Welcome to week 40, which is also the beginning of October and another week packed full of new game releases. This week's major release is a F2P MMORPG by NCSoft, for those that are into those kinds of things. This is followed by an animal horror game, an open world zombie survival, an arcade inspired isometric action shooter of sorts, some roguelike magic, a remake of a 2015 adventure game and finally a Japanese co-op action RPG. In addition to this, the first DLC for Starfield is out this week.

Throne and Liberty / This week's major release / Tuesday 1 October
Welcome to Throne and Liberty, a free-to-play MMORPG that takes place in the vast open world of Solisium. You can scale expansive mountain ranges for new vantage points, scan open skies, traverse sprawling plains, explore a land full of depth and opportunity. Adapt your fight to survive and thrive through strategic decisions in PvP, PvE or both as you encounter evolving battlefields impacted by weather, time of day, and other players. There is no single path to victory as you seek to defeat Kazar and claim the throne while keeping rival guilds at bay. Steam link

Valve's latest third-person MOBA-like hero shooter, Deadlock, has had a pretty serious cheater problem, despite still being an invite-only public test. While the game has thus far operated on a player reporting system to identify and punish cheaters, a recent game patch has introduced a rather comical—and seemingly effective—anti-cheat system that can either ban cheating players or turn them into frogs until the end of the match.

Valve says that the new anti-cheat system is set up to be fairly conservative at the moment to avoid any false positives. Aside from the new anti-cheat, Deadlock's September 26 update introduced a new hero, Mirage, whose design and gameplay seem rooted in the jinn from Arabic myths (aka djinn or genie) and added a pretty vast collection of gameplay updates, balances, and quality-of-life improvements throughout the game.

Sucker Punch, developer of the wildly popular Ghost of Tsushima, recently announced Ghost of Yōtei as the follow-up to Ghost of Tsushima and confirmed that this is only the beginning of a seemingly expansive franchise. Ghost of Yōtei is the first indirect sequel to Ghost of Tsushima to take place in what Sony calls the Ghost franchise and follows a new character, Atsu, on a quest for revenge in feudal Japan. It will launch on PS5 in 2025, although Sony has yet to reveal a firm release date.

In an interview with The New York Times, Sucker Punch revealed that it had already started planning Ghost of Yōtei as a follow-up to Ghost of Tsushima before the original game was even announced. It also revealed that it had already started working with Chad Stahelski, director of the John Wick franchise, on a cinematic adaptation of Ghost of Tsushima, and that there are other games coming to the Ghost franchise in the future.

There have been a slew of changes for the upcoming Assassin's Creed Shadows launch, and the latest announcement out of Ubisoft promises some serious changes to the game's launch strategy. Not only will the game be delayed by almost four months, but it will now launch on PC via Steam at the same time as PS5 and Xbox consoles, and Ubisoft is apparently ditching the season pass model that it previously resorted to for major game launches.

In a previous article, we detailed the delays to Assassin's Creed Shadows, but further information was revealed in a Ubisoft trading update (PDF):

We are departing from the traditional Season Pass model. All players will be able to enjoy the game at the same time on February 14 and those who preorder the game will be granted the first expansion for free.

Capcom Co., Ltd. (Capcom) today announced that Monster Hunter Wilds will be released on February 28, 2025. Monster Hunter Wilds is the latest title in the Monster Hunter series and is set in a dynamically changing world that is in one moment a severe wilderness, swarming with packs of attacking monsters, and in the next transforms into a rich natural environment teeming with life. Working toward its upcoming release, Capcom is developing the game with the aim of delivering an experience that satisfies both long-time fans of the series and newcomers alike.

Monster Hunter Wilds features beautiful visuals on a grand scale made possible by Capcom's proprietary game development engine, the RE ENGINE, as well as cross-play, allowing players to enjoy the game together regardless of their game platform. In addition, Capcom will exhibit the first playable demo of the game in Japan at Tokyo Game Show 2024, which begins September 26. More than 150 playable demo stations in total will be available at the Capcom and PlayStation booths, the largest number of such in the Monster Hunter series' history at the show.

Starfield's next DLC will be called Shattered Space, and it is set to launch on 30 September 2024 at $29.99 on PC, and Xbox. However, if you're a gamer that wants to know more about what you're getting into before you spend your money, you will seemingly need to wait, since gaming media won't have access to the expansion ahead of its launch.

