New Releases: May 11th-17th, 2023

This week, Marvel’s Midnight Suns heads for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, coinciding with a quartet of DLC for the game. Also arriving is LEGO 2K Drive, alongside the two-wheeled motoring of TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge 3. But undoubtedly, it’s the debut of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (pictured) that probably has most players excited.

PlayStation 4
Filthy Animals: Heist Simulator (digital, $19.99)
Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2 (digital, $39.99)
Humanity (digital, $29.99)
Marvel’s Midnight Suns (digital, $59.99, $99.99)
Marvel’s Midnight Suns: Blood Storm (DLC, $TBA)
Marvel’s Midnight Suns – Redemption (DLC, $TBA)
Marvel’s Midnight Suns – The Good, the Bad, and the Undead (DLC, $TBA)
Marvel’s Midnight Suns – The Hunger (DLC, $TBA)
Nightmare Reaper (digital, $24.99)
Space Engineers (digital, $28.49, $88.49)
Tin Hearts (digital, $23.99)
TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge 3 (physical & digital, $49.99)
World Championship Boxing Manager 2 (digital, $14.99)
Zool Redimensioned (digital, $TBA)

Switch
2021 : Moon Escape (digital, $4.99)
After You (digital, $6.99)
Elemental War 2 (digital, $19.99)
For a Vast Future (digital, $14.99)
Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2 (digital, $39.99)
Gekisou! Benza Race -Toilet Shooting Star- (digital, $13.00)
Gunvein (digital, $19.95)
Herodes (digital, $4.99)
Kargast (digital, $9.99)
Leap From Hell (digital, $9.99)
Little Disaster (digital, $4.99)
Local News with Cliff Rockslide (digital, $9.99)
Matches Puzzle: Classic Logic Arcade (digital, $9.99)
Menseki: Area Maze Search (digital, $4.99)
Mr. Brocco & Co. (digital, $4.99)
Murderous Muses (digital, $12.59)
Mutant Mudds Collection + Xeodrifter (digital, $24.99)
Pixel Driver (digital, $4.19)
Pretty Girls 2048 Strike (digital, $6.99)
Secret Dimension (digital, $4.99)
That’s My Family: Family Fun Night (physical, $34.99)
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (physical & digital, $69.99)
Truck Climb Racing (digital, $0.95)
TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge 3 (physical & digital, $49.99)
Under the Warehouse (digital, $5.99)
Winter’s Wish: Spirits of Edo (physical, $49.99)
World Championship Boxing Manager 2 (digital, $14.99)

Xbox One
After You (digital, $6.99)
Filthy Animals: Heist Simulator (digital, $19.99)
Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2 (digital, $39.99)
Last Labyrinth: Lucidity Lost (digital, $29.99)
Marvel’s Midnight Suns (digital, $59.99, $99.99)
Marvel’s Midnight Suns: Blood Storm (DLC, $TBA)
Marvel’s Midnight Suns – Redemption (DLC, $TBA)
Marvel’s Midnight Suns – The Good, the Bad, and the Undead (DLC, $TBA)
Marvel’s Midnight Suns – The Hunger (DLC, $TBA)
Tin Hearts (digital, $23.99)
TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge 3 (physical & digital, $49.99)
Verdict Guilty (digital, $7.19)

PC
Castle of Alchemists ($TBA)
Cook Serve Forever ($TBA)
Death or Treat ($22.49)
Drift ($TBA)
Dungeon Village 2 ($TBA)
Elypse ($TBA)
Far Cry 6 ($15.00)
Greedventory ($TBA)
How a Retired Strategist Saved the Country ($TBA)
Humanity ($TBA)
LEGO 2K Drive ($59.99, $99.99, $119.99)
Mechabellum ($11.99)
Starship Troopers: Extermination ($TBA)
The Ranch of Rivershine ($TBA)
Tin Hearts ($23.99)
TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge 3 ($49.99)
Ultimate Ragdoll Game ($TBA)

Rob’s pick: Between the weapon durability, a deficiency of hand-crafted dungeons, and the sporadic technical hiccups, I didn’t immediately click with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Most of the problems were rooted in my own expectations, since Nintendo usually doesn’t give their franchises a comprehensive overhaul (Kid Icarus: Uprising aside). But months later, I returned, finding enjoyment in moments that called for more abstract thinking rather than the series’ customary puzzles.

