LAST MONTH ON PS PLUS

If November’s Plus lineup is anything to go by, it would seem that Sony, like us, just couldn’t get enough of the spooky season. The month’s two headline acts really fit the bill, offering spine-chilling scares on one hand and mischievous mythological monsters on the other.

If you played Outlast after seeing it in our horror countdown in issue #168, you could have dived into the sequel, Outlast II, with a PS Plus subscription. Trading the first game’s hospital setting for a hike into the mountains, in it two investigative journalists got on the wrong side of a fanatical cult. Equipped with only your high-tech camera’s night vision mode and a directional microphone, your one defence was avoidance. But that didn’t mean this was a slow-paced stealth game that saw you picking your way through the darkness; there was (all too little) stamina to manage and plenty of running for your life.

As these winter nights get longer and longer, we’ll completely understand if Outlast II wasn’t your first choice to unwind with in the evening. While last month’s second helping at least gave you a weapon, it wasn’t quite a relaxing jaunt into the Japanese countryside either.

Nioh featured soulslike swordplay (plus plenty of different weaponplay besides) and a historical-adjacent story lavishly embellished with Japanese mythology and crazy demon designs.

Team Ninja’s slasher added new wrinkles to the winning Souls formula in the shape of the stance system and small spirits hidden throughout the levels that were able to offer you their blessings, making things just a little bit easier. All of this and its blonde-haired, Irish samurai protagonist certainly marked it out from the crowd. As we await the release of the, this remained a voyage well worth making. Both games are available till 3 December.