It’s disappointing when a game gets delayed, but it’s often for the best. Case in point:Driveclub. I saw Evolution Studios’ racer at Tokyo Game Show a year ago when it was set to launch with the PS4 last November, and it was kind of a mess — the graphics and performance just weren’t there. But here we are 12 months on, with the game finally coming out in October, and it’s looking fantastic.

The visuals are beyond beautiful (even if I wish the game ran at 60 frames per second), the courses I played were well-designed, and the handling is a heady mix of simulation-style weightiness and breakneck arcade fun. Sony is pushing the social aspects ofDriveclub hard, with players able to form virtual "clubs" and compete against the world. That’s not the sort of thing you can evaluate during a trade show demo, but it does at least look like Evolution has nailed the racing basics.

By Sam Byford

Bloodborne has no direct ties to the story of action RPG Dark Souls, but fans of the cult hit see From Software's next game as the real Dark Souls 2. It's being created by Hidetaka Miyazaki, the game director of Dark Souls and its similarly brilliant predecessor Demon's Souls, and mechanically, it looks markedly similar to both. You still guide their character in a third-person view through arenas filled with infamously tough enemies, and you're still but a few hits away from death. But Miyazaki has said that too many players hid behind shields in Dark Souls, and that he wanted Bloodborne to be a faster game. His solution — remove the shields.

For my first life in Bloodborne's damp and gothic world, with blunderbuss rather than shield in my left hand, I felt like I was fighting with one arm tied behind my back. I died. On my second life, I changed my weapons, and shifted my approach. Instead of a retractable scythe, I took two daggers into battle against the long-limbed and rotting residents of tainted city Yharnam. Instead of a pilgrim's hat and black jacket, I dressed as a flamboyant plague doctor, complete with a black feather cape. I got much further, slashing quickly to interrupt enemy attack animations, before throwing myself backwards to avoid their retaliatory strikes.

It quickly felt familiar. Bloodborne is an exciting new Dark Souls in all but name, blessed with that game's taut, measured, and immensely satisfying combat, and given a new gothic setting more theatrically grim than even Dark Souls' darkest depths.

By Rich McCormick

Although playable teaser Ground Zeroes came out around six months ago, the full course of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain isn’t yet ready to be played by the public. But director Hideo Kojima was on hand at TGS to show off some new gameplay footage, concentrating on how the sniper Quiet engages in co-operative stealth combat with Snake. For example, she managed to shoot off one guard’s helmet, allowing Snake to take him down with a tranquilizer dart and airlift his body away.

The Phantom Pain will come out at some point next year — while I wasn’t fully convinced by Ground Zeroes’ darker turn, on this showing Kojima doesn’t seem to have lost his touch for putting a quirky, innovative twist on gritty military action.

By Sam Byford