Steam Hype Weekly - Issue #17

The shadow of GTA is cast, massive and intimidating over this month, leaving most AAA games to scurry for cover. But that clearing of the field has only made indies more confident than ever, especially on PC. The first week of November has been an absolute barrage of great indie titles. We kept up with a lot this week, but we've still got nearly forty more exciting games to get through before we can tap out for the weekend.

If you're a first-time reader, that's where the Steam Hype Weekly roundup comes in. While a few games (especially those with rougher launches) didn't make the cut, here's almost everything we wanted to cover in depth this week, but didn't have the mortal moments to dedicate to. But because we don't like to miss anything, here's a paragraph on each!

As usual, demos and updates at the top, and then all the week's other notable launches in alphabetical order. And so it goes:

Updates: Advent Neon - Beefy free expansion for the speedster platformer

Advent Neon was one of my favorite surprises of last year. A high-speed twitchy platformer that plays almost nothing like Sonic. Snappy movement, breakneck pacing and satisfying Smash-adjacent combat against enemy swarms and big bosses. This week it got a free expansion, adding a set of tougher, remixed levels set after the main campaign, and a new playable character - Nyari - with her own set of moves and mechanics, plus a bunch of new boss fights. I'd have paid for this if they'd charged for it.

Updates: Company of Heroes 3 gets a 20th anniversary overhaul

Relic Entertainment have had a rough time of it since breaking from publisher Sega to become a fully independent studio again. Despite the game's enduring popularity, Company of Heroes 3 remains a game with a miserable review score and a hostile player-base. Still, Relic keep on improving things, and the V3.0 update is one of the biggest patches the game has seen yet, improving AI, adding 3-player co-op to Final Stand mode and tune-ups across almost all aspects. All this, and with the game's first campaign expansion due out later this month.

Updates: Easy Red 2 - Khalkhin Ghol, 1939 as a free update

The wildly ambitious WW2 sandbox shooter (playable solo, co-op or competitive on a massive scale) continues to expand beyond the war's bounds. Following on from the Shanghai-Nanking DLC, this free expansion covers the battles fought between Japan and the Soviet Union over the plains of Mongolia. Two new playable factions, a swarm of new units, a new environment, and nine missions playable as either side. All that for free, plus a new Dynamic Operations mode, generating instant action scenarios.

Out Now: Archeage Chronicles - Early access woes for this MMO sequel

One of the bigger releases this week, and one I had my fingers crossed for, as the sequel to a popular legacy MMO. Sadly it's been met by a rough mix of user reviews. There's praise for the basic combat and shiny graphics, but no end of criticism for bugs, gender-locked classes, a lack of keybinding and more. All things that can be fixed given time and energy, but I'd not go rushing out to buy this one quite yet. Also heads up for a bunch of AI disclosure notices on the store page.

Out Now: Backdraft - Slay the Spire-esque card battler with minions

Another day, another roguelike deckbuilding card-battler. This one with a Magic The Gathering-esque colored spellcasting theme, and cute little minion critters you can put up front to take some punches for you. Initial reviews are decent, though while I'd not go so far as to accuse anyone of using AI, the aesthetic of much of the game's art (especially the card thumbnails) is so generic as to make me squint a bit. Just remember that for AI to come up with that generic style, humans had to do it first though.

Out Now: Boost Vector EX - High-speed arcade foot racing

The other notable arcade racer this week, after the ambitious Airframe Ultra. Unlike that one, Boost Vector EX is playable solo, with a full story mode and NPCs to chase down. In a lot of ways, this one feels like racing in a Sonic game, with tricks to pull off in mid-air for boosts and walls to run across, as well as pelnty of aerial options. Plus a very satisfying kart race style drift that you can boost straight out of.

Out Now: Corpus et Spiritus - Esoteric alchemical deckbuilding

You can't go two steps without tripping over a deckbuilder these days, but Corpus et Spiritus does a lot differently. You're trying to escape a demonic pact by transmuting resources and cards into the materials you need to complete the ritual, while keeping your demonic lab-partner in check. I was sent an early key for this (thanks, Firesquid!) but haven't had a chance to dive in, but it seems to have enough of its ideas to be very itneresting.

Out Now: County of Fortune - Large-scale medieval management

There's a whole lot of medieval town and city-builders out now, but County of Fortune has higher ambitions. You're trying to develop an entire region, with neighbor trade partners, a central city and hub towns and farmlands surrounding it, just like real medieval settlements used to be. This one's fresh into early access but is well received so far, and I can only see things improving over time..

