Kusan: City of Wolves Key Art
Image: CIRCLEfromDOT & PQube

Another year older, not one day wiser. I was celebrating my inexorable decline into entropy with family on Wednesday, so that means we've got EVEN MORE news to catch up on this fine Friday! As ever, there's a never-ending deluge of great, exciting games landing on Steam, and this week saw the release of several that I've been waiting on for ages, plus a few surprise hits.

Check out our stories this week on Endacopia (which snuck up on me), Quasimorph (which I'd long been waiting for) and Fallen Aces for some personal picks, but there's plenty more where that came from. Let's get cracking:

Updated: Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 adds Steam Workshop mod support

Space Marine 2 has long had surprisingly good mod support, but it did require you to go outside of Steam to Nexus Mods and wrangle files into the right places. Now, modders can just upload their creations to Steam to be shared with a single click. There are still a few issues with the system that people are hoping Saber Interactive fixes soon, but the community's fave mega-mod - the Astartes Overhaul - is already live.

Out Now: Mahou Arms - Magical Girls Gone Wild, Devil May Cry style

One I've been waiting on for a long time, and it just left early access this week. A DMC-inspired character action game from indie visual novel studio Dischan, about magical girls battling extradimensional alien invaders. Slick combat, cool enemy design, and nice comic-style cutscenes. Curiously, this one also has a naughtier side, with optional (via a patch from the developer's site) adult content. Spicy! It sounds like the game still has some rough edges which hopefully patches will sand down soon.

Out Now: Below, Rusted Gods - Subterranean psycho-horror

A short but well-reviewed horror game. A surreal psychological dive into an abyss where forgotten gods live. You're the operator for the expedition, responding to the exploratory team's communications from your control room and unwisely poking into the immediate (and increasingly unhinged) rooms around you as reality seems to collapse.

Out Now: Shards of Order - Cards For Humanity

A grim, gothic Slay The Spire-inspired deckbuilding RPG, but not a roguelike. Progress is made one step at a time through an ongoing story, with long stretches of prose (complete with some Disco Elysium-style inner voice shenanigans) interspersed with some gnarly-looking boss battles. So far, this one seems to be doing pretty well, and I hope to carve out some time for this weekend.

Out Now: Company of Heroes 3: Final Stand - Roguelike WW2 RTS

The good news: Relic Entertainment is now an independent studio again, and has released their first new title in a while outside of Sega's publishing. The bad news: Initial reactions to Company of Heroes 3: Final Stand (a hybrid of roguelike horde survival and RTS) have been rough, criticizing it for feeling like an expensive piece of standalone DLC for their still-expanding WW2 RTS. Potentially worthwhile for newcomers, though.

Out Now: Joy Malignant - Surreal dice-slinging narrative RPG

A short, surreal dice-based prose RPG seemingly inspired equally by Betrayal At Club Low and Disco Elysium. That, and obviously a little Hieronymus Bosch. Explore a strange hellish city, make friends, do odd jobs, and reform yourself into a strange new photo-collage being. Only a few dozen user reviews on this one so far, but every single one is positive at the time of writing.

Out Now: Outclaw - Mystical Pikmin, and you're a magical cat

A slick-looking puzzle platformer with clearly a few Pikmin inspirations. You're a magical cat, assembling a posse of customizable shapeshifting minions. Being an agile and capable creature yourself, you're not entirely reliant on your creatures to do all the heavy lifting. Instead, you're working alongside them. Despite its seeming quality, this one seems to have flown under the radar, but there's a demo to try!

Out Now: Powerplay - Command & Conquer, Factorio style

Fresh to Early Access, this one's a very Command & Conquer-inspired retro RTS, but with a few modern ideas, including lightweight Factorio-style automation, letting you set up conveyor belts to connect your industrial facilities to each other. As such, there's separate industry and military tech trees to work through, giving this one more of a base-building focus than most. It's single-player, but with Workshop mod sharing.

Out Now: Lunarium - Gorgeous tag-team action RPG battles

A striking-looking fantasy action RPG with a tag-team duo of characters. It reminds me equally of Bastion and the underrated Noctuary. I've received a review copy for this one but haven't had the chance to dive in, but it's hard not to love how this one looks. Early user reviews mention Souls-inspired, parry-heavy combat, and while there are some negative reviews, they gradually seem to be turning positive as the developers patch issues.

Out Now: Truck-kun is Supporting Me from Another World - Putting the 'laughter' in 'vehicular manslaughter'

I got this one for my birthday, and it's great stuff. The latest from Strange Scaffold (a wildly creative little indie outfit), and it plays like a mash-up of Crazy Taxi and Katamari Damacy, with a story skewering tired isekai anime tropes. Your magical truck sends people to be reincarnated in a fantasy world, and mass vehicular manslaughter is how you'll help an aspiring corporate boss that you previously ran over. Oops.

