It's one of the more luxurious openings to a game I've seen in a while. And it's just as well, because Sam's desire to know about this fabled place with a real blue sky and proper green grass ends up getting John into all sorts of trouble during the game's extensive introduction, causing them to become exiled from their home and thrown out into the world above. Sam's boundless energy provides a welcome contrast to John's gruff, silent schtick, but thanks to Pixpil's detailed and expressive animations you really get the sense this tough old digger cares deeply about his spirited and curious ward. You play as Sam and John, an unlikely duo who begin their journey in an underground mining community who have been taught to fear the outside world. As you busy yourself with the minutiae of their everyday lives, Eastward makes every person (and robot) count in this deadly post-apocalypse, and the result is an affecting, detail-rich tale that owes as much to the action of top-down Zelda games as it does to the role-playing intimacy of Earthbound. This is still a game that's ultimately about saving the world from a mysterious and all-consuming miasma, but it's also one that makes damn sure you know what you're doing it all for - and that's its striking cast of NPCs. In this impressive debut from Shanghai developers Pixpil, these humdrum slices of life are placed front and centre, forming much of the narrative backbone that drives the game forward. These are the stories most adventure RPGs would stuff into their ever-growing sidequest menus - distractions meant to provide extra flavour to the world you're meant to be saving, or which hold bountiful supplies of EXP to level up your skills and weapons. Wrangling flying pigs, saving a nerdy kid from the school bullies, cooking up exquisite dishes to appease a local casino boss whose slot machines you accidentally rinsed with your trusted lucky coin. It's slow to start, but once Eastward gets going, this handsome post-apocalypse roars to life like nothing else, marrying top-down action with an exquisite cast of characters whose stories really make you care about the world you're trying to save.

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