It’s the final weekend of October as time marches on, and you might be spending your weekend at Halloween parties or mentally preparing for Dragon Age: The Veilguard next week. But if you’re not doing any of the above, you might have an open couple of days to get some game time in. There are some pretty big games out this week, and we have some suggestions for which ones are worth your precious off-time. Here are some great games to jump into this weekend.
2 / 7
Play it on: PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch
Current goal: Find the last of those damn screws
I already spent 20 hours with Shadow Generations between some high score chasing and collectible hunting, but there are still a few pesky mechanical part collectibles I haven’t found yet. I fear if I boot it up again, I’m gonna get sucked into replaying the excellent levels Sega has redone and reliving Shadow’s history one more time, but given how much I loved my time with the platformer, that’s probably not a bad thing. Maybe those final screws can wait, because then I’m done with the game. The Year of Shadow still has two months to go. I’m not ready for it to be over. But it will eat away at me if I don’t find every last collectible when I’m this close. Y’all should play Shadow Generations. It’s out today and is the best Sonic game in probably 20 years. — Kenneth Shepard
3 / 7
Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X and S, PS4, Xbox One, PC
Current goal: Get as high as I can in Zombies
Surprise, surprise, I’m excited about a Call of Duty game. After playing a bunch of them throughout middle school and early high school, I sharply fell off the series until some friends brought me into their regular Warzone nights a few years back. Every now and then, we’ll bemoan to one another how CoD has moved away from the classic experience it delivered in our youth, which mostly consisted of back-to-back summer days of playing the Treyarch games’ cooperative horde mode, Zombies, from sunrise to well beyond sunset. Well, Zombies is back in Black Ops 6, and while it’s still more convoluted than I care for, its inclusion here has been pitched as a back-to-basics moment and I am here for it.
Last night when Black Ops 6 launched, I came home from a concert, loaded into a party with my best friends, and was immediately glued to the screen for longer than I care to admit. In my first shot at it, we made it to round 34, and it was astonishing how much my decade-old muscle memory kicked in to save my ass on countless occasions. There’s a lot I was just wrapping my head around about the newest iteration of Zombies, but there was even more that felt deeply familiar to me. It felt a bit like coming back to your childhood home. I think I’m going to be here a long time, because god, does it feel good to be back. — Moises Taveras
4 / 7
Play it on: PC
Current goal: Clear the first run of levels!
When I’m not toiling away in the Kotaku mines, I desperately try to have time to add reviews to my project, Buried Treasure, where I write about indie games that haven’t received the coverage they deserve. One game I’m currently plugging away at, while hoping in the meantime it gets some widespread attention, is Ash & Adam’s GOBSMACKED. It’s a very silly name for an extremely good and silly game, a roguelite series of teeny first-person arenas in which you need to kill all the robotic enemies, gathering upgrades and buying improvements between each level, and trying to reach as far as possible.
It’s fast and daft and very fun, and the art is fantastic. I’m rubbish at it, but hope to improve with practice—and indeed with the permanent upgrades bought between attempts. Oh my, the grappling hook is the best. — John Walker
5 / 7
Play it on: Switch, PC
Current goal: Just vibe
Europa is the real deal. A 3D platformer in a Zelda: Breath of the Wild-style world that looks like a Studio Ghibli movie is one of those great elevator pitches that rarely lives up to the promise. Europa delivers exactly what I want from it, though. I’m only half-way through the bite-sized experience (the game’s $15 and roughly three hours long) but enjoying every second of hopping, floating, and soaring through its beautiful, multi-biome environment. It’s a little bit like playing Ni No Kuni if instead of a long RPG, it was a short walking sim.
Maybe that also conjures comparison to 2019’s chillout session-fest, A Short Hike, which would also be appropriate, minus the parts in Europa where you’re dodging bombs. The key thing to know gameplay-wise is that Europa revolves around charging up a rocket pack that lets you reach increasingly great heights from which to satisfying glide to new places as you explore. It’s not a very deep game, but taken on its own terms it’s excellent at what it’s doing, complete with a simple but poignant parable about humanity. — Ethan Gach
6 / 7
Play it on: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S
Current goal: Bring this journey to an end
It’s almost hard for me to believe that the end of Alan Wake II is here. The arrival of its second and final DLC, The Lake House, marks the end of it, which of course no doubt means more energy being put into other things at Remedy. As a wise man once said, “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” This is the way it goes. But what a ride Alan Wake II has been. Last year’s most electrifying game, it was one of two releases last year—the other being Tears of the Kingdom—that reminded me of what games can do, and why I love them so much.
From what I understand, The Lake House takes just a few hours to complete, but they seem poised to deliver just what I want from a conclusion to my time with Alan Wake II: mystery, intrigue, and hints of cosmic possibility. The architecture of the titular space, a Federal Bureau of Control facility in AWII’s Pacific Northwest environs, looks both reminiscent of the spaces in Control but also distinctly different, and I’m eager to explore its eerie hallways and see what sorts of things the Bureau has been up to here.
Yesterday, Remedy creative director Sam Lake posted this message on Twitter:
Of course, I can’t imagine how it feels to reach this point for the people who actually work on this saga, who endured the 13-year wait from the first game’s release to that of its sequel not as players but as writers and artists, waiting for the right moment, waiting for the pieces to fall into place, having to so often put plans aside or go back to the drawing board. But now, we’re here. It exists. It’s amazing. And this weekend, I will see how it all ends. With some coffee by my side, of course. — Carolyn Petit
7 / 7