Fanatical's summer sale is now on, offering up to 86 per cent savings across thousands of new and classic games, including Doom, Alien Isolation, Yakuza 0, and Monster Hunter: World.

And if that isn't enough to pique your interest, from now until 23:59 (UK time) on August 26, 2018, you can also save an extra 10 per cent on all listed prices by using the code SUMMER10.

Tempted? Us, too. Here's our pick of the very best deals going right now:

• Doom - 67%
• Turok Bundle - 86%
• Alien Isolation Collection - 80%
• Yakuza 0 - 15%
• Fallout 4 - 67%
• XCOM 2 Collection - 55%
• Total War: Warhammer - 75%
• Total War: Warhammer II - 30%
• Middle-earth: Shadow of War Gold Edition - 68%
• Monster Hunter: World - 20% off

For more, head on over to Fanatical.

Some online stores give us a small cut if you buy something through one of our links. Read our affiliate policy for more info.  

You can now play a decent chunk of Middle-earth: Shadow of War for free thanks to a new demo released by Monolith Productions.

It'll let you play through all the missions in the Núrn region, in which you build an army of orcs and kill off warchiefs. Once you've amassed a strong force, you can march to the area's massive stronghold for a full-on fortress assault complete with siege machines.

After laying waste to the fortress, you can challenge its overlord, and once they're defeated you can install one of your own loyal followers as the new big boss. It's a pattern that repeats throughout the game, so the demo will give you a good idea of whether you could get into the rhythm.

If you play past the demo, which you can download from the game's Steam page (warning: it’s nearly 50GB, which seems silly), your new overlord will carry over, and to encourage you to do just that the full game is on sale for 66% off for the next 24 hours or so, making it $20/£15. If you just want to buy the full game from the start, it's on sale even cheaper over at Green Man Gaming.

Andy gave it a solid score in his review, and its controversial loot boxes were recently ditched entirely, so now seems a good time to jump in and swing your sword.

And also, f**k this one particular orc. 

Thanks to Tim, the mere thought of Middle-earth: Shadow of War conjures Mozû the Blight's disfigured kisser in my mind. A far handsomer face is Minis Ithil sargeant Baranor's—who supported Talion in the main campaign and who stars in its latest story expansion, Desolation of Mordor.The latter is out today and has a typically explosive trailer. Observe:

Could that chump at the trailer's end be a contender for Mozû's malevolent crown? It's possible, given the guy who designed Shadow of War's orcs is super proud that they're such dicks. 

In any event, Desolation of Mordor sees players joining forces with Dwarven Hunter Torvin—who crafts powerful shields, gauntlets and grapples, among other new combat tools. The expansion also includes a new roguelike campaign mode, a host of new outpost missions and a fresh ensemble of baddies. A Baranor character skin can be unlocked for the main story campaign, too. Mozû might not see you coming this time. 

And speaking of the main campaign, the arrival of Desolation of Mordor coincides with an extensive base game update. Full details on that can be read here, with Photo Mode upgrades, tweaks to Online Fight Pits, and the addition of a new Brutal Difficulty setting among the highlights. 

Middle-earth: Shadow of War's Desolation of Mordor story expansion costs £15.99/$19.99 standalone—or comes packaged with the game's Story Expansion Pass. This also includes the Blade of Galadriel story DLC.

The evils of capitalism, like Sauron, have been dealt a blow. Six months after it launched, Monolith has announced that Middle-earth: Shadow of War’s Orc-filled loot boxes, or war chests, are going to be plucked out of the open world action romp, along with all traces of microtransactions. You’ll need to wait a little bit longer for Middle-earth to be free though, as the changes aren’t happening until July 17. 

Shadow of War’s loot boxes were widely criticised at launch. The system encouraged players to buy war chests with currency that could be purchased for cash, unlocking allied Orcs instead of finding them in the wild and converting them. It wasn’t just a way to scrape more money out of players, it also reduced one of the best parts of the game to a monetary transaction. 

Monolith’s impending removal of war chests, gold and the market isn’t an admission that microtransactions in single-player premium games are sort of crummy, but rather an acknowledgement that making Orcs purchasable diluted the Nemesis System. 

