Kholat (2016, PS4) - Snow Day for Death Mountain

I've generally enjoyed the often maligned "walking simulator" brand of narrative game; Soma, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, Gone Home, these are all titles I've dug. These are games mostly devoid of action, where the focus is on wandering detailed environments, learning a story (often second hand by way of journals and audio logs) through observation, and just soaking in the atmosphere. Kholat, developed by Polish studio IMGN.PRO, sounded like something I'd be totally into: Stuck in a blizzard on top of a deadly mountain, players explore a hostile environment to find clues related to the Dyatlov Pass Incident of 1959, in which a group of Russian hikers mysteriously died.

Resident Evil 7: Beginning Hour (2016, PS4) - Phantasmic Tribute

The mainline Resident Evil series has gone through some interesting transitions, forming two pretty clear trilogies: Resident Evil 1-3 are horror-action games with a b-movie aesthetic, focused on tight inventory management and nutty puzzles. Resident Evil 4-6 keep some horror elements but shift the focus, and the camera angle, to a much more action-oriented one, with our heroes punching boulders and suplexing monsters instead of running around finding puzzle pieces. With Resident Evil 7, Capcom looks to once again shake things up in a major way, with a new, first-person view and a focus on exploration over combat. It also has the most cleverly designed title text of the series, and finally unites the series' western name with its Japanese origin, Biohazard.