It’s that time of year again, when friends and loved ones huddle together, safe from crisp winter air, looking for entertainment. Fortunately, we’ve got you covered, with a vast array of multiplayer games that can be enjoyed together across console, PC, and supported gaming handhelds.
Whether you’re looking for quick bursts of action to keep the family entertained, a cozy co-op adventure with a partner, or something casual to catch up with friends online, Xbox has something to offer for every gaming fan this holiday season. Here’s some highlights, ranging from 2025 releases to timeless games worth revisiting:
Welcome to Next Week on Xbox! In this weekly feature we cover all the games coming soon to Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Xbox on PC, and Game Pass! Get more details on these upcoming games below and click their profiles for further info (release dates subject to change). Let’s jump in!
The definitive ninja hack & slash franchise returns with Ninja Gaiden 4! Embark on a cutting-edge adventure where legacy meets innovation in this high-octane blend of style and no-holds-barred combat. Pre-order now to receive the Dark Dragon Descendant Yakumo Skin at launch.
The Double Dragon series has defined the belt-scroll action genre ever since it hit the arcades in 1987. Now it returns as Double Dragon Revive, thanks to the passionate support of retro game fans over the years! See your favorites from the golden age of arcades recreated in modern 3D graphics. Powerful foes from their past return to face off against the Lee brothers.
The next entry in the award-winning series, Jurassic World Evolution 3 puts you in control of building and running your very own Jurassic World. Help life find a way by synthesizing, breeding and nurturing prehistoric species. Manage each species and allow them to thrive, while helping your dinosaurs raise families and pass their genes onto future generations. Create incredible havens for your dinosaurs to help them flourish, build exciting new attractions to amaze guests, and maintain control when disaster inevitably strikes. Pre-order now to unlock the Badlands Set at launch.
Painkiller is a modern reimagining of the classic franchise, featuring online co-op for up to three players and offline play. Trapped in Purgatory, you are sentenced for your transgressions against Heaven. But the Voice of the Creator gives you a chance to redeem yourself. As one of the Champions, you are to stop the fallen angel Azazel, who is about to unleash his demonic armies onto Earth. Jump, dash and hook across vast biomes while fighting hordes of demons with a host of new and classic Painkiller weapons. Pre-order now and lock and load with the Iron Crusade Skins Pack.
Hunt your way through a modern-night Seattle on the brink of an open supernatural war in Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2, where visceral vampire action meets a neo-noir murder mystery. Navigate the vampire Court of Seattle and its dark underbelly in this action RPG, realized by the BAFTA award-winning studio The Chinese Room. Pre-order Bloodlines 2 and get an exclusive in-game jukebox with iconic tracks by original Bloodlines composer Rik Schaffer.
Bounty Star is an over-the-shoulder third-person action game that marries mech combat and customization with farming and base building. The player takes on the role of a broken but powerful ex-soldier named Clem — a war veteran, talented fighter and expert mech pilot. Clem attempts to shed the guilt and shame of her past and become a legitimate force for good in the Red Expanse, a post-post-apocalyptic version of the American Southwest.
PowerWash Simulator is back – satisfaction is a spray away! Dust off your power washer and relax into pure feel-good fun. Blast away every last speck, smear and splatter of filth to restore Muckingham (and beyond) to gleaming glory. Craving more to clean? The jobs and water keep flowing in PowerWash Simulator 2. Play through a fresh new campaign, uncovering more of Muckingham’s mysteries. Plus, venture even further out to brand-new grime-coated locations like Sponge Valley, Power Falls and Lubri City.
Eggs-traordinary times call for eggs-traordinary heroes. After surviving the daring events of Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, the gang is back in a brand-new adventure, and it turns out nuggets weren’t the only thing on the menu – chickenkind is still in danger! Take control of Molly, Rocky, Frizzle and the gang as they sneak, scurry and scramble through five tantalizingly treacherous fortified farms to liberate captured chickens.