“The core promise of the Nemesis System is the ability to build relationships with your personal allies and enemies in a dynamic open world,” reads Monolith’s blog post. “While purchasing Orcs in the Market is more immediate and provides additional player options, we have come to realize that providing this choice risked undermining the heart of our game, the Nemesis System. It allows you to miss out on the awesome player stories you would have otherwise created, and it compromises those same stories even if you don’t buy anything.”

When criticisms about microtransactions are brushed aside, it’s usually because you don’t need to engage with them. In Shadow of War, for example, you can finish the game without spending any money or using the market. There are arguments that the mere existence of these systems has an impact on the game, however, even if players don’t use them. After six months of feedback, Monolith now recognises this and how it can negatively affect one’s immersion in the bloody game of recruiting a foul army. 

So you’ll have until July to spend any gold you’ve got left, but if that’s still not enough time, don’t fret. All gold will be converted into items once microtransactions have finally been excised from Middle-earth. 

Another one of Shadow of War’s less-than-lauded systems is being overhauled as well. The end-game, known as the Shadow Wars, sees the game culminate in a series of large sieges, 20 of them, leading to the final and true ending. It’s a slog. It takes quite a bit of grinding to get tough enough armies and defences to withstand the constant sieges, and then the Shadow Wars itself feels like it goes on forever. I ran out of steam long before then. 

Monolith says that this whole section is being changed. New narrative elements will be introduced, and we’re promised a more cohesive experience. Though if you quite enjoy the grind, the Endless Siege mode that was introduced in November will be sticking around. This will be accompanied by changes to the Nemesis System, new skins, skill changes, tweaks to gear and progression—generally a whole lot of stuff. This is all due on July 17, just like the microtransaction changes. 

While Shadow of War still has DLC to come, it’s great to see that there are going to be a few reasons to revisit it even if you don’t have the season pass or aren’t tempted by the expansions. The microtransactions were far from the most egregious we’ve seen lately, but they definitely marred the game, so it’s a relief to see them being put in the ground. 

Harassment and toxicity are once again hot topics at this year's Game Developers Conference, but I didn't expect to come face to face with my own cyber bully. During a talk entitled "Helping Players Hate (or Love) Their Nemesis", Chris Hoge pulled up a slide with a screenshot of my 'F*** This One Particular Orc' article. And there he was in all his rancid glory: Mozû the Blight. My green whale. The ultimate nemesis. "I actually wrote that," I spluttered, to a light ripple of applause because they knew my pain. Hoge just laughed at me.

Hoge, who previously worked on the software for F-16 fighter planes, is now lead systems designer at Monolith Productions, and therefore supremely placed to explain what's going on under the hoods of Shadow of War's green-skinned antagonists. He explained that the best player relationships with orcs are like rollercoasters with lots of ups and downs. "We want the ride to be really long, because it gets better," says Hoge. From it's work on the first game, the Monolith team discovered that the more stress and frustration an orc induced, the more satisfaction and jubilation resulted when the player finally got the upper hand.

The key to a good nemesis, as I know only too well, is therefore finding yourself caught in something Hoge calls the "Revenge Loop". This is the process whereby you keep struggling and failing to kill an orc, during which time its abilities improve and your unhealthy codependency deepens. For the player, the fun part comes from working out how to break the loop, which usually means by taking advantage of one of the orc's weaknesses—whether that be to stealth, beasts, or in Mozû's case the poison that had left him looking like a two-week old pizza left in the Kalahari sun.

In order to ensure no orc became truly unconquerable, Hoge explained that one of their weakness is secretly baked in, meaning that it won't be removed no matter how much the orc levels up. If you've played the game you'll know that even the lowliest orc can potentially become a captain if it lands a killing blow on the player, for which it's rewarded with a promotion. Aside from a few hand-crafted storylines involving orcs like Bruz, which orcs go on to become your nemeses is handled entirely systemically. 

Brilliantly, one of the main determining factors is an index called PIS, which stands for player interaction score. This measures your relationship with every orc in the game. If you have a high PIS rating with a particular orc, it's more likely that it will be able to 'cheat death'. "We need cheating death to be an exception," explained Hoge. "It can’t happen to every orc, it has to be an amazing thing." Orcs with good PIS also have their chance to be on the receiving end of a random decapitation removed, which otherwise would guarantee a true death. They're only safe a few times, though. Eventually the immunity is removed behind the scenes, and Talion can add that noggin to his sizeable collection.

