Release Date: 15/11/2001, updated in 2020
Platforms: Android, Mac, PC, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One and iOS
Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds
Halo is the longstanding sci-fi shooting video game series that started when Halo: Combat Evolved launched alongside the Xbox in 2001. The franchise has featured on every Xbox platform since then, with Halo 5: Guardians serving as the latest entry in...
Release Date: 27/10/2017
Platforms: Switch
Skill Rating: 7+ year-olds
Mario has starred in running and jumping Super Mario games on Nintendo hardware since the Nintendo Entertainment System in the 80's. The formula remains unchanged. Explore a level, jump on enemies, collect coins and get to the flag at the end to inch...
Release Date: 19/07/2022
Platforms: PC, PS4 and PS5
Skill Rating: 9+ year-olds
Stray is a game about a cat lost in a futuristic city where robots live. You guide your feline friend in and out of buildings, across roads and generally poke your nose in to see what is going on.
Release Date: 08/11/2019, updated in 2020
Platforms: PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One
New Super Lucky's Tale is a platform game where you play a fox on a quest to recover pages from a magical book that will save his world. It takes gameplay in a more action-oriented direction but the islands and characters are full of quirky character...
Release Date: 07/09/2018
Platforms: PS4 and PS5
Skill Rating: 11+ year-olds
Marvel's Spider-Man is a series of superhero adventures where you swing through an open-world city fighting crime and advancing a film-like story. There are also many side quests and missions you can take along the way.
Release Date: 26/03/2021, updated in 2022
Platforms: PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S
Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds
It Takes Two is a running, jumping and exploring game that tells a story of a young girl, Rose, whose parents are divorcing. The girl creates two dolls to represent her parents, which unexpectedly trap the clashing-couple in them. You and a friend...
Release Date: 14/02/2018, updated in 2020
Platforms: Android, Mac, PC, Switch and iOS
Florence is a little puzzle game that tells the story of a relationship, following the usual stages of loneliness, meeting, dating, falling for and moving in with another person. At first, the puzzle interactions seem trivial and the game doesn’t...
Release Date: 19/11/2020
Platforms: PS5
Skill Rating: 6+ year-olds
Astro's Playroom is a running and jumping game that launched with the PlayStation 5. It not only showcases the PS5's new DualSense controller but offers a loveable adventure with novel interactions and considerable substance.
Release Date: 20/09/2016
Platforms: Mac, PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One
Firewatch is an explorative adventure where you play a fire lookout in America’s Shoshone National Forest. It has a relational and conspiracy undertone similar to the podcast/radio drama and Netflix show [link to...
Release Date: 28/08/2018
Drive futuristic cars to score goals with an oversized football. It’s another game that sounds ridiculous but is actually a huge amount of fun to play and requires a lot of expertise. What’s not obvious from the start is the level of control that...
Release Date: 20/03/2018
Platforms: PC and Xbox One
Skill Rating: 12+ year-olds
Sea of Thieves is an online game where you are a pirate searching for treasure and adventure. Cast into a large open sea you work with other online players to crew your ship and find treasure. The game has a main story but really focuses on creating...
Release Date: 30/06/2020, updated in 2021
Platforms: Android, Mac, PC, Switch, Web, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and iOS
Townscaper is a town building toy. You pick colours from the range available and click to put down a house in the sea. As you continue to add houses of different colours the game automatically orientates the architecture for you.
Release Date: 26/02/2016, updated in 2018
Platforms: Amazon Fire, Android, Mac, PC, PS Vita, PS4, Switch, Xbox One and iOS
Stardew Valley looks like a farming simulator. That’s partly what it is, but you must also develop relationships with the other townsfolk and delve deep into the mines. Its quirky labyrinthine attention to detail is inviting for young players to try...
Release Date: 05/10/2021
Rainbow Billy: The Curse of the Leviathan is a role-play adventure where you save the world from a colourless darkness. Unusually, battles are won through listening and conversation rather than traditional attacks. It combines the excitement and...
Release Date: 14/03/2012, updated in 2019
Platforms: PC, PS3, PS4 and iOS
Journey is an adventure game set in a desert. Exploring the eerie sand-scape, you discover a world abandoned by the race that created it. The sense of space and scale evokes feelings of aloneness and being lost. But then the game pairs you with other...
Release Date: 08/12/2017
Platforms: Amazon Fire, Android, Mac, PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Switch and Xbox One
Hello Neighbor is a stealth survival game with a horror feel. You try and sneak into the basement of their neighbour’s house to uncover a "horrible secret". The game responds to your strategy by setting traps along paths the player followed in...
Release Date: 29/10/2020
Platforms: PC
Skill Rating: 14+ year-olds
Teardown is a strategic game where you plan and execute a heist in fully destructible environments. Your objective is to claim the key cards that are hidden around the map. However taking one triggers the alarm, giving you only sixty seconds before...
Release Date: 11/04/2016, updated in 2018
Platforms: PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S
Subnautica is an open-world adventure where you explore the ocean on an alien planet after crashlanding. You collect resources and fight creatures to survive. This enables you to establish an underwater base, gain new craft and equipment and explore...
Release Date: 08/04/2021, updated in 2022
Platforms: Android, PC and iOS
Before Your Eyes is a narrative game about an 11-year-old boy revisiting his life before "crossing over" to the other side. You play by exploring scenes that represent snapshots of his life. Unusually, you make choices and interact with the game by...
Release Date: 12/11/2020, updated in 2022
Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales is an action-adventure game based on the Marvel Comics superhero Miles Morales. It is similar to the first Marvel's Spider-Man game in mechanics although Miles Morales extends this...
