New Releases: May 26th-June 1st, 2022

This week, retro characters like Pac-Man and Kao the Kangaroo return, Sniper Elite 5’s Karl Fairburne continues his Nazi hunt, while Sakura Succubus 5 and Senren * Banka (pictured) beautify Switch screens. Here’s the full list of what’s arriving across the next seven days:

PlayStation 4
Arcade Archives: Plotting (digital, $7.99)
Arcade Spirits: The New Challengers (digital, $19.99)
Kao the Kangaroo (digital, $29.99)
Moo Lander (digital, $TBA)
My Little Pony: A Maretime Bay Adventure (digital, $39.99)
Pac-Man Museum+ (physical & digital, $29.99)
Remote Life (digital, $18.99)
Silt (digital, $14.99)
Sniper Elite 5 (physical & digital, $59.99-$89.99)

Switch
Arcade Archives: Plotting (digital, $7.99)
Arcade Spirits: The New Challengers (digital, $19.99)
Bad Writer (digital, $5.99)
Beatus Creation Solitaire (digital, $19.99)
Coloring Pixels: Collection 1 (digital, $7.95)
Deathrun TV (digital, $14.99)
Eye Exercise – Ver. Kompeito (digital, $1.99)
Farm Tycoon (digital, $19.99)
Flewfie’s Adventure (digital, $9.99)
Freezer Pops (digital, $9.99)
Hexceed: Progressum! (DLC, $1.00)
Jade Order (digital, $6.99)
Kao the Kangaroo (digital, $29.99)
Mischief Dungeon Life (digital, $19.90)
Moo Lander (digital, $TBA)
My Little Pony: A Maretime Bay Adventure (digital, $39.99)
Pac-Man Museum+ (physical & digital, $29.99)
Pinku Kult: Hex Mortis (digital, $9.99)
Pixel Game Maker Series: KINGDOM FIGHTER (digital, $13.99)
Pride Dance Out & Proud (digital, $14.99)
Remote Life (digital, $18.99)
Rolling Car: Extra Colours (digital, $0.99)
Sakura Succubus 5 (digital, $9.99)
Samurai Riot: Definitive Edition
Senren * Banka (digital, $31.49)
Silt (digital, $14.99)
Super Toy Cars Offroad (digital, $19.99)
The Big Con: Grift of the Year Edition (digital, $14.99)
Toonkars Racer (digital, $1.75)
Twin Blades of the Three Kingdoms (digital, $14.99)
Underland: The Climb (digital, $3.99)

Xbox One
Arcade Spirits: The New Challengers (digital, $19.99)
Janitor Bleeds (digital, $12.99)
Kao the Kangaroo (digital, $29.99)
Moo Lander (digital, $TBA)
My Little Pony: A Maretime Bay Adventure (digital, $39.99)
Pac-Man Museum+ (physical & digital, $29.99)
Remote Life (digital, $18.99)
Silt (digital, $14.99)
Sniper Elite 5 (physical & digital, $59.99-$89.99)

PC
Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition – Knights of the Mediterranean (DLC, $9.99)
Captain of Industry ($TBA)
Corpse Factory ($TBA)
Dwerve ($TBA)
Epic Battle Fantasy Collection ($TBA)
Golfie ($14.39)
Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Mega Mix+ ($39.39)
Hellslave ($15.99)
Kao the Kangaroo ($29.99)
Knights of Messiah ($TBA)
Leap ($TBA)
Moo Lander ($TBA)
My Time at Sandrock ($24.99)
Nemesis: Lockdown ($TBA)
Out There: Oceans of Time ($22.49)
Silt ($14.99)
Sniper Elite 5 ($49.99-$79.99)
Swords and Sandals Immortals ($TBA)
Unexplored 2: The Wayfarer’s Legacy ($TBA)

Rob’s Pick: Some associate the Sniper Elite with the gory, animations of bullets tearing through Nazi bodies. While the X-Ray Kill-Cam feature rewards players with violent spectacle, the franchise’s best moments don’t just revolve around the viscera. While the rifles are a treat to use, its Rebellion’s emphasis on stealth that is the true highlight of the series.