Oh no! Swiper got his paws on the Super-Duper Duplicator, and now his clones are causing chaos everywhere. Dora and Boots must fix the Duplicator and restore the vibrant Alebrije Tree. Join them and their amigos, Tico, Isa, Benny, Big Red Chicken and Ale. Run, jump and swing through five locations, collecting Magic Leaves and pods. Unlock new places and objects. Solve riddles, use clues from friends and use Map to guide you! Qué Aventura! Stop Swiper from swiping while playing solo or team up in local co-op mode.
Fast & Furious: Arcade Edition delivers high-speed racing and adrenaline-fueled action straight from the arcade to console! Choose from licensed supercars and tear through intense, cinematic tracks packed with shortcuts, stunts, missions, and explosive surprises. Race solo or go head-to-head in thrilling 2-player split-screen. With drifting, nitro boosts, and precision driving, this is the ultimate pick-up-and-play racing experience for fans of pure, unfiltered speed!
It’s a high-octane arcade racer packed with iconic cars, epic tracks, and action-fueled gameplay inspired by the hit Netflix animated series “Hot Wheels Let’s Race.” Drift through wild courses, take on giant boss battles, and unlock a garage full of fan-favorite rides. With track building, local multiplayer and non-stop speed, the race is always on!
The Jackbox Party Pack 11 catapults you and your crew into the best timeline of party game pandemonium. Whether you’re a trivia titan, a joke mastermind, or the resident undercover detective of your friend group, there’s something for everyone in this pack. No extra controllers needed – players simply join the game and play using phones, tablets or computers!
Once Upon A KATAMARI – King of All Sounds Edition Pre-Order
A shiny, new Katamari Damacy adventure awaits! Experience new stages and a fabulous new soundtrack! Behold a fresh rolling experience, with never-before-seen support tools like the magnet to draw in nearby objects! How … attractive! The King was so well-behaved until he mistakenly crushed the Earth, the Moon, and numerous planets while fiddling with a peculiar scroll. Now roll your katamari through the Jurassic Era, Ice Age, historic Japan and more eras to rebuild the sky’s dazzling field of stars.
After years in Crazy Dave’s attic, the original battle between Plants and Zombies is back – bigger, brighter, and crazier than ever before! Experience the game that started it all, now remastered with upscaled HD graphics and packed with new secrets to uncover. Fend off waves of Zombies in the original lane-based defense mode, now with added bonus levels and new content! Pre-order to receive a retro Peashooter Skin!
Become a God once again in Reus 2 by taking control of mighty giants whose command over their elements allows you to shape worlds, create an ecosystem of resources and enable human civilizations to thrive. Your choices will determine the fates of these fragile human beings, whose autonomy may lead them to great heights.
The House of the Dead 2: Remake is a remake of the second entry in the well-known and popular rail-shooter series. Take on the lone role of a secret agent as James or Gary, or team up in co-op mode to neutralize the dangerous undead monsters standing in your way.
Monster Prom 2: Monster Camp brings you more of the world’s best (and maybe only?) multiplayer dating sim, but in a way you’ve never expected! The original Monster Prom is a multiplayer dating sim that shines for its beautiful art and unapologetic humor. The sequel brings you into a new setting (summer camp) with new characters to romance, including old faces and new ones: Damien, Calculester, Milo, Dahlia, Joy, and Aaravi. But that’s not all: Monster Camp comes with other new twists here and there, from the campfire mechanics to a new stage full of magic mixed drinks.
Monster Prom 3: Monster Roadtrip finally answers the age-old question: “What if we added survival mechanics to a beloved dating sim franchise?” Monster Roadtrip adds a twist to its predecessors Monster Prom and Monster Camp, multiplayer dating sims brimming with beautiful art and unapologetic humor. This sequel takes you on an unforgettable road trip along with fan-favorites Scott and Polly. On the way, you will stay at crummy motels, engage in dark cult rituals, help out strangers on the road and pick up more hitchhikers than Scott can count. Bump into old friends and meet plenty of new faces on your way to one of six destinations!
Returning from a hunting trip to find your lands in ruin, you must rebuild your home while fending off hordes of monsters that attack your gates every night. Should your city fall and the forces of darkness sweep across the land, you will awaken to begin a new run where you carry forward the rewards of prior attempts – more heroes at your disposal, previously unexplored lands already uncovered, and every opportunity to push further as you uncover the mystery that has you trapped in a never-ending cycle of life and death.