Out Now: Blue Reflection Quartet - JRPG Girls scandalously holding hands

A combined re-release of Koei's romantic magical girl RPG series. Both main games, plus adaptations of the anime and mobile spinoff, all chained into one extended story. It looks like a good re-release, but it's currently being review-bombed for 'censorship'. Which means that the developers very slightly toned down some leering camera-work, bouncing bosoms, and characters' clothes turning almost entirely transparent on exposure to water.

Out Now: Dramatic Road: The Origin of Wind - Fire Emblem: 300 Horsepower

What if Fire Emblem was about modern-day Japanese street gangs instead of warring fantasy kingdoms? A simple concept, but it makes for an interesting and offbeat strategy RPG. This one's been quietly brewing in early access for a while, but made its full debut with its final story release this week. While there haven't been many user reviews, this one has racked up plenty of praise from those giving it a chance.

Demo: Crymelight - Alice in action roguelike card-battlingland

The latest in Furyu's loose 'cry' series (with the previous entries being Crystar and Crymachina) about sad gothic girls in emotional situations. This one's probably the most raucous-looking of the three. It's a high-paced, highly destructive action roguelike with gorgeous 2D art and real-time card-based combat.

Demo: Anomalith - SCP-inspired survival horror action

Furyu dropped two demos simultaneously! Anomalith couldn't be more different, though. This one's a high-action survival horror game inspired by SCP-style anomalies and monsters, and surreal urban legends. Customizable guns with big stat blocks and lots of character upgrade options give this one a more aggressive feel than most.

Out Now: Kusan: City of Wolves - Hotline Furry

Hotline Miami for furries! Good reviews so far on this one. It's more over-the-top and bombastic than its inspiration, with flashy setpieces abound. Set in a cyberpunk city full of oddball animal people, with a gunslinging panther hero on the warpath to save a psychic child that's hooked up to a weapon of mass destruction. Mechanically, it adds a lot of build customization to the mix to tune your weapons & stats.

Out Now: Mistfall Hunter - What if Souls, but ALWAYS Invasions

Souls-like combat in an extraction shooter's structure. Like a more cutthroat version of Elden Ring: Nightreign. Hunt monsters and bosses, loot, and then get out with your prize intact as other teams threaten to pilfer your goodies. Initial reviews have been middling, but the main complaint brought up is that solo players don't have access to the game's full breadth of content. If you want to see all the maps, you'll have to queue up.

Out Now: Corsair Cove - Piratical, ramshackle city-building

The latest city-builder from the creators of Tropico 6, and another major strategy release from Hooded Horse. The twist here is that you're building a ramshackle pirate shanty-town around whatever defensible terrain you can find on a tropical island. This means building vertically, stretching bridges across chasms and equipping your crews to plunder your neighbors.

Out Now: Lurruna - The Island of Towering Automatons - Classicvania, Mega Drive style

Just launched a few moments ago (at the time of writing) - this is the latest from PD_CGT, an underrated indie developer dedicated to recapturing the feel and sound of classic Mega Drive/Genesis action games with a fresh, sharp, vectorized art style. Lurruna is a throwback to classic Castlevania-style design, with precise platforming, weighty movement and minimal looting and levelling.

Out Now: Occulto - Point, click. No words, only puzzle

An early access release with years still ahead of it, but still a striking-looking point-and-click adventure set in an esoteric medieval setting. The entire game is delivered non-verbally, with symbols and numbers being the closest you'll get to dialogue here. The current version contains about half of the full planned game, but all those hand-drawn backdrops take time to produce.

Demo: Scratch The Cat - PS2 style platforming with a rhythm twist

Launching just in time for the weekend. Scatch The Cat is a throwback to that early, confident middle-era of 3D platforming, with a bit of a musical spin. Similar to some of the bonus zones in modern Mario games, many of the obstacles in the world move to the beat, letting you plan a couple moves ahead so long as you can keep the rhythm in mind.

Out Now: Parkside: Decayed Soul Manipulation - My vision isn't augmented

A low-fi sandbox immersive sim that I've had an eye on for a while. Seemingly equally inspired by Deus Ex and Cruelty Squad, this one's set in the crumbling, surreal near-future cyberpunk hell of 2038. Initial reviews indicate largely what I expected - that it's rough-edged and janky but with plenty of room for expression and tackling mission objectives in usual ways, including vehicular shenanigans.