The news was revealed by IGN journalist Dan Stapleton in a post on Bluesky that reads: "Aw dang, I'm told no Starfield: Shattered Space review copies are going out ahead of launch. We'll have something up on it ASAP but I imagine that's gonna be a few days at least." Stapleton doesn't seem to have been told why Bethesda won't be sending out review samples, but he does note that it will make reviewing the expansion while it is relevant more challenging.

After much anticipation, Frostpunk 2 launched last week to near-universal praise. The strategic city-builder's success is underlined by the fact that the game has seemingly even exceeded its developer's expectations, with game sales for PC and macOS alone already surpassing the game's development and marketing cost just three days after launch.

In a post to the official Frostpunk 2 account on X, the developer celebrated that the game had officially sold over 350,000 copies. At $44.99 in the US, the new game costs $15 more than the original, which launched in 2018 and has generated an estimated total revenue of $53 million—since its launch. In contrast, Frostpunk 2 has supposedly already earned an estimated revenue of $3.5 million, according to Game-Stats.com, although estimates from Gamalytic put that closer to $10 million.

As we enter the last full week of September, we have another packed week of new game releases to look forward to, although we're not likely to beat last week's lineup of games. This week's major release is a grand strategy game that might just rival the classic Civilization games. This is followed by a chill sandbox construction game set in an era of castles and cottage, a dystopian sci-fi horror looter shooter with a local co-op mode, a sequel to 2019 RPG title, a crafting survival game, but you're a duck, a sci-fi space game combined with a deck builder and finally, some football, of the global kind.

Ara: History Untold / This week's major release / Tuesday 24 September
Ara: History Untold is an evolution in historical grand strategy, featuring beloved classic PC strategy mechanics alongside innovative gameplay like a national crafting economy, true simultaneous turn resolution, a non-linear technology tree, and cloud-backed synchronous/asynchronous multiplayer - all with an expansive and vibrant presentation where you can zoom out from surveying the very edges of your empire all the way down to your citizens living their daily lives. In Ara, there are no pre-set paths to victory, leading to endless possibilities. Your choices will define the world you create, your experience, and your legacy. Steam link

Diablo IV received some severe backlash over microtransactions when it launched back in 2023, with some bundles even costing more than the $69.99 base game. It appears, however, that its microtransaction-laden monetization strategy has paid off, according to an accidental leak on LinkedIn from senior product manager, Harrison Froeschke.

According to the now-deleted LinkedIn profile update, Diablo IV has managed to generate a total of $1 billion in total revenue since it launched, with $150 million of that coming from microtransactions and in-game purchases. Perhaps more interestingly, though, is the fact that this is unusually low for an Activision-Blizzard game.

Cyberpunk 2077 has historically been a challenging game to run, although a number of optimizations and updates throughout the game's life cycle have improved quality of life and visuals greatly. The latest Cyberpunk PC patch 2.13, released on September 12, aims to improve both the base game and the Phantom Liberty expansion with the introduction of AMD's Fidelity FX Super Resolution with Frame Generation.

The addition of FSR 3 comes almost a year after the game gained support for NVIDIA's competing DLSS 3.5 and AMD claims that Frame Generation and FSR 3 can boost frame rates by upwards of 300% at higher resolutions with less of a quality penalty than previous versions. Cyberpunk's performance gains are likely less drastic, though, since even AMD says its Fluid Motion Frames 2 only achieves a 78% performance boost. Performance claims aside, FSR 3 and frame generation should make playing Cyberpunk 2077 on devices like the Steam Deck more viable, since the Steam Deck doesn't have the benefit of AMD Fluid Motion Frames built into the AMD drivers like Windows devices do.

Black Myth: Wukong is undoubtedly 2024's best-selling game, so far. Released in August 2024 and gaining 18M sales within two weeks, PC and PS5 users have been enjoying this game since its release, and Xbox gamers have just been sitting at the back seat missing out on all the fun. Now, GameStop has taken advantage of the situation, offering two options to the Series S users.

GameStop posted on X, offering Series S users a trade in price of $272.50 in exchange for their Xbox S, which is not far off from the price of a new Xbox Series S, $289.99. With no release date for the game on Xbox, players on the Series S might be tempted to jump ship. Either the gamers remain patient and wait for the game to come to the console, or they trade in their Series S, and perhaps use credit to purchase a PS5 and enjoy the game that has been making waves in the gaming community recently.

When it comes to live service games, it's not a new thing to hear of shutdowns, commercial issues, low player counts and player downturns. We've seen many games that have ended up the same way as Concord in the past, but now, it seems the record has been broken by Concord, the fastest game to get shutdown, and with a tech giant behind it.

Sony saw its 8 years of development and thousands to millions of dollars of investments crash within 11 days after its release. And it's kind of shocking because Firewalk started developing the game 8 years ago, in 2016. But when you realize that the 11 days Concord stayed in the market is actually shorter than other games who got shut down after their release, it's pretty shocking.

Welcome to another week of September and more new game releases. This week, we have a massive AAA release, well, at least for those that are into hammers of war and marines in space. For those that are not, we still have a busy week of new releases that starts with a very different take on what a car is, a new version of an Atari classic, an RPG farming sim, a normal take on what a car is and finally some eldritch horrors, because it's Friday the 13th.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 / This week's AAA release / Monday 9 September
Embody the superhuman skill and brutality of a Space Marine. Unleash deadly abilities and devastating weaponry to obliterate the relentless Tyranid swarms. Defend the Imperium in spectacular third-person action in solo or multiplayer modes. Steam Link

Welcome to the month of September, the start of autumn for some and the start of spring for others. The new month starts off at a higher tempo than last month, but there are no AAA releases this month, although there are multiple larger releases. This week's major release is a new take on the traditional first person tactical shooter genre, where there are two of you. This is followed by a WWII tactical stealth adventure, a trucking game, but in space, a godly remake, a tavern and finally a sleuth game with a Japanese twist. Don't forget to change over your wardrobes this week.

Spectre Divide / This week's major release / Tuesday 3 September
Spectre Divide is the genre-evolving, competitive 3v3 tactical shooter driven by Duality. Use Duality to control two bodies in real-time, letting you defend two sites at once, cover your own cross, or even trade yourself. Master tactical gunplay and an arsenal of future tech to achieve infamy. Steam Link

It's time to mana-fest the spirit of adventure with Square Enix's highly anticipated action role-playing game, Visions of Mana, launching today in the cloud. Members can also head to a galaxy far, far away, from the comfort of their homes, with the power of the cloud and Ubisoft's Star Wars Outlaws, with early access available on GeForce NOW. Plus, be among the first to get early access to the Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Open Beta on GeForce NOW without having to wait around for downloads - early access runs Aug. 30-Sept. 4 for those who preorder the game. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will join the cloud when the full game is released Oct. 25. These triple-A titles are part of 26 titles joining the GeForce NOW library of over 2,000 games this week.

Cloudy With a Chance of Mana
Visions of Mana details a whimsical journey through the enchanting world of Mana. Step into the shoes of Val, a curious young man on an epic quest to escort his childhood friend Hina to the sacred Tree of Mana. Along the way, encounter a colorful cast of characters and face off against endearing yet formidable enemies. The game's combat system blends action and strategy for real-time battles where party members can be switched on the fly. Different party members offer unique skills, such as Val's powerful sword strikes or magical spells cast by Careena's dragon companion Ramcoh. Plus, traverse the game's expansive, semi-open world on Pikuls - adorable, rideable creatures that can also ram through enemies.

Remedy is thrilled (as thrilled as Finnish people can be) to announce that we are working together with Annapurna, who are co-financing the development of Control 2 and taking the Control and Alan Wake franchises to film, TV and beyond.

What does that mean for you, our dear fans? Above all it means Remedy is able to make Control 2 exactly the game we want it to be, while we now also have an incredible partner to extend our IPs to other mediums. We are also going to be publishing Control 2 ourselves. When I look at all the games we have in the pipeline, the future of Remedy is incredibly exciting. You can trust us to keep bringing you incredible video game experiences.

Welcome to the end of August and this week, we have a bunch of new releases for your perusal. This week's AAA release allegedly has something to do with criminals in a galaxy far far away. The remaining releases this week contain some other big releases as well and the week starts off with a post-apocalyptic survival city builder, which is followed by you waging war as a god, if that's what you're into. If big flying robots are your thing, then there's a game for you this week, alternatively we have a game for those that prefer fast cars. The week ends on a bit of a slower note with a Japanese action-RPG and an office RPG or sorts.

Star Wars Outlaws / This week's AAA release / Friday 30 August
Experience the first-ever open world Star Wars game, set between the events of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Explore distinct locations across the galaxy, both iconic and new. Risk it all as Kay Vess, a scoundrel seeking freedom and the means to start a new life, along with her companion Nix. Fight, steal, and outwit your way through the galaxy's crime syndicates as you join the galaxy's most wanted. Not on Steam, but available on uPlay and EGS. Gold Preorder ($110) gets headstart on Tuesday

Straight out of Gamescom, NVIDIA introduced GeForce NOW support for Xbox automatic sign-in, as well as Black Myth: Wukong from Game Science and a demo for the PC launch of FINAL FANTASY XVI from Square Enix - all available in the cloud today. There are more triple-A games coming to the cloud this GFN Thursday: Civilization VI, Civilization V and Civilization: Beyond Earth - some of the first games from publisher 2K - are available today for members to stream with GeForce quality. And members can look forward to playing the highly anticipated Indiana Jones and the Great Circle from Bethesda when it joins the cloud later this year. Plus, GeForce NOW has added a data center in Warsaw, Poland, expanding low-latency, high-performance cloud gaming to members in the region. It's an action-packed GFN Thursday, with 25 new titles joining the cloud this week

Instant Play, Every Day
GeForce NOW is streamlining gaming convenience with Xbox account integration. Starting today, members can link their Xbox profile directly to the cloud service. After initial setup, members will be logged in automatically across all devices for future cloud gaming sessions, enabling them to dive straight into their favorite PC games. The new feature builds on existing support for Epic Games and Ubisoft automatic sign-in - and complements Xbox game sync, which adds supported PC Game Pass and Microsoft Store titles to members' cloud libraries. Gamers can enjoy a cohesive experience accessing over 140 PC Game Pass titles across devices without the need for repeated logins.

Today, 2K and Hangar 13 officially revealed Mafia: The Old Country, a new entry in the critically-acclaimed action-adventure franchise launching in 2025 (during Take-Two's Fiscal Year 2026) on PlayStation 5 (PS5), Xbox Series X/S, and PC via Steam. Available to wishlist now, additional details about Mafia: The Old Country will be unveiled in December 2024.

Mafia: The Old Country announced with a stunning, tone-setting teaser trailer. Uncover the origins of organized crime with a gritty mob story set in the brutal underworld of 1900s Sicily. Fight to survive in this dangerous and unforgiving era, with action brought to life by the authentic realism and rich storytelling that the critically acclaimed Mafia series is known for.

Funcom are thrilled to announce that Dune: Awakening, the Open World Survival MMO, will release in early 2025, with the console release planned for a later date. Premiered at Gamescom Opening Night Live, fans were treated to a 5-minute Exclusive Gameplay Reveal, which shows, for the first time, a player's rise from scavenging and survival to mobilizing an entire guild in the hunt for spice. See the new gameplay in action now.

Set on the most dangerous planet in the universe Dune: Awakening will challenge players to…

• SURVIVE the scorching desert and colossal sandworms by learning the ways of the Fremen.
• EXPAND your influence through combat, spice flow, building and upgrading bases, crafting vehicles, and trade. Develop your character by walking the path of the Mentat, Trooper, Planetologist, Swordmaster or Bene Gesserit.
• CONTROL the spice and cling to power as guild intrigue and warfare rage. Join a guild and align with House Harkonnen or Atreides, and clash for the precious spice in dynamic guild versus guild battles involving a range of vehicles, tech, and specialized combatants.

In December we celebrated the release of over 500 RTX-enhanced games and apps. And now, we've already surpassed 600 RTX games and apps, as adoption of NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA Reflex and advanced ray-traced effects continues to accelerate! RTX encompasses an ecosystem of technologies that make high-performance, high fidelity gaming a reality. Ray Tracing, powered by dedicated RT Cores, brings immersive and realistic lighting and reflections to games. NVIDIA DLSS, made possible by Tensor Cores, enables industry-leading AI graphics acceleration, capable of delivering up to 5 times faster performance in the most immersive games, like Alan Wake 2, Black Myth: Wukong, Cyberpunk 2077, and Star Wars Outlaws.

