What we’ve been playing
By 5th April
Hello and welcome to our regular segment where we discuss a bit about some of the notable video games we’ve been engaging with. This week, Bertie puts on his fanciest white shirt and ventures into the corporate limbo of The Stanley Parable, cleansing himself in the nearest river in between, while Tom O takes a dive into Avowed and explores Split Fiction alongside his son.
What have you been playing lately?
Catch up with previous editions of this column in our What We have Been Playing archive.
The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe, PC
I really have a remarkable ability to let things completely pass me by – just whoosh! they’re gone. Perhaps one day I’ll conduct a masterclass on it. “You simply turn your head the other way and voilà, the world rushes past.” Oh dear, I’ve revealed my secret.
It’s how I found myself just this week diving into the iconic 2013 indie hit The Stanley Parable, partly because Lottie loves it and seems to materialize whenever it’s mentioned, and also because I was told it shares similarities with Severance, the television series. And indeed – it’s very much like Severance, though I ended up writing something about that which I don’t wish to revisit here.
What I wanted to express is that The Stanley Parable absolutely holds up. It feels just as fresh, enchanting, and brilliant to me in 2025 as I presume it did for players in 2013 – as I know it did in 2013, because people couldn’t stop talking about it. And I don’t believe that’s guaranteed. A game like this must exert more effort in 2025, partly due to its enduring legacy, partly due to aging, and partly because there are so many more outstanding indie games surrounding it. That The Stanley Parable can still shine so brightly is nearly remarkable.
-Bertie
Avowed, Xbox Series X / Split Fiction, PS5 Official
If there’s one annoyance I have with Avowed (aside from the flickering visuals when shifting the camera), it’s the challenge I encounter figuring out where to go in order to reach my destination. I’ve started to take on some side quests after focusing primarily on the main story, but it has placed some quest markers well beyond my previous explorations. I usually head toward a marker only to discover the door I go through leads me to an area that’s inaccessible from where I need to go, resulting in me wandering into dead ends and retracing my steps repeatedly.
My strategy has been to make a quick exit to the initial world outside of whatever developed area I’m in, then navigate what I assume is the longer route to the marker. I realize GPS-style navigation isn’t for everyone, but I feel Avowed would benefit from having it.
I’ve also invested a few hours into Split Fiction alongside my son. I wasn’t initially taken with the art style in the pre-release images, which seemed somewhat generic, but in the heat of the action, it’s quite striking and introduces variety frequently. We managed to finish the pig section just before we called it a night, and it was quite enjoyable, albeit somewhat intense. I’m not sure what was more stressful, the dancing pig or the meat grinder. But we’re looking forward to what happens next.
-Tom O
River Towns, PC
I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while, but I was completely mistaken – I now understand – about what type of game it actually is. What I assumed it would be was a cozy building game about creating settlements along rivers, and while it sort of is that, more directly it is a variant of Tetris. And I love that because I know that!
The concept is incredibly simple: place pieces of a town shaped like Tetris blocks…