Boiling your PIS

There's more to making a memorable nemesis than a PIS score though. Appearance is key, and though the orcs are generated procedurally, those systems are designed to ensure they have the most chance to grab the player's attention. So for instance if an orc gets given the name Blarg Fireguzzler, there's a good chance he'll get a flaming sword, or wear a burning brazier for a helmet. Hoge noted that what really mattered was how the orc looked from the head and shoulders up. Players wouldn't even notice sweet design lower down, like jars of eyeballs hanging from a belt.

Orcs are also taught to remember their individual history, even if the player doesn't. For example, it might say: "You ran away last time, manthing!" Again, having certain rare traits helps to make individual orcs stick in the memory. Only around 6% of orcs will get the 'Humiliator' perk, which they use to shame Talion after each victory. When it first happens you're both amazed and immediately enraged. There are also a handful of unique orc archetypes, each of which can appear just once per playthrough. An orc with "the Claw" title will be one whose arm you hacked off and has come back with a metal replacement, while "the Uncatchable" is an Orc that escaped your blade three times.

Unsurprisingly, Mozû was one of these orcs. His "the Blight" title meant he'd been transformed by poison, which in a delicious piece of irony also proved his eventual undoing. In a Q&A session after the talk I asked Hoge if Monolith keeps data on the most amount of times a player has been killed by the same orc. He told me they do, but that it's hard to parse what's genuine because some players allow themselves to be killed by one orc 100s of times to level it up, and then painstakingly use the 'shame' mechanic to reduce that orc back to a gibbering level 1 dolt. I deeply hope the identity of these players is being passed to the authorities. Or at the very least PETA.

These rare encounters are key to making a system-driven game feel fresh. It's important that the player isn't able to see how things are being manipulated under the surface, because that would rob Shadow of War of its mystery, and thus some of the drive to explore. Indeed, I agree with this idea that one of the main themes at this year's GDC has been how good narrative is increasingly being generated by systems rather than hand-crafted storylines. It was also prevalent in this Assassin's Creed: Origins session I attended. The blur between story created by systemic vs bespoke content is only likely to keep blurring further.

Tantalisingly, Hoge mentioned a couple of possible interactions that I didn't see at all in my full playthrough. He gave the example of an Olog-Hai titled "the Sword Breaker", who will snap your prized weapon if he wins in combat. Hoge said they were frightened some players would rage quit on the spot and never come back, so they added a feature that enabled players to get their weapon back by killing the orc that had broken it. The weapon would even be leveled up as a reward.

Another cool encounter which I didn't experience was a special sort of ambush in which the enemy orc turns up with one of your followers held hostage at knifepoint. At the start of the fight he slashes' your buddy's throat, and you have to juggle trying to heal him up and handling the bad guy's ministrations. But the ultimate peak on the rollercoaster, according to Hoge, is when one of your favorite orc followers turns heel.

Hoge noted that players learn to love their best orcs in a way that Talion and Celebrimbor never do. We level up our favorites and give them their own fortresses, and in response sometimes they even turn up to give us gifts or even, very occasionally, save us from a killing blow by instakilling an enemy captain at the last second. Or they betray you, because hey they're orcs and that's what they do. Either way Hoge is happy, because it helps extend your personal story with that orc. "Now you've got another hill on the rollercoaster, and more emotions to express." 

Hoge even says that Monolith wrote all the words in Shadow of War—both dialogue and in-game text—with a mind to making it as natural and shareable as possible, because they wanted players to tell their friends these incredible stories. They even began assessing features based on whether players would be likely to blog about them. Which I guess is exactly what I ended up doing. If only I could have recruited Mozû, we could have ruled Mordor together. Instead I had to gank him in a back alley with a bunch of poison-daggered orcs, one of whom was riding a warg. Which, in some ways, is how all great love stories should end.

A new Middle-earth: Shadow of War expansion called The Blade of Galadriel went live today, giving players the opportunity to switch things up as Eltariel, an elite Elven assassin who's been sent by Galadriel to hang a job on the Nazgul. The new character comes complete with new Nemesis characters including Flint, Tinder, and the Slayer of the Dead, plus eight unique Legendary Orcs who will join your army in the main campaign. 

