copy obtained from the EAStore for €1.99 in December 2022. 

 

10 Future Games on the General's Radar (2026 edition)

Following on from last year's list, DOOM: The Dark Ages, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater and Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 were all released; so here is a new list of 10 games that caught my intention in alphabetical order. Only the first is actually expected this year with others between 2027 and 2029 if we're lucky.

 

007: First Light (IO Interactive)

Last year, all we knew was that Hitman developers IO Interactive were working on a James Bond game under the working title of Project 007. Now we know everything and have seen it in action. 007 First Light will depict Bond as a rookie agent in third-person action much like Hitman. We'll know if it's any good in May this year.

Blade (Arcane/Bethesda)

 

Returning from last year's post, everyone's favourite daywalking dhampir is getting his own 3rd person action game with lore from the Marvel comics as opposed to Wesley Snipes' movies. I predicted last year that we'd hear something about this game this year after its reveal in late 2023.

The Blood of the Dawnwalker (Rebel Wolves/Bandai Namco)

 

It just so happens that the next game on the list is about another 'daywalker' a Dawnwaker - human by day, vampire by night from former Witcher developers who founded  Rebel Wolves. The Blood of the Dawnwalker will be a dark fantasy action RPG. 

Exodus (Archetype Entertainment)

Still on the list since last year, from Archetype Entertainment who were formed by ex-Bioware personnel, Exodus is being advertised as sci-fi action adventure RPG which looks to the the spiritual successor to the older Mass Effect games with a heavy dose of concepts explored in Christopher's Nolan's Interstellar. They even have Matthew McConneghy on board with some voice work. The promotional work being done here is some of the best I've seen. Release is currently scheduled for early 2027.

 

The Expanse: Osiris Reborn (Owlcat Games)

 

 

A new entry to the list, an upcoming ARPG developed and published by Owlcat Games who have entries in both the Pathfinder and Warhammer 40K franchises. Apparently Osiris Reborn's plot will run parallel to the events of the first two books and first two-and-a-half seasons of the television series The Expanse. 

Iron Man (Motive/EA)

We still know next to nothing about Motive's Iron Man game since the time of last year's post. As a major fan of the armoured avenger, I hope they use lore from the Marvel comics as opposed to the MCU. If there was a side game mechanic to manage Stark Enterprises, prevent your heart stopping and battling alcoholism as well as being a superhero it just might be perfect.

Mass Effect 5 (Bioware/EA)

Again, no news since the post last year but all reports suggest Bioware remain committed to working on the next Mass Effect which will be developed with Unreal Engine 5. If we see this before 2028 I'll be shocked.

Star Wars: Eclipse (Quantic Dream/Lucasfilm Games)

 

PR embattled Quantic Dream's games have always intrigued me by how different from other games they are. I'm fascinated by how this could be applied to Star Wars even though it's set in the High Republic era. 

 

Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic (Arcanaut Studios/Lucasfilm Games)

 

 

The final new entry is another Star Wars game from former Bioware honcho Casey Hudson's new outfit Arcanaut Studios. This will apparently be a game set in the time period at the end of the Old Republic era. Hudson's involvement suggest it's (hopefully) an RPG. This is expected to be on this list through 2029 now.

The Witcher IV (CD Projekt Red/CD Projekt)

Last year I mentioned that the reveal of a Witcher IV trailer reminded me that I need to play The Witcher III before this comes out in - I expect late 2027. I still do!

There's are of course a few other projects that I'm following but not enough is known yet or they could be too far into the future to get hyped for yet. These include Larian Studio's next projects, one of which is Divinity, a CRPG set in one of their own original IPs, likely some time out before it's early access period. Another is a Knights of the Old Republic remake currently with Mad Head Studios and Saber Interactive that's been sooooo long in the development that I fear for it outright. A Cyberpunk 2077 sequel from CD Projekt Red which is barely in pre-production. And Insomniac's Marvel's Wolverine game and GTA VI from Rockstar for which PC versions aren't even announced yet.

First Play Review - Assassin's Creed III Remastered (2019)

Assassins Creed III wasn't a hated game in the series but it had the task of progressing the franchise forward after the fan-favourite "Ezio Trilogy" (Assassin's Creed II, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood & Assassin's Creed: Revelations) in 2012. Unlike some missteps elsewhere with their custodianship of the Tom Clancy brand (specifically Splinter Cell), Ubisoft churned out seven Assassin's Creed titles in the five years between 2011 and 2015. Assassin's Creed III was the only AC title to release in 2012 and to date is the only full title in the series to be remastered.

