RPGs Coming This Week, 9/29/24

Rogue Waters – September 30th (Windows)

Forget your pirate yakuzas and plain old pirate tactics. Real swashbucklers engage in strategic gameplay with roguelite mechanics! That means traversing procedurally generated seas, dealing with persistent damage across runs, and krakens—in other words, landlubbers be warned.

Rogue Waters is a promising take on the turn-based roguelite. Gameplay revolves around steadily developing your ship and crew while sailing the procedurally generated high seas to contend with all sorts of foes. The game has a rather meaty story too: a three-act campaign about a captain seeking a showdown with the immortal Captain Blackbone.

by Gio Castillo

Throne and Liberty – October 1st (PS5, XSX, Windows)

So Throne and Liberty isn’t new new. It’s been out in South Korea for a bit—to moderate success—and Western players are finally getting their hands on it this week. It’s the latest free-to-play MMORPG from NCSoft, the company that distributes the Guild Wars and Lineage games. Throne and Liberty is, of course, a unique IP, but its origins lie in NCSoft’s Lineage franchise; it started development as a new entry in that before branching off into its own thing.

We know from our hands-on with the game that PvP is a major focus, and I’ve now seen a decent variety of cool-looking skills available to blast humans and mobs alike. And my favorite aspect of Throne and Liberty is the cross-platform play—something that many other F2P offerings have yet to manage.

by Gio Castillo

Starfield: Shattered Space – September 30th (XSX, Windows)

Starfield launched last year to success, and while the critical reception to the game has varied over that time, our own Noah Leiter sure enjoyed it. For a game about exploring a wide universe, it’s interesting to this outsider that this week’s Shattered Space DLC aims to deliver a more focused experience, set on a single planet, the hidden homeworld of House Va’Ruun. Exploring this new planet will teach you the history of the Va’Ruun, and uncover secrets like those that worship a being known as “The Great Serpent” (probably not this one, though). From a gameplay perspective, this new locale also means new weapons, gear, and spacesuits to discover alongside the new narrative.

by Mike Salbato

Meiji Tokyo Renka: Full Moon – October 3rd (Switch, Windows)

Meiji Tokyo Renka: Full Moon is an otome visual novel with a historic fantasy isekai twist. Main character Mei Ayutsuki is a run-of-the-mill high school student who somehow gets transported back in time to Japan’s Meiji era, albeit within a society that has some accepted magical elements in it. It turns out Mei may not be as ordinary as she first thought herself to be with the onset of a strange new supernatural ability. Will she be able to put her newfound power to good use and possibly find a way back home, all while forming attachments to the handsome eligible bachelors she meets along the way?

Admittedly, this otome slipped under my radar, but the premise does sound potentially entertaining! We’ll have to wait and see just how Mei’s adventure plays out when Meiji Tokyo Renka: Full Moon releases in English later this week.

by Audra Bowling

Until Dawn (Remaster) – October 4th (PS5, Windows)

Man, it’s always a trip to remember that Rami Malek is in this game.

Until Dawn is probably not among the first five PlayStation 4 games I’d line up for a remaster, but it might the sixth. I mean, it’s not an action game, and it already runs at a steady 60 fps on the PlayStation 5, but it’s also one of the unfortunate few to run on PS5 with moderate glitches.

So I’m definitely in favor of developer Ballistic Moon going the extra mile to remaster Supermassive Games’ classic 2015 horror adventure. Aside from the technical improvements, the prologue has been expanded, some gameplay mechanics have been retooled, and the cinematography’s been tweaked. Overall, I’m expecting the Until Dawn remaster to be nice to have, even if you’ve played it before.

by Gio Castillo

Within the Cosmos – October 4th (Windows)

Within the Cosmos is easily one of the most ambitious indie RPG efforts of the year. It’s a first-person sci-fi RPG with quite the narrative hook. You play as one of 500 individuals selected to continue humanity amid an apocalyptic war. The problem is you don’t wake up from cryogenic sleep on time, and your destination hasn’t quite developed into a utopia. It’s a genuinely interesting premise that I’m curious to see unfold.

There are similarities to Fallout, from the need to interact with different factions inhabiting the world to a range of perks that will influence your playthrough. Within the Cosmos also aims to provide ample gameplay variety, such as through stealth and hacking mechanics.

by Gio Castillo

Master Detective Archives: Rain Code Plus – October 1st (PS5, XSX, Windows)

Last year’s Master Detective Archives: Rain Code is getting an enhanced port for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC! This Plus version has all the DLC substories included, in addition to the performance improvements that the higher-end hardware allow for.

by Gio Castillo