New Releases: November 12th-18th, 2020

With today’s launch of the PlayStation 5, the next-generation of home consoles is finally here. It’s more technological progression than the paradigm shifts offered by launches in the past. As such, you’ll be seeing few exclusives this week and more PlayStation 4/Xbox One titles that offer enticing perks when played on the new hardware.

Header art: Demon’s Souls, PlayStation 5

PlayStation 4
Bubble Bobble 4 Friends: The Baron is Back (physical & digital, $39.99)
Bugsnax (digital, $24.99)
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War (physical & digital, $59.99)
Death Come True (digital, $15.99)
Exit the Gungeon (digital, $9.99)
Family Feud (physical & digital, $29.99)
Farming Simulator 19: Premium Edition (physical & digital, $49.99)
Five Dates (digital, $12.99)
Just Dance 2021 (physical & digital, $49.99)
Kingdom Hearts Melody of Memory (physical & digital, $59.99)
Let’s Sing 2021 (physical & digital, $TBA)
Mars Horizon (digital, $19.99)
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales (physical & digital, $49.99)
Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate Edition (physical & digital, $59.99)
Professor Rubik’s Brain Fitness (physical & digital, $29.99)
Sackboy: A Big Adventure (physical & digital, $59.99)
The Sims 4: Snowy Escape (digital, $39.99)
Unturned (digital, $24.99)
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (digital, $29.99)

PlayStation 5
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (physical & digital, $59.99)
Astro’s Playroom (digital, free)
Demon’s Souls (physical & digital, $69.99)
Devil May Cry 5: Special Edition (physical & digital, $39.99)
DIRT 5 (physical & digital, $59.99)
Godfall (physical & digital, $69.99)
Maneater (physical & digital, $39.99)
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales Ultimate Edition (physical & digital, $69.99)
NBA 2K21 (physical & digital, $69.99)
Overcooked! All You Can Eat (physical & digital, $49.99)
Planet Coaster: Console Edition (physical & digital, $49.99)
Sackboy: A Big Adventure (physical & digital, $59.99)
Warhammer: Chaosbane (physical & digital, $59.99)
Watch Dogs: Legion (physical & digital, $59.99)

Switch
Apparition (digital, $7.99)
Beat Me! (digital, $12.99)
BrainZ (digital, $6.99)
Bus Driver Simulator (digital, $29.99)
Captain Sabertooth and the Magic Diamond (digital, $34.99)
Family Feud (physical & digital, $29.99)
Five Dates (digital, $12.99)
Forest Guardian (digital, $10.99)
Grim Legends 3: The Dark City (digital, $14.99)
Guitar (digital, $9.99)
Just Dance 2021 (physical & digital, $49.99)
Kingdom Hearts Melody of Memory (physical & digital, $59.99)
Life of Boris: Super Slav (digital, $4.99)
Linelight (digital, $9.99)
Mars Horizon (digital, $17.99)
Metaverse Keeper (digital, $14.99)
Need for Speed Hot Pursuit Remastered (digital, $39.99)
Nexoria: Dungeon Rogue Heroes (digital, $4.99)
Pure Pool (digital, $11.99)
Santa’s Xmas Adventure (digital, $8.99)
Serious Sam Collection (digital, $29.99)
Sniper Elite 4 (physical $39.99, digital, $33.99)
Suguru Nature (digital, $1.99)
Super Star Panda (digital, $9.99)
Unhatched (digital, $4.99)
Vera Blanc: Full Moon (digital, $4.99)
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (digital, $29.99)
Zombie Blast Crew (digital, $9.99)
Zombie’s Cool (digital, $3.99)

