World of Warcraft: Dragonflight is about coming home, in more ways than one. It's a homecoming for the titular Dragonflights of Blizzard's long-running MMORPG, who return to their ancient ancestral home to pick up the pieces and rebuild after thousands of years away. It's also a homecoming for players, who after years of languishing in WoW's unpopular Shadowlands expansion, get to return to Azeroth and all the familiar sights and sounds it holds.

Dragonflight, in that regard, is incredibly nostalgic, but not in the way you might expect. Though it without a doubt features the return of fan-favorite characters, monsters, and even gameplay systems, it never feels beholden or shackled by them. Instead, it takes those familiar elements and breathes new life into them. Whether it's the return of talent trees reminiscent of those from the game's earliest expansions, the game's updated user interface, its lack of mandatory activities, or the feeling of adventure the new dragonriding system invokes, Dragonflight miraculously feels both fresh and familiar at the same time. Even if there are some aspects of Dragonflight that could be improved, I can't help but be impressed at how a handful of new ideas, along with major facelifts to some old ones, breathe new life into Blizzard's flagship title.

Dragons, as you might expect, are the star of this new expansion. Players ride new, highly customizable Dragon Isles Drakes. The majority of the main campaign's primary characters are dragons. There's even a new dragon race, the Dracthyr, that is only playable as the new dragon-themed spellcasting class, the Evoker. The Dragon Aspects Alexstrasza, Nozdormu, Wrathion, and Kalecgos all play key roles in the game's initial story campaign. To see them all front and center for the first real time since 2010's Cataclysm expansion is part of what makes Dragonflight feel so nostalgic, signaling a return to the high fantasy of Azeroth after nearly two years of the dark, dour, and death-themed settings and characters of Shadowlands.

Much like protagonist Zack Fair himself, the story of the self-proclaimed country-boy-turned-SOLDIER-First-Class is not one shrouded in mystery. If you've engaged with Final Fantasy VII or any of its various spin-offs, prequels, remakes, or animated movies, chances are you understand the weight of his legacy--which is, coincidentally, only rivaled by the weight of his sword. However, if you're looking for the definitive way to experience it, look no further than Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion.

A remake of the 2007 PSP exclusive Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core Reunion is a faithful retelling of Zack Fair's story with dramatic visual upgrades, full voice acting, and several quality-of-life changes. Considering the game was already heralded as a fantastic prequel and one of the best titles on PSP, it comes as little surprise that this version is triumphant in making Crisis Core into a modern day must-play for Final Fantasy VII fans. Not only does Crisis Core Reunion port the once fairly difficult-to-find game to several new consoles, allowing for a greater audience to experience the title, it transforms the game from feeling like a smaller, handheld experience into something that can proudly stand beside Final Fantasy VII Remake as a worthy companion.

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion follows Zack Fair, a skilled young man who quickly moves up the rank of soldier--Shinra's elite fighting force--to stand beside other legendary heroes like Genesis, Angeal, and the later-notorious Sephiroth. However, once information regarding the various experiments Shinra conducted on these elite warriors begins to surface, the four colleagues quickly find themselves at odds with each other. Inevitably, these tensions set into motion the events of Final Fantasy VII, including Sephiroth's turn toward madness, the burning of Nibelheim, and Cloud's involvement in the whole ordeal. However, Crisis Core doesn't solely exist as a precursor to something bigger, as it succeeds in weaving an engaging, intimate, and emotionally impactful narrative of its own.

The first thing that jumps out when starting Need for Speed Unbound is its vibrant art style. At a time when most other racing games are striving for photorealism, EA's latest distinguishes itself from the rest of the grid by adopting a stylized mix between reality and comic books. While its cars land on the side of realism, the characters behind the wheel are cel-shaded and its open world falls somewhere in between the two aesthetics. Vivid graffiti-style flourishes also pop up when you activate nitrous or fly off a ramp, and drifting kicks up colorful tire smoke that looks hand-drawn, with all of these effects punctuating the action with a unique sense of style.

There aren't any modern racing games that look quite like it, yet the rest of Unbound feels like a continuation of 2019's Need for Speed Heat. From the distinction between day and night races to the cat-and-mouse chase that occurs when you have to outrun the cops and make it to a safe house in order to bank your money. Unbound doesn't attempt to reinvent the wheel, but what's here maintains the series' recent quality, even if there are some wrong turns along the way.