Assassin's Creed III takes the eternal battle of the Assassins vs The Templars to Colonial America from 1754 to 1783. Here you will control Englishman Haythem Kenway who makes the journey from England at the onset of the French and Indian War and later a Mohican boy Ratonhnhaké:ton who becomes known as Connor, the first Native American member of the Assassin Brotherhood.

The plot once again has you as Desmond uncovering the secrets of the mysterious Isu picking up directly from Revelations. While I admit I was intrigued by this in the beginning, by now the fifth outing, I grew weary of it as it serves no real purpose and has become more incoherent and annoying more than anything. The true game anyway is inside the Animus and the American Revolution was an interesting backdrop to play in. Along the way you meet everyone from George Washington to Benjamin Franklin and even kill a few famous people (who historically died albeit under different circumstances).

Conor is a very different protagonist to Ezio and it was quite jarring to play as someone with such a different personality or dare I say lack thereof. I get he is supposed to be a Native American, incensed by outsiders invading his ancestral lands, destroying his village and killing his mother but this seems to be expressed through a petulant child's impatience and arrogance rather than someone taking mature and measured view of the changing political landscape while assassinating people in revenge. Being annoyed by the main character isn't a great feeling for a long game but thankfully each AC game from this point onwards has a new protagonist so it's a short-lived suffering.

It's fair to say that once Ubisoft scored a hit with a game, they often simply reiterate on the formula with little by way of significant innovation and that's very evident from ACIII. Traversal is as the older AC games, without the extra zip-lining of Revelations and now one can free run through trees as well as over rooftops. Combat is a little more streamlined and and a tad easier than before and also shows Connor's sheer brutality with his traditional weapons like a stone axe or tomahawk, very different from Ezio's more redefined and elegant combat. The majority of the game isn't vastly different from before other than the setting and characters and that's not necessarily a bad thing but there does need to be more significant innovation than what we got here for a title to be elevated above it's predecessors.

One new thing that did to come to ACIII is a naval battle mechanic, where you take control of a naval vessel and manage its sails and weapons to outwit the enemy and sink them before they sink you. While this is a welcome change from the other 30 hours or so of melee combat, it's underutilised here and wouldn't be until the sequel Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag where it would be explored properly.

While I wasn't bored by any means, I did not on this occasion seek out to reveal as much of the map through synchronisation points, nor did I complete all the side-missions after a time, preferring to concentrate on the main plot. I know that later titles in the series somewhat softlock you until you gain experience or wall off access to content through playing but this was not necessary here which is good in the way that Ubisoft respect your time and not require you to complete certain side content to progress, but bad in the way that I do feel I did miss out on part of the game that I may have enjoyed. I also chose not to engage with the DLC, The Tyranny of King Washington as it was essentially a "dream sequence" and unrelated to the main narrative.

At the time of playing Assassin's Creed III, I was unaware that the remastered version is considered partly inferior to the original release due to differences in lighting and character facial textures being more "plastic" looking. Knowing this I would still have elected to play the remaster due to some quality of life changes and modernised controls. The original retail version of ACIII is no longer available for sale.

Final Verdict: With a lacklustre protagonist and nothing too innovative, Assassins Creed III is not the most beloved entry in the franchise and a relatively by-the-numbers Ubisoft adventure. It was a bizarre choice for the only remastered entry of the series as of 2025.

Technicals: 35 hrs playtime approx though Ubisoft Connect in 2560x1440 @ 60FPS (engine cap) on RTX4070Ti in Windows 11. In-game HDR.

Bugs: Horses would occasionally get stuck in terrain.

Availability: Assassin's Creed III: Remastered is on Steam or the Ubisoft Store for €39.99. Review copy came as DLC included with a purchase of Assassin's Creed Odyssey - Gold Edition for €33.43 in November 2019. 

Series Timeline [PC]:

• Assassin's Creed [2007]
• Assassin's Creed II [2010]
• Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood [2011]
• Assassin's Creed: Revelations [2011]
• Assassin's Creed III [2012]
• Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag [2013] 
• - Assassin's Creed: Freedom Cry [2014]
• - Assassin's Creed III: Liberation HD [2014]
• Assassin's Creed Unity [2014]
• Assassin's Creed Rogue [2015]
• Assassin's Creed Syndicate [2015]
• Assassin's Creed Origins [2017]
• Assassin's Creed Odyssey [2018]
• - Assassin's Creed III Remastered [2019] 
• - Assassin's Creed III Liberation Remastered [2019] 
• Assassin's Creed Valhalla [2020]
• Assassin's Creed Mirage [2023] 
• Assassin's Creed Shadows [2025]
• Assassin’s Creed Hexe [202?]