Out Now: Deadzoned - Caiysware's trad roguelike leaves early access

I've long been a fan of Caiysware's games. A wildly inventive assortment of games across multiple genres, from twitchy platformers, free-flying shooters, incremental clickers and more, all united by gorgeous moody sprite-art, bopping music and a whimsical sense of humor to the writing. Deadzoned is all that and a +1 Bag of Chips. A surreal post-apocalyptic roguelike in the most traditional grid n' turn-based sense. But because Caiys always has to go one step further, there's a fully fleshed out card-battling minigame too.

Out Now: Death at Fleming Manor - Deductive murder madlibs

Between Return of the Obra Dinn and the Golden Idol series, we've seen the rise of a whole new subgenre of murder mystery. Presented with a scene of the aftermath and a limited smattering of notes and hints, you have to provide a full report of what happened. Who died, how, why, and whether there was foul play involved. This one in particular is inspired by '60s detective comics, and features an interesting range of paperwork to fill out.

Out Now: Degenerate Star - Branching sci-fi horror visual novel

Anyone who has ever seen a sci-fi horror movie knows that you shouldn't go poking around long-abandoned research vessels suddenly found dead and drifting in deep space. But if you just turned around and went home, we wouldn't have games like this. A heavily branching (four major routes, seven endings) sci-fi horror story set aboard a ship that seems to be bleeding into another reality entirely.

Out Now: Escape Academy 2: Back 2 School - More escape room shenanigans

Despite the first game being a quiet hit and the sequel looking to be an improvement and refinement on the first game's interconnected web of escape room puzzles, Escape Academy 2 seems to have flown under the radar so far. Perhaps it's because it's available on Game Pass, but quality doesn't seem to be the issue, as the demo was well liked by most. Hopefully this one can find its footing - the more good point-and-click adventures, the better. It has full online co-op and split-screen too!

Out Now: Eternal Palace Sakura - Hack n' slash ninja roguelite

The first game in a decade from little-known Japanese indie developer Denneko Yuugi, and another I'd been sent an early key for but hadn't been able to find the time for this week. This one has classic doujin vibes, with simple hack n' slash action through a procedurally generated dungeon filled with classic monsters of Japanese myth and legend. Not immediately spectacular, but as with FuRyu's recent output, I have a weird kind of nostalgia for this particular style of bright, chunky indie design.

Out Now: Gloom Break - The first Void Stranger-like?

One I picked up for myself this week. Gloom Break is clearly inspired by my 2023 Game of the Year, Void Stranger, although clearly in a different genre altogether. Instead of turn-based Sokoban style puzzling, it's an action puzzle game where you're evading visually homing drones while unraveling a dreamlike, unpleasant tale about why you've been dragged into a hellish abyss.

Out Now: HAVKER-MAN X - Post-apocalyptic Cruelty Squaddery

Unquestionably inspired by the lurid, abrasive style of indie arthouse hit Cruelty Squad, by way of the original Fallout. Take contracts, use weird guns and upgrades and get the job done however you see fit. So long as a bullet finds itself into the right head, that's a win, no matter how nonsensically you did it. Looks fun and well-reviewed so far, with bigger, more open maps than Cruelty Squad at first glance. Plus, a demo!

Out Now: Heart Abyss - Gory ninja platform brawler

I'm a sucker for a good, fast-paced ninja game, and we've had some great ones recently. Initial reviews on Heart Abyss are very positive, mixing tricky platforming with combo-based melee combat, smashing guards into paste as your Kitsune protagonist bludgeons his way through mystical steampunk Japan. Good sprites, good music - really not seeing anything to dislike at first glance here.

Out Now: In Full Bloom - A horribly meaty Katamari pet

Yet another meat-based Katamari-like (following on from the other week's Rolla), this one with a bit of virtual pet inspiration. Feed your horrible little meat-orb to see it grow big and strong, then crush the world using its prodigious, wiggling bulk. The grimy, mostly-monochrome aesthetics somehow make thing more viscerally unpleasant to look at. There's a demo for this one too, and most people seem to like it so far.

Out Now: Iron Sol - Knowldge-gated exploration platformer

A really interesting looking one here, seemingly inspired by both Rain World and The End Is Nigh, with you playing as a little critter-eared blob thing, navigating a crumbling industrial megastructure. Despite having some Metroidy elements, there's no items to find or unlocks - the only gate to progression is whether you know whether you character can do something or not. Mostly positive reviews, though some are annoyed that the game has you jump by releasing a button instead of pressing it.

Out Now: Kick - Cute footballing challenges across town

A charming-looking one, this. A cute anime-styled adventure about getting to school with your football in tow, using it to solve and cause problems as you go, for points, bragging rights and generally just the joy of kicking a bouncing ball at things. Glowing initial reviews on this one, with folks seemingly happy to nibble at it one short, sweet level at a time.

