As the Switch moves into the twilight years of an especially lengthy lifespan, Nintendo has increasingly turned toward remasters of its back catalog to fill out the release calendar. This is the context for Luigi's Mansion 2 HD, a remastered version of a relatively recent 2013 release on 3DS. The sequel is a game that served as a sharpened, refined take on the ideas presented by the first Luigi's Mansion--and laid the groundwork for the even better Luigi's Mansion 3--so having access to that piece of the series' history untethered from the 3DS makes it feel that much more valuable. While the recency makes it feel less essential than some remasters of older classics like Metroid Prime or Super Mario RPG, it's still just as fun to solve puzzles, schlurp ghosts into your jerry-rigged vacuum cleaner, and enjoy some gentle scares along the way.

The original Luigi's Mansion was a cute diversion-verging-on-tech-demo that helped cement Luigi's personality as Mario's skittish and reluctantly heroic brother. Drafted against his will to catch a bunch of ghosts, it was a kid-friendly take on Resident Evil by way of Ghostbusters--even down to the tank controls, puzzles, and interconnected mansion setting. Luigi's Mansion 2, by comparison, swaps out the single environment for a series of different buildings that all reside in one extremely haunted neighborhood called Evershade Valley. That gives the game a more disconnected, mission-based feeling than both its earlier and later entries, in exchange for environments that present very differently from each other and allow for the feeling of themed haunted houses: an ancient tomb, a creaky old snow lodge, and so on.

The mission structure focused on single goals that take around 15-20 minutes to complete seems primed for portable play on 3DS--the game's original platform--and that gives Luigi's Mansion 2 a particular rhythm. It's easy to pick up and digest a stage or two at a time but harder to get lost in for long stretches of time without feeling like you're going through the same steps over and over. A typical mission has you exploring a particular section of the building you're investigating, usually needing to locate some MacGuffin to unlock a section, sucking up a few scattered ghosts, and taking part in at least one arena-style fight against several ghosts. Rinse, repeat.

Still in early access, Evil Empire's The Rogue Prince of Persia is already an entertaining 2D roguelike, building a world composed of vibrant colors and dozens of monstrous soldiers that are ever-so-delightful to slice and crush over and over. For now, the game falters when it comes to delivering a compelling story, but its use of narrative breadcrumbs to lead the player through its assortment of levels helps to maintain an incentive to push forward when its challenging combat presents a roadblock that takes a handful of attempts to overcome. It's still too early to say anything definitive about the full game, but what's here is more than a sound bedrock--this is a great spiritual successor to Dead Cells that builds on an already engaging combat loop with smooth parkour and movement mechanics.

In The Rogue Prince of Persia, you play as the eldest of two princes, who has found himself stuck in a time loop. The Huns have invaded the prince's home city, utilizing a strange dark magic that has overwhelmed Persia's forces. Possessing a medallion that revives him in an oasis encampment just outside the city three days into the invasion every time he dies, the prince has to repeatedly fight his way through the Huns to reach their leader and kill him. While working his way through the various levels of the game, the prince will also run across allies and members of his family--some captured, others still fighting the Huns--whom he can aid by utilizing knowledge gleaned from multiple loops.

The prince's investigations play out as a mind board with pictures of characters and notes that are connected with lines, hinting at what you might have to do next to proceed in the game. A note discovered in the Huns' camp reveals that an important individual has been captured by the game's first boss, for example, encouraging you to reach said boss to question them as to their identity. Some of these investigations require you to travel to specific areas in a certain order over the course of a single run--I once had to talk to someone in one of the two starting areas to grab a specific item, travel to another area to use said item, and then go onto a third location to see how the used item had affected the environment. Dying amid a run would reset the process, as the nature of the time loop would mean that I never spoke to the person in the first area in the first place.

Though The Chinese Room has previously worked in the horror genre, I don't think of the team as primarily a horror-centric development studio. Rather, I've long felt its name is synonymous with sadness. The throughline spanning games like Dear Esther, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, and even Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is a feeling of melancholy, longing, or even tragedy. Still Wakes The Deep continues this run of depressing games, which I mean as a compliment. By leaning into the studio's forte, the game's memorable horrors become more affecting hardships.

I've found it difficult to write about Still Wakes The Deep as I didn't want to spoil its best aspect--the monster at the root of it all, which isn't shown in any pre-launch materials. But then I discovered how the game has been advertised--"The Thing on an oil rig"--which seems to let me off the hook. As it turns out, that elevator pitch is exactly what this game is like. Blue-collar workers stranded with a creature of unknown origin is a classic horror premise--Alien's "truckers in space" is essentially this, too. The Chinese Room pulls from these genre titans to tell a story of its own and places it all in an especially uncommon setting.

It's Christmas 1975. Aboard an oil rig near Scotland, Caz McLeary evades the personal problems awaiting him back on the mainland by joining his buddy and several others toiling away at sea. The game's early moments set the scene well, with large, intimidating human-made machinery creaking and bellowing amid a storm. Indoors, claustrophobic corridors are plastered in cautionary signage that reminds players of just how dangerous and oppressive an oil rig is--even without a monster showing up. Fulfilling any role in such an environment seems to merit copious hazard pay. As waves crash around the perimeter and rain-soaked ladders climb to platforms that feel more like thrill rides when you stand atop them, the game's message seems clear: This place is not safe, and humanity doesn't belong there.

Late into Shadow of the Erdtree, Elden Ring's first and only DLC, I encountered something I'd never seen before in a From Software game. Nestled in a far corner of the Land of Shadow was a village untouched by the death, devastation, and decay left in the wake of Messmer The Impaler's bloody conquest. There, I watched trees sway gently as the wind swept through and marveled at the multicolored flowers spread across a field of lush green grass. The twilight of an overhanging moon met the golden rays of a life-giving tree towering above, creating a dream-like tranquility that was accentuated by soft, sorrowful music. No monsters lurked in the shadows and no threats awaited around corners; there was just beautiful, untarnished serenity.

Shadow of the Erdtree takes players to the Land of Shadow, a place that has been hidden away, where the laws of the venerated Golden Order that governs The Lands Between were written in blood, and that has been forgotten and left to fester. Battling through the Land of Shadow's numerous castles, caves, and crypts delivers exactly what you want from a From Software game and what made Elden Ring an open-world masterpiece when it was released two years ago. It offers the same thrilling sense of player-empowered exploration and rewarding discovery, as well as the satisfaction of triumphing over adversity. These aspects of Elden Ring are all as potent in Shadow of the Erdtree, but it's the game's subversions that are the most striking.

Shadow of the Erdtree is full of surprises, whether it's an unexpected moment of calm, a new gameplay twist, or a narrative revelation. The biggest of these, however, pertains to my expectations. I was ready for a modest-sized expansion to the world of Elden Ring akin to Bloodborne's The Old Hunters or Dark Souls 3's Ringed City. What I got, however, was a full-fledged, 30-hour game crafted by a team that is peerless when it comes to creating worlds that feel as dangerous and unnerving to be in as they are satisfying to conquer.