Ila’s beloved kitty, Coco, has mysteriously disappeared, and she’s determined to bring him back home! Explore a whimsical small open world as Ila, a spirited young witch-in-training flying on a magic Skatebroom. Uncover hidden stories, collect valuable items and improve your magical flying abilities in this cozy exploration platformer adventure.
DREAMOUT
Valkyrie Initiative LLP
☆☆☆☆☆
★★★★★
Dreamout – October 21 Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Xbox Play Anywhere / Smart Delivery
Explore a surreal world with a cute alpaca! Solve puzzles, fish out the most unusual items from rivers, fight watermelon thugs and uncover all the secrets of this world!
Fit and Fry: Mise en Place is a casual puzzle game set in a restaurant, where every challenge takes place inside a frying pan. The goal is to perfectly organize the ingredients on the board, fulfilling customer orders and progressing through 40 levels that mix strategy and fun.
In Junkyard Builder, you’re the proud owner of a once-forgotten junkyard, now brimming with endless potential. Dive into the satisfying world of restoration, recycling and raw hustle as you transform trash into treasure and rise to become the ruler of the junk empire!
In a grim world of chaos, where reality feels like a thin layer over madness, welcome to Murder Inc — a top-down adrenaline-fueled shooter where time and style are your ultimate weapons. You are a mysterious operative, an antihero walking the fine line between life and death. Your targets are the criminals who rule the city from the labyrinth of filthy streets. But there’s a catch: every shot, strike, or step you take sets time in motion. The faster you move, the faster the world collapses around you.
Sedap! is a co-op cooking-combat adventure that combines the chaos of a co-op kitchen and the wonders of adventuring into an unexplored world. Embark on an exciting culinary journey, whip up delectable delicacies, and serve your way through a fantastical reimagining of Southeast Asia!
Astro Duel 2 blurs the line between space shooter and platform fighter. Whether versus or co-op, prepare to fight in space and on foot at the same time! Strike within the fully-destructible arenas or just nuke ‘em from orbit.
In a little gnomey village, in a whimsical forest … A Gnome Grandpa awaits his family to gather ‘round for his 100th birthday. Explore the forest’s lush greenery and find his tiny gnome kin trapped in curious places. Solve puzzles, collect family pictures, enjoy the hand-drawn artwork and help each gnome find their way back home.
Gruniożerca Trilogy is a remastered compilation of three independently developed retro puzzle games that originally launched on the NES. Take control of Grunio – a hungry pig on a mission – and dive into creative challenges packed with charm, humor, and pixel-perfect nostalgia.
Polar Bear is Hungry is a 2D puzzle-platformer game where you must collide blocks of ice to break them and get all the fish stuck inside. Simply touching the blocks will make them move, but pressing the attack action button is necessary to throw the ice blocks at one another to break them and get the fish. Now it’s time to use your logical thinking, creativity and puzzle solving skills to help our polar bear friend!
Survive a relentless battlefield in side-scrolling retro arcade style! Redex is a pixel-art survival shooter where you battle waves of enemies in fast-paced side-scrolling combat. Collect coins to buy ammo, grenades, armor, and more from vending machines, then trade rare gold for permanent upgrades and new characters.
You’re grounded again for something totally unfair, but your friends are hanging out at the arcade tonight and you CANNOT miss it! In Schoolboy Escape, you play as a clever teen with a talent for creative problem-solving who must devise the perfect plan to sneak out for an evening of fun while the house is on high alert.
The award-winning survival horror classic is back! Following the harrowing events at Wildberger Hospital, Caroline Walker hopes for a normal life with her sister, Anna. Yet in the months that follow, Anna is haunted by visions of violence and death, compelling her to create disturbing drawings that rapidly manifest into horrifying reality, and the sisters soon find themselves at the center of an entirely new nightmare …
In 1992, following a series of mysterious deaths caused by wild animals, as well as strange sightings of cryptids in the sparsely populated and underdeveloped Amazon region of Acre, a special operations brigade from the Brazilian Military Police was sent to the area to gather intelligence. However, the situation took an unexpected turn for the soldiers, who soon found themselves cornered in the midst of a jungle infested with hungry dinosaurs.
