(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.
Wildmender
Steam page
Release: September 29
Developer: Muse Games
Wildmender is a colourful third-person survival game with a focus on gardening under hostile conditions, and it doesn’t get much harsher than a desert. Starting with a small and verdant oasis in the middle of a hot and sandy wasteland, the objective is to keep expanding that plot until it becomes a sprawling paradise. Watching this lush green overtake the lonely desert looks to be a big part of the appeal of Wildmender, but you’ll naturally have to trek out into the harsher areas to forage, and there’s a lot of narrative-centric adventuring too, as you slowly learn why the world is as barren as it is. It comes with support for up to four coop players online, and has a host of difficulty options.
Sipho
Steam page
Release: September 30
Developer: All Parts Connected
Sipho has been in Early Access for a while, but now the unique survival sim has launched into 1.0. I don’t use “unique” lightly, because this sidelong affair is about fighting for life as a bizarre underwater creature made up of “zooids”—basically body parts that grant Sipho a certain power or survival benefit. Six species allow that many playstyles, and the procedurally generated worlds are ridden with various baddies and bosses that will turn you into crab meat. In some ways this reminds me of Rain World by way of Trailmakers: brutal survival in a bleak uncompromising world, but with a fully modular approach to your player-character.
Saleblazers
Steam page
Release: September 30
Developers: Airstrafe Interactive
I feel like the studio puts it best: Saleblazers is “an open world survival shopkeeping game”. For me, that description evokes a fairly peaceful game about building a shop, managing it, and acquiring the goods to stock it. That’s at least partially true, and the kind of shop you can build ranges from small cafe through to mega-mall. But it also has combat, and boss battles! Bizarre, but I love it. Apparently there are various factions that fight it out to the death while they’re not building nice little flower shops. This is an Early Access affair, with development expected to last for “at least two years”. The current build has a narrative campaign, online PvP and coop, but more stuff will be added in good time.
Diluvian Ultra
Steam page
Release: September 29
Developer: Crest Helm Studios
Boomer shooters are all starting to look the same to me, but Diluvian Ultra stands out for its chunky and pulpy art style that kinda reminds me of Blake Stone. This isn’t a Wolfenstein-era shooter though: it looks more like something from the Duke Nukem 3D / Build era. Looks aside, this one has an interesting “dual-damage system” which requires switching between two weapons to effectively murder some foes, and fluid high speed movement is complemented by a double jump and dash (both should basically be mandatory in modern boomer shooters IMO).
Conrad Stevenson’s Paranormal P.I.
Steam page
Release: September 28
Developer: D&A Studios
This is a first-person horror about being—as the name suggests—a paranormal private investigator. It follows Conrad, who has just opened an office in New Eidolon, which proves a canny business move because the place is crawling with ghosts. Using a range of investigative tools, Conrad needs to find ghosts for his clients, and then figure out why they insist on haunting their locales. It’s a great concept, and while the graphics are a little rugged (and not in a designed retro kinda way) it still manages to look eerily evocative. Also, it looks like you can sell Paranormal P.I. merch to your customers—pretty cool.
