Stronger together

Videogames put us right at the centre of their worlds, often positioning us as the most important person within them. Yet even in the most traditional power fantasies, playing as a self-appointed ‘Chosen One’, we’d rarely get anywhere without assistance. Tempting though it can be to go it alone, knowing when to ask for help is an important skill to learn.

In Beast Breaker, the debut game from Threes creator Asher Vollmer’s new studio, you play a tiny mouse tasked with chipping away the armour of a succession of colossal monsters. To even those mismatched odds, the courageous Skipper will be able to call upon friends to forage ingredients in preparation for battle, and to interrupt a beast once the fight starts to prevent it from launching a rampage.

The title character of Kena: Bridge Of Spirits is a similarly capable combatant. But without the help of the Rot – a squad of adorable woodland allies who can form living projectiles and help purge enemy spawn points – she’d find things a lot more difficult. Their presence as she shimmies across precarious platforms, meanwhile, feels almost like a crowd cheering her on, which proves one of Roll7’s most important additions to OlliOlli World. Rather than softening its challenge, the studio has simply made its skating series more encouraging to novices, with onlookers offering vocal support to make up for the embarrassment of a spill.

Yet sometimes the most valuable help comes from someone telling you what you need rather than want to hear. Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One revisits the preWatson days of Baker Street’s finest, partnering Holmes with the well-groomed Jon, whose coruscating critiques of hasty deductions encourage you to take greater care. So whether you prefer a hand upon your shoulder or the tough-love approach, this month’s Hype crop reminds us that during life’s toughest challenges we can get by with a little help from our friends.