While waiting for Little Nightmares 3 to arrive, I went back and replayed the first two games, and I was reminded just how much creepier the first one is than its sequel. The Janitor, with his sinisterly stretched arms that could seemingly reach the silent protagonist, Six, wherever she hid, was the stuff of children's night terrors. The chefs, with their unsettling fleshy masks, taunted me with the truth that was veiled behind them. It's a reveal the game never offers, leaving my imagination to run wild. The second game was still one I enjoyed very much, but it felt like Tarsier Studios had toned down some of the grotesque, haunting displays in the sequel. It failed to create memorable villains on par with the original. Little Nightmares 3 changes hands to the horror veterans at Supermassive Games, and though the addition of co-op is a great fit, it feels similarly sanitized and overly familiar at times. It's as though it looked to the sequel more than the original for the blueprint.

Little Nightmares 3, like the previous games, is a cinematic horror-platformer, now newly built for two players--or one player and an AI companion. Without loading screens or virtually any prompts on the screen, it's extremely immersive, dropping you into a world that runs on nightmare fuel. Both this game's story and the broader universe are purposely vague, and this has always been the series' best attribute. Scurrying through dark apartments, rundown schools, foggy beaches, and haunted libraries nails the intent to present the world as an ever-present threat that is effective not just because it looks and sounds scary or because you'll reliably find yourself dashing away from monsters.

Instead, the world itself is so hard to grasp, operating on dream logic, like someone has extracted the real memories of kids' nightmares and put them into a game. This means every creepy encounter with its monsters of different shapes and sizes always comes with bewilderment. What is this, and how do I evade it? The rules of the world are always changing, and with uncertainty comes fear.

Like almost every annual sports game, EA Sports FC 26 is exactly what you would expect it to be: an iterative upgrade on last year's game. To EA's credit, it's a pretty good upgrade, all things considered. This is partly due to how off the mark EA FC 25 was, but also because of a concerted effort to solve some of the series' longstanding issues by focusing on player feedback. The end result is an interesting attempt to appeal to every type of player. It's not wholly successful in this ambition, but EA FC 26 is at least a step in the right direction.

The headlining change is a shift to two distinct playstyles. The series has always felt somewhat different when played online compared to offline, but the feeling is now much more pronounced and extends beyond the foibles of online netcode. Competitive and Authentic gameplay presets make a marked difference in how the match engine handles. You can choose between either one when playing offline, but online modes, such as Ultimate Team, are locked into the Competitive playstyle (even when playing Squad Battles against the CPU).

The Competitive preset is all about player skill. The pace of the game is rapid, with passes ping-ponging between players' feet, and the spotlight is on dribbling, skill moves, and consistently high-scoring matches. Despite this proclivity for attacking football, defending has also been improved. Successful tackles actually regain possession, rather than knocking the ball right back to the attacking player's feet, so a lot of the frustration from previous entries has been exorcised.

The release of a new Fire Emblem game is usually a big deal, so I was more than a little intrigued--but mostly confused--when I happened to glance at the Nintendo Today app calendar on September 24 and it said "Fire Emblem Shadows Available." There had just been a Nintendo Direct on September 12, after all, where Nintendo announced the next mainline entry in the series for Switch 2, Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave. There was no mention of Fire Emblem Shadows. And after playing it, I can see why Nintendo wouldn't showcase it on that big stage

I assumed it was referring to Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, the 2009 remake of the first game in the series, and went on with my day. It was only later that evening I learned that Fire Emblem Shadows was actually a brand-new mobile entry in the series: one where players manage "real-time strategy and social deduction at the same time."

The idea of a new game in the long-running tactics series arriving out of the blue had me eager to install it and see what it was about. I had a decent time with Fire Emblem Heroes, Nintendo's previous attempt at translating Fire Emblem to the world of free-to-play mobile games (and one that would go on to become Nintendo's first mobile game to hit $1 billion in revenue). As such, I was curious to see how Shadows, which is also free to play, would differ. Unfortunately, the monkey paw soon curled, and I found myself dumbfounded by all the ways Fire Emblem Shadows is Fire Emblem in name only.

Like almost every annual sports game, EA Sports FC 26 is exactly what you would expect it to be: an iterative upgrade on last year's game. To EA's credit, it's a pretty good upgrade, all things considered. This is partly due to how off the mark EA FC 25 was, but also because of a concerted effort to solve some of the series' longstanding issues by focusing on player feedback. The end result is an interesting attempt to appeal to every type of player. It's not wholly successful in this ambition, but EA FC 26 is at least a step in the right direction.

The headlining change is a shift to two distinct playstyles. The series has always felt somewhat different when played online compared to offline, but the feeling is now much more pronounced and extends beyond the foibles of online netcode. Competitive and Authentic gameplay presets make a marked difference in how the match engine handles. You can choose between either one when playing offline, but online modes, such as Ultimate Team, are locked into the Competitive playstyle (even when playing Squad Battles against the CPU).

The Competitive preset is all about player skill. The pace of the game is rapid, with passes ping-ponging between players' feet, and the spotlight is on dribbling, skill moves, and consistently high-scoring matches. Despite this proclivity for attacking football, defending has also been improved. Successful tackles actually regain possession, rather than knocking the ball right back to the attacking player's feet, so a lot of the frustration from previous entries has been exorcised.

In 2020's Ghost of Tsushima, protagonist Jin Sakai is a samurai, part of Japan's ruling class during the Kamakura period in which the game is set. When Khotun Khan and his Mongolian army attack Jin's home island of Tsushima, the samurai is unable to repel the invading force as the noble warrior he was forged to be, and must instead sever his honor by becoming the fearsome "Ghost." Yet adopting underhanded tactics to gain the edge comes at a cost, as Jin is forced to grapple with sacrificing his relationships, his moral code, and everything he once stood for in an effort to defeat an unconventional foe.

In Ghost of Yotei, protagonist Atsu doesn't have to make such choices. She's not a samurai, but a wandering mercenary from an ignoble family--a family that was slaughtered at the hands of a gang of violent outlaws known as the Yotei Six. With everything taken from her, Atsu's gender and lowly status mean she has no fixed standing in Japanese society during the early 1600s.

Alone and consumed by revenge, she carves her own path forward, adopting the mantle of the onryo, a vengeful spirit from Japanese folklore that's able to inflict harm in the world of the living. Like Jin, Atsu becomes a symbol--one that strikes fear into the hearts of her enemies as her legend grows. But while this parallel is notable, it's the differences between Jin and Atsu that stand out the most.