(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.
Colony Ship
Steam page
Release: November 10
Developer: Iron Tower Studio
From the creators of Age of Decadence comes another hardcore CRPG with gruelling turn-based combat, only this time the flavour is hard sci-fi instead of grim fantasy. Taking its cues from Robert Heinlein’s Orphans of the Sky, Colony Ship is set entirely on a sprawling spacecraft enroute to a distant planet—a trip expected to take centuries. As a result, this vessel is basically a floating nation state, and thus subject to its own internal politicking and strife. By the time Colony Ship starts the original government has already been ousted by a discontented population, and to make things worse for you, the playable character lives in what amounts to a spacefaring ghetto. It’s tricky to get old school CRPGs right, but based on the Steam reviews at least, Colony Ship does a good job. After a period in Early Access, it’s now launched into 1.0.
Sanabi
Steam page
Release: November 9
Developer: Wonder Potion
Sanabi is a gorgeous cyberpunk action platformer resembling a cross between Katana Zero and SpeedRunners. The latter, because a grappling hook factors heavily into the platforming here: it’s used both for exploring the barren dystopian city of Mago, as well as smiting all the baddies you’ll encounter. There are plenty of new action platformers every week, but Sanabi’s ornate pixel art and ethereal ambient soundtrack are a potent mix. It launched into 1.0 last week after a stint in Early Access, and has thousands of “Overwhelmingly Positive” Steam reviews.
Super Woden GP 2
Steam page
Release: November 11
Developers: ViJuDa
Here’s one of those old school, isometric arcade racers, but with a presentation that puts me in mind of a VHS-inspired take on Art of Rally. The similarities don’t end there either, because while Super Woden GP 2 is unmistakably an arcade-oriented approach to racing, it’s very obviously made by people who adore cars and know everything about them (someone is the Steam comments raises Gran Turismo as a comparison). There are 180 vehicles, a huge variety of race types, and plenty of chances to pedantically tinker with each vehicle. Local splitscreen multiplayer is supported too.
Erra: Exordium
Steam page
Release: November 10
Developer: Fair Pixel LLC
Here’s another pixel art platformer, but one with a very different atmosphere to the aforementioned Sanabi. Erra Exordium is a grimy take on dieselpunk which is also heavily inspired by Sumerian-Akkadian mythology. The result is a very distinctive art style with a severity reminiscent of Blasphemous. It’s a slow paced affair, with a focus on careful use of resources and slowly-slowly exploration. It’s very easy to die, in other words. This one was in Early Access for a while, but is now in 1.0.
Sebil Engineering
Steam page
Release: November 10
Developer: FrogStore
This is a game about fixing traffic flow problems, but it has more in common with ClusterTruck or Lemmings than Transport Tycoon. Playable in both first-person and topdown modes, Sebil Engineering has you tweaking the layout of roads as an endless torrent of hapless vehicles plough into obstacles or into the void. Due to the ridiculous physics, and the spectacle of countless PS1-era vehicles bouncing around the screen at once, losing in Sebil Engineering is just as fun as winning. There are 40 levels of ultra-realistic civil engineering problems herein.
