They don't make them like this so much anymore. Recore, a spirited action adventure from a chaos of developers assembled by Microsoft Game Studios, is what was once known as a double-A game - sitting somewhere behind the big budget blockbusters and before indie was really a thing, they were games that made up for their lack of clout by a certain pluckiness. Games such as Psi-Ops and Metal Arms: Glitch in The System were standouts in the PS2 day when your local CEX would be full of such offbeat treasures; today, Recore stands almost entirely alone in lands as deserted as its own Far Eden.
The talent behind this one is a bunch so diverse, eccentric and divisive it feels like Microsoft's tried to get together video game development's answer to the A-Team. Keiji Inafune, fresh from the infamy of Mighty No. 9, gets a production credit while his Comcept studio is put to work, Microsoft lends Joseph Staten for his first big writing gig since seeing much of his story for Destiny jettisoned at Bungie while Armature - an Austin studio formed by veterans of the Metroid Prime series - is also involved. Heck, even Asobo, the French studio responsible for the gloriously ambitious (and hugely flawed) Fuel is in on the act with this one. As mid-tier games go, Recore's got an all-star cast.
You're Joules, a would-be colonist of distant planet Far Eden who wakes up from cryosleep to find her fellow settlers depleted in number and scattered across the sands while rogue bots stalk the lands. It's hardly an original set-up, but it does at least plunder from elsewhere with a spring in its step. Perhaps you can thank Staten's presence, with Recore sharing with classic Halo the same appetite for pulpy sci-fi told with puppy dog enthusiasm; Joules herself is a lightly sketched out yet endearingly upbeat lead, while Far Eden itself is a captivating sprawl, full of mysteries secreted under its baking sands.
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