It also appears that she has a beef with Talion, the lead character from Shadow of War, who—and this is all quite spoiler-ish, so stop here if you're still trying to avoid such things—took Isildur's ring after killing him in Shadow of War. He eventually took to wearing the ring after being abandoned by Celebrimbor, which has him on a slow ride to becoming a Nazgul himself—an unfortunate metamorphosis that's put him in Galadriel's, and therefore Eltariel's, sights.   

It's a pretty dramatic retcon of the existing Tolkien mythos, but also relatively harmless as these things go—and let's be honest, it's not as though Shadow of War itself has demonstrated an iron-clad commitment to Middle-earth canon. After sexy Shelob and Orc bling run amok, I don't think a Nazgul name change is too much to stress about. 

Also out today is an update to the game that brings new traits to Orc Captains, upgrades the Photo Mode with new filters, frames, and styles, adds an Eltariel skin for the main campaign, enables Training Orders for garrisoned Orc followers, and incorporates a new Player Stats menu with information on kills, dominations, betrayals, conquests, and more. That update is free for all players, with or without the Blade of Galadriel update. It also makes the usual array of fixes and balance, a full rundown of which is available on Steam. 

I'm not sure what to expect from Shadow of War. On the one hand, I’ve little interest in Lord of the Rings, and no desire to spend any more time with returning protagonist and charisma vacuum Talion. On the other hand: the orcs seem fun. I decide to give it a shot, in the hope of encountering a potential nemesis.

Once I’m let loose on the starting area of Minas Ithil, I go hunting orc captains. Some ambush me while I’m in the middle of a fight. Others are big, tough and difficult to dodge away from. All, eventually, go down. I’m good at Shadow of War’s combat—at least this opening version of it—because I’ve played three Arkham games and it’s basically the same. 

I start ticking off sidequests and missions. It’s as I’m running between these that I aggro Koth, the “poisonous dark beastmaster”. Koth’s specialties include multiple things I haven’t seen before, all of which are bad. Poisonous means his weapon deals damage over time, which is bad. Beastmaster means he’s flanked by giant Caragors—also bad. I’m unsure what the “dark” refers to, but I doubt it’s his favourite type of chocolate.

He gets in some good hits, and soon I’m close to death. I attempt to rally, and even manage to take off a chunk of his health, but then I’m ambushed by yet another orc captain. Koth uses the distraction to finish me off. Finally, I have a nemesis.

Nowadays, Sun Tzu is only referenced by overachievers on TV shows about lawyers or CEOs or crab fisherman, but I’m starting to think that knowing my enemy might be a good idea. Every orc has strengths and weaknesses, but they’re hidden until I extract them from the mind of a subordinate. I do so, and discover that Koth is vulnerable to executions. So we have that in common.

Koth runs away every time I go in for the kill. This cat-and-mouse game gives me time to get to know him better. I’m pleased that my nemesis is no stereotypical warmonger. Yes, he’s adorned with skulls and piercings, and his face is stained and messy—all orcish traits. But his received pronunciation accent gives him an almost regal bearing. The overall effect is of a Shakespearean thespian playing a Mad Max bandit, who also happens to be four plates deep into the backstage buffet cart. I like him.

Together forever

Finally I get the drop on him. As we fight, my combat meter charges up. When it’s full, I unleash an execution attack. Koth goes down. He’s dead.

I return to the objective grind for another hour, but my heart isn’t in it. Shadow of War is less interesting without a nemesis. But as I sprint towards my next objective, I’m interrupted by a familiar accent. It’s Koth. He’s cheated death, and is now explaining in detail all of the things he’s about to do to me. My nemesis is back, and I couldn’t be happier. 

With every Steam sale, our piles of shame grow to new, unsurmountable heights. If you've got a job or a family or some other responsibility, chances are your allocated gaming time is limited. Games can demand a lot of us, these days—whether it's an overload of sidequests, backtracking, repeat playthroughs to see every ending of a story, or because you're playing a multiplayer game with progression in mind.

Here, the UK team discusses whether games are too bloated, and where we draw the line with what we consider good value content versus filler. We'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below, too. 