The ultimate nerd rage is back in Angry Video Game Nerd 8-bit: an all-new action platformer set in the AVGN universe! Play as The Nerd and blast your way across a host of pixel art levels crawling with zombies, mechanical skeletons, ghoulish reapers and more!
Build a castle by day and defend it by night. Becastled combines cozy city-building with thrilling tower defense strategy. Lead the Sun Kingdom in its final stand against the Moon beasts and bring an end to the ancient conflict between light and darkness! Rule over your own fantasy realm. Build a mighty keep, lay roads, gather resources and grow a thriving settlement that will feed and shelter your people. Keep your subjects happy with taverns and decorations, and your economy strong with markets and workshops — all to support an army ready to fight at your command.
Bloodshed is an exhilarating fusion of roguelite elements merged with retro-styled visuals and first-person “Survivors-like” frenetic combat action: Face endless waves of undead foes, collect experience points, and upgrade your skills and weapons in a battle to survive the night. Even after death, you keep your hard-earned money which can be exchanged for persistent improvements and unlockable content, allowing you to progress further while adding depth to the overall gameplay.
Dreamed Away is an emotional action-adventure RPG with psychological horror elements. Play as Théo, a boy lost in a dark, mysterious world. Explore a unique reality, duel against darkness in a unique, fast paced combat system and mind your choices.
In Just a Little Purr Suit, guide a clever kitten in a turn-based strategy puzzle with 65 handcrafted levels. Use cards to decide every move: advance, launch the kitten with cannons, bounce on trampolines, cross mysterious portals and even create new platforms to overcome challenges.
The Lonesome Guild is a single-player top-down action-RPG all about togetherness. Embark on a heroic adventure as Ghost, a spirit who wakes to find they hold no memories. The world has become shrouded by loneliness and the mist just keeps spreading, corrupting everyone in its path. Now it’s up to you to get the band back together … even if they’re meeting for the first time.
A fearful entity has taken over the world, but luckily the key to fight back is hidden inside your best friend’s body! A team of young, adventurous and brilliant scientists will shrink their bodies and use their skating skills to get inside their friend’s body and explore a world like they have never seen before! Join Max, Jin, Lia and Zev in this fun adventure and skate around thanks to their customizable nano-skates, solve science puzzles adapted to different ages. Explore, learn and fight to save the future of humanity!
Give sports facilities a second life in this relaxing story-driven simulator. Restore the glory of old gyms, courts and pitches, and add a sprinkle of your own style. Collect trash, clean up the dirt from walls and floors, give the place a fresh coat of paint, fix broken fixtures, furnish and decorate the place. Use the money you earn to upgrade your equipment and expand your headquarters – each unlocked room comes with its perks and sometimes a little side quest …
Sushi For Robots is a whimsical puzzle game about quirky robots and their insatiable cravings for sushi – how they actually process it is a mystery, but hey, if that makes them happy. As the seasoned chef of the favorite sushi venue in robot town, it’s up to you to get the perfect dish in time for each of your picky patrons, placing the right stickers on the conveyor belts to change one tuna roll into a salmon nigiri.
Step into the driver’s seat and embark on an epic train-driving experience built exclusively for console gamers. Trainz Simulator: World Tour takes you across 4 stunning locales in 3 countries – spanning the rugged landscapes of the USA, the iconic railways of Great Britain and the untamed beauty of the Australian Outback.
Embark on an exhilarating journey as a bird navigating the skies alongside your flock. In this beautifully crafted adventure, you will soar through 11 vibrant and diverse levels, each offering unique challenges and breathtaking landscapes. Your mission isn’t just about speed – it’s about staying connected with your flock as you all journey together, guided by instinct and unity.
Splash and smash your friends in this juicy party kart racing game! Make and take speedy shortcuts as you compete against the sweetest competition. A wholesome and hectic racer packed with power-ups and heavy laughter.