As is now customary in Need for Speed games, Unbound features a rather forgettable story about getting back at a former friend who stole your ride. There's little point in delving into details because, ultimately, it's inconsequential. Cutscenes are sprinkled in every now and then, but for the most part, the story is just sort of there, happening in the background as you drive around the city, so at least it's unobtrusive. There's some fun incidental dialogue every now and then, including one mission where you're traveling with a "weeb racer" who spends the whole journey telling you about the history of anime and how it definitely isn't a cartoon. Rapper A$AP Rocky also makes an appearance (because why not?) and it feels like he was given a microphone and free rein to say whatever came to mind. It's a moment that stands out in a game that's filled to the brim with ancillary dialogue. Aside from this, the story is relatively easy to ignore, but it does succeed in giving impetus to the game's structure.

When I spoke to several teams making games in the Left 4 Dead lineage, they each had some unique thoughts on why the game, and its resulting genre, works. But they also each echoed one similar thought: Pacing reigns supreme. Horde shooters, like Warhammer 40K Darktide, can live or die on the flow of its co-op missions. Aided by an AI director, missions must be tuned to reliably challenge, but not necessarily overwhelm the player. Impressively, Darktide gets this aspect of its grimdark missions exactly right, though the ways in which the game adds new layers don't work quite as well.

Darktide is not just a Left 4 Dead-like, it's also the spiritual successor to Fatshark's previous series in the genre, Vermintide. Moving the experience out of the base Warhammer world and into the far-flung and grimdark future of Warhammer 40K comes with a major makeover both cosmetically and mechanically. The biggest new addition comes in the form of an arsenal of firearms that have no place in the hard fantasy of traditional Warhammer. But in the 40K era, things like hand cannons, assault rifles, and electricity-infused projectiles not only fit right in, but also dramatically alter the flow of combat by adding more range-based considerations.

This massive shift is well-implemented, as enemies will match you blow for blow. Fighting from a distance will see them trading shots and taking cover, and if you--or they--are able to close the gap, they'll quickly swap to melee combat. When this happens, Darktide leans into the still-great crowd-control elements first seen in Vermintide, where both nuanced swordfighting and mindless hacking and slashing are usually viable techniques--though on higher difficulties, the former naturally becomes more crucial.

Despite releasing a full 15 years later, you could argue that The Callisto Protocol is the spiritual predecessor to Dead Space, given the original pitch from director Glen Schofield was for Visceral Games' survival-horror title to be set within a prison, not a mining vessel. And in a lot of ways, The Callisto Protocol similarly dazzles with its incredible art direction and sound design, even emulating Dead Space's over-the-shoulder third-person perspective and integrated HUD. However, The Callisto Protocol goes its own way by focusing on melee strikes and dodges, utilizing a combat system that feels great at first but isn't suitable for the game's more action-focused latter half. Plus, lengthy death animations compound the frustrations of surprise difficulty spikes, creating an experience that feels like an uneven mix of horror and action that fails to adequately commit to or excel at either.

In The Callisto Protocol, you play as Jacob Lee, a freight transporter contracted to ferry cargo for the United Jupiter Company, moving supplies from the UJC-operated Black Iron Prison on Callisto to the colony on Europa. On a routine trip back to Black Iron, Jacob's ship is boarded by Outer Way, a group blamed for a recent terrorist attack on Europa. In the ensuing struggle, Jacob and Outer Way leader Dani Nakamura are the only survivors, stranded on Callisto. They're both picked up by Black Iron security head Captain Leon Ferris and incarcerated in the prison on orders from warden Duncan Cole. Jacob awakes in Black Iron hours later, discovering a mysterious infection has been released into the prison, transforming the prisoners and guards into biophage monsters. Escaping from his cell, he teams up with fellow prisoner Elias Porter to find a way out.

The Callisto Protocol doesn't devote too much time to storytelling and worldbuilding. None of the characters (save for Elias) are especially likable, and though the main villain has an intriguing motivation--you can clearly see how The Callisto Protocol was originally intended to fit into the PUBG: Battlegrounds' universe once you find out what the bad guy is up to--it's only revealed right as the game is concluding. I wish it had been revealed far sooner because, though the ramifications of it are interesting, there's not enough space in the plot for those ramifications to be explored. The game fleshes out the world up to that point with optional audio logs to discover, but most don't actually reveal all that much, and those that do aren't very interesting to listen to. It's ultimately not worth going off the path in pursuit of these collectibles.