Xbox One and Series S/X
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War (physical & digital, $69.99)
Esports Life Tycoon (digital, $TBA)
Exit the Gungeon (digital, $9.99)
Family Feud (physical & digital, $29.99)
Farming Simulator 19: Premium Edition (physical & digital, $49.99)
Five Dates (digital, $12.99)
Just Dance 2021 (physical & digital, $49.99)
Kingdom Hearts Melody of Memory (physical & digital, $59.99)
Let’s Sing 2021 (physical & digital, $TBA)
Mars Horizon (digital, $17.99)
Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate Edition (physical & digital, $59.99)
Serious Sam Collection (digital, $29.99)
The Falconeer Day One Edition (physical, $39.99)
The Sims 4: Snowy Escape (digital, $39.99)
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (digital, $29.99)

PC
Bugsnax (Epic Game Store, $24.99)
Dashing Fire ($6.99)
Filmmaker Tycoon ($TBA)
Five Dates ($11.69)
Fury of Dracula: Digital Edition ($TBA)
Handball 21 ($31.99)
ICBM ($TBA)
Mars Horizon ($17.99)
Paw Paw Paw ($TBA)
Professor Rubik’s Brain Fitness ($29.99)
Rover Mechanic Simulator ($7.79)
Rune II: Decapitation Edition
SGS Afrika Korps ($19.99)

Rob’s Pick: Traditionally, I should be overcome with excitement with the launch of a new console. That’s the sensation I felt with the PlayStation 1, 2, and 4. But this generation’s soft-launch has me indifferent with an inaugural lineup filled with retreads and over-priced, middling new experiences. Once again, the industry likes to issue claims of 120hz performance, so seeing Watch Dogs: Legion limited to thirty frame-per-second output renews my skepticism.

Sure, the remake of Demon’s Souls offers a noticeable visual improvement and I like the concept of built-in assistance but the $70 price tag feels exorbitant. I guess I’m more comfortable with the PC price model, where software prices don’t subsidize the hardware. Next week brings the release of Katamari Damacy REROLL on the PlayStation and Xbox ecosystems, so if you’re really itching for something to play, roll along for just a few more days. Otherwise, last week’s release of Yakuza: Like a Dragon might not offer the technical flash, but it’s got the series trademark charm and playful spirit.

For anyone who couldn’t afford or tried in vain to purchase a new system: don’t let it get to you. Limiting supply to bolster demand is not new and was profiled nearly two decades ago. The difference is now, the tech-lust is fueled by social media, making it seem like everyone has the shiny new thing. Resist by playing that one game that’s been eager to leap out of your backlog. Let everyone else be beta-testers and unpaid marketers, while reverting to what you enjoy.(And tell/show me what you dug up, I’d love to hear).

Matt S’ pick (Editor, DigitallyDownloaded): I’m nervous about Demon’s Souls, but my copy is downloading as I write this, and I can’t help but be excited for it too. I was a fan of FromSoftware and its ultra-hard gothic nightmare JRPGs before it was cool. I loved the King’s Field series and will rave for hours about King’s Field IV to anyone that will listen. And then, FromSoftware in partnership with Sony released a humble game called Demon’s Souls, with very few expectations (almost no one bought the King’s Field games, after all), and the rest, as they say, is history. I loved that game with a passion, and there were finally other people around that also got it.

And so, remaking Demon’s Souls is a fairly safe commercial decision. Fewer people played that game and the original remains relatively inaccessible, being relegated to the PS3 as it is. The massively expanded market for these kinds of games all-but guarantees a raving new audience for the thing. I’m not entirely sure I’ll love it, though, since porting specialist, Bluepoint Studios, seems to have been given some creative freedom to mess with Demon’s Souls, and from the footage and screenshots there’s a certain aesthetic quality that seems to have been “fixed” (read: completely ruined in chasing those tech spec bullet points), and I wonder if that’s going to disrupt the thematic impact of the game in turn. But I can’t help but be excited anyway.

Ryan’s Pick: From Software releases are a cannot miss for me, and it’s been quite some time since I’ve gotten one-shot by a boss. Demon’s Souls was the ultimate sleeper of a game and was a very big game for Atlus when it hit the West in late 2009. It was infinitely difficult which helped create a resurgence of games that rewarded players for smart choices, and for me, luck. Aside from momentous boss encounters, it popularized the message and gesture systems in the games that they continued to use in the Dark Souls series. One of my favorite things is to explore and read some of the creative ways players attempt to incorporate lewdness with a finite amount of word choices for the messages. They never disappoint. They also never fail in their attempts to coax you to jump to your death as well. Thanks guys.