Out Now: Loftia - Cozy multiplayer life-sim with minigame adventures

Yet another early access release, and one that seems to be hitting the mark so far. A cute life sim/exploration adventure set on an archipelago of sky-islands, with cute beetle-styled gliders to help you navigate between areas. Very environmentalist in style, sustainability is a major focus, from the farming to the recycling to the slightly ramshackle upcycled world you're building. The developers reckon there's a year to go until this one launches in full.

Out Now: Lost Host - RC Car puzzle adventuring

A seemingly Toy Story-inspired puzzle adventure, but instead of playing as a noodly cowboy or a condescending spaceman, you're a sad, introspective toy car looking for his missing owner. Great visuals on this one, nice vibes from the trailer, and very positive initial reviews. Looks like they get a lot of interesting mileage out of having a car as the protagonist, with some fiddly driving challenges, big races and chances to tow stuff around and interact with the people and animals in the world

Out Now: Mayday: The Survival Island - Survival crafting dungeon crawl

Yet another open world survival crafter, and yet this one looks to put the focus squarely on single-player adventuring through hand-crafted environments, with some proper dungeon crawling and big chunky boss sprites. Initial reviews are mostly positive, although I cannot rightfully see myself finding time for yet another of this kind of game, especially with Enshrouded just released..

Out Now: Meadgard - Chaotic co-op cooking & monster-clobbering

Our headline game for the week, and yet another attempt to fuse Overcooked's scrappy co-op cookery to another genre. In this case, a norse-themed action RPG, as your gang of cartoon Viking cooks bound out into the wilds to beat up monsters and turn them into dishes at your restaurant. The game is largely complete at this point, but developers Oddiko reckon that it'll take another 4-5 months until it's ready to leave early access with its full set of content.

Out Now: MyDear.EXE - Romantic desktop exploration

We've had a few spooky games about exploring abandoned computers recently, but MyDear.EXE is the story of a digital love-letter. Playing as the ageing Ellie, play through a series of puzzles and minigames made by your partner, Lucien. It just seems sweet, funny and earnest, and makes me wonder how our nerdy generation are going to be when we're old and grey. Well, older and greyer than I already am.

Out Now: Number Machine: Math Factory - Opus Mathnum

Another freeform clockwork puzzler in the 'Zach-like' oeuvre. Clearly inspired by the classic Opus Magnum, you're building a machine around a hex-based landscape that converts one number input into the expected output. And like so many games of this sort, what looks simple can turn into a true logical nightmare once you start trying to optimize and refine your designs to do things in fewer pieces or moves. Still, it has tough competition, and the demo had middling reviews.

Out Now: Passion - Earthbound-inspired urban RPG

When a game looks like this, has a goofy live-action trailer, and is made by 'Moonside Games', there's no mistaking the Earthbound inspiration. A weird private eye and his weirder occultist client go on an adventure to town. After all, what is a supermarket if not a food-themed, non-linear dungeon? Especially when it's overrun by sassy, pun-based critters. Still in early access with years more development planned, but I want to support antics like this.

Out Now: Pathos - Four old-school roguelikes in one

Another traditional turn-based, dungeon-crawling roguelike, and an ambitious one at that. Not content with riffing off a classic, this one has four different graphical tile-sets, and four different campaigns each with their own rules and world structures. What it lacks in fancy graphics, it looks to make up for in sheer depth and breadth. Only a few user reviews so far, but all of them positive.

Out Now: Pith - Esoteric low-fi 3D puzzle adventureh

Another recent Next Fest hit launching just a couple weeks afterwards. Like a more surreal, low-fi version of Captain Toad's Treasure Tracker. Navigate a series of tiny little diorama worlds and use a growing toolkit to interact with them in increasingly unusual ways. The full game launched during the writing of this piece, but the demo is still available now to try before you buy - check the bar on the right-hand side of the Steam Page.

Out Now: Pools of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor - Another early D&D game reborn

SNEG continue their campaign of digital necromancy by bringing back another tactical real-time-with-pause D&D adventure. This time, a polished and tuned-up remaster of a game that was initially quite wonky at launch. In fact, the original release of the game was famous for having a broken uninstaller that would delete key system files if you tried to remove the game, nearly bricking your PC. Fun times. Presumably, that issue's fixed in this release.

Out Now: Project Afterfall - Post-apocalyptic fantasy card RPG

By all accounts a bit of a wonky release, but I appreciate the ambition here. MuHa Games are best known for their Thea series - hex-based strategic RPGs set in a slavic fantasy world. Project Afterfall is set in the same world, but many years later. Elves have sniper rifles, orcs have trucks. A bit Shadowrun meets Fallout, perhaps. There's a lot of imagination on show here, and I hope that they can hammer out whatever bugs and balance issues remain. I'd hate to see such a fun idea with so much cool art vanish.