While I probably won’t pick up Tears of the Kingdom at launch, I’m sure I’ll hear an anecdote that will eventually break me down. Occasionally, it isn’t the moment-to-moment play that grabs me, but the ingenious design that makes me think in different ways. Speaking of clever, I also have my eye on Gekisou! Benza Race -Toilet Shooting Star-. Sure, it’s another ‘shitty’ kart racer, but seeing guys race on the can while reading the newspaper and occasionally throwing toilet paper at their rivals is the kind of low-brow ‘crap’ I also enjoy.

Matt R’s pick (editor, Shindig): I’m going to skip past Tears of the Kingdom this week, not because I’m not interested, but because I’m still yet to play Breath of the Wild—blasphemous, I know.

Instead, for me it’s a racing week. I like LEGO and I like kart racers, so LEGO 2K Drive immediately stands out. More than simply using LEGO as a visual theme, it looks like it’ll lean more heavily into the building aspect of every kid’s (and adult’s) favourite construction toy, with the promise of custom-built vehicles using a thousand LEGO pieces. The Forza Horizon games have demonstrated time and again how well arcade racing and open-world exploration can fit together; add the LEGO touch on top of that, and LEGO 2K Drive has the potential for greatness.

And on a… loosely related note, there’s Gekisou!Benza Race -Toilet Shooting Star-. It’s a kart racer of sorts, but where your kart is a porcelain throne. Will it be a polished, pristine, balanced, family-friendly racing game? Almost certainly not. Will a surreal approach to toilet humour make it a bucket-load of fun all the same? Almost certainly.

Ryan’s pick: I feel like I played The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild incorrectly in almost every way possible. Climbing mountains on fire without the necessary protective gear, getting one-shotted by fighting main story bosses undergeared and underleveled, and falling like a mile downwards off of a cliff and bouncing off all sorts of rocks until I finally met my demise at the bottom due to a zako mob’s insult-to-injury precision arrow shot. All of this said, I am still interested in trying The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. I’m very curious to see what types of player feedback they have chosen to address, and likewise am interested in finding out if some of the specific pain points I experienced in the first game are smoothed out. I’m not going to quit doing my Genshin Impact dailies though. Primogem saving is always in full effect.

One other game that seems quite odd is Humanity. It reminds me of something I would see in a fever dream. It’s been a bit since I’ve played a puzzle game, and I like the ability to control hordes of humans in order to solve some pretty odd problems in this game. You also get to play as a shiba inu that helps guide these people to solve the problems, so count me in. I always tend to be interested in weirder games, and this is exactly that. This may be just the respite my brain will need the second I start on fire climbing a mountain again playing the new Zelda.

Matt S’ pick (editor, DigitallyDownloaded): The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is terrible. Woeful. One of my least favourite things ever. Zelda doesn’t even have a swimsuit costume. Hard pass.

For me, the one I’m looking forward to this week is Humanity. Humanity looks like the kind of thinly-veilled commentary crossed with quirky and different game concept that I can really get stuck into. Is it just a Lemmings-style puzzler? Is there more to it than that? It could go any number of directions and I can’t be sure I’ll love it yet, but we need more games that are not known quantities so I’ll be giving it a whirl for sure.

Also, like Kiwi Matt, I’m looking forward to LEGO 2K Drive. I’m not really looking forward to it being a 2K game, but as long as the core racing mechanics are there and it’s fun to hoon around in a LEGO car, I’ll deal with having my eyeballs assailed with microtransactions and such.