But where a game like ARC Raiders pits you against towering, militarized industrial mechs, Gravebound asks a much sillier question: what if humanity was wiped out because we gave our home appliances Wi-Fi?

Despite its heavy origins, Dancing with Ghosts remains an uplifting and deeply cozy experience. You follow Mai, a 15-year-old girl struggling with severe depression after the death of her parents. She befriends Pim, an 11-year-old ghost visible only to her. The narrative boldly tackles complex concepts like loss, depression, and suicide, but it juxtaposes these difficult themes with gentle gameplay designed around a singular, hopeful message: the best way to heal yourself is

Insomniac aimed for a prestige, character-driven blockbuster, but missed the mark, leaving players with a flawed brawler that never quite figures out who its hero is supposed to be.

Like its predecessor, Toem 2 highly encourages thorough exploration. While you don’t have to complete every quest in an area to move on, you’ll probably want to. After all, who wants to leave a startled bear without his jam, or refuse to help a worm control the growth of strange vines that make her sneeze? The sequel includes larger areas with different themes than the original, making for even more joy in discovery.

I would love more than anything to come in and say that the reviews have it all wrong. That the Steam Early Access reviewers don’t know what they’re talking about. But the “Mixed” average review score for the Early Access product tells a lot of what you need to know about the game itself. My friends were right to pass on crewing this vessel.

I’m going to be keeping an eye on anything Torchlight Games does in the future, because False Hero is a brilliant game. It’s easily in my top games of the year list, and made me feel that sense of wonder that Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls did all those years ago.