Long journeys ahead

Samuel Roberts: Over the holiday, I finished Nier: Automata, capping off the fifth optional ending after 41 hours of total play. That game was mostly fantastic, but it also felt too long to me. It made me repeat the same story beats in a slightly exhausting second playthrough, which shed some new light on the characters but not enough to justify the hours invested. It finally ended properly with a mostly-great third playthrough, after which I had no desire to go back and mop the sidequests I'd missed. 

At this point, I'd seen the same grey boxes and washed out greenery that make up its world so many times. I then looked at the other games I'm yet to finish from 2017: Divinity, Shadow of War, Assassin's Creed Origins, which are all pretty lengthy as well. Many of our favourite games are long as heck, now. Some of them earn it, but others don't. 

Taking something like Arkane's Prey, which I mostly enjoyed, I felt like the last third of the game sent me back-and-forth to the same locations for the sake of it—which wore down the magic of its excellent setting for me. Shadow of War, meanwhile, is a game we called out specifically for being bloated. I wonder if our readers feel this way, that games longer than 20 hours can be more intimidating than exciting. Thoughts?

Andy Kelly: I don't mind if a game is bloated, as long as it's fat with interesting things to do and not just obvious filler. Shadow of War's problem is that the distractions that litter its map, whether it's revealing Shelob's memories or purifying Haedir towers, all boil down to following an icon on a map and pressing a button to interact with it. It's design like this that makes a game feel like a checklist, rather than a collection of fun things you feel compelled to do. Watch Dogs 2, on the other hand, features some really fun, unpredictable side quests that I enjoyed as much as the main game, which I wrote about here.

Phil Savage: Yeah, the best open world games don't feel bloated, just full of options. But the line between meaningful diversion and tiresome padding can be fuzzy. Shadow of War was the latter for me. I played through the opening area—a small, mini sandbox that offers a small sampling of its sidequests and structure—and couldn't bring myself to continue when I was faced with that but on a much larger scale. Seeing the size of the full map just made me feel tired. I quit out and uninstalled it soon after. 

Mandatory sidequests—we can live without them

Andy: Although I loved Assassin’s Creed Origins, it's guilty of a particularly egregious example of padding. Whenever I finished a story mission, eager to tackle the next one, I'd hit a brick wall. The mission would be two or three levels higher than me, forcing me to complete side quests to get to the appropriate level. Which would be fine if 80% of these quests weren't dull and repetitive. I lost count of how many people I didn't care about that I had to rescue from caves and bandit camps. It's a stain on an otherwise superb game, and really tested my patience towards the end. It took me 28 hours to finish Origins, and I'm sure at least eight of those were spent completing side quests against my will.

Samuel: Assassin's Creed is an interesting one, in that I feel almost trained to ignore the majority of the series' side content—ever since those collectable feathers in the original game. Would it have been a great loss to make the level gating leaner in Origins and lose that extra eight hours, leaving it to the player to decide if they're worth it? I don't necessarily think so. 

Phil: My only hesitance in criticising this stuff is it must appeal to someone, and that someone is essentially me 15 years ago. I used to scour RPGs like Baldur's Gate for every scrap of story, and 100%'d Grand Theft Autos III, Vice City and San Andreas. I even collected those damn feathers in Assassin's Creed II. It wasn't because I enjoyed collectibles—I didn't—but that I wasn't ready to leave these cool worlds. I felt compelled to stay until everything was done. Since then I got a job, and realised there were more games than I could theoretically play in a lifetime—both things that have made me more discerning with how I spend my time. But I recognise that even collectibles, as pointless as they usually are, can add value for some.

Samuel: Thing is, I played both San Andreas and GTA III before I had a full-time job and I still didn't 100% complete them. I played them until I'd seen the credits, then just messed around in the open world until I felt done. I accept collecting the hidden packages has value for some people, but as a player, I feel like I've become pretty savvy about breaking down the higher value and lower value content in a game. I know the difference between a sidequest that starts with a cutscene and a three-minute race that's slightly too tricky to be enjoyable. And for me, it doesn't matter how much I love the world of a game—it still has to give me slightly more back in reward (the entertainment value of what I'm playing) than it's asking in time investment.

To offer a slightly different example, this week I thought I'd start one of Obsidian's two recent RPGs, which I've been considering for a while. According to my favourite games utility site, How Long To Beat, Pillars of Eternity comes in at 36 hours to beat the main quest line, while Tyranny comes in at 23 hours. Knowing that, I started Tyranny—it's unlikely I'll ever get through both, and even if our reviewers preferred Pillars, I'd rather start something where I know I'll see the ending. That 13 hours is potentially a whole other game I could complete. 