Ultimate Zombie Defense is a top-down survival horror set in the suburbs of a once quiet city, in the heart of continental Europe. The city and the surrounding 250 km landmass have been sealed off in an attempt to curtail the outbreak, although sadly all attempts have failed, until now.
After a traumatic event, Cora, a cinema student, finds herself suddenly transported to what’s known as the Limbo, or land of oblivion. In this land, you’ll be accompanied by a crow, who claims to be a god of death, and you will help him to solve the mystery of why you are on limbo and why other deaths occurred, in an investigation through time and space, in labyrinths that connect oblivion to human emotions.
Does liking someone really make you happy? I disagree. We might just enjoy the feeling of liking someone. I live in a serene and peaceful little village. There are no wars, and everything here is very pleasant, just like heaven or a utopia. In this perfect world, we meet and get to know each other. People’s emotions constantly intersect.
Inspired by horror and B-movies from the ’80s, Everdark takes us to a city infested with vampires. Armed with stakes, garlic, crosses, holy water and an arsenal of firearms and melee weapons, we’ll fight our way through this shooter that blends classic survival horror with an oppressive atmosphere.
Play poker like a champion! Think smart, bluff hard, and win big in this classic Texas Hold’em experience. Outsmart your opponents and prove that poker is more than luck — it’s skill, strategy, and nerve. Even a poor hand can become a brilliant victory in the right hands. Take a seat at the table, call, check, fold, raise, and bluff your way through intense rounds. With up to 4 AI opponents, every match is a new challenge. Are you ready to prove you’ve got what it takes to become the ultimate poker champ?
Make a fortune while working at a junkyard. You start with nothing but a hangover and slowly climb your way to success. You will have complete freedom in how you want to make money. Do you want to explore the world on foot or drive one of the available vehicles? Do you prefer to search for junk or look for hidden treasures? Is renovation your thing? Or maybe you’re more of a heavy machinery kind of guy? Would you rather sell enormous amounts of small items or try something more ambitious, like repairing a vintage car? Whatever you choose, and as long as it is junk-related, we got you covered.
The world is overrun by terrifying creatures, and only the toughest will make it out alive! Battle endless waves of monsters, face massive bosses and upgrade your survivors to become unstoppable. Every run is a new challenge! Improve your stats, unleash devastating abilities and buy epic artifacts as you carve your path through the apocalypse.
Best friends Sok & Jester devise a mischievous scheme to steal the Royal Diamond! To complete their master plan, they must start an improv theatre show and outperform every other act – including their rivals, Hofnar & Bok. Only becoming the best show in the kingdom will get them invited to the Royal Theatrical Spectacle in the Royal Palace, where the king keeps his precious gem.
Inflate your balloon as much as you can while dodging spiky balls. Time your moves perfectly to grow bigger without popping — and watch out, the bigger you are, the harder it gets! Challenge your friends in the exciting Versus mode, where 2 players go head-to-head! Race to the finish line or compete to collect the most coins before time runs and win!
In Solus, you play as a lost soul navigating through a dark, dreamlike landscape in this platforming adventure. To escape, you must collect symbols of light and awaken ancient totems that will guide you toward freedom. Explore atmospheric stages filled with hidden secrets, deadly traps, and intense platforming challenges. Discover collectibles in secret areas, avoid lethal hazards, and unravel the mysteries of your subconscious. Every step forward brings you closer to the truth — or drags you deeper into the nightmare.
Zoochosis is a bodycam horror simulation game. You’re a zookeeper. Identify infected mutant animals, make a vaccine and cure them. Will you save all of them and survive? This is your first night shift as a zookeeper. You find out that some animals are infected and turning into mutants. Save them and save yourself. Unravel the mystery of the zoo. Choose wisely. Your choices will determine your ending.
Next Fest is back! The biannual Steam event that celebrates demos for hundreds of forthcoming games begins today, October 13, and runs until 1 p.m. ET on October 20. But with 3,276 demos to choose from, it’s an overwhelming beast. Fear not, for we—like the brave knights we are—are here to highlight some of the best we’ve found across a breadth of genres, from indie to AAA.
