(Image credit: Bandai Namco)
2023 games: Upcoming releases
Best PC games: All-time favorites
Free PC games: Freebie fest
Best FPSes: Finest gunplay
On an average day about a dozen new games are released on Steam. And while we think that’s a good thing, it can be understandably hard to keep up with. Potentially exciting gems are sure to be lost in the deluge of new things to play unless you sort through every single game that is released on Steam. So that’s exactly what we’ve done. If nothing catches your fancy this week, we’ve gathered the best PC games you can play right now and a running list of the 2023 games that are launching this year.
Ugly
Steam page
Release: September 14
Developer: Team Ugly
Ugly is a puzzle platformer with some impressively morbid art, reminding me of what would happen if Edmund McMillen had worked on Cuphead. It takes place in the “desolated recesses of a tormented nobleman’s mind”, which helpfully untethers it from any obligation to reality: the places you’ll visit are varied, ranging from eerily sprawling bathrooms through to what looks like the inside of something’s gut. It’s not gross though, just slightly unsettling. Puzzle solving involves controlling the main protagonist as well as a mirror version of them: movement inputs are the same for both, and the trick is making them work for two discrete level layouts. If you like lavish, cinematic platformers like Inside or Planet of Lana, this is worth a shot.
Thunder Ray
Steam page
Release: September 14
Developer: Purple Tree S R L
This is basically a Super Punch-Out clone with a rich comic book art style. For younger readers with no interest in Nintendo games, that means it’s a boxing game with an over-the-shoulder perspective, and a focus on one-on-one scraps with a cast of bizarre opponents. Studio Purple Tree places weird emphasis on its bloodiness on the Steam page, and it does have a loud and exaggerated presentation that reminds me of a barely kid-friendly Adult Swim cartoon (or, Itchy and Scratchy). A refreshingly frivolous basher.
Fading Afternoon
Steam page
Release: September 15
Developers: yeo
From the creator of modern cult classic The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa comes another distinctive pixel art adventure with beat ’em up action. Fading Afternoon stars Seiji Maruyama, a Yakuza ex-con having a wee existential crisis. Like Ringo Ishikawa, he’s free to roam a city, beat the crap out of baddies and play a bunch of mini-games. Yeo’s games are truly distinctive: it’s well worth checking this out if you like technical beat ’em ups, but it’s also good for players who want a contemplative narrative slow burn. Oh, and obviously Yakuza series fans should take note.
No Sun To Worship
Steam page
Release: September 15
Developer: Antonio Freyre
Described as a “short, minimalist stealth-action game about the importance of art”, No Sun To Worship is, more saliently, a modern take on the ye olde Metal Gear and Splinter Cell formulas, with PS1-inspired graphics. Across six missions you’ll need to secretly access a variety of locales in order to take out human targets. Why are you killing these people? That’s… a good question.
Heretic’s Fork
Steam page
Release: September14
Developer: 9FingerGames
In Heretic’s Fork you are an office worker making card-based decisions about how to keep the denizens of hell under control. According to the Steam page, your role “will involve not only managing the current population but also implementing innovative strategies to streamline our operations,” which when translated from facile corporate language reads: you must kill the baddies using great big automatic weapons. It’s basically a deck-building tower defense game, you see, with a presentation that puts me (happily!) in mind of Vampire Survivors.
