Bits and Bytes: Some of the neat games we went gaga for around SGF month

Bits and Bytes: Some of the neat games we went gaga for around SGF month

Games that went under the radar but deserve to be above the fold

It’s been an incredible last few weeks of announcements (and more are still on the way) and it left our heads spinning with some truly great upcoming games. While much of our attention was on the big hitters like Starfield and Spider-man 2, there were plenty that dipped below the news waves — but deserve to have plenty of eyeballs nonetheless. We’ve collected some of the ones that looked super intriguing to us here, so have a gander!

John Carpenter, the Master of Horror, is producing a new video game, Toxic Commando. That name alone is bad ass enough, but the co-op FPS zombie killing looks especially fun. There’s a monster known as the Sludge God that’s turning people into muck zombies? Hell yes. It’s all very Eighties and very OUR LEVEL. The game is due for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC in 2024 from Focus Entertainment and Saber Interactive.

Bye Sweet Carole is another horror game, but this time inspired by classic Disney animation. Developed by Just for Games and Mean Grip Studios, it follows a girl, Lana Benton, as she is transported to the world of Corolla to find the missing Carole. It has some definite feels of Alice in Wonderland and Snow White, but it’s, like, gonna be scary. There’s no release date yet. It’ll arrive on all the platforms.

We’re huge fans of the legendary Skies of Arcadia, and without a modern port we’ve been living with a hole in our hearts. There are people listening, including developers, and are planning on giving us something to at least tide us over. PQube and Octeto Studios have revealed Sky Oceans: Wings for Hire, a new game in the same vein as SoA. It’ll have turn-based battles and dogfights, with the ability to avoid battles, too. There’s no release date yet, but it looks sooooo nice.

The latest Plucky Squire trailer is here, and the game continues to look so great. It’s from a new studio by James Turner, formerly of Pokémon’s development side, and it features a ton of different kinds of gameplay. It’s coming to everything later this year.

33 Immortals was announced at the Xbox Showcase last weekend, but after several folks have gone hands-on it’s bubbling up on all sorts of radars, including ours. It’s essentially a 33-person dungeon raid, in a hand drawn top down viewpoint. It’s due on Xbox and PC in 2024.

The Chinese Room announced their next game, Still Wakes the Deep, also at the Xbox Showcase, and it looks just as tense and suspenseful as their other projects. The game is set on an oil rig that has some wildly creepy things happening, and the first person viewpoint makes it all that much more spooky. The game arrives on Xbox, PlayStation 5, and PC early next year.

When Devolver Digital debuted the trailer for Baby Steps, I couldn’t help but giggle out loud. What the eff is this? What the hell? Who would want to play this? OH, OH WAIT. I would. I would very much want to play this very weird, QWOP-like thing. It’s waddling over in 2024 onto PS5 and PC.

The Talos Principle is one of the better mind-bending platform puzzle games of the last decade, so a sequel coming to light isn’t a surprise. Croteam has revealed that sequel, which features all new biomes and environments in this character-driven android story. The Talos Principle 2 looks just as thought provoking as the original, and hopes to get our brains warped again on Xbox Series, PS5, and PC later in 2023.