I like to think of Next Fest as the games industry’s demonstration that genres don’t mean anything any more, as the thousands of demos are categorized through a combination of lies and jazz, and the words “point-and-click” are taken to mean “games that feature pointy objects and clicking sounds.” It can make looking for particular types of games an astonishing headache. So instead, push all such intentions aside: Next Fest is best enjoyed by just scrolling through into the deepest recesses and installing anything that catches your eye. Forget about the sorts of games you already like; instead plunge in deep and experiment. And to save your scroll wheel, we’ve picked out a selection of games that could be your new big obsession.
Of course this in no way definitive! There will be hundreds of demos worth playing, and if you’ve discovered anything you’d recommend yourself, then we encourage you to do so in the comments.
Tingus Goose
Developer: SweatyChair Release date: Q4 2025 Demo link
Normally with these roundups I like to start with a well-known name so everyone feels comfortable, safe, and familiar, before I then start adding the super-weird delights. But no such easing ourselves into the deep end today, because there is no more important demo to tell you about than Tingus Goose. I…words cannot suffice.
This is a clicker in the vein of Cookie Clicker, except you’re…well, listen, you’re clicking on the weird little baby-creatures called Tingus that fly out of the beak of a goose. A goose that is growing out of the belly of a lady lying on a bed. As you water your goose (you heard me) its neck grows longer, and it reaches for the loving kiss of another goose hanging down from the sky above. They want to mate, and it’s your job to have them meet. But you need money to water a goose, and that’s gained by, um, having the babies roll over protuberances that grow sideways out of the goose’s neck. That, as you’d expect, earns cash. And don’t worry, you can click on the babies, too, to get more money, but don’t click too often or they pop.
This is all a glorious piece of batshit crazy animation and gibberish game design, and I adore every second of it.
PowerWash Simulator 2
Developer: FuturLab Release date: 23 Oct, 2025 Demo link
See, in other years this would have been my more welcoming first entry. We’re all looking forward to PowerWash Simulator 2, right? And now we finally get to play it! Hooray!
And yes, it is of course utterly marvelous. It’s more PowerWash Simulator, but slightly prettier and with less clunky controls. I am having to force myself to stop playing to write this, and play the rest of the demos, and it’s proving tricky, and that’s what PW always did best: take over your entire life with its demonic pressure-washing powers.
Slots And Daggers
Developer: Friedemann Release date: October 24, 2025 Demo link
Oh my goodness this is the best I want to play it forever. This being Slots And Daggers, a post-Balatro roguelite slot machine game that purifies the mechanics to sweetest perfection. You begin by choosing the icons that can appear on the slots (starting with coins, sword attacks and shield) and then stop each dial to fight a monster. If you win, coins earned can be spent on new icons (perhaps a bow attack, or an upgrade to your shield), as well as on power-ups that boost your attacks, defense, and technique. You and the enemy have shield and health meters, with some attacks able to do true damage, others protected by your defenses. And, of course, the moment you lose it’s back to the start. Except you also win poker chips as you play, and these can be spent on “illegal” hacks to the slot machine that can permanently improve things.
It’s all there, right? All the ingredients of a great roguelite, in the neatest possible way. And I can assure you that it’s outstandingly moreish.
Developer: Mark Ffrench Release date: 7 Nov, 2025 Demo link
Mark Ffrench makes a very specific genre of game. It’s Fill-a-Pix puzzles writ large, the logic puzzle games that usually fill a small grid on your phone now taking up wall-size friezes. Proverbs was my favorite of his, a massive rendering of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s painting, Netherlandish Proverbs, turned into a puzzle. And that might sound pretentious, but damn it was wonderful. Later came 2024: Mosaic Retrospective, an incredible collage of events of the previous year, and next comes Mosaic of the Strange, the follow-up to a game I now realize I entirely missed, Mosaic of the Pharaohs. (I know what I’m doing when I should be working tomorrow…) Incredibly, this combines the puzzle concept with a point-and-click adventure, and my mind’s made up.
It’s hard to know how to convince a skeptic to give a game like this a try, but they’re blissfully absorbing and I really cannot recommend them enough.
