As Dusk Falls Review (PS5) | Push Square

A couple of weeks after its release on the PS4 and PS5, narrative adventure game As Dusk Falls now has a free trial available to subscribers of PlayStation Plus Premium. The trial allows players to check out the first hour of the game, and allows players to carry over their progress into the full game.

Rise of the Ronin, the latest tentpole PS5 console exclusive from legendary Japanese developer Team Ninja, has been subject to a colossal marketing push in Asia, where posters and billboards have been spotted around cities such as Taipei for several weeks now. That’s all culminated in an Edo period art exhibition in Huashan 1914 Creative Park – coincidentally, the former home of a Japanese sake manufacturer– where Sony has installed several 19th-century props inspired by the game.

We need to cut 2K Sports, or indeed any tennis game developer, some slack here: lining up a complete list of pros is not easy. That’s because, unlike in other sports, there’s no governing body in tennis overseeing the likenesses of players, so contracts need to be signed on a case-by-case basis. Nevertheless, the full roster of playable pros in TopSpin 2K25 does look extremely light.

By trying to do so much, Rise of the Ronin feels like an inferior version of everything it's inspired by. With an open world populated by map markers and side activities, it’s a worse Assassin's Creed. With a historical Japanese setting, it's a worse Ghost of Tsushima. With a combat system that prioritises parrying, it's a worse Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. At no point is it a bad experience, but the game's so run of the mill, so formulaic that attempting something new and ultimately failing would have been a more tantalising sell. You've already played better versions of Rise of the Ronin — what it's attempting is just fine, which is probably the most boring outcome possible.

Slave Zero X serves as prequel to the cult hit Dreamcast game Slave Zero, but while their stories and universe are connected, they couldn't be more different. Set five years before the third-person shooter original, this new title is a 2.5D beat-'em-up, in which you don a biomechanical super suit as the vengeful warrior Shou is out to kill the city's corrupt leader.

We're not quite ready to deliver our final verdict on Dragon's Dogma 2 right now. Because of circumstances outside of our control, we still need to finish the main quest, and then check out how the game handles New Game+ — which was a staple component of the original Dragon's Dogma.

At this point, there’s a pretty good chance Microsoft’s going to port its Forza Horizon franchise to PS5 – but until that day arrives, The Crew Motorfest remains a welcome alternative. And with its third full season of content available now, publisher Ubisoft has announced the title’s first-ever free weekend, scheduled to get underway from 14th March through 18th March.

MLB The Show 24 is quietly one of Sony’s most successful series, but with developer San Diego Studio forced to iterate on unforgiving annual cycles, it can be difficult for it to make meaningful improvements year-over-year. This short 60-second trailer provides a crash course on what’s new in the latest game, then, which is out today in early access.

While we’re enormous fans of Train Sim World 4 and Dovetail’s entire railway simulation series, we’ve often criticised its overemphasis on British, American, and German routes. Fortunately, it looks like the release is poised to receive its first Japanese add-on, in the form of the Tadami Line, in-development at external studio Union Workshop.

Sony’s emulation strategy has been fairly consistent adding Trophies to classic first-party titles, and upcoming PSP port Jak & Daxter: The Lost Frontier will not buck the trend. The game – technically the last mainline entry in Naughty Dog’s platforming series – first launched in 2009, and mixes traditional adventuring with aerial combat. It’s not a classic by any stretch, but it’s enjoyable enough.

Out later this week in Japan, publisher Red Art Games has announced that it’s bringing MACROSS Shooting Insight to PS5 and PS4 in North America and Europe later this year, marking the first time a tie-in based on the 80s anime franchise has officially launched in the West. The game, a multi-dimensional shooter, has been developed by Kaminari Games, who’s perhaps best known for the brilliant Raiden V: Director’s Cut.

It's weird that Konami has taken this long to ship Contra: Operation Galuga, which is the classic Contra game fans have been asking for. After the damp turd that was 2019's Contra: Rogue Corps, the publisher handed the reins back to WayForward, the team behind 2008's Contra 4. Turns out that's all that was needed to get a great Contra game, since this latest effort nails what made the original run-'n'-gun experience so infectious in the first place.