Out Now: Southern Lights: Broken Frequency

A fascinating-looking sci-fi horror strategy management game, about an isolated Antarctic research facility and its (all-masked) crew descending into paranoia and madness as a cosmic menace looms over them. So yeah, it's The Thing but more sci-fi, complex resource-management and plate-spinning as you try to keep your crew alive and continuing research even as the world gets weirder around them. Great art, cool trailer, and I hope to give this one a deeper look before long. There's a demo too.

Out Now: Sys:Tan Restore - Lightweight, high-speed incremental fun

It has become accepted wisdom that incremental games are overwhelming time-sponges, devouring your computer's system resources when you're not playing. Sys:Tan Restore is a lighter, cuter take on the idea, set inside of your PC as you clean up viruses and bloatware using an assortment of increasingly powerful anime girl-themed cleanup apps. Light arcade screen-sploding stages followed by investing your earnings into upgrades and doing it again. And it's all over in just a few hours.

Out Now: Tenebrarium - Idle-adjacent alien ant farm simulator

A fascinating looking interactive toy about studying and managing an underground enclosure for strange alien lifeforms. Spend limited resources to provide the creatures stimulation and food and nudge them into reproducing, creating new offshoot mutations, and expanding their territory further out, one little nudge at a time. There's a demo for this one that was well liked during the last Next Fest, and I can easily see this one devouring a few hours.

Out Now: The House Before - Truly surreal body-horror nightmare

You are a house. Your body has existed for a long time, but your mind is new. There were other minds before you, though. A short (2-3 hours) puzzle adventure through an array of strange interfaces and minigames, as a house does not have hands, or feet, or even a brain. Your thoughts are cogs and wheels, and the awareness that you should be a good house, because there are people living inside you.

Out Now: Type Me Home - A typing platform adventure

Another charming little retro adventure from SinksAdventure - their fifth game now - and much like the earlier Vampire's Best Friend, this one's heavily inspired by one of the games from UFO 50. This time it's the esoteric platformer Mooncat, but instead of running, jumping and flipping using just two buttons, you've got to type in your commands. 'Jump' 'Run' 'Fire', 'Turn' and so on, strategically buffering inputs so you can hit enter to activate them. Plus, features music from one of UFO 50's composers!

Out Now: Unbroken - The Awakening - Bloodborne meets bullet-time FPS

A surprisingly obscure followup to the Hotline Miami-inspired cyberpunk FPS Neckbreak, Unbroken has been in early access for a while. It's a grim and grimy gothic FPS, slighlty inspired by Bloodborne but clearly borrowing a lot of mechanics from its twitchy bullet time FPS predecessor. The only issue is that some of the game's art was generated with (much earlier) gen-AI networks like Midjourney, along with some of the audio barks from enemies. The latter, can, at least, be turned off. But still, sad to see obvious creativity tarnished so.

Out Now: Wielders of the Essence - Survivors-like spinoff from Songs of Conquest

Songs of Conquest is one of the best Heroes of Might & Magic-like strategy games in the past few years, so of course the follow-up is a Vampire Survivors-inspired autoshooter. Still, much like Songs of Conquest, this one's gorgeous to look at, with rich, well-animated sprite art all over, and there's a few nods to the game's strategic roots with incremental base-building and being able to roll with a squad of NPC troops.

Out Now: Wizard School Dropout - Magical heists in trad roguelike style

Whew, whole lot of old-school roguelikes here, although Wizard School Dropout seems the most chaotic, conceptually. You quit school, have huge debts, and only know a couple spells. Clearly the solution is breaking into heavily guarded wizard's towers and looting them for everything they're worth. Seems like a really fun mix of strategic planning and tactical disaster management as everything goes south the moment you breach an outer wall.

Out Now: Zed Zone - Ambitious 2D co-op zombie survival shooter

Three years in development by a Chinese indie developer, Zed Zone is a big, complex survival sandbox inspired by Tarkov, Project Zomboid, STALKER and more. Create a base where you can farm and protect yourself, go out on scavenging sorties, customize guns, fight big bosses (including supernatural monsters and mechs) and ideally get the hell out of dodge before the island is completely overrun by the undead. Well liked in early access and reviews of the final release are even more positive.

And so, like Scrooge McDuck, we slide into the weekend atop a colossal mountain of games, barely able to comprehend the sheer volume of quality, let alone play it all. But where we have failed, that's where you come in. Dig deep into the pile, find something that speaks to you, and dive into strange realms of gaming that we just don't have the spare time for. Let us know if you picked up anything we shone a spotlight on this week, and shout out any favorites that we might have missed.

Looks like next week's going to be nearly as dense, although I'll be out of commission for the back half of the week due to dental surgery - fun! Wish me luck, and a day of scrambling catch-up on Monday the 16th.

Until next time!