Endings, beginnings

Depending on when you’re reading this, it’s either the very end of one year or the beginning of another. It’s usually a time to look back or forward – and, now that we have the Edge Awards wrapped up for 2020, we can’t wait to get on with the latter.

As we sit expectantly on the cusp of 2021, it’s fitting that several of this issue’s Play selection find themselves straddling past and future. Cyberpunk 2077 finally arrives with a vision of 57 years hence (56 to you latecomers) that feels like a thrilling glimpse of the kind of visual complexity we should expect across games in general in the near future – or from those with comparable budgets, at least. Yet its satire is firmly stuck in the past, although that’s perhaps to be expected given its roots in a decades-old tabletop RPG.

Elsewhere, Hyrule Warriors: Age Of Calamity posits the seductive idea that an apparently inevitable catastrophe might, in fact, be preventable. There’s similar temporal chicanery going on in 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim – part of our annual catchup – which ultimately shows the value of everyone sticking together through challenging times. The delightful Wide Ocean Big Jacket, meanwhile, lets us briefly forget the real world – rather too briefly, perhaps, since the new dawn arrives a little sooner than we’d like.

Still, it’s clearly the right time to move on, and so we do, this time with genuine hope of a return to something approaching normality. While we’re in a rare misty-eyed mood, the last word must go to the flawed but fascinating Call Of The Sea and its closing duet, in which player character Norah Everhart sings, “Fate be kind to join us some sweet day.” After so long apart from friends and loved ones, there’s something to which we can all look forward.