By Nelson Schneider - 10/03/26 at 01:47 AM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! Well, it’s October, so you know what that means: Time to break out the old Tannenbaum, festoon it with simulated viscera, and wait for a Heathen Solstice god to pass judgment upon your household... Oh, wait, maybe there’s that other Heathen holiday about conjuring the dead that we should celebrate first... that has had merchandise taking up space in stores since my birthday in August. Then I guess there’s something about turkeys in there too, but none of that’s important. We need to buy games to keep the Industry from collapsing! (Or, NOT buy games and encourage the collapse.)
Oh, shiite and sunni, there’s a bucking futtload of shovel-ready swill (I was calling it “swill” before “slop” became the cool new slang, and I ain’t stopping) coming in October, representing the Industry’s desperation to both squeeze everything out of its impacted colon before the November launch of “Grand Theft Retard 6” and to get product out there for the upcoming holiday season. We’ve got every flavor of swill too, which makes the smorgasbord even more... flavorful.
In Licensed Swill, we’ve got Halloween games, including “Halloween: The Game,” based on the interminable movie franchise. There’s also a remaster of “Clive Barker’s Hellraiser” that’s not Noteworthy enough to be a Noteworthy Port, but fits thematically into the Licensed Swill of the month. In non-scary Licensed Swill, there’s a potpourri for all ages. In descending order of maturity, there’s a ‘Star Wars’ Racing game for man-children, then there’s “Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest” based on ‘The Warriors’ YA novels, next there’s a game based on the “Stein’s Gate” anime for teens, then there’s a ‘Dog Man’ Platformer for tweens (based on the books, not the neo-cryptid), next there’s a new ‘Sesame Street’ Adventure game for little kids, which is baffling, since kids don’t watch ‘Sesame Street’ anymore (especially after HBO poached it from PBS).
In Casual Swill, there are a couple of games that are ALSO Licensed Swill! “Hello Kitty Party Land” and “Cat in the Hat: Rainy Day Mayhem” are both Party games based on IPs aimed at... NOT the typical Gamer demographic. Non-Licensed Casual Swill includes “Horse Club Ride West” (I really want to rearrange those words in the title) and Ubisoft’s latest entry in the ‘Just Dance’ series, which does NOT appear to be annualized this time around.
But in actual Annualized Swill, we’ve got “CoD: Modern Warfare 4” and “MXGP.” I can’t believe these things still move enough units to make them worthwhile. Every. Damned. Year.
Lastly, in Noteworthy Ports, we’ve got another potpourri, most of which are completely unnecessary... but “Noteworthy” does NOT imply “exciting” or “good.” The Nintendo Switch (NOT the Switch 2) is getting compilations of both “Classic” and “Modern” ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ games. Both the original Switch and the PlayStation 5 are, inexplicably, getting ports of one of the worst “Super Mario 64” competitors of the 5th Generation in “Croc: Legend of the Gobbos Remastered.” Everyone except Xbox (LOL, Xbox) is getting a remastered “Rayman Legends: Retold,” which is stupid because, while “Rayman Legends” is a good game, it’s not old enough or ugly enough to require a remaster. Finally, the Switch 2 and PlayStation 5 are getting a compilation of all three ‘Kingdom Hearts’ games, so I guess people who like that kind of thing can have it all in one place, shined-up, and slathered in black-box DRM.
*whew* That was a LOT of Swill to shovel. I’m already tired, and we haven’t even gotten to the new, non-swill multi-platform releases yet. There is a fairly plentiful and diverse slate of games scheduled for October and... oh... OH! There just might be some golden nuggets buried in there! First, those who love hunting for game animals but don’t actually want to, you know, GO HUNTING, are spoiled for choice with both “Hunting Simulator 3” and “Way of the Hunter 2” dropping. Those who need psychological help can pick up a new sh!tty Soulslike in “Valor Mortis.” Those who prefer putting animals in cages and looking at them to putting bullets in animals and eating them can look forward to “Planet Zoo 2.” For those who like irritating, weeb-ified Tactical RPGs, there’s “Demon’s Night Fever,” which looks like a Nippon Ichi or Compile Heart/Idea Factory disaster, but is actually from a relatively new and untested dev studio called Drecom, and published by Arc System Works. The venerable air combat series is getting another sequel in “Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve.” The also-venerable MMO, ‘Runescape,’ is getting an official stand-alone sequel in “Runescape: Dragonwilds.” The delayed “Harvest Moon: Echoes of Teradea” will allegedly drop in October. Then there are the two games that have me feeling something in my withered and atrophied Hype Organ: “Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse” is a new Metroidvania-style ‘Castelvania’ game published by Konami themselves, with development farmed out to the Indie clowns who made “Dead Cells.” Fortunately, it’s not a Roguelike, and I can only hope that it feels better to play than the off-brand ‘Bloodstained’ titles that Iga has made on his own after parting ways with Konami. Finally, “Final Fantasy: Resonance” is an HD-2D sequel in one of my (formerly) favorite RPG franchises that is, reportedly, a de-gacha’d, offline version of the widely-praised mobile game, “Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius,” with some reworked systems and narrative. This might be my last chance to give any EFFs about a new ‘Final Fantasy,’ so I’m giving them ALL.
All right, Exclusive time! Let’s look at ALL those super-high-quality system sellers that will make EVERYONE want to run out and buy a newly-price-hiked console, even as the AI-fueled hardware shortage drags on. Let’s see here... PlayStation 5 is getting “Stupid Never Dies,” which seems to be a commentary on the audience that still buys and supports PlayStation consoles! Next XBOX... wait, holy crap, XBOX! is getting “Gears of War: E-Day,” which appears to be a prequel to their series of cover-based third-person shooters starring anthropomorphic home appliances. Then there’s Nintendo, who are bringing the THUNDER with... no not a new ‘Mario’ or ‘Zelda’ game to christen the Switch 2, but a new “WiiSports” game! Yes, “Nintendo Switch Sports Resort” is the long-awaited “WiiSports” sequel that fans and critics alike nobody have been demanding. Alongside Nintendo, Ubisoft is bringing “The Crew Motorfest” to the Switch 2, so they can discontinue support for it and let Nintendo fans participate in the same communal emotional betrayal that the rest of ‘The Crew’ community has. Of course, the Switch 2 may be the new hotness, but the Switch 1 is still getting flogged like a necrotic equine, and is thus getting both a low-effort Visual Novel in “9 R.I.P. sequel” and a low-effort Sports game in “Final Kick Football: Legends” (and its the extra-boring European ‘football,’ which makes it even worse).
Wow, even though there’s a WALL of Shovelware and the Exclusives look as appealing as Dog Man (the neo-cryptid, not the kids’ book character) poop, there are still two things coming in October that I really, REALLY want to play: “Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse” and “Final Fantasy: Resonance” are both sequels in series I used to REALLY like, but have since gone to pot. In both cases, these upcoming games look like returns to form for both IPs, and I might just find myself willing to buy them NOW instead of waiting a few years for Steam sales.
Backlog Embiggened: +2 (and very emphatically)
