Brotato Vampire Survivors inspired action-roguelike official key art

Much like Vampire Survivors from which it takes a great deal of inspiration, Brotato is a ridiculously customizable and equally addictive action roguelite. You'll start off each run with a fairly generic set of gear, and by the time you're done you'll not only have additional arms sprouting from your body, but each of those arms will be armed with some kind of absurdly overpowered (or just absurd in general) weapon that can rip and tear through the enemy hordes.

The big difference between the two games is that Brotato focuses a bit more on presenting the players with proper challenges while Vampire Survivors is all about the non-stop power trip. As such, Brotato not only comes with multiple difficulty settings to choose from, but also an additional set of sliders that you can use to fine-tune the settings in either direction. So if even you get good at it, you can still amp things up to the point where the fate of each run will rest at the knife's edge.

Hades 2 official artwork and logo

A fair bit of time has gone by since Hades 2 was first announced, but I'm happy to say that we now have at least a bit more information about it. First and foremost, Hades 2 will be heading into Early Access (both on Steam and the Epic Games Store) in Q2, 2024, though no exact release date has been announced just yet.

Much like its predecessor, the initial version of Hades 2 will come with a sizable amount of content, which will then be expanded through a variety of updates guided by player feedback. These types of updates will bring with them additional characters (likely meaning non-playable ones), new and expanded storylines, deeper interactions, and naturally, more areas to explore and enemies to clobber.

Butcher's Creek Condemned and Manhunt inspired horror-action game combat screenshot

After messing around with everything from fast-paced shooty action to squirrel stapling, Dusk creator David Szymanski has now decided to once dive into a new genre. In this case, with Butcher's Creek he'll be attempting to tackle a Manhunt and Condemned: Criminal Origins inspired first-person horror/action game.

“A troubled loner with a hunger for cinematic gore finds himself on the other side of the camera when rumors of authentic snuff videotapes lead him to an abandoned cabin near Butcher's Creek, Pennsylvania,” reads the brief description. “What starts as illicit urban exploration quickly becomes a fight for survival when he's captured by a gang of sadistic killers. Now his only option is to pick up a box cutter, a hammer, a pickaxe, or whatever else is at hand, and unleash a little video violence of his own.”

Slay the Princess official artwork for the horror visual novel

If you're in the mood for something a little bit unusual, you might want to check out the somewhat recently released Slay the Princess. To put it quite simply, it's a narrative-driven horror game where all you have to do is slay the princess in order to save the world. Naturally, things don't stay that simple for very long as the story quickly spirals into a myriad of different directions, time loops and other bizarre scenarios, all of which will slowly lead you to the truth behind it all.

Since trying to explain all of this through words alone is a bit of a futile endeavor, allow me to instead share with you the freshly posted launch trailer. Have a gander, it should hopefully clarify a couple of things... hopefully:

Chants of Sennaar official artwork and logo for the linguistics focused puzzle game

If you're a fan of puzzles games and you're in the mood for something a little bit out of the ordinary, you might want to check out the remarkably charming Chants of Sennaar. Inspired by the Tower of Babel myth, Chants of Sennaar puts you in the shoes of a traveler attempting to decipher ancient languages in an effort to restore the connections between the now-divided peoples of the tower.

In order to do that you'll need to collect, catalogue and expand upon a variety of phrases, solve all sorts of tricky puzzles, and once you find yourself in some of the more hostile areas, even do a little bit of sneaking around to get to the bottom of things! What all of this looks like in action, as well as what it sounds like, that you can check out through the launch trailer below. Have a peek:

Project Zomboid official artwork without logo

Despite its numerous advances over the years, some of Project Zomboid's systems and features are currently still in a placeholder state - they work, but only just. The best example of this is the entire Electrical skill as not only is there very little to do with it, but actually increasing your skill level is such a monumentally grindy task that most people probably haven't even explored what little content there is.

Thankfully, it looks like the upcoming Update 42 will be changing all of this for the better. First and foremost, the entire crafting system will be getting overhauled in an effort to make a unified and expansive system that will be able to work with anything from simple crafting stations to complex machines and appliances. This will also bring with it a rework of every single crafting skill as the new system will allow for more customizable recipes and a greater degree of complexity, both of which will be needed if you're planning to make a functioning post-apocalyptic society.

Vampire Survivors Among Us inspired DLC Emergency Meeting official artwork and logo

While Vampire Survivors has plenty of references to other games and media, the freshly released Emergency Meeting DLC is its very first actual crossover. So instead of simply having a bean-like character run around acting all 'sus' or whatever the youngins shout these days, the Emergency Meeting DLC has brought with it a whole host of characters and weapons directly based on Among Us.

In gameplay terms this means there's nine new characters to mess around with, fifteen new weapons of which seven are evolutions, as well as a thematic new stage to explore. There's also a brand new Adventure, a couple of new music tracks, and most importantly of all for Vampire Survivors veterans, a good chunk of new achievements to hunt down!

Vampire Survivors artwork for the Among Us DLC Emergency Meeting

In announcement that I don't think anyone could've ever predicted, the Poncle team have revealed that Vampire Survivors will soon be getting an Among Us inspired DLC! And when I say soon, I really do mean that as Vampire Survivors: Emergency Meeting will be launching on December 18th, 2023 for PC and Xbox, while the Switch and mobile versions will be coming at a later date.

As is tradition, this announcement was followed by a somewhat insane, albeit still awesome animated trailer. Have a gander, it's quite a fun one:

Trine 5: A Clockwork Conspiracy screenshot of an adorable pink hedgehog

The Trine 5: A Clockwork Conspiracy team has recently launched Update #2 with it a whole bunch of bug fixes and quality-of-life improvements. While its name and contents might seem quite unassuming, Update #2 is actually rather significant as it also brings with it a highly important and often requested feature - crossplay!

Thanks to Update #2 you're now able to join games and play together with your friends regardless of which PC storefront or console they might have the game on. And in order to make sure private games can function under the new system, consoles have also been given a virtual keyboard to facilitate password input. It's a little bit clunky, but it sure beats having random people barge in!

Lovecraftian fishing game Dredge screenshot of the icy claws in the landscape

After a couple of quality-of-life focused updates, the Lovecraftian fishing game Dredge has now finally released some new content to explore. The freshly launched The Pale Reach expansion brings with it a bite-sized story about a monster lurking deep beneath the ice, a chilly new biome filled with all sorts of new fish, a variety of new equipment to help you catch said fish, as well as a few other bits and bobs to spice up your playthrough.

What all of this looks like in action, that you can check out through the launch trailer below. Have a gander, it's quite a pretty one: