We all know the excitement for a new game getting nearer and nearer to release date. Now, a new month is about to arrive, so I took it upon myself to dig up some interesting games that might have gone a little unnoticed with all the gems coming out around the same time (And I just like them a lot.)
Ghostwire: Tokyo | Releasing March 25 on Steam and PlayStation 5.
From the studio founded by the legend behind Resident Evil, Shinki Mikami, and director Kenji Kimura comes Ghostwire: Tokyo, a horror adventure game taking place in neon-bathed streets of the aforementioned city, now a literal ghost town invaded by evil spirits and emptied of any human presence. Except you, of course, a detective possessed by one of those spirits trying to get to the bottom of this mystery.
Anyone that knows me knows that I love everything supernatural and spooky. So the concept of roaming around an empty city at night full of nothing more than evil, otherwordly creatures trying to hunt you, all wrapped up around a nice mystery, is really just perfect for me. The art direction, something I focus a lot on while looking for games, is especially great. The city walks the line between realistic and stylized, drenched in fog, rain, and neon. One thing I love as much as the art direction is the traversing mechanics. I can’t explain why, but if your game lets me climb stuff, I’ll catch the bait, and Ghostwire: Tokyo does not disappoint, as you can literally jump from rooftop to rooftop with your newfound powers. The combat is the icing on the cake as you control different elements that will help you fight these monsters and looks to be deeper than one would expect.
Ghostwire is a new exciting premise that combines unexpected elements to create something different that, at the very least, will be interesting to dig into and decipher all of its mechanics and amazing style.
Weird West | Releasing March 31 on Steam, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
Most people know that I’m a big detractor of cowboys. I always say they are just boring versions of pirates. Now, Read Dead Redemption 2 changed that a little bit. They can be really cool. But I still stand by my point. However…Cowboys that fight against supernatural beings and can transform into werewolves? Yeah, that’s cooler than a pirate. That is the base concept of Weird West. An alternative reality that mixes the old west with dark fantasy.
Another big selling point of Weird West is the immersive sim elements, as it’s divided into chapters where you take control of different people with arcs that are meant to all converge in the end and, with decisions that affect the world, its factions, and characters, and the option of different playstyles.
If Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012) proved anything, is that period stories combined with supernatural elements actually rule, and we should make more of them. Besides, it’s a Devolver game! And we know those are always good.
ANNO: Mutationem | Releasing March 17 on Steam, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5.
The first thing you’re likely to notice with ANNO: Mutationem is its visuals. It borrows the popular cyberpunk aesthetic, so you have your neon ads, flying cars, robot cops, a criminal underworld, and evil corporations with even bigger robots. What’s even more impressive than that, though, is the combination of 2D characters and 3D backgrounds. This combination ties into the cyberpunk aesthetic as it makes it feel like a game created in the 80s, a very influential decade for the genre, but with much more technology than what we actually had back then.
Something else I love is having the opportunity to steer away from the actual plot and path the game puts you on so you can just go and do your own thing for a bit. And fortunately, this game lets you do that! You can take a part-time job as a bartender, take on some bounty hunters, go to a variety of places with characters to chat with, like a cyborg corgi, and more. For me, this always helps me immerse more in the game, as there’s not just one way to play it, and there are layers to the world that I can discover if I want to.
For the people that like it, there’s also a lot of combat. It looks very fast-paced and like it takes advantage of its setting, with unlockable abilities that let you do increasingly cooler stuff as you go on.
Anno: Mutationem seems like a type of game you play after a really long day to have some fun with exaggerated action and a flashy and immersive world to take your mind off things, and sometimes that’s perfect.