What we’ve been playing – “I fell asleep on the sofa after about 20 minutes”

13th December

Hello and welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we’ve been playing. This week a Game of the Year contender put Tom to sleep, Nightreign’s DLC posed a real challenge, and Unpacking provides order in a messy world.

Blue Prince, PS5 Pro

There’s a lot of Game of the Year talk going on around the Eurogamer hallways, doorways, and water coolers (it’s just Slack, really), and some people here really love Blue Prince. Being a contrarian, I obviously didn’t get on with it at all when I gave it a whirl around release earlier in the year. I’m willing to be proven wrong about things (doesn’t often happen, mind), so I booted it up on the PS5 again this week to see if I’d just been in the wrong frame of mind for it.

I fell asleep on the sofa after about 20 minutes. Maybe you’ll get me at some point, Blue Prince, but your puzzle magic hasn’t cast its spell on me yet.

-Tom O

Elden Ring: Nightreign, PC

With the release of The Forsaken Hollows DLC, I’ve been spending a lot of time playing Nightreign, and lost my third controller to the game this year. This loss was admittedly not the result of stick-drift or me spamming light attacks so much that RB ceases to work, and instead was thanks to me spilling an energy drink on said controller as I queued for a game.

Anyways, Nightreign’s DLC is exceptionally tough, with Day Two bosses that put the Nightlords who follow them to shame, honestly. It’s even tougher when your team is one man down because they’re mopping up Monster Energy from their desk, but hopefully you haven’t had to have that experience.

-Kelsey

Unpacking – Xbox Series X

There’s something quite soothing about spending time pulling things out of boxes and putting them away in Unpacking. Plucking out a spoon set and deciding which part of the cutlery organiser it should go in has become quite calming. Especially when I’m currently surrounded by wrapping paper, labels, tags, and things I said I would get to last weekend but they’re all judging me from a precarious pile in the corner of the room. But it’s all fine, at least I’m organised in Unpacking…

-Marie

Metroid Prime 4 – Switch 2

As a big fan of the Metroid series, I have far too many thoughts to unravel on Metroid Prime 4 than there’s space for here. I desperately want to like it (not least because my partner bought it for me as a gift) but despite its outstanding art design and music, it feels so far removed from what I expect from a Metroid game – from the elongated exploration and world design, to the lack of horror atmosphere. I know it’s hard to improve on the perfection of Prime 1, and I don’t bemoan the developers for experimenting, but after 18 years of waiting I feel deflated. Good luck to GTA 6 next year, I guess.

-Ed