Gaming Inbox: Could 2026 be the best year for video games ever?

The Wednesday Letters page is happy to 007 First Light It’s such a good review, as a reader I wish more games had couch co-op Lego Batman.

Games inbox is a collection of letters, comments and opinions from our readers. To join the discussions, email yourself gamecentral@metro.co.uk

Exceeding expectations
So the 007 First Light reviews are out and it’s another top notch game?! It is now the fifth highest rated game of the year on Metacritic, just behind Mewgenics (whatever that is), Resident Evil RequiemAND Forza Horizon 6. That puts it just ahead of Saros, Nioh 3, Pragmata and Lego Batman: Legacy Of The Dark Knight.

I have left them all out indie gamesexcept for Mewgenics, because it’s never a surprise when one of them is good, but these are big budget games that almost always turned out better than expected, and that seems pretty special to me.

I’m sure there’s something I’m forgetting, but I don’t recall any major budget disappointments this year, and that’s pretty unheard of. Normally, if things were going this well, we’d be wondering if this would be the best year ever for games, but the problem is that we know very little about what’s coming out in the second half of the year.

This is probably GTA 6’s fault as much as possible, but if the second installment can come anywhere close to the first, then 2026 will be a classic. Especially if GTA 6 doesn’t disappoint.
Cranston

Premium Bond
Great review of 007 First Light, GC. They really liked him. It was fun to read about a game that I assumed was quite different from what it appears to be, but even better that it turned out to be really good. I can’t say I’ve ever really enjoyed Hitman, but I’ll try to, given the reviews. I also appreciate the fact that it’s not £70.

I wouldn’t call myself a Bond fan, but I like a lot of them, so I wonder how much the name will attract or repel people. I think ideally IO would have had this come out alongside a new movie, but that’s going to take years, so they didn’t really have a choice, I guess.

I wonder how many younger players are more aware of Bond, but I guess we’ll see over the next few weeks.
Locke

GC: thank you

For England, James
Good to see 007 First Light getting a high Metacritic right off the bat, it’s at 88 as I write this. I notice that there don’t seem to be any of the big US sites yet. No IGN or Gamespot or anything like that. Then I read that they got their review copies later than Europe, which should be first.

Can GC explain what happened and when you got your copy? I really hate the idea of ​​publishers trying to influence review scores, but in this case I’m not sure what was going on, especially since the game seems to be good. However, not really the publicity they need.
Colbat86

GC: Something strange was going on, but we still don’t understand what. We only got our review copy on Friday, which is pretty late for a big game like this, and we think we were one of the first. As you say, the US seems to have gotten them even later, but we don’t know why.

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Ghost rebirth
Glad to see Lego Batman: Legacy Of The Dark Knight sells well and the people who enjoy it from Inbox. I was also playing it on the weekend with my kids and we all enjoyed it. A lot of them went over their heads too, but as long as the game is fun and it’s cooperative, that’s all they care about.

I wonder why so few games have co-op, given how much people seem to enjoy it. I think a lot of the problems with Halo Infinite’s bad rep was because there was no co-op to begin with. When indie games started to become a thing with Xbox 360 I hoped this might bring with it a new golden age for couch co-op, because a lot of indie games were like that back then, but it never really happened.

It probably won’t happen again until the next Lego game, which is a real shame. I hope the next one isn’t Harry Potter however, or it will just end up spinning in a circle from Star Wars to Batman to Harry Potter and back. Even if we get another Marvel, this is already done a ton.
Boots

City builder
I would never have imagined one The Lego version of Cities: Skylineswhat an odd choice, especially if it’s coming out soon – maybe a shade at Summer Game Fest? I’d be interested in it, but Skylines is a pretty complicated game, so I’m not sure how far it’ll go.

It also seems like it wouldn’t work as well with Lego bricks because you zoom in so far most things are just dots, but the smallest Lego brick is still pretty big. Maybe there is some confusion and this is not the name? Or is it a smaller scale thing, but only from the same developer? Although I don’t know how an age rating board gets that kind of thing wrong (or why they keep putting this stuff out).
Sober

Payment of rent
Reading that Granzella has only made one game (R-Type Final 2) and not released anything since made me wonder how studios stay in business?

How do they pay their staff if they only release one product in say, a six year period – are they literally getting so much profit from sales that they can afford to keep paying their developers for years and years without releasing anything new? And this is a studio that has released a very niche title with little market appeal.
Sven

GC: Granzella has only made one R-Type game in their 15 years of existence, but they have made other games. Although we doubt that both “Disaster Report 4 Plus: Summer Memories” and “City Shrouded In Shadow” bring much to them. We don’t know Granzella’s circumstances, but we suspect so much like the Treasurythey have very little permanent staff and rely mostly on freelancers and collaborators when making a new game.

The broader issue you allude to is the biggest problem facing the gaming industry right now. Naughty Dog, to use an example of one of the biggest developers in the business, hasn’t released an entirely new game in a generation and yet has a headcount of over 400. Even with TV deals for The last of us this does not seem sustainable for Sony or any company in a similar position.

Ice to see you
I was hoping you could clarify something for me.

I am interested in buying the new Lego Batman game, but only for one particular character.

I can see that Batgirl is in the game, but I’ve heard that Alicia Silverstone Batgirl from Batman & Robin might be a playable character – can you confirm or deny as I haven’t been able to come up with a definitive answer?
The Specter N8 (gamertag)

GC: There is a skin called Ice Armor that is based on the costume Alicia Silverston wore at the end of Batman & Robin, but we don’t remember if it was the only one she had in the movie.

New Horizons
Interesting to see all the high scores for Forza Horizon 6. As someone who has been there since the first game, the franchise is starting to feel a bit stale to me. It’s a great game, but I think it’s fresher for those who haven’t played previous games. Someone on YouTube mentioned that recent games are feeling very corporate, cut and paste, with a new map and that pretty much sums it up for me and all my friends.

My friends and I spent hundreds of hours on the first three games, but when 4 came out we dropped quickly. One of our favorite modes, gameplay, was destroyed by making it team-based, and 6 hasn’t gotten this mode yet, which is weird. Also, the dialogue in 6 feels very AI, soulless, and the fact that it still bombards you with constant stuff and rewards can feel overwhelming.

I looked at my friends list and hardly any of them are playing it. I know this isn’t the greatest look right now as it’s selling well, but I wonder in a few weeks how many will still be playing it. I’m glad it’s doing well, as it shows that racing games can still appeal to a lot of people, and I’ll be interested in the changes they make and the things they add, but for me it’s not as fun as the previous games, which I feel is a shame.
slave

GC: We can understand that point of view. If Forza Horizon 7 doesn’t add some new twists, we suspect review scores, if not sales, will start to slip.

Inbox-ka too
Just out of interest, what does GC believe about the lifetime sales of Tetris?
PazJohnMitch

GC: If this alludes to Wikipedia’s tendency to count every version of Tetris ever, from many different publishers and developers, as one game, we’ve always thought that was silly. For what it’s worth, Guinness World Records doesn’t cut it when considering what the best-selling game ever is; they go with Minecraft instead.

The PSP bag looks… really good? I have no idea why such a random company would do such a random thing, but I’ll take one, especially at that price.
You were

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