Good sidequests vs bad sidequests

Tom Senior: I agree with Phil to the extent that I remember enjoying sidequests and working towards secrets in games like Final Fantasy VII. Finding Vincent, breeding gold chocobos, fighting the weapons—that stuff didn’t feel like second-tier content. Sidequests and secondary activities in a lot of current open world games feel like an afterthought by comparison, and I think that’s because, in open world games, technology has outpaced design for years. Game engines can do huge, beautiful worlds, but we don't exactly know how to fill them with interesting activities. 

There are exceptions, obviously, like Skyrim and The Witcher 3, and on consoles last year Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Horizon Zero Dawn. All of these games are full of fun, meaningful side activities that, crucially, don't delay your movement on the critical path. Assassin's Creed Origins' levelling system forces you to engage with the busywork to progress, which is the worst.

There are two big honking problem games I'd pick out: Mass Effect Andromeda and Dragon Age: Inquisition. The critical paths in both games are exciting, full of twists, drama, the stuff that BioWare is good at and known for. The open world side missions were drivel that got in the way and stopped you getting at the best parts of the game. Those games, and Shadow of War, define 'bloat' for me, though at least there is a point to Shadow of War having an open world. I reckon Inquisition and Andromeda could have been great relatively linear rollercoaster single player RPGs.

The Witcher 3 did it best, obviously

Samuel: I can see why open world seemed like the right route for both of those BioWare games. Dragon Age got to show you what felt like its whole world for the first time rather than just snapshots (and it's incredibly impressive to look at), and Mass Effect hadn't really done big explorable planets since the original game. But it's hard to dispute that one reason Mass Effects 2 and 3 were so great is that the busywork was kept to an absolute minimum. Pretty much all of the sidequest content was story-driven. Everyone remembers their favourite loyalty quest(s) from Mass Effect 2.  

That's one solution, then—linear games are totally okay by us, even if some publishers have seemingly convinced themselves otherwise. And open world games can be long, but that scale shouldn't ever get in the player's way. The more of these games that exist in the market, though, the less attention we can conceivably pay to each one—and the less likely we are to try and do everything. Sidequest design is more important now than ever. 

Tom: Statistically, looking at achievements, you can see that not many people ever finish games. Games seem more determined to tire us out than to leave us wanting more. Every hour you're spending in a game is an hour you're not spending with one of the game's competitors, and the games-as-service trend allows games to become platforms for microtransactions that can generate long-term revenue. 

Basically, there are incentives for big-budget games to be massive, but luckily smaller developers are able to create small games that don’t need to meet those big business aims. I wonder if there’s a space halfway for games with big beautiful worlds, minus the giant to-do lists. LA Noire and Shadow of the Colossus spring to mind, focused games that use its open world to create a mood rather than burden us with fetch quests and endless resource collection exercises. I think games are gradually getting better at this, though. The Witcher 3 showed that sidequests can be rich, self-contained short stories that don’t feel like filler. I hope to see more of that sort of thing as open worlds continue to get bigger with each passing year.

The Nemesis System first turned up in Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor. Defeated Orc heroes could return in future missions to shout insults and seek revenge. They had strengths, weaknesses, and defined personalities. Some were cowardly and sneaky, some were huge, brawny brawlers. It's a great system that generates great stories, and more game series should steal it. But which games would benefit from the system most? The PC Gamer team has a few ideas...

Chris Livingston: Cities: Skylines

I'd love something like the Nemesis system in a game like Cities: Skylines, where an unhappy citizen (I always have many, many unhappy citizens) could stand out a bit. Since you already get citizen complaints on Chirper (Skylines' version of Twitter) it would be cool if one citizen would really step things up if he was unhappy with garbage collection problems or that fact that his home was waste-deep in sewage and corpses. They could stage protests, wave angry little signs, write petitions, refuse to pay taxes, maybe even attempt to oust you from office. Bulldoze his house and maybe he'll return after buying a skyscraper or taking over one of your town's biggest businesses. I tend to get obsessed with NPCs as it is, so it would be nice if one of them would get obsessed with me from time to time.