When recreating classically challenging games I feel like there will be some unsuspecting youths that may think the game is too difficult upon getting this one this holiday season. Insert the Dio meme of him returning Sekiro to GameStop because it was so difficult. It’s bound to happen, but these games make you a better player in my opinion, that is if you can stick it out long enough to start to enjoy it. It is $70, but I still think it’s worth it especially if you have been waiting for another Souls game. I personally can’t wait for the PVP. Some of the funniest and most random things happen during the PVP sessions, and the gestures always make it that much more fun.

Matt C’s pick (editor, Shindig): Unlike Robert, I’m all in on the PlayStation 5. I’m not that invested in technical specs (I honestly can’t see the difference between 30 and 60 fps unless I’m watching a side-by-side comparison), but the launch line-up, other games not too far off the horizon, and the creative possibilities that the PS5 controller’s new gimmicks open up are very exciting to me. A Demon’s Souls remake now that I finally like souls-like games, a 3D platformer twist on Sackboy, and a follow-up to Marvel’s Spider-Man starring my favourite Spidey are all great reasons to jump on board the PS5.

But of all those launch titles, the one that has me most excited is the one that comes free with the console: Astro’s Playroom. It’s meant to be a showcase for what the PS5 controller can do, and it does a fine job of that, but it’s so much more than that; it’s an interactive museum of PlayStation history. Each level is filled to the brim with nostalgic easter eggs, like Astro Bot versions of memorable characters and collectibles in the form of older consoles’ weird accessories (remember the quiz game controller for Buzz: The Mega Quiz on PS2?)

It’s also a great introduction to what the controller is capable of now, especially in terms of the haptic rumble and adaptive triggers. It’s something quite unreal to be able to close your eyes and know what kind of surface you’re walking on just from the way the controller vibrates, or to feel weather transition from wind to increasingly heavy rain to snow. The adaptive triggers managed to capture the feeling of pulling a lever on a clunky old gacha machine that sometimes gets jammed (but don’t worry, there’s no microtransaction element). These are features that are going to live or die by how well developers use them, but Astro’s Playroom is a great showcase of what they can do.

About Robert Allen

Since being a toddler, Robert Allen has been immersed in video games, anime, and tokusatsu. Currently, his days are spent teaching at two southern California colleges. But his evenings and weekends are filled with STGs, RPGs, and action titles and well at writing for Tech-Gaming since 2007.

9 comments

  1. Why does PS5 gets its own category while Xbox Sexies S/X gets lumped in?

  2. They said there was going to be a PS5 shortage. on Twitter I see everyone influencer begging Sony for one.

    But me, trying to give them $500 bucks can’t even buy one. I love games but I hate the system sometimes.

    • Seriously. Seeing influencers beg for shit on my feed (and get thousands of likes in the process) make me think social media is a mistake.

  3. This week I felt like the only person who didn’t have $500 for a new console. I got laid off in August (Covid) and my savings was used to pay rent for the last two months. I’ll get a new system sometime I hope.

  4. Well, I’ve been playing the shit out my Xbox Series X all morning. Yes, Ryan, I was playing Sekiro which I never thought of returning. Not even once.

  5. Copped a XSX, but Costco isn’t delivering it fort another few weeks. 🙁

  6. Wondering if the PlayStation museum acknowledges the Vita, because Sony really seems to have forgotten that completely.

  7. My PS5 is arriving today. I got in early but all the talk of Sony forgetting they used to be a Japanese company has me worried. I hope there are games besides Demon’s Souls and FFXVI.

  8. IMO, Demon’s Souls in the ONLY reason to own a PS5 right now. It’s absolutely gorgeous and worth every penny of the price.