Games

This week we have an interesting grab bag of goodies that should appeal to different people. Fans of Assassin’s Creed IV could find a return to the pirate-themed remake modernized with more than just a coat of paint. Fans of Doom: The Dark Ages will find an expansion apparently so big it’s almost like a sequel. Fans of EA Sport’s College Football series will get their annual installment this week with the latest players and college schedules. Fans of Granblue Fantasy Relink will find a new expanded game and a new reason to return to the action RPG. And fans of space shooting and infantry first person shooters will find Angels Fall First releasing after 11 years of early access.

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Hyperwired caught my eye in recent showcases. It’s a twin-stick shooter with the twist that you’re flying around with a giant plug hanging from your ship. When you get low on power, you have to plug in and are presumably stationary while you recharge. That could be a potentially interesting twist to the genre. The other interesting wallet threat this week is the Nintendo exclusive Rhythm Groove Heaven. I’m a sucker for a good rhythm game, so I’ll keep my ears open for impressions of this one.

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Rail shooters are something I don’t normally care for, but with two exceptions so far. One is Rez, Sega’s music themed rail shooter, for its brilliant use of minimalist visuals and music integration. And the other is Star Fox. Why does Star Fox overcome my usual dislike of rail shooters? Maybe it’s the fact that you’re in a little space ship, sometimes flying through space, sometimes on planets. Whatever the reason, I can’t resist the siren call of a remake of Star Fox 64. 

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Square’s HD-2D-style Adventures of Elliot is the only major release this week. An earluer demo had gotten a good reception, so perhaps it’s a wallet threat to watch out for.

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Welcome to E3 Week! No wait, it’s not called that anymore. Showcase week? If you checked out some of the showcases yesterday, you know there were a few shadow-drops, so your wallet was actually threatened by some titles yesterday that you might not know about, so we’re starting with Sunday this week.

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Let me breathe a sigh of relief as big new releases finally slow down, possibly because this is the week for what used to be called E3. That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it. This week the Switch 2 and Xbox get the ports of Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth. Also, The 7th Guest is getting a remake this week, and the first Gothic is getting a remake that also releases this week. There are a couple of sports additions this week. Codemasters’/Electronic Arts’ F1 series is getting a new track and new cars and rules and new teams for the 2026 season to reflect the real life F1 2026 season. And finally, Konami’s long running football (soccer) game series that started off in 1994 as International Superstar Soccer (ISS) and then was renamed to Pro-Evolution Soccer (PES) has been renamed to eFootball Kickoff (eFK?) and is coming out this week exclusively for the Nintendo Switch 2.

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After its long and uneven history, the James Bond license to videogame finally lands with IO Interactive. The studio releases 007: First Light on Wednesday. Will it usher in a new era of Bond games? Is it a wallet threat for Hitman fans, or just for James Bond fans? 

Other notable releases this week include the early access release of Paralives, a potential competitor for Electronic Arts’ Sims. There’s not one, but two Forklift games coming on Thursday. Nickelodeon offers their alternative to Mario Tennis. Nintendo is releasing Warioware-type mini-game collection Pictonico, which incorporates the photos on your phone. And the developers of Shovel Knight are releasing a retro Zelda-type action-adventure called Mina the Hollower.

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Wallet threat level is extreme once again! After the studio that made Disco Elysium split up, different developers have claimed they’re “the developers of Disco Elysium”. One of them is releasing a new game, Zero Parades: For Dead Spies. The wary Disco Elysium fan might consider that a wallet threat.

This week sees the release of a major first-party Nintendo title: Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, which seems very charming and could be a major wallet threat for those of us with young children. This week also features the release of Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, which seems to encompass every piece of Batman media, including the Arkham games from Rocksteady and all the Batman movies. How can they possibly do all that in one game and still have a coherent narrative? Find out later this week.

This week also sees the release of an immersive sim headed by Warren Spector and Paul Neurath. Originally Thick as Thieves was envisioned as a PvP experience but is now a $5 release with a four-hour campaign that can be enjoyed as a solo experience or in co-op. 

But the most dire threat is from the Forza Horizon series reaching Japan. I will confess that I paid the extra $60 for the premium edition and I’m playing this early. Virtual Japan is even more beautiful than I had envisioned, and it’s just a delight to be exploring Tokyo and its surrounding countryside while trying to constantly remember that I’m driving on the wrong side of the road.

