We expect a certain bluster from developers like Eidos Montreal working on games like Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, star of the cover of the latest issue of Edge, available now in print, on iPad, Google Play and Zinio. You'd certainly understand it in this instance: here is a respected studio transitioning to current consoles using a powerful new engine, and making a follow-up to the excellent, if problematic, Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
Yet when we visit Eidos Montreal for our 12-page cover feature, we find a studio that is uncommonly contrite. It recognises that Adam Jensen's previous outing was not without its flaws, and is only too happy to both admit them and explain how it intends to avoid making the same mistakes this time around. In the context of an industry that often tends to spend this part of the hype cycle promising the moon on a stick, it's a breath of fresh air. And the game looks great, too.
Elsewhere in the Features section, we sit down with Tim Schafer to look back on a storied career in Collected Works. Then we look even further back in time with First Encounters, in which Britsoft pioneers like Geoff Crammond, David Braben and Jeff Minter reminisce about their early days in the videogame business.
The Making Of... looks at Masaya Matsuura's ground-breaking PS1 music game Vib Ribbon; Studio Profile sees us trek to Copenhagen to visit Affordable Space Adventures dev Knapnok Games; and Time Extend looks back on Hidetaka Suehiro's deeply weird Deadly Premonition. Get Into Games, meanwhile, is our annual look at the ever-growing variety of routes into the videogame industry.
In Knowledge we kick the tyres of Apple Watch's early game line-up, then examine what the abysmal failure of Steam's experiment with paid mods tells us about the current state of Valve. Andrew Eades, head of Buzz and Blue Toad Murder Adventures developer Relentless Software, looks back on his studio's life and ahead to the Develop Conference next month.
Hype yields a first look at Ubisoft's cor-blimey extravaganza Assassin's Creed Syndicate, plus lots of games with numbers on the end - Call Of Duty: Black Ops 3, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5, Project Zero V and Trine 3 - followed by Triad Wars and Zodiac.
In Play we run a stern rule over The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Kerbal Space Program, Project Cars, Swords & Soldiers II, Crypt Of The Necrodancer, Invisible Inc, Sunset and Puzzle & Dragons Z. There are a few 9s, but probably not where you expect them to be.
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