I travel for work for ONE WEEK, and I miss a couple dozen game announcements. Unforgivable. Let’s jump right in!
Haunted Lands is a grimy DOS-core action platformer that started life as a spiritual sequel to Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion, then picked up Doom, Contra, and Diablo ticks along the way. Expect cultists exploding into gore, and enough metal album cover energy to make the He-Man game blush (you’ll get that reference in a few minutes). Next, if timeless horizontal shooter Metal Slug has lived rent-free in your brain since the arcade days, ZENEKO is openly gunning (kek) for that slot with lavish spritework, big explosions, and “high-end” run‑and‑gun ambitions.
The Dungeons of Dusk is a Doom RPG‑flavored, turn‑based dungeon crawler published by New Blood that mashes grid movement, skill trees, and boomer‑shooter aesthetics into something oddly cozy. Speaking of boomer-shooters, Gal vs Village is a Japanese boomer shooter where an overpowered gyaru heroine clears out a cursed village with guns, a cleaver, and zero moral ambiguity.
After two lackluster follow-ups (seriously, one was just Puyo Puyo), players seem stoked that Super Meat Boy 3D works, with the Steam Next Fest demo proving Team Meat can translate precise 2D pain into a full 3D gauntlet.
If your mug reads “I’d rather be piloting a mech”, Omega Phenex Commenced Project Six is basically Armored Core 4 and Ace Combat‘s lovechild, emphasizing absurd speed, FPS‑style controls, and a big mission roster. Elsewhere, Running With Rifles 2 upgrades the original game’s bite‑sized warzones into a single contiguous battlefield, dialing up the top‑down chaos for co‑op squads.
Ruiner 2, a sequel to one of my favorite games in recent memory, shifts the original’s top‑down brutality into a full cyberpunk action RPG with up to three‑player co‑op and a character‑swapping “Shell System” for mid‑fight synergy freakouts. Meanwhile in Japan, Echoes of Aincrad is Bandai Namco’s upcoming action RPG set in a floating death‑castle, complete with a custom avatar, an AI partner, and an optional save‑deleting “Death Game” mode for sickos.
Banquet of Fools finally hits 1.0 with claymation CRPG weirdness, beat‑’em‑up combat, and the choice to either shank enemies or ship them off to a penal colony for cash. Speaking of beat-’em-ups, fans are eating well with the announcements of Deadly Metropolis, a Streets of Rage‑style side‑scrolling brawler set in a grimy city, and the long-awaited Jay and Silent Bob: Chronic Blunt Punch.
He‑Man’s Dragon Pearl of Destruction drops April 28 with a full Eternia tour, She‑Ra tag‑ins, and the kind of 80s power ballad trailer that should be wearing pink tiger strip pants and farming hair on the Sunset Strip. Jixa Lady Tiger nails the C64 look it’s clearly going for, and it’s already eyeing GBA and Mega Drive ports. This is a hot one, folks.
Minishoot Adventures on Switch 2 turns top‑down Zelda action into a twin‑stick bullet‑hell quest, complete with proper dungeons, approachable difficulty modes, and rock‑solid performance. For more handheld action: Ball x Pit’s mobile port lands this month, cheaper than the console/PC version, which is dangerous news for anyone whose lizard brain already fell for its chaotic brick‑breaker roguelite loop.
Stage Tour is the big plastic‑guitar swing from ex‑Guitar Hero devs, aiming for live‑service rhythm nights with friends instead of another sequel treadmill. Rockbeasts looks like someone mashed BoJack Horseman and Nirvana into a narrative‑driven band sim, which feels dangerously targeted at anyone who owned a PS2 and a flannel (me).
Route Whom is a Japanese walking-sim horror piece where you wander Backrooms‑flavored liminal spaces on a “date” with a Santa‑maid girl, and the unease is 90% vibes. For more wandering, The Legend of California, from ex‑Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan, is an online Wild West FPS set on a reshaped California island where you build ranches, craft, and headshot your way to frontier glory.
Finally, Hyper Sentinel Fusion is shipping its new arcade shooter on a fake floppy‑disk USB, and the devs of SkateBird are back with the equally weird Verminsteel, a Bardcore‑blasted hack‑and‑slash where you and your fuzzy comrades literally kick fascists into the sun, as the good Lord intended.
Did I miss any exciting new games? Will you be picking up any of these future classics? Let us know in the comments!
