October 7 - 13

  Felix “Night divides the day” Threepaper

Welcome folks, and happy “453rd Anniversary of the Battle of Lepanto” week! The battle of Lepanto in 1571 was the last major naval battle with rowboats. You may all celebrate by playing a game until you get blisters on your palms.

Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred is the first expansion for Diablo IV and picks up right after that game’s cliffhanger ending. The new area, Nahnatu, is a jungle realm featuring a lot of greens in the palette. The new class is the Spiritborn, a tribal shaman type who channels different animal spirit guardians for different attacks. Instead of maxing out one spirit guardian, it’s apparently more effective to switch between them so that one attack sets up vulnerabilities that another can exploit. It’s the kind of class that relies on the free respec system so you can tweak for the synergies you want. On top of that, mercenaries are back for solo players to hire as meat shields. There’s also Dark Citadel, an endgame co-op raid with puzzle mechanics. If you liked Diablo IV, you’ll be happy with this.

Kingdom Two Crowns: Call of Olympus, as you may guess from the title, slaps an “ancient Greek mythology” theme onto this strategy survival game. The basic premise is the same: ride your mount through your 2D kingdom, building up your defences before night falls, the portals open and demonic greedlings spew forth to attack. This expansion turns the scale of the game up a notch, making everything more epic to suit the grandeur of the mythology. Your mounts can have more fearsome powers—you can even ride Cerberus. You can build bigger armies and navies to support you: phalanxes will shield you, allowing you to take the attack to the greedlings, and your boats can carry powerful ballistas, all to help with the bigger enemies you will encounter. It’s the biggest shake-up of the formula yet, and Two Crowns needed it.

PowerWash Simulator: Shrek Special Pack continues this game’s astutely demographically-targeted DLC strategy. Of course one of the 5 new levels to clean is Shrek’s swamp, and there will be plenty of cameos to keep you amused along the way.

Metaphor: ReFantazio is the first game by Studio Zero, a new dev team that includes the director, character artist and music composer from Persona 5. It’s an RPG with a medieval, European fantasy setting, so everyone is calling it “fantasy Persona”. It follows the basic Persona formula, where a day-night cycle has you alternating between social activities and turn-based combat and making tricky choices of where to spend your time. But it also has a bunch of embellishments to its systems that make it more than just a Persona retread. You can also feel the influence of Game of Thrones in the storyline, which leans heavily into political philosophy and metaphysics. And “Metaphor” is right there in the title. I’m just saying—you can’t foreshadow much earlier than that.

Silent Hill 2 has had a remake and is being pushed out for Spooky month. This is the one with the terrifying pyramid heads, which I avoided the first time around because it was so bleak.

No doubt the biggest release this week is Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred. I also have been keen for Kingdom Two Crowns: Call of Olympus, because my kids and I play Kingdom Two Crowns (which I enjoy far more than anything on Roblox). However, I have to give the GOTW to Metaphor:ReFantazio because it has finally made me curious to try the Persona formula out at last.

GWJ Word of the Week

Procedurally-generated: (see also: proc-gen) a term used to describe when in-game content is created algorithmically, rather than by hand. This can be for something small, like the contents of a rewards chest in Diablo, or big, like the dungeons in Diablo, even entire universes in No Man’s Sky. Many games with grindy mechanics use proc-gen levels, so you can at least feel you’re visiting somewhere new when you visit a stage for the umpteenth time.

Here's the list, in release-date AND alphabetical order!

PC

• 10-08

• Alice's Lullaby
• Ancestral
• Block Dude Deluxe
• Cemetery Warrior 6
• Dead Season
• Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred
• Dirge For The Zone
• Extra Coin
• Kingdom Two Crowns: Call of Olympus
• LEGO Harry Potter Collection
• Loop
• Meowmewbug
• Nothing to Declare
• Pizzapocalypse
• Poly Fire
• Pro Philosopher 2: Governments & Grievances
• Quiet House Massacre
• Reverse: 1999
• RZR
• Space Memory: Dogs
• Spin Hero
• Spray Cola
• Takoyaki Surprise
• THE DAMN PSYCHIATRIC
• The drawing of the Gospels
• The Laziest Person In The World Competition
• Townframe

• 10-09

• AnderKant
• Arcade Fishing 3D
• Bread
• Cave Crawler 2
• Cursed Hours
• Duck Paradox
• Dungeon Antiqua
• Garage Flipper
• Gengu Survival
• GhostlyRyokan
• GOST of Time
• Heavy Cargo - The Truck Simulator
• Hidden in my Paradise
• Kill Meow
• Lawnmower Game: 2024
• My Happy Village in the Kingdom
• Natsume Ryouran: High-Spec Noukin Youko no Renai Kitan
• PalSync
• Re:Flex
• Shady Knight

• 10-10

• Amber Isle
• Backyard Baseball '97
• Calypso's Calamity
• Cheetahs Are Meant To Be Fast
• Clarity: The Seven Demons of Vanguardia
• Colony - Arena Online
• Construction Simulator - Dynapac Pack
• Dagon: Complete Edition
• Dead Detention (Rescribbled)
• DICEOMANCER
• Dreamstate
• Dustgrave: Prologue
• Endless Forest Dream
• GOOOOOL!
• I Ching
• Pigeon Hater
• PixelQuest - Herb's Adventure
• PowerWash Simulator: Shrek Special Pack
• Reconquista
• Rome Goes Rogue
• Silent Slayer: Vault of the Vampire
• Simulakros
• Sky Oceans: Wings for Hire
• Storage Hunter Simulator
• Sweet Coffee Shop
• Terroro
• Tiny Pixel Planets
• Tipston Salvage
• Unforgotten: Ordinance
• While Mom's Away
• Zugnaex

• 10-11

• A fascinating story : Ice Cream
• BARA Labs
• CHROMA+ELEKTRON
• Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero
• Europa
• Fantasy War Heroes: Chilling Fog
• HeartWood
• Last Time I Saw You
• Metaphor: ReFantazio
• Nick Jr. Party Adventure
• Platform: Prologue
• RetroFight
• Rogue Station Defense
• Sigh of the Abyss
• Silent Surveillance
• Starship Troopers: Extermination
• Succubus Heaven
• The Path of Veins
• Thronefall
• Transformers: Galactic Trials
• Undisputed
• WEBFISHING
• You Must Mop
• Zodiac Revenger

• 10-12

• Broad Daylight
• Fields of Gold

• 10-13

• Bratty Bottoms!
• Little Hooky
• Little Warriors Team
• Primal Rift
• Save Scream and Run
• The Story of One Summer Day: GRAPHIC REMASTERED
• Through The Veil
• World Rally Arcade

Xbox Series X

• 10-08

• Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred
• To the Moon

• 10-09

• Camp Sunshine
• Rogue Sentry

• 10-10

• Amanda the Adventurer
• Construction Simulator - Dynapac Pack
• Dagon: Complete Edition
• Last Time I Saw You
• PowerWash Simulator: Shrek Special Pack
• Sky Oceans: Wings for Hire

• 10-11

• Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero
• Metaphor: ReFantazio
• Nick Jr. Party Adventure
• Starship Troopers: Extermination
• Transformers: Galactic Trials