One of the best games I've ever played. I could go on all day about Hollow Knight's many pleasures--its singular art style, cryptic narrative, its pantheon of stellar boss battles--but I think what I most appreciate about it is its willingness to be weird. Few games these days commit so brazenly to the bit, and Hollow Knight is all the better for it.

FromSoftware prove once again that they are the masters of the genre they created. Elden Ring takes all the best bits of their previous games and drops them into a gargantuan open world. Perhaps most impressive is how FS avoid all the trappings of modern open world games, focusing instead on the thrill of discovery; a thrill they manage to sustain for upwards of 150 hours. An unprecedented achievement.