Kotaku’s Weekend Guide: 3 Cool Games We’re Playing After An Impossible Week

Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Windows PCs (Steam Deck: “Verified”)
Current goal: Flip gravity

Bionic Bay is a cinematic puzzle platformer. Imagine Limbo but with grand, evocative background art and a much bigger toolbox for solving the obstacles in front of you. Floaty physics allows you to leap over massive chasms. A teleporter swaps your location with the object you attach it to. Bending time and gravity are just the start of the game’s interesting ideas. There’s no real story to speak of beyond the moody, evocative clash of violent mechanisms embedded in sprawling, dream-like superstructures, at least not much that I’ve encountered in my three hours with Bionic Bay so far.

But the dozens of mini-puzzles scattered throughout its world offer a satisfying, breezy mix of ideas that provides just enough resistance to keep you engaged without stopping you in your tracks entirely. I’m not sure if it will eventually gesture at the heights of something like Inside, but so far it’s an excellent compliment to 2023’s Planet of Lana, and the rest of the lineage of Another World-inspired 2D action adventures. — Ethan Gach

Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, Windows PCs (Steam Deck: “Playable”)
Current goal: Vibe out in the dystopia

Whether I’m dragging out the ending of Clair Obscur or frequently hopping into sessions of Doom: The Dark Ages, most of the games I’ve been playing lately depend on my direct, undiverted attention to dodge and parry. I love that challenge, but I could use a break. So, this weekend I’m spending some more time with Citizen Sleeper, which is perhaps the exact opposite of what I’ve been playing. I also want to check out its sequel, Citizen Sleeper 2, before the year is over, so it felt necessary to start with the first.

Released back in 2022 with its sequel arriving in January of 2025, this RPG offers up some chill space vibes displaced by the weight of some wonderfully written dystopian science fiction. The story and dialogue here are something special. Sometimes I’ll just linger on a single sentence or two at a time, be it some intensely written, introverted speculations of the protagonist as they consider their relationship to their body and self, or the wonderful depictions of folks living on the game’s space station. Also, having recently undergone two major surgeries myself, descriptions of coming in and out of consciousness and the task of sustaining my body in a video game feel very different to me emotionally than they would’ve before. I’m finding it all adds up to a rather neat experience that I want more of. — Claire Jackson

Play it on: Switch
Current goal: Explore more of Tallon IV

I picked this game up way back when it released but then just shelved it in my library, saving it for the day I felt compelled to re-experience the GameCube classic. Well, it seems that day has come. Maybe it’s because I’m just so full of anticipation for the Switch 2, but for whatever reason, I recently found myself itching to pull out my Switch and play something distinctly Nintendo on it. So I fired up Metroid Prime Remastered and completed its memorable opening chapter on the doomed space station, and wow. I’d heard people say that this game looked gorgeous but I wasn’t expecting it to be this impressive. For its time, the original release was so atmospheric and detailed that it’s still the first game that comes to mind when I hear the word “immersive,” and with the wonderful upgrade the visuals have received, this remaster just might preserve Metroid Prime’s place as one of the most immersive games ever made. I’ve only just started poking around on the surface of Tallon IV but it immediately took my breath away with all of its captivating little environmental touches. I’m eager to see more of this remarkable world. (I’m less eager to fight Meta Ridley again!) — Carolyn Petit

And that wraps our picks for the weekend. Happy gaming!