RPG of the Year 2025

This game is a great example of how poor beta testing can ruin everything. Wuchang could have been a quite enjoyable experience if it wasn't plagued across the board with issues.

It's no surprise to anyone by now that the game's good looks come at a hefty price in performance. This is the typical "optimization" of UE5 games. Stutters, freezes, fps jumping all over the place are some of the many delights that haven't been patched. But the technical problems don't stop here.

Hitbox issues haven't been something so common in this subgenre as of late. We've been blessed with precision which is a nice thing to have when some of these games are so keen on making your life miserable. Wuchang fails to deliver on this important aspect that many other games have been able to achieve to the so called level of "hitbox porn". The hitboxes are all over the place, with damage being registered on you while being meters away from the area of impact and input lag ruining your best plays. On top of that, the enemies can track you with their asses. Abilities make unpredictable turns with the tracking capabilities of a modern heat seeking missile. Many enemies face in one direction, but shoot in another, while your target locking capability can barely keep up with an above the average speed.

The combat system has clearly drawn the short straw with problems extending from technical to design. Wuchang might be an infected human with a monstrous power that can take on the world, yet she can't stand on her two feet. Most of the attacks constantly knock her down and the time it takes to get up make her prone to more knockdowns. You can get stunlocked by the same ability from bosses while this old hag with a young looking body tries to get back in the fight. And this slowness extends past standing up. I've seen bosses perform two 360 degree attacks in a row before Wuchang was done with drinking a single potion.

Most bosses are not particularly challenging by today's out of controls Souls-like standard. But the things mentioned above work against you at every step. However, that's not all. There are some severe inconsistencies in the way combat encounters are designed, which make no sense. Some attacks you can parry while others you just cannot. Some bosses can be knocked with heavy hits from behind while others cannot. Some bosses have more iframes than Nvidia's FrameGeneration can fake while for others you are forced to go down the memory lane to Mass Effect's interminable elevator rides.

Unlike the combat, the exploration has been treated more kindly. There are lush environments with great vistas, intricate linearity, secret pathways and many rewards that feed an above the average character progression. The save points are scarce and finding a weapon is quit the event, but this world can draw you its with paradoxical mix of beauty and disgustingness. There are however a few daunting design choices. For all its linearity, it's easy to mess up quests when you can start an act before finishing the previous one. But the worst offender has to be the "gotcha" design met in so many encounters across the world. The most annoying and counter-intuitive traps and ambushes have been set just to make sure you are stopped in your tracks. It's quite annoying to lose your sanity to a monster that's a hundred meters away or to get sequentially knocked back into an abyss. This is not how a challenging exploration should look like, it's just a cheap generator of frustration.

The progression system is pretty cool. Each weapon has a unique ability and being able to combo with your equipped weapons incentivizes experimentation. The skill tree is alright with the usual UI issues coming from a game that was coded with mouse and keyboard just to be designed for a controller.

Wuchang's strengths are constantly undermined by cumulative failures that will continuously spoil your fun. Future patches can fix certain issues and the price ain't exactly bad for this day and age, but many issues are here to stay, forever.

The developers prioritized cosmetics over a chat function or a reconnect feature.

The PC community made this game possible by supporting a developer that promised to create a modern SWAT game. Now the same developer is willing to throw down the window all the good will from the PC community in order to sell a censored game on consoles.

This review is boycotting the censorship of the game and the willingness of the developer to throw PC gamers under the bus for a few more bucks.

STALKER 2 takes place in a beautifully handcrafted world which could easily be the setting for a fantastic gameplay experience. However, the deeper you go, the shallower the experience gets and before midgame it becomes obvious that this is yet another sequel filled with Ubisoft-like content and wrapped in a mediocre story that tries to pull its weight through fan service.

There are many things that STALKER 2 does wrong:

For starters, the performance is less than desirable even on powerful computers with DLSS active. It's definitely better than it used to be, but there's no excuse anymore.

The UI is annoying with obvious traces of consolization that constantly get in the way.

The AI is abysmal. The enemies have near perfect aim and can tank entire magazines before going down. Because of this, most guns are unusable which defeats the purpose of putting so much effort into the gun's models and animations. This is easily a cardinal sin for the sequel of a series that combined challenge with realism to create a thrilling gameplay experience that people can't get enough of to this day.

The need for survival last for about 3-4 hours before the abundance of loot fully kicks in. However, the repair costs combined with the quick degradation of gear force you into becoming a mule if you want to actually play with the toys available. And as expected, this only adds an artificial economical layer to the gameplay that's more annoying than it is engaging.

It's been six months and the STALKER 2 still runs and often plays like crap. Save your money for something better, because the sequel we desperately wanted might never arrive.

DOOM: The Dark Ages is a nice throwback to the beginning of this genre defining franchise. But its questionable execution takes away from what could have been so much more.

From the early moments of its gameplay, the game betrays a shift towards consolization with a worse than ever UI. The color coded combat doesn't help either, working against the grim setting while also taking away the almost cathartic satisfaction from the previous installments. To make matters even worse for the combat, the damage feedback is all over the place, making deaths constantly feel off. Many of the weapons are pointless with peashooter level of audio design and not enough utility to justify their existence. The newly added "open world" levels serve only as checklist playgrounds for completists and the dragon riding missions stink of PS2 era limitations.

The production value isn't all that amazing either, especially when considering this is an 80 Euro title. The game fails to push any technical ground for 2025 with often dated looking graphics and skimpy quality that shouldn't be the case for such a price.

I wish I could say the story was made intriguing by its Lovecraftian twist. But for a storytelling medium that thrives on mystery and macabre, there wasn't any of that to be had here.

It's not all bad of course. In bursts, the combat can be satisfying. Some of the medieval environments make for great atmosphere and I wanted to see more of them. The music is quite enticing and the shield was a great addition for the Slayer, but one that came with the cost of restricting much of the gameplay around its new mechanics.

As a PC gamer, I was spoiled by DOOM 2016's frantic gameplay and top notch visuals. I enjoyed Eternal's storytelling while learning to accept that its gameplay wanted to do something different. So I definitely looked forward to DOOM: The Dark Ages. And while I had my dose of Slayer fun, given its glaring issues, I cannot recommend this game at this hellish price tag.