Painkiller
Developer: Anshar Studios Release date: 21 Oct, 2025 Demo link
I’d somehow entirely missed that Painkiller was coming back. As 3D Realms trawls its archives, 2004’s Painkiller is the latest recognizable name to get a total overhaul. A decade off has done it some good, and its return gives it fresh new central characters, and it’s playable alone or in 3-player co-op. It moves extremely quickly, which is my primary desire from any 3D Realms shooter, and the AI bots seem to do a decent enough job in the demo. It’s also gloriously gory and bursting with Quake 3 vibes.
Hands up, who’s old enough to remember the Heroes of Might & Magic games? No, it’s OK, don’t strain your arm. And let’s not even ask about the OG Might & Magic fans, as the breath of the question might cause them to collapse into dust. The RPG series goes back as far as 1986 incredibly, with its turn-based strategy spin-off Heroes of Might & Magic starting in 1995. Highly regarded turn-based strategy games right up until they weren’t, the series saw diminishing returns beginning with HOMM 5 and 2015’s Might & Magic Heroes VII polished the whole franchise off for a decade.
Well, it’s back, and its latest entry is coming from Iratus developer Unfrozen. Apparently it has the good sense not to meddle with a beloved formula, letting you build your mythological armies and grow a town, with its emphasis squarely on recreating everyone’s happy memories of HOMM 3. And look, I could lie to you and pretend I understood this demo, but turn-based strategy is a genre I have never gotten my head around. I’m just excited for all the Might & Magic fans I’ve known and loved that it’s back.
Kingdom of Night
Developer: Friends of Safety Release date: Q4 2025 Demo link
I installed this one on a complete whim, and I’m very glad I did. It’s an RPG by way of a point-and-click adventure, set in 1980s Arizona with some heavy Stranger Things vibes. You play a teenage kid at high school who finds himself embroiled in a bizarre adventure of invading demons and magical powers. The demo immediately shows how the characteristics you pick affect how you play, with a choice between brains and brawn opening up different conversation options and ways to handle school encounters. It comes with an intricate spell system, real-time combat, and lots of lovely isometric pixel graphics. And I’m really getting into it. This was first announced six years ago, but is apparently arriving this year, complete with an option to play the whole adventure in co-op.
Servant of the Lake
Developer: Rusty Lake Release date: 2026 Demo link
The incredible Rusty Lake series just celebrated its 10th anniversary with a typically macabre birthday game, but now is back with an upcoming full entry in the long-running Lynchian series. Servant of the Lake has the player arrive to the Vanderboom house by horse and cart, there to be a servant to the family for a single weekend. However, long-term fans will realize this puts us in the era of the first generation of the Vanderbooms, and thus in the presence of Aldous Vanderboom, the man who becomes the series peculiar antagonist, Mr. Crow. And, honestly, you own it to yourself to play every Rusty Lake game in order, building up to next year’s release of this one.
Reanimal
Developer: Tarsier Studios Release date: TBA Demo link
Reanimal is of course what Tarsier Studios is making instead of Little Nightmares 3. It’s a whole new project from the team and, still a year on from its announcement, it doesn’t yet have a release date. But at least we can play some of it now! You play as a sack-headed boy, who begins the game steering a boat to pull a mask-wearing girl from the sea, before finally reaching dry land and beginning the adventure of their attempt to escape their hellish home. It’s all extremely atmospheric, but very slow to get going for a demo. Still, persist and you’ll experience this horror-themed adventure for a decent while.
Marvel Cosmic Invasion
Developer: Tribute Games Release date: 2025 Demo link
I am delighted to report that Marvel Cosmic Invasion is a complete delight. Tribute Games follows up TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge with another old-school side-scrolling beat ’em up, this time with a broad cast of Marvel heroes to biff with. You pick two at a time (Spider-Man and She Hulk make for a great pairing), then alternate between the two of them as you set up combos and Streets of Rage your way down these pixel-perfect streets. In fact, it’s so Streets of Rage that you even eat food you find by smashing garbage cans, just like real superheroes do.
It’s so colorful and punchy (in every sense) that it feels like it could be a classic arcade cabinet hit from the ’80s, rejuvenated for modern machines.