James Davenport: Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag

Because I'm an idiot and chief of all Moby Dick fan-fiction, I'm thinking a whaling sim set in the Dick Universe that uses something like Black Flag's sailing tech would be a fin-tastic use case for the nemesis system. First, you spec out your mad captain, pinning down their particular fears and origins, from which Nemesis Whales™ will be generated to harass them during the workday. I have no idea what you'll do between whaling ventures, but in combat scenarios, I imagine something like Shadow of the Colossus encounters, but with a Mass Effect party system in which you can stop time and switch characters to queue up specific attacks. Queequeg might be in a smaller boat circling the big bugger with handheld harpoons, while the Ahab archetype stands behind the wheel and issues dodging or ramming commands for the Pequod. 

Whales will resemble the colossi in that they'll come in all species and sizes—everything from porpoise to those big blue ones I've come to fear—and they'll require unique tactics to take down. Also, the name generation system will combine short adjectives indicating size with simple nouns. Tremble in fear, for Great Forearm swimmeth.

Jarred Walton: Fallout

The Nemesis System is such a great tool, and it generates some awesome stories, so it's difficult to imagine a game where it wouldn't improve it in some fashion. Imagine dropping it into just about any true RPG world and the results would be glorious. Fallout with Nemesis could end up with battles against raiders that actually mean more than yet another generic shootout. You go into a city where the raiders have been happily picking off passersby for years, wipe them out, and discover one of them lived and now holds a grudge against you and your settlements. Or what if one of the thousands of ants, radscorpions, or bloatflies was to come back with his friends? Even better, a deathclaw nemesis that comes back stronger and uglier each time you defeat it would be terrifying! Please, Bethesda, make it happen.

Tom Senior: Metal Gear Solid 5

I would say XCOM, but War of the Chosen did a nice job of giving us bad guys to hate last year. The Nemesis system is great for giving faceless goons the illusion of agency, and in that sense I think that Metal Gear Solid 5 could actually benefit from of that. The series has very good supervillains—wouldn't it be great to see them emerge from the rank and file soldiery that you're evading and assassinating every mission? 

Imagine a captain who, having all his prisoners stolen by Snake, embarks on a journey to thwart him, turning up at inopportune moments in future missions to ruin Snake's day. And imagine that with each appearance the captain's dress and mannerisms become more erratic until they fit in right alongside The End, Vulcan Raven and Revolver Ocelot. They could also receive procedurally generated alter egos with randomised, Metal Gear Solid names like Hornet Dark, Mona Lisa, Bad Giraffe—plus suitably gimmicky weaponry to match.

Austin Wood: Dark Souls 

Someone had to say it, and lord knows I'm game for a tailor-made Dark Souls nemesis. Death is very much baked into the Souls recipe, which could be a good opportunity to play up the "You thought I was dead!" side of the Nemesis System and iterate on returning nemeses. I was ecstatic to see Shadow of War expand on that, and Dark Souls' black phantom system is the perfect MacGuffin.

I'm reminded of Patches the Hyena, the merchant who's been kicking hapless players into pits for, what, three games now, Demon's Souls included? Imagine if, instead of an annoying bastard chasing you through the series, you had a tenacious bastard chasing you through the world. They would get harder each time you defeated them, and you'd never know when their phantom would spawn in and throw a wrench in otherwise simple fights. Similar things have been done with NPC questlines already. My mouth waters at the thought of personalized bastards. 

Every year we round up our favorite screenshots, with preference to those taken at ultra-high resolutions with custom camera controls for beautiful HUD-free compositions. Previously, we've mainly included shots of our own, but this year I asked the community to submit their own. Special thanks to Larah Johnson (aka HodgeDogs) and Andy Cull who've lent us their collections for the year, as well as Cinematic Captures and The Gamers Zone for their great Battlefront 2 shots.

For the sake of space, we haven't included every screenshot submitted, but do check out these comments for more, and leave your best in the comments here.

Star Wars Battlefront 2

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

Assassin's Creed Origins

More on the next page!

Ghost Recon Wildlands

Middle-earth: Shadow of War

Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus

Mass Effect: Andromeda

Destiny 2

Nier: Automata

More on the next page!

theHunter: Call of the Wild

Prey

The Evil Within 2

What Remains of Edith Finch

Night in the Woods