This Week In Games: Master Chief, Roll Out

Move out, soldier.

I hope you like nostalgia, because this week is choc full of it. For a start, it marks the appearance of Halo Reach — and eventually the whole Halo: Master Chief Collection — on PC for the first time. And it’s on Steam. That’s a big win for a lot of people thinking about how to burn their time off over Christmas — an oldschool Halo LAN party certainly wouldn’t be out of order.

Beyond that, it’s a mixed bag. You’ve got the Assassin’s Creed: Rebel Collection dropping on the Switch, there’s the fifth episode of Life is Strange 2 on all platforms, Techland’s adorable Arise: A Simple Story, Alien Isolation on the Switch, pharmaceutical management on consoles, the console release of Ancestors, and a bit of Neverwinter Nights on consoles. Games like Phoenix Point — the new strategy game from the maker of XCOM — are dropping this week too, and there’s Darksiders Genesis to keep an eye on.

Here’s the leaderboard for the week:

• Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey (PS4, XBO)
• Big Pharma (PS4, XBO)
• Arise: A Simple Story (PC, PS4, XBO)
• Jumanji: The Video Game (Switch, XBO, PS4)
• Life is Strange 2: Episode 5 (PC, PS4, XBO)
• Halo: Master Chief Collection (PC)
• Darksiders Genesis (PC)
• Big Pharma (PS4, XBO)
• Heroland (Switch)
• Tools Up (PC)
• Alien: Isolation (Switch)
• Phoenix Point (PC)
• Trover Saves The Universe (XBO)
• Ice Age: Scrat’s Nutty Adventure (Switch, PS4, XBO)
• Farming Simulator 20 (Switch)
• Immortal Planet (XBO)
• Seek Hearts (XBO)
• STAR OCEAN First Departure R (PS4)
• Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition (PS4, XBO, Switch)

Let’s kick off the trailers with Darksiders: Genesis, which is basically Darksiders: The Twin Stick Shooter. It looks like Diablo, but in practice it’s a bit more like the Gauntlet remake from a few years back.

I feel bad for not having played Life is Strange 2 yet, but it’s also one of those games that I prefer to binge in a single hit. Good one to knock out over Christmas, maybe. So that’s the roster this week. Plenty of big names, especially Halo and Darksiders. And next week we’ll have Mechwarrior 5 to chew on as well.

See anything that takes your fancy?