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This week’s biggest headliner has to be Subnautica 2. Unknown Worlds was involved in a big legal battle with their publisher who ousted the studio’s leadership, but the studio leadership won their court battle and now back in charge. Before that happened the publisher had announced this early access release of Subnautica 2, maybe to defy the court decision? But the studio heads are back in charge, and they’re still coming out this week with an early access release of Subnautica 2. So I think we’re all curious about what kind of state Subnautica 2 will be on this early access release.

This week also sees a release of a new Battlestar Galactica game; the release of Outbound, a sequel to Call of the Sea called Call of the Elder Gods; and Directive 8020 from the Until Dawn developers.

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The two games I’ve got my eye on this week both play on nostalgia. Mixtape is set in 1989 and plays heavily on 80s nostalgia. MotorSlice, meanwhile, looks like 2008’s Mirror’s Edge and gives me nostalgia for a first person parkour genre that never really took off.

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My personal biggest wallet threat this week is one of the biggest Diablo expansions yet: Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred. Mephisto, the Lord of Hatred, was introduced in the opening of Diablo IV’s main campaign in the form of a wolf who rescued the player character and has hounded him or her since then. Looks like we finally get closure on Mephisto’s story in this expansion. In addition to the two new characters you get to play, it sounds like they completely reworked the other characters in the game as well, so I’m looking forward to checking that out.

There’s also Invincible Vs, a superhero fighting game in the Invincible universe; Saros, a spiritual sequel to Housemarque’s Returnal; and Aphelion, the latest game from Life is Strange developer Don’t Nod, in which the discovery of a 9th planet is humanity’s last best hope. 

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I thought this week would be the calm before the storm — stay tuned! — but there are enough big releases to keep your wallet threatened in advance. We have a pottery-breaking game from Double Fine; a new Peter Molyneux god game entering early access; the follow-up to Vampire Survivors; the minimalist sequel to minimalist shapez; breakout game Caromble’s breakout from early access after 11 years; and the Seumus McNally Grand Prize winner from this year’s Independent Games Festival. Maybe this is actually the storm before the storm?

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This week we get Nintendo’s latest flagship title, Tomodachi Life. From the trailers, I honestly have no idea what this game is, except that it populates the world with your Miis from Nintendo Wii somehow? But I thought Nintendo didn’t even have access to our Miis from the Wii anymore? Does that mean we’ll have to recreate them? No thanks Nintendo!

Capcom’s latest third-person shooter features an astronaut with a companion who looks like a little girl. I have somehow remained immune to Capcom’s success in recent years. The last Capcom game I actually played for an extended time was probably their last flop: Dead Rising 3. And I’m very interested in Pragmata. I wonder if that’s a bad sign for Capcom?

Also this week, Windrose enters early access. This age of piracy game had such a successful demo that it’s one of the most wishlisted games on Steam. And we’ve been seeing the trailer for Replaced for years as a cool cyberpunk setting done using pixel art. Another game that we’ve been seeing trailers for is Mouse: P.I. For Hire, the first person shooter set in 1930s cartoon noir setting. All three of those may pose a potential wallet threat this week.

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Can former Just Cause developers make an interesting open world game with 70s muscle cars and melee fisticuffs instead of guns? If the answer is yes, Samson could be a serious wallet threat this week. Otherwise, beware People of Note, a musical RPG where each battle is a musical performance. Also beware ChainStaff’s dilemma of rescuing comrades or listening to the alien voice in your head telling you to harvest them. And beware Find Your Words’ attempt to capture the magic of watching your kids find their first friendships. And beware House of Hikmah’s adventure in the halls of Islamic scholars during its Golden Age. And DarkSwitch’s fusion of city builder and tower defense. Potential wallet threats abound this week from unlikely directions!

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I’ve been such a sucker for 3D platformers ever since 1996’s Super Mario 64. Unlike 2D platformers, 3D platformers have built-in leeway. Instead of relying on lightning reflexes and pixel-perfect jumps, 3D platformers are okay with you getting the jump timing just a little wrong. Probably because you’re also in charge of controlling the camera. So when I first saw Super Meat Boy 3D news, I thought, well, finally here’s a Super Meat Boy game for me! I probably don’t have to be perfect to get through this one. But it turns out there’s a fixed camera so you don’t have to futz with it, and can devote all your attention to timing pixel-perfect jumps. Only now in 3D.

Among the other interesting games coming out this week are some wonderful looking Metroidvanias, platformers, and roguelikes. Or how about a new super-fast paced FPS named Guns and Nuns? One genre that I’m particularly delighted to see explode is city builders. There’s just something about watching little people expand their city and go about their lives that I find so irresistible. This week we get All Will Fall, which looks like a city builderinspired by the movie Waterworld.

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