The Dark Souls of climbing games: Cairn leans into the challenge of mountaineering
A deceptively simple control system underpins this alpinist adventure set on a single deadly massif
Summer games previews
A child’s-eye view of the universe: Curiosmos makes space simulation fun
In this primordial take on the life simulator, you bring about the creation of an entire solar system
FarmVille at 15: how a cutesy Facebook game shaped the modern internet
On its 15th anniversary, the creators of FarmVille reflect on the compulsive cartoon farm sim that paved the way for a data-driven world
June 2024
‘It’s impossible to play for more than 30 minutes without feeling I’m about to die’: lawn-mowing games uncut
Wax Heads, the record-shop video game that channels High Fidelity
March 2024
‘Theatre of the mind’: celebrating 50 years of Dungeons & Dragons
The role-playing game, largely powered by participants’ imaginations, continues to attract fans half a century after it was launched
December 2023
2024 culture preview
The best games to look forward to in 2024
A first open-world Star Wars saga, something lurks beneath a North Sea oil rig and Tekken 8 continues to blend stylish and ridiculous – the hotly anticipated games of the year to come
November 2023
SteamWorld Build review – tinker with a tiny township full of robots in hats
Westworld meets Dungeon Keeper in this characterful city-builder, where you design the perfect town for a population of robots
October 2023
Playing God: Rod Humble on building the radical new simulator Life By You
The game allows players to control every aspect of their character, and NPCs won’t forget how you treated them. Its developer reveals the details of his ‘metaphysical’ approach
September 2023
What would happen if Russia invaded Finland? I went to a giant war game in London to find out
Here, military personnel, Nato staff and others are facing off in a simulation. The winners? Those who stop the world plunging into catastrophe. The losers? Us, if they get it wrong
August 2023
Summer games previews
‘He’s clumsy, high, and completely unprepared’: Baby Steps, a game about falling flat on your face
Development trio Gabe Cuzzillo, Maxi Boch, and Bennett Foddy are back with a story about a failson basement-dweller trying not to fall flat on his face
July 2023
Pushing Buttons newsletter
Pushing Buttons: Why it’s getting harder to play your old favourite games
In this week’s newsletter: A new report says 87% of games released before 2010 are no longer commercially available – and it’s a huge loss for the art form
June 2023
Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life review – soothing and sentimental farming sim
Become slowly enmeshed in a rural community in this game about the farm and family
February 2023
Help, I’m obsessed with pressure-washing Lara Croft’s house
Ellie Gibson
I started playing a video game about cleaning for a laugh – now it’s all gotten out of hand and I’m going for the Guinness World Record
January 2023
Shipwrecked
‘Uh oh … boom!’: TikTok is in love with simulated shipwrecks
Fans say the use of an accurate physics engine to reimagine historic shipwrecks makes it ‘difficult to look away’
December 2022
2022 in Culture
The video games you may have missed in 2022
Run an arcade, oversee an archeological dig, kill people on rollerskates or play the trombone – our critics pick some deep cuts from the year in games
High scores
Music to harvest and relax to: how the Stardew Valley soundtrack caught the rhythms of the seasons
Like everything else about the hit indie farming game, Stardew Valley’s soundtrack is an extension of its creator, Eric Barone. He reveals how he composed it by listening to the weather
Unsocial hours: the best video games to play in ‘goblin mode’
Draw the curtains, pull up your weighted blanket and hunker down with these cosy sims, expansive fantasies or, for actual goblins, subterranean dungeon crawlers
October 2022
Pushing Buttons newsletter
Pushing Buttons: the voice actors speaking out against NDAs, code names and poor pay
A busman’s video game? Meet the people who play job sims of their own careers
