Do the right thing

Choice paralysis – where you are faced with so many options, and so afraid of picking the wrong one, that you end up making no decision at all – is thankfully a rare sight in videogames. Developers tend to ensure we have all the information we need before they ask us to commit to something. Yet Fire Emblem: Three Houses (p110) comes perilously close to it. The game has barely begun when we are asked to choose over which of the trio of titular school houses we’d like to preside. We’re not sure we like any of them, and at least two seem quietly racist. We’ll be stuck with whichever one we choose for the next 50 hours or more. We almost give up there and then.

Thankfully, we persevere, and Three Houses turns into a game about helping our young charges become the best they can be, which is of course irresistible. It is a game about family – and is it just us, or are those becoming steadily more commonplace? Perhaps we’re all just getting on a bit; either way, what was once the preserve of partybased JRPGs is spreading ever wider.

Elsewhere, Wolfenstein: Youngblood (p106) recasts BJ Blazkowicz as the damsel, with his daughters playing the role of his saviour. Sky: Children Of The Light (p116), Thatgamecompany’s latest ethereal adventure, is about the power of a close-knit collective – one that can reach greater heights by looking out for one another, holding hands tight.

We did not expect that theme to continue in Dragon Quest Builders 2 (p114); we were braced for the choice paralysis often found in Minecraft, its chief inspiration. Yet keeping our band of merry outcasts fed, watered, warm and with sufficiently well-appointed toilet facilities provokes a pleasant parental buzz. The little darlings even put themselves to bed when they’re tired. More of this, please.