After Hideo Kojima's Silent Hills fizzled out as a project, leaving the free mood piece P.T. as the only concrete work ever to be tied to Konami's revival project, it inspired a slew of P.T. copycats. This trend has stretched on for years, and can still be seen today. Focusing on looping residential hallways in first-person while ghosts poke their heads out at scripted moments, many creators loved P.T. but often took the wrong lessons from the legendary playable teaser. At first glance, Luto is the latest in a long line of P.T. wannabes, but it doesn't take long for it to stand out from the pack as an especially unpredictable and unconventional horror story.

In Luto, you play a character stuck in an emotional rut and a literal loop. Waking to a smashed bathroom mirror, protagonist Sam exits into an L-shaped hallway, passes some locked doors, heads down the stairs, and out the front door. The next day, Sam wakes to a smashed bathroom mirror, exits into an L-shaped hallway, passes some locked doors, heads down the stairs, and out the front door. The next day--well, you get it. But where so many games struggle to distance themselves from Kojima's original blueprint, Luto takes this kernel of an idea and expands on it in creative, and sometimes wondrous, ways.

I originally played a demo of Luto a few years ago, and I was surprised to hear a narrator has since been attached to this horror story. The voice of an almost gratingly upbeat British man gives the game the sense of something more like The Stanley Parable, which rings only truer when the narrator seems to comment on what I'm doing with reactivity and near-omniscience. I hated this addition to the game at first. The creaks of the floorboards in the empty house, once so eerie in the demo, were now drowned out by a narrator who seemed to spoonfeed me the story. Why did they spoil its tense atmosphere with this chatterbox?

As someone who has studied, created, and loved art for the majority of her life, I don't mean it lightly when I say that Chinese landscape paintings are among the most beautiful works I've had the privilege to view. Although this can be said of virtually all art, landscapes--be them from the Tang, Song, Yuan, or Ming Dynasties--have a distinctly extraordinary ability to convey the history, politics, and philosophy of a land and people defined by resilience. Just as the imperial stamps often found adorning these works reflect the distribution and transition of wealth and power throughout China's storied history, the content of these paintings is often metaphorical, and reflects the fears, values, and culture of people I'd otherwise never know.

One of my favorite of these paintings is Ma Yuan's "Dancing and Singing (Peasants Returning From Work)," which is not only gorgeous, but does a remarkable job of showcasing Ma Yuan's prowess as a formally trained, fourth-generation painter, as well as the self-expression that would ultimately cement him as one of the artists China's Ma-Xia school would be named after. In this piece, thick-trunked trees give way to wisplike branches; an ever-encroaching fog rolls across the foothills; powerful mountains tower above temple rooftops; and masterful ax-cut strokes, somehow, carve mountains out of silk. It's a truly memorable piece, and as such, I mean it as a high compliment when I say that, in many ways, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers reminds me of it.

Part of this, of course, is because the world of Wuchang: Fallen Feathers' is gorgeous. Across my 30 or so hours with the game, I never once tired of admiring its gnarled trees, mist-soaked mountains, dilapidated temples, and all the winding paths that led me through them. But it's more than that. Like Ma Yuan's "Dancing and Singing," the debut title from Chinese studio Leenzee does a wonderful job of interpreting and reconstructing generations of soulslikes while also adding its own flourishes, as well as showcasing a sliver of the Ming Dynasty's legacy, even if it's largely fictitious. Furthermore, combat that feels fantastic, level design that fosters curiosity, great art direction, and robust systems and customization options that ensure flexibility all make Wuchang shine. Although the overall experience isn’t particularly transformative and the game suffers from dramatic shifts in difficulty, most of the time, Wuchang's moment-to-moment gameplay makes it a great experience and an easy title to recommend to soulslike fans.

What's the measure of a new Sims 4 expansion pack at this point? After 11 years and dozens of free and paid DLC releases, it's easy to imagine that we've seen it all, that we may be past the point where a new release can dramatically alter the fundamentals of the Sims 4 experience. But the latest pack, Enchanted by Nature, proves that expectation is faulty thanks to its mix of compelling fairy gameplay, a uniquely verdant new world to live in, and the ability to live self-sufficiently in the woods. Yeah, this pack is different.

