Tomorrow’s Remedy double-take still owns the calendar, but today’s scoreboard got louder: The Verge and Twisted Voxel both filed fresh CONTROL Resonant takes on September 23, widening an already messy critic split that runs from VGC’s perfect five to Eurogamer’s cool 3/5. Elsewhere, Raw Fury’s space-station puzzler Rivage launches to a soft landing, Wadjet Eye’s vampire chronicle Nighthawks opens near a 90, and Funcom’s Dune: Awakening console/solo build keeps collecting friendly mid-to-high eights.
CONTROL Resonant — Verge joins the fight, scoreboard still wild (PS5 / Xbox / PC)
With the September 24 launch hours away, the Resonant argument isn’t “is it good?” so much as “which Remedy did you get?” OpenCritic’s early band is sitting around an 84 with most critics recommending it, but the poles are loud. GameSpot’s 9/10 and VGC’s 5/5 treat the melee/open-Manhattan gamble as one of Remedy’s most impressive swings; Eurogamer’s 3/5 and PC Gamer’s 76 say leaving the Oldest House also left some of Control’s magic — and that the combat hours can feel middling.
Today’s useful new voices land closer to the high side without ignoring the grind. The Verge (Andrew Webster, Sep 23) frames Resonant as Remedy doing what nobody else does: gravity-warped NYC traversal that eventually turns “familiar open-world” into something closer to interactive art, even while Dylan stays dull and late-game enemy piles get tedious. Twisted Voxel’s same-day 8.5/10 calls it unmistakably Remedy — bizarre, ambitious, sometimes frustrating. Against yesterday’s cooler Guardian read and the already-live IGN 8/10 / DualShockers 8.5 cluster, the eve-of-launch picture is a genuine score gap worth bookmarking before day-one patches and more outlets pile in.
Read the reviews: The Verge — CONTROL Resonant · Eurogamer — CONTROL Resonant (3/5) · GameSpot — CONTROL Resonant (9/10) · PC Gamer — CONTROL Resonant (76) · VGC — CONTROL Resonant (5/5) · OpenCritic — CONTROL Resonant
Rivage — time-loop puzzles, mixed grades, GenAI side-eye (PS5 / Xbox / PC)
Exnilo Studio / Raw Fury’s A.R.E.S. station puzzler shipped September 22, and the early board is softer than the trailer vibe. Metro’s PS5 write-up lands at 7/10 for varied, penalty-free puzzles with some corridor wandering and controller typing pain; TheSixthAxis is cooler at 6/10, praising voice work and station personality while calling out padded multi-step puzzles and clunky object manipulation. CGMagazine goes further — mediocre-to-frustrating puzzles plus a Steam AI-generated-content disclaimer that soured trust in the art direction even where the page claims no GenAI in the final build. Metacritic’s tiny early sample is sitting mixed/average; treat the controversy as part of the story, not the whole score.
Read the reviews: Metro — Rivage (7/10) · TheSixthAxis — Rivage (6/10) · CGMagazine — Rivage · Metacritic — Rivage
Nighthawks — PC Gamer’s 89 for a novel-length vampire RPG (PC)
Wadjet Eye / The Curiosity Engine’s text-forward vampire RPG also arrived September 22, and the early praise is concentrated but loud. PC Gamer’s 89 treats it as a novel’s worth of sharp writing — Fallen London / Citizen Sleeper DNA, with a post-masquerade city where vampires are regulated and the fantasy gets interrogated as much as indulged. Pixel Byte matches the vibe at 8.5/10, loving the cast and vampire fantasy while flagging dead-end progression and miserable sewer navigation. PC-only for now, but it’s the cleanest “read this if you bounced off Bloodlines 2” conversation of the week.
Read the reviews: PC Gamer — Nighthawks (89) · Pixel Byte — Nighthawks (8.5/10)
Dune: Awakening console — solo mode carries the port (PS5 / Xbox)
Funcom’s Arrakis survival MMO hit PS5 and Xbox Series with a full single-player path, and console critics are mostly treating that as the headline. CGMagazine’s September 23 PS5 piece (unscored) calls Performance-mode 60fps stable and solo “the best version of the Conan Exiles loop,” while warning the lore dump won’t convert non-Dune fans. But Why Tho? and similar outlet math have been landing around 8.5/10; Complete Xbox is a cooler 78% that still loves the desert threat and solo access but flags menu friction and occasional texture hiccups. If you bounced off the PC MMO framing, this is the build the reviews keep pointing at.
Read the reviews: CGMagazine — Dune: Awakening (PS5) · But Why Tho? — Dune: Awakening console (8.5/10) · Complete Xbox — Dune: Awakening (78%)
NextGenConsole exclusive — September 23, 2026. Scores and links point to the original outlets; aggregates can still move as more reviews land.