Sniper Elite evolved from linear marches to open-world autonomy. The early entries showcased intense set pieces, like taking a stand in a bombed-out fortification against a horde of marauding infantry. But the last few entries have issued you a few guns, explosives, and med kits before setting you free in Nazi-controlled spaces. My usual approach involves paring down enemies, while setting up a contingency plan for when things inevitably go sideways. While you’ll hope that foes stop their pursuit to check a booby-trapped body, enemy behavior isn’t certain. You’re a formidable stalker in Sniper Elite 5. However, much of the time it’s you who are being hunted. The result in a riveting asymmetrical match where enemy counts are pitted against better technology and your ability to stay cool when foes are converging on your last known location.

Ryan’s Pick: I missed the first releases of the Sniper Elite series until about two years ago when I was introduced to Sniper Elite 4. It definitely checked all the boxes for me in terms of sneaking around in sandbox-style environments while also being able to have fantastic gun battles and shootouts in both close quarters and long distances. The signature X-ray Kill Cam in this series can be quite brutal at times if you aren’t a fan of gore, but at the same time adds a bit of realism, especially if you enjoy Max Payne-esque slow-motion bullet-time cinematics.

Perfectionists be warned, the one thing that I find with these games is that it’s almost impossible to play each level perfectly and often turns out to be like the latter of the movie Sniper with Tom Beringer. Things just don’t go well and you’re forced to escape and lay low so that patrols eventually forget about you. My only real gripe with the series is how stealth is handled indoors, as many of the latter half levels of Sniper Elite 4 had you crawling through bunkers and it was almost impossible to do so stealthily. Here’s hoping that has been improved in this latest installment. No matter what though, the games are still a lot of fun despite some of the stealth issues, so I’ll be joining Karl Fairburne this week for sure.

Matt R’s pick (editor, Shindig): I know our picks often overlap on these weekly updates, particularly when there’s a hot new JRPG or fanservice game dropping. What I didn’t expect was for Sniper Elite to bring the same sense of unity to the new releases post—and yet, here we are. Rebellion’s Nazi-hunting stealth series just keeps stepping up, growing from a fun but kind of clunky B-grade stealth game to one of the absolute best sneak-’em-ups around.

After Sniper Elite 4 took players through a beautiful Italian countryside, Sniper Elite 5 looks to give the same treatment to France. The focus is once on levels that are expansive, open, and full of little details and quirks that you can use to your advantage, allowing an impressive degree of freedom in how you approach each objective. The Kill Cam might nominally be the series’ defining gimmick, but it’s the quality of level design, the finely-tuned stealth systems, and the sheer tactical depth that truly make Sniper Elite stand out. I’ll never say no to more of that.

I want to also give Golfie a quick mention, because anything that can be fairly described as a “roguelike minigolf deck builder” deserves a mention. It’s a minigolf game like so many others—except that the levels are procedurally generated, you have a limited amount of energy with which to complete 18 holes, and the cards you accrue over the course of a run give way to all sorts of wacky effects or unusual shots. Good times.

Matt S’ pick (Editor, DigitallyDownloaded): While I’m all for putting bullet holes in Nazis, Sniper Elite’s not totally my thing. I prefer it to a lot of other shooters, but it’s still a military pew pew, so I’ll be the voice of dissent this week.

To instead pick something wildly different that none of you had probably really considered, Twin Blades of the Three Kingdoms. Admittedly it doesn’t look like much, but also, it’s an RPG that is set during the Three Kingdoms era. I’m so used to button bashy action games set during that period, it’ll be nice to see how the developers handle the massive, epic plot in a different genre.

Finally, I am very intrigued by Senren * Banka. The game has a ridiculously positive rating on Steam, and has apparently won awards and things? I really don’t know much about it, other than that it looks gorgeous, and it’s been too long since I last played a visual novel that was just plain beautiful. So I’ll go with that one.

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.

4 comments

  1. Lots of love for SE5 this week. But like Matt S, I don’t really like military shooters. Golfie might get a go this week. I need something lighthearted and fun.

  2. Hey, Bandai Namco haven’t you milked old Pac-Man enough on Switch? Maybe make a new one!

  3. Am I not remembering things correctly or was Kao the Kangaroo a very mid platformer?

  4. Dwerve is a tower defense game and those always get my interest. Currently “positive” on Steam.