Release Date: 03/03/2017
Platforms: Switch and Wii U
The Legend of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild departs from the previous Zelda formula with the scale and depth of its world. You walk, fly, ride and climb your way through a landscape that varies in climate, terrain, inhabitants and vegetation. Weather and...
Release Date: 02/11/2021
Platforms: Mac, PC, Switch and Xbox One
Unpacking is a meditative puzzle game where you unpack belongings into a series of spaces, each representing a stage in life. You get to know the owner of the objects by their possessions and circumstances. To finish a level you need to work out where...
Release Date: 09/09/2021, updated in 2022
Webbed is a running and jumping game with a twist. You play a spider who can make webs, swing, climb and all the while creating music as she goes. It follows the story of our happy little spider on an adventure to save her boyfriend from a big dumb...
Release Date: 14/12/2001, updated in 2020
Platforms: 3DS and 2DS, DS, GameCube, Switch and Wii
You live on a small island teeming with life. Insects, fish, trees, vegetation and fossils are represented with cute cartoon visuals. Rather than the scale or grandeur of other game worlds, it’s the interconnected drama of the world and characters...
Release Date: 05/04/2019, updated in 2021
Platforms: Mac, PC, PS4, PS5, Switch and Xbox One
In A Short Hike you play penguin-like character Claire, who needs to climb a mountain in a beautiful national park to receive an important phone call. Presented in cute pixel graphics, the game invites you to explore the park, help other animals, find...
Release Date: 06/11/2017
Platforms: Android, Mac, PC and iOS
Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy is a strange game about movement and momentum. You are tasked with climbing a mountain. However, your only means of locomotion is a hammer that can stick to objects and drag you forwards.
Release Date: 04/08/2020
Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout is a whacky obstacle race where up to 60 people compete to get to the end of the course and advance to the next round. Drawing on TV shows like Takeshi's Castle, Wipeout or It's a Knock Out you have to control top-heavy...
Release Date: 25/07/2017, updated in 2018
Platforms: Android, PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One and iOS
Fortnite (sometimes misspelled Fortnight) rose to popularity via its Battle Royale mode where 100 players fight against each other in online battles to the death. While they play, using shooting, evasion and building skills to survive, a storm is...
Release Date: 23/11/2017, updated in 2019
Platforms: 3DS and 2DS, Amazon Fire, Android, Mac, PC, PS Vita, PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One and iOS
Although Minecraft – where players place blocks to build structures, sculpt the landscape and create adventures – is the best-selling game of all time, some of the best aspects of it are little known. Along with the exploration, building and...
Release Date: 16/11/2018, updated in 2020
Platforms: Android, PC, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and iOS
Among Us is a strategy game where crew-mates prepare their spaceship for launch by completing tasks. However, one of the players is an impostor intent on sabotaging the ship and killing the crew. As the game progresses in real-time the impostor...
Release Date: 28/02/2018
Platforms: Mac and PC
Stormworks is an open world adventure where you design, build and pilot your own air sea rescue service. You create programmable vehicles using it's block-building system and pilot them into dangerous situations to rescue stricken vessels or...
Release Date: 15/06/2016, updated in 2022
Platforms: Amazon Fire, Android, Mac, PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and iOS
In this game, amateur game-makers create simple online games that often mimic real-world grown-up scenarios, like working in a pizza restaurant, surviving natural disasters, escaping prison, scuba diving or playing hide-and-seek. The library of games is...
Release Date: 25/05/2021, updated in 2022
Platforms: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S
Biomutant is an open world role-play adventure game where you play a Raccoon warrior in a large world filled with mutated animals. Exploring this living breathing ecosystem has the feel of Zelda Breath of the Wild, but in a broken down steampunk...
Release Date: 23/05/2018
Raft is a survival game where you work to build a raft while stranded at sea. You start the game on a small raft with only a hook made of old plastic, which you use to pull in floating barrels and planks of wood.
Release Date: 16/10/2020
Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit (Mario Kart Live, MarioKart Home Circuit) is a kart racing game with a difference. You play on the Switch but use it to control a real life Mario kart that races around...
Release Date: 28/02/2020
In Trailmakers, you explore an open world in vehicles you have made from Lego-like blocks. Build a car, a plane, a boat or a combination of these, a carplaneboat. The game's physics encourage players to imaginatively combine propulsion, floatation,...
Release Date: 19/01/2017, updated in 2023
Platforms: Android, Mac, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One and iOS
Bed Wars is a game played on Minecraft (since 2017) or Roblox servers (since 2021). It's a team game where you start on an island and must protect your bed and build bridges to attack other teams' beds. The trick is the ecosystem of items and crafting...
Release Date: 28/11/2021
Venba is a narrative-cooking game about an Indian mother who immigrated to Canada in the 1980s. You cook various traditional Indian dishes and restore the lost recipes which were damaged in the move to Canada. As you talk to your mother's family you...
Release Date: 01/02/2005, updated in 2020
Platforms: 3DS and 2DS, Android, DS, GameCube, Mac, PC, PS Vita, PS2, PS3, PS4, PSP, Switch, Wii, Wii U, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One and iOS
The combination of Lego, a popular film franchise and a video game is a rich recipe for gaming fun. The series of Lego games has developed since the first release on Nintendo DS. Not only do these games offer a chance to explore, destroy and fight in a...
Release Date: 10/09/2020
Platforms: PC, PS4 and Switch
Bake 'n Switch is a puzzle fighting game where 2-4 players are apprentice bakers fighting the "Mould" and taking on various Guardian bosses. It's ridiculously cute and a lot of silly fun, as you catch, merge and sacrifice the anthropomorphised dough...