Journey planner

When developers start crafting a game world, one of their earliest considerations is how players will navigate it. This month’s Play selection features all manner of different traversal mechanics. In The Fabulous Fear Machine your choices determine the spread of paranoia and terror, represented by a purple inkblot that metastasizes outward. And if Strange Scaffold’s El Paso, Elsewhere is effectively a one-way descent into hell, you’ll spend a good deal of that trip diving backwards in slow motion. The elevator might be more efficient, but it’s not nearly as stylish.

Serendipitously, our review code for Jusant arrives after we’ve spent 20 hours with Assassin’s Creed: Mirage, juxtaposing two distinct approaches to a familiar game activity: climbing. In Ubisoft Bordeaux’s game, reaching a Baghdad rooftop is in some ways even more straightforward than moving through its crowded streets: as you nudge the analogue stick upwards, would-be assassin Basim Ibn Ishaq follows your directions with little effort, performance-captured animations communicating his preternatural agility. Don’t Nod’s unnamed protagonist is a similarly seasoned clamberer, but their ascent requires more effort on the player’s part, involving triggers, buttons and sticks in combination if they’re to reach their ultimate destination. But then in Mirage, traversal is a simple means to a more complex end; in Jusant, the climb is the end.

The creators behind the two biggest games of the bunch are clearly already happy with the way their returning heroes get about, but have seized the opportunity to expand their movesets. Peter Parker and Miles Morales now come with a wingsuit that allows them to stay above New York’s streets for even longer than before, while the videogame icon who pioneered running and jumping isn’t yet too old for a few new tricks. Mario with a grappling hook? We wonder how he’d get on climbing Jusant’s mountain.