RTX is also integrated in the world's leading creative applications, accelerating workflows by orders of magnitude, powering exciting AI tools and enhancements, and enabling real-time ray-traced previews in apps that previously took hours to render even a single frame. And the RTX momentum continues - at Gamescom 2024, we're announcing 20 new RTX and DLSS integrations.

As we enter the second to last week of August, we finally have a massive new AAA release that involves a magical Chinese monkey. As for the rest of this week's upcoming new games, we have a cyberpunk co-op looter shooter, a dusty story-driven action-adventure, a wholesome narrative game, wizards with guns and a game named after a very fast airplane, even though it doesn't even seem to involve any airplanes.

Black Myth: Wukong / This week's AAA release / Tuesday 20 August
Black Myth: Wukong is an action RPG rooted in Chinese mythology. The story is based on Journey to the West, one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. You shall set out as the Destined One to venture into the challenges and marvels ahead, to uncover the obscured truth beneath the veil of a glorious legend from the past. Steam Link

Game Science, the developer behind the highly anticipated action RPG "Black Myth: Wukong," has released a free benchmark tool on Steam for its upcoming game. This standalone application, separate from the main game, allows PC users to evaluate their hardware performance and system compatibility in preparation for the game's launch. The "Black Myth: Wukong Benchmark Tool" offers a unique glimpse into the game's visuals by rendering a real-time in-game sequence. While not playable, it provides valuable insights into how well a user's system will handle the game's demanding graphics and performance requirements. One of the tool's standout features is its customization options. Users can tweak various graphics settings to preview the game's visuals and performance under different configurations. This flexibility allows gamers to find the optimal balance between visual fidelity and smooth gameplay for their specific hardware setup.

However, Game Science has cautioned that due to the complexity and variability of gaming scenarios, the benchmark results may not fully represent the final gaming experience. This caveat shows the tool's role as a guide rather than a definitive measure of performance. The benchmark tool's system requirements offer a clear picture of the hardware needed to run "Black Myth: Wukong." At a minimum, users will need a Windows 10 system with an Intel Core i5-8400 or AMD Ryzen 5 1600 processor, 16 GB of RAM, and either an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB or AMD Radeon RX 580 8 GB graphics card. For an optimal experience, the recommended specifications include an Intel Core i7-9700 or AMD Ryzen 5 5500 processor and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060, AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT, or Intel Arc A750 graphics card. Interestingly, the benchmark tool supports DLSS, FSR, and XeSS technologies, indicating that the final game will likely include these performance-enhancing features. The developers also strongly recommend using an SSD for storage.

As we enter the middle of August, this week's major upcoming release is a 4X space strategy game, where your goal is to rule the galaxy. If that's not your cup of tea, then maybe a fast-paced military RTS or a tactical FPS shooter might be more of your thing. Alternatively you could be cleaning up other people's mess, build a massive production line or kick an inflated pig's bladder around a field. In other words, half of this week's release is some kind of strategy game.

Sins of a Solar Empire II / This week's major release / Thursday 15 August
Sins of a Solar Empire II is the sequel to the critically acclaimed space strategy game that seamlessly blends real-time battle tactics with the depth of 4X. As both emperor and battle commander you must lead one of six playable factions to victory against the threat of extinction! There are no turns. There is no battle mode. There is no strategic mode. It's all one mode and it's all in real-time. Steam Link

Welcome to the first week of August and for those of you living in the Nordics, welcome back to work after a month of holiday. This week's major release is based on a manga that became an anime hit on Netflix that involves bouncy things. This is followed by retro fields, a Scottish game that has neither kilts nor bagpipes, a rather different take on Warhammer 40K, a creature centric game, a steamy heist sequel, pirate cats and a kingdom of rats. No huge releases this week either, but still a pretty solid line-up of new games.

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime ISEKAI Chronicles / This week's major release / Thursday 8 August
Spin a new tale of the Jura Tempest Federation together with all your favorite characters from the animated series! Players can enjoy thrilling action battles that combine flashy special moves and powerful combos. Through leveling up bonds with friends, Rimuru will learn Special Attacks, and even have allies join in to back up Rimuru's attack. Finish off formidable enemies that are coming to destroy Tempest with Secret Skills animated in retro 8-bit style! Steam link