The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom and More: What We’re Playing (and Loving) in May 2023

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Rated E; Nintendo Switch

If you use social media at all, we probably don’t need to tell you that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is here. Tears of the Kingdom builds on the giant open world full of exploration and experimentation that 2017’s Breath of the Wild brought to The Legend of Zelda by introducing a powerful building system. This system lets you combine weapons into new tools and attach ingredients to your arrows for wild new effects, and it allows you to construct vehicles of many, many shapes, sizes, and uses. Tears of the Kingdom also brings the problem-solving inventiveness of games such as Minecraft and Fortnite to Zelda, to always-surprising effect. The result is frequently impressive if not always predictable, but there’s also a Zelda game here, with a sweeping story that remixes and refines the themes and story beats that the series has become known for. After around 40 hours with the game, I’m still only scratching the surface, as I’m constantly pulled between progressing the story and clumsily attempting to get my Hylian degree in mechanical engineering.

—Arthur Gies

Warhammer 40K: Boltgun
Rated M; PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5

If you haven’t kept up on the past several years of PC games, Warhammer 40K: Boltgun might look kind of, well, old. But that’s the point. Boltgun takes the grim, ridiculous space fantasy of the Warhammer 40K universe—which is full of galaxy-spanning orc hordes, brutal holy warriors, and pestilence-spewing alien swarms—and throws it back to ’90s-era shooters, à la the original Doom and Duke Nukem 3D. This concept is now common enough in game development to have a name, the “boomer shooter,” a hilariously evocative and appropriate moniker. These are games that feel like how players remember ’90s shooters: loud, chunky, violent, and straightforward. They were also accessible and a lot of fun, which perfectly sums up Boltgun. It’s outlandishly, cartoonishly graphic but also stylish, hilarious, and full of in-jokes for people who might have grown up playing games that looked a lot like this.

—Arthur Gies

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
Rated T; PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S

A sequel to 2019’s hit Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is set five years after the original (and around the same time as the Disney+ show Obi-Wan Kenobi). This title takes the exploration and action of the previous game and expands it in every direction for a graphically stunning showpiece for the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. Survivor is the rare sequel that starts you off with every ability from the prior game and adds from there, which helps it create new puzzle and combat experiences to complement what the previous game built. It has great characters, an interesting story, and a huge world (galaxy?) to explore. But it’s not all good news: Performance on both PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S is inconsistent, and we recommend playing with the consoles’ respective resolution-mode toggles enabled. PC players with higher-end systems are having even bigger difficulties with the game. For now, console is the way to go, and PC gamers should wait a bit.

—Arthur Gies

Dead Island 2
Rated M; PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S

I’ll get this out of the way first: Dead Island 2 is really, really gross. Developer Dambuster Studios went so far as to give its bespoke “dismemberment tech” a cute acronym: FLESH, which stands for Fully Locational Evisceration System for Humanoids. It’s an apt description of what you’ll be seeing and doing in the game. Dead Island 2 is an action RPG that isn’t quite an open world but is full of big spaces in an earthquake-ravaged Los Angeles that also happens to be in the middle of a nightmarish zombie outbreak, and it fully commits to the mayhem that premise suggests. You’ll do some pretty horrible things to the undead here, using an escalating collection of weapons that you can modify with more and more outrageous upgrades, from electricity to, well, explosions. Dead Island 2 isn’t for the weak of stomach, and it’s absolutely not appropriate to play in front of young children or squeamish partners or roommates, but it’s a great-looking, consistently fun zombie playground.

—Arthur Gies

Octopath Traveler II
Rated T; Steam, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch

I wasn’t sure about Octopath Traveler II initially. The first entry in the series let me down with uninspired characters and a barren plot that I spent hours in, waiting for it to get good (it never did). But Octopath Traveler II takes everything that was actually great about the original and turns it up a notch, offering engaging turn-based combat with layers of strategy, beautiful environments to explore, and one of the best video game soundtracks out there. (I’m listening to my favorite track, “Den of Darkness,” as I write this.) And at some point in the last few hours of gameplay, I realized that it doesn’t matter to me whether the dialogue is cheesy or whether the plot culminates in some grand fight for the fate of the world—I’m just enjoying the vibes. Octopath Traveler II is about the journey, not the destination.

—Kimber Streams

Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp
Rated E; Nintendo Switch

Advance Wars 1+2 Re-Boot Camp is an enjoyable remake of the first two Advance Wars games, scaled up for HD graphics and smoother playing than the originals offered on the Game Boy Advance. This turn-based tactical warfare game offers rock-paper-scissors gameplay involving soldiers, aircraft, and tanks; you also build up strategic reserves of troops and resources during a session, and you use commanding-officer powers, which give either team temporary advantages such as added movement points, bolder defenses, or stronger attacks. Online multiplayer is limited to people on your friends list, but you can play up to three other opponents in local battles over Wi-Fi. Options for building and sharing your own maps, three levels of difficulty, interstitials with fun animation and voice acting, and a varied collection of quick-play maps add to the game’s replayability.

—Joel Santo Domingo

System Shock 2
Rated M; PC (May 30)

System Shock’s 1994 PC release sold only modestly well, but it would prove to be one of the most influential first-person games of all time, directly inspiring (and employing some of the creative leads of) games like BioShock, Deus Ex, 2017’s Prey, and countless other games. Set on a space station enslaved by a rogue AI and overrun by robots, mutants, and cyborgs, this “immersive simulation” game—designed to allow open-ended problem solving and gameplay decisions within a first-person shooter shell—has been in remake development hell for years. In fact, we wrote about this game back in February, when it was supposed to come out in March, and it was delayed once again. But this time, Nightdive is apparently really sure it’s coming out, and based on the demo released on Steam in February, I’m excited. Though it has been remade in modern tech, this updated System Shock’s design and trappings are gloriously rooted in the ’90s, complete with “edgy” cyberpunk aesthetics and weird, creative gameplay possibilities that manage to feel fresh almost 30 years later. System Shock is hitting PCs at the end of May, with console releases to follow eventually.

—Arthur Gies

Street Fighter 6
Rated T; PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S (June 2)

I had the chance to spend a couple of hours with Street Fighter 6 at a recent event, and I felt transported back to a ’90s laundromat. The Street Fighter games are no longer quite the cultural phenomenon they were, these days played primarily by a hardcore community of fighting-game enthusiasts. However, this new game seems designed to appeal to the masses with a simplified set of controls that should let more casual players do tricky special moves via single button presses. This means that new players can keep up with more dedicated players, but those dedicated players shouldn’t worry—you can stick with classic controls.

The new title also has an open-world-inspired adventure mode that lets you create and fully customize just about any kind of fighter you can imagine. You’ll take your created challenger into Metro City, where you’ll challenge other fighters, meet the Street Fighter cast and study their techniques, and unravel a growing mystery.

None of this would mean much if Street Fighter 6 wasn’t fun to play, but this is the best Street Fighter has felt in decades. The game plays great with a controller or with a fighting stick, and it’s stylish and fun, top to bottom. We’ll have to see how well balanced it is and how involved the World Tour mode actually is when the game debuts June 2, but for now, it feels like an exciting time to be interested in fighting games.

—Arthur Gies

This article was edited by Arthur Gies and Caitlin McGarry.