Since most of the worlds in The Sims 4 are familiar-looking city environments, it's always at least a little bit exciting when we get something more distinctive, like Chestnut Ridge in Horse Ranch or Mt. Komorebi in Snowy Escape. Innisgreen, a lush world based on Ireland, is another location that definitely fits that bill, as it's more like a large region than a singular town or city, thanks to its unique layout.

Innisgreen has three distinctive neighborhoods: the Coast of Adhmor is the local town, Sprucederry Grove is a sort of wooded suburb, and Everdew is a colorful magical forest with a buildable lot that sits on top of a giant tree. That variation from neighborhood to neighborhood is itself a unique aspect of Innisgreen--none of the previous Sims 4 worlds have this type of variety within themselves.

The people yearn for college football. After an 11-year hiatus, EA's collegiate football series returned last year and quickly set US records as the best-selling sports game of all time. That's no mean feat, but EA Orlando isn't resting on its laurels with EA Sports College Football 26. The latest game in the series has its flaws, but ultimately improves upon its predecessor in a multitude of ways, with modes like Dynasty, Road to Glory, and the game's renewed emphasis on rivalries honing in on what makes the college football experience unique when compared to Madden and other professional sports games.

All of this starts with the presentation. Whether it's 100,000 fans belting out Mr. Brightside inside The Big House or Virginia Tech's players emerging from the tunnel to the pounding drums and iconic riffs of Enter Sandman, there's an impressive attention to detail that ensures almost all of the 136 schools in the game feel both authentic and singular to their specific college traditions, pageantry, and stadium atmosphere. There are significantly more pre-game runouts than before, with many of the smaller teams now stepping onto the field with their own individual rituals included. Some of the larger teams' runouts have also been updated since last year, adding to the game's pomp and circumstance by featuring traditions like Oklahoma's Sooner Schooner and South Carolina's Cockaboose.

There are dozens of new mascots, too, as well as new pre-game marching band formations to go along with an incredible soundscape of snare drums, trombones, and French horns that enhances each stadium's kinetic atmosphere. A few teams also have specific touchdown and turnover celebrations, rewarding each takeaway with a short cutscene, such as Arizona piercing footballs with their turnover sword or a Georgia player donning their savage pads.

I don't have any keen insight to Nintendo's process, but if you told me that Donkey Kong Bananza was crafted by a Voltron-like supergroup of key developers from its biggest franchises, I would believe you. At first glance, it bears the strongest resemblance to Super Mario Odyssey, from which it gets most of its fundamental mechanics, structure, and game-feel. Then it augments that with physics-based terrain deformation and experimental flexibility reminiscent of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Finally, it merges both of those into what serves as a soft reboot of Donkey Kong, borrowing bits and pieces from all over the Kong-iverse to make something that is both recognizable and fresh. The result is an excellent platforming adventure that moves with its own propulsive force, constantly beckoning you to dig a little deeper.

The Donkey Kong DNA is important because, for a lot of older gamers, DK as a 3D-platforming star sparks some uneasy feelings. The character has excelled at 2D platformers with the Donkey Kong Country series, but his one 3D outing, Donkey Kong 64, has a mixed reputation. Donkey Kong Bananza, then, is something of a redemption story. This is DK's star-making role, and may well map the future of the character.

Donkey Kong Bananza recasts DK as a lovable lunk, crazed for bananas and working for some kind of strange banana-mining company. The underground is stocked with crystalized Golden Bananas that provide Bananergy, and a legion of chimps in mining hats chip away at the bedrock to find them. DK doesn't need a pickaxe, since he can just punch his way through the rocks to find the treasured bananas. But things take a turn when the VoidCo mining company bosses crash through the mine and head toward the planet core. DK chases after them for the promise of recovering his stolen bananas, and along the way meets a strange singing rock that turns out to be a little girl named Pauline, who fans of the very first game may recognize. VoidCo and its boss, Void Kong, have some devious plan for Pauline involving the planet core, so partly to protect her--but mostly for bananas--the two of you team up to uncover their dastardly plot.