Queen's Domain impressions by Michael Higham, played on PC (also available on PS5, Xbox, and Switch 2)
"I'm a sucker for a good throwback to the early polygonal 32-bit era – Mouthwashing, Signalis, Crow Country, and Boltgun 2 are some recent favorites that come to mind. The latest one I've locked in on is Queen's Domain, a fantasy RPG that's as if an Elder Scrolls game was made for the PlayStation 1. Actually, it's explicitly inspired by FromSoftware's pre-Dark Souls series King's Field, where slow, deliberate first-person combat and exploration complemented punishing difficulty (which would later become FromSoft's signature, of course). But as much as Queen's Domain draws clear inspiration or shares similarities, it's a singular experience in 2026 that, from what I've played so far, wields the intended friction of an old-school game wonderfully."