Out Now: Warshift 2 - Mech & Commander in this action-RTS hybrid

The original Warshift was a wildly ambitious game for a solo developer. A decade later, the sequel looks to be biting off more than it can chew, too. A hybrid action-RTS where you can directly control your hero units and fight alongside your army in third-person shooter style. A big focus on aerial combat, with flying air-bases and floating islands. Barely any user reviews, but initial responses hint that this one's still a bit janky, but with potential.

Out Now: Bonehold - FPS action dungeon crawling with a retro edge

A solid-looking action dungeon crawler, co-developed by the creator of the excellent Verho: Curse of Faces. This one's less King's Field and more classic hack n' slasher. Chunky grid-based dungeons and flat (but well illustrated) sprites abound. Despite Verho's success, this one doesn't seem to have been promoted much at all, and only a few have been picking it up. Reviews are positive so far, though.

Updated: Muse Dash adds hot tracks from Undertale & Deltarune

Toby Fox is undeniably one of the most influential game composers of the past decade, even invited to do guest tracks for the likes of Pokémon. Even if you've never played Deltarune or Undertale, you've almost certainly heard some of their soundtracks in YouTube, TikTok, or Facebook videos of all stripes. Today, a bunch of his music arrives in Muse Dash, an unrepentantly horny two-button rhythm game featured in our guide to the genre.

Out Now: Dog of Wisdom - Old YouTube meme to new retro gaming

Better late than never. The silly Dog of Wisdom animations haven't really been big for over a decade, but they've got an official game now! A short, moderately unhinged Game Boy Color-styled adventure about a flying dog on a quest to gather vital wisdom and eat everything that a dog can. By all accounts this one's short and not especially challenging, but it also only costs a couple dollars, so it's hard to complain.

Out Now: Dverghold - Grid-based dungeon crawling in early access

The other grid-based dungeon crawler with 'hold' in the title this week. This one's more in line with Eye Of The Beholder than anything, though. Slower, even as this one has turn-based combat, so no frantic clicking around your party of four. Lovely chunky old-school 3D graphics, grid-based movement and a Dungeon Synth soundtrack have me hoping to try this one. It's a fresh Early Access release, with another 10-12 months expected before it's ready for prime-time.

Out Now: Go North - Narrative-led fantasy maze adventures

A cozy n' cute third-person puzzle adventure about a pint-sized adventurer on a pilgrimage to meet the Maze God. And of course, this means navigating mazes, solving puzzles within them, completing side-quests for the kinds of people that hang out in and around magical mazes, and otherwise just exploring some lovely (if a little chunky) fantasy architecture.

Updated: Scarlet Hollow preps for launch with an update & price hike

Despite Slay The Princess (also on sale right now) being a massive commercial and critical hit, it was just a small side-project for Black Tabby Games. Scarlet Hollow (a massive, hugely reactive gothic horror visual novel) is their main project, and it's on the final stretch before release. The latest update adds another 60,000 words to Episode 5, along with a discount until August 13th, after which the game will go up to its final price of $30. I highly recommend it. And STP, if you don't already have it too.

Out Now: Graphite - Pencil-doodled RPG roguelike adventuring

Another day, another roguelike RPG, but this one has a charming pencil-doodle aesthetic. Or rather, several aesthetics. Card art is done in full color, major character illustrations are rendered in detailed pencil-sketch style, and the combat sprites for your characters (and enemies) are hastily-doodled stick figures. Can't speak to the quality of the combat, but the style is charming as heck.

Out Now: Signy & Mino: Against All Gods - Tag-team combo RPG

One that's been on my wishlist for ages, released yesterday. A science-fantasy RPG with a unique combo-driven combat engine that's halfway between a Mario & Luigi game and oddball PS1 gem Valkyrie Profile. You control lead protagonist Signy and her dog Mino, and the best way to deal damage is to juggle enemies, keep them skyborne, and chain big combos of well-timed attacks. There's a demo out, too!

Out Now: Truxton Extreme - A classic shmup series returns in style

And last but hopefully not least, Truxton Extreme is the latest in a truly venerable shmup series that began in the '80s. Famous for its big chunky sprites, skull-shaped smart bomb explosions, and challenging bullet patterns long before the idea of 'bullet hell' even existed. As you can see, this latest iteration has all of that plus a fresh lick of paint, and I hope to dive into this one soon - initial reviews have been glowing.

Whew. What a ride, huh? And to think that this is just the easy part. August looks to be absolutely overstuffed with exciting games, including some bigger titles. Not that we discriminate over size here. As ever, if you think we missed something crucial, let us know in the comments below, and if you're right (you might be!), we'll update this feature. Or cover it next week. Who knows?

But for now, you go enjoy your weekends. Play some games. Hang out with friends. And remember: Algorithms and bots won't save you - if you find something you like? Tell the world about it!