Street Fighter 6 punches up PLAY's latest cover
Exclusive access, plus hands-on with Sonic Frontiers, diving into PS Plus' upgrade, and more!
PLAY #17 is out now! The future of gaming is looking good, but it’s also looking a little familiar. That’s no bad thing, though, as feeling comfortable can be great, especially when things grow the right way. Cover game Street Fighter 6 fits that nicely. It respects the series’ legacy, while evolving in all the right ways to be a surefire victory.
Street Fighter 6
We’ve spent plenty of time playing Street Fighter 6, and chatting to Capcom’s developers. The game’s a smart mix of great core action and innovative features that make things approachable, from easier inputs to commentary from real fighting game commentators to give you a push in the right direction.
Sonic Frontiers
While Sonic is also returning, making us feel like we’re in a rather old school era, the blue blur’s latest, Sonic Frontiers, feels like a much bigger departure. Well, until it isn’t. The open world formula is new ground for the hedgehog that suits his top speed, but it’s also been revealed that the big world plays host to smaller, more traditional 3D stages. We’ve had time to play around with both halves, and think it could be shaping up to be more than the sum of its parts (despite the internet backlash).
The future of Resident Evil
It doesn’t stop there. Old favourites just won’t let go at the moment. Resident Evil stays strong with both a full remake of Resident Evil 4 and a new story chapter for Village; Final Fantasy VII continues to expand with Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, the middle child of the Remake trilogy, and a remaster of Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII; and both Persona 3 and Persona 4 are jumping off handhelds and onto the big screen again.
Which PS Plus tier is right for you?
If that’s not enough, PS Plus has unlocked older formats such as PS1 across both PS5 and PS4, and we’ve got the verdict on what tier you should consider subscribing to. We’ve waded through it all to analyse what’s on offer, including the most important thing of all: what games are available. From how the retro emulators fare to the selection, we dissect it all.
They’re oldies but goodies, and we can’t help but be excited. However, that doesn’t mean zilch for the brand new. Team Ninja’s Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty marks an exciting new step for the developer, as well as the promising Rollerdrome. Can there be too many games to look forward to? No way!
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Games Editor Oscar Taylor-Kent brings his Official PlayStation Magazine and PLAY knowledge to continue to revel in all things capital 'G' games. A noted PS Vita apologist, he's always got his fingers on many buttons, having also written for Edge, PC Gamer, SFX, Official Xbox Magazine, Kotaku, Waypoint, GamesMaster, PCGamesN, and Xbox, to name a few.
When not knee deep in character action games, he loves to get lost in an epic story across RPGs and visual novels. Recent favourites? Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree, 1000xResist, and Metaphor: ReFantazio! Rarely focused entirely on the new, the call to return to retro is constant, whether that's a quick evening speed through Sonic 3 & Knuckles or yet another Jakathon through Naughty Dog's PS2 masterpieces.
Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero is one of the best-selling games in Bandai Namco history: "A nice surprise in a year that's been kind of rough overall," says analyst
Final Fantasy 7 fans have been begging for Tifa to be added to Tekken 8, so they're taking the news of FF16 star Clive being added as well as you'd expect: "IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN HER"