We reviewed (nearly) every game out now for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X

Available on: Literally everything that can play a video gamePlayed on: Xbox Series XYes, Fortnite is an old game. But it’s also an extremely popular old game, so it’s worth seeing how it’s going now that it has some next-gen optimizations. Unsurprisingly, it looks nicer, and the load times are better (though it might be hard to tell, since you won’t necessarily be playing with other people online who are also on a speedy next-gen platform). The changes aren’t huge, but they are generally noticeable, and the larger point is that the creative decisions driving Fortnite are really all about adapting the game anyway. If another studio’s shooter comes up with a good idea, Fortnite has talented developers who can easily… take inspiration from that and adapt it into Fortnite. If the game is coming out on a new platform that is more powerful (like a Series X) or less powerful (like a phone or a Switch), the visuals can be adjusted to account for that. So yeah, Fortnite seems fine on a new console because Fortnite seems fine wherever they put it. Epic has spent a lot of money to make sure that’s the case.How next-gen is it? Somewhere between “not at all” and “lots,” but if you’re buying a Series X or PS5 to play Fortnite, it really doesn’t matter. You do you, just make sure to ask your Twitch viewers to smash that subscribe button.

Available on: Windows, PlayStation 5Played on: PlayStation 5Developed by Counterplay Games, this self-described “slasher-looter” sits in a weird position, attempting to tie the “every enemy a piñata” feel of games like Destiny or publisher Gearbox’s own Borderlands series, to the slower melee combat pioneered by the Dark Souls games. The end result is a strange mish-mash of gamefeel that comes off feeling like filler more often than not. (Fresh off spending plenty of time with the Demon’s Souls remake, it feels extremely strange to get killed by a boss here, only to return and see all the damage done to it still intact. The lack of stakes can be overwhelming in how underwhelming it is.) The actual plot is one of those that gaming loves to vomit up when editors are in apparently short supply, as you acquire Valorplates with the help of your Sanctum to eventually defeat the Whosits of Whatever. If you desperately feel like you need to get your full amount of time out of your new console, give it a spin; otherwise, a pretty easy pass.How next-gen is it? Opulently. It’s probably too easy to pass any kind of unified judgment on the visual quirks of this new console generation, but if Godfall is anything to go off of, a lot of people’s first instincts when attempting to harness all this new graphical power are going to be “Well, let’s make every single thing in the game as shiny as fuck.”

Available on: Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/SPlayed on: PlayStation 5A (mildly) updated take on a year-old-plus game, MK 11 Ultimate does exactly what you’d want out of a new-ish Mortal Kombat game, especially if “what you’d want” includes watching John Rambo—voiced by, yes, Sylvester Stallone—kill a goddess of time, usurp her control over the flow of history, and then realize, hey, who is he to decide who lives or dies? (He’s Rambo.) All of which is to say that this is, indeed, the ultimate expression of the sheer, “Hey, let’s throw Robocop in there” , complete with an updated tutorial to help you come to terms with the game’s surprisingly intricate rules for how to make The Terminator or an ice ninja do their ridiculous things.How next-gen is it? Barely noticeable. The game still looks good, and the addition of new characters Rambo, Mileena, and Rain are welcome. But there’s nothing here demanding an upgrade if you were already perfectly happy playing the game on your Xbox One or PS4.

Available on: Windows, Mac, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, iOSPlayed on: PlayStation 5 developer Giant Squid Studios delivers another largely wordless, largely lovely expression of the joys of video game movement—in this case, the feeling of speed and flight, instead of gliding through the ocean. Set on a mysterious island, The Pathless cribs cheerfully from Nintendo’s Breath Of The Wild, presenting a large, open world to navigate in whatever way feels best to the player. The joys of the game, then, are in the simple story, the feeling of floating through the air—buoyed by the help of your young eagle companion—and the sense of cutting your own way across the world, guided by distant icons that imbue your hero with speed and altitude as they carve their own path across the island.How next-gen is it? Possibly the only thing that The Pathless and Fortnite have in common is that they’re the only games on this list that also have a mobile iteration; nevertheless, The Pathless’ simple but evocative animation benefits mightily from the updated graphics on the PS5, lending much-needed fluidity to the hero’s movements.

Available on: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5Played on: PlayStation 5An old-school 3D platformer in new-school skin, Sackboy has the bad grace to a) launch on a system that already came with a great, kid-friendly platforming game packed into the box, and b) skip over many of the most interesting elements of the Little Big Adventure games it’s derived from—i.e., the game creation tools that are the series’ most distinctive draw. Instead, your little Sackboy runs through a whole host of admittedly pretty levels, collecting a whimsical bank’s worth of largely meaningless currencies and costume pieces. The platforming is solid, and the addition of actual same-box co-op on the system—one of the only games offering it, outside the sports titles we’re not covering here—elevates things somewhat. But it’s a game to pick up after your kids finally get sick of Astro’s Playroom, and not a moment before.How next-gen is it? As next-gen as a top-down 3D platformer can be. The Little Big Adventure games have always been textural showcases, letting their cameras luxuriate in the hand-crafted look of everything. Sackboy fulfills that brief, even if there’s nothing especially evolved about what you actually do.

Available on: PlayStation4, PlayStation 5Played on: PlayStation 5You can read our full review of this spin-off of 2018’s , but the quick and dirty version is that, were one still craving a fresh dose of web-swinging action after the first game, they could do a lot worse than what’s on offer here. After all, this is a whole new version of the same old New York, now with Marvel breakout Miles as the web-swinger in question, attempting to follow in his mentor Pete’s footsteps. (Web-steps?) The story is as warm and funny (if occasionally a bit misguided) as ever, and the basic swing, punch, sling mechanics are firmly intact. Miles Morales is the best kind of more-of-the-same—while still remaining, you know: more of the same.How next-gen is it? Less than Sony would probably like; the game looks good, and a few graphical flourishes—most notably a suit that replicates the animated look of —elevate the whole package. (Oh, and if you get sick of swinging, the PS5’s minimal load times let you zip across New York in literally seconds with the fast travel system.)

Available on: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, WindowsPlayed on: Xbox Series XTetris Effect: Connected is largely the same as the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation VR hit Tetris Effect from 2018, but with some new multiplayer modes—both cooperative and competitive. If you liked Tetris Effect (and specifically Tetris Effect, not regular Tetris), you’ll find a lot to like here. The cooperative multiplayer stuff is neat, and the first time you see its big “connected” hook offers the sort of mind-blowing gimmick that Tetris Effect is good at. It also has a standard competitive mode if you just want to drop blocks and make lines with no added flair—like, so little added flair that you’re literally just playing Tetris next to someone and you keep going when they lose. If, however, you think that Tetris Effect is exhaustingly pretentious bullshit that uses trippy nonsense and arbitrary difficulty spikes in an attempt to “improve” a time-tested puzzle game that was already as close to perfection as possible, you might find yourself irrationally irritated by… you know, all of it.How next-gen is it? Not at all, unless we assume that two-player Tetris Effect was simply impossible until now. Even if that is the case, though, “Tetris with stuff happening in the background” can only be so impressive as it is.

Available on: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Stadia, WindowsPlayed on: Xbox Series XWatch Dogs: Legion, the third entry in a series that Ubisoft has been desperately trying to make into something bigger than it is, is the follow-up to a relatively about hip hackers fighting an evil Mark Zuckerberg-type that had a fine story and fine characters. Legion, on the other hand, takes place in near-future fascist London where you’re essentially trying to rally people to rebel against the government by wearing extremely over-designed masks and either putting up edgy billboards about how the government is watching you and that’s bad or by straight-up murdering future-cops. Tonally and story-wise, it’s all over the place. The big hook, though, is that you can recruit anyone to your secret hacker militia, with every person walking around London having their own little personality and special skills. It’s a cool system, but it also means that the game essentially doesn’t have any prominent characters or traditional narrative, which makes everything feel a bit hollow. It’s very much a “make your own fun” or “come up with your own head-canon” kind of game, which is fine if you’re into that sort of thing—but it’s kind of an odd turn.How next-gen is it? Quite a bit, even if it does run on the older systems. Everyone having a name and hopes and dreams (even if they’re just “I am an old lady with a shotgun”) is impressive, and the near-future London makes for lots of cool lighting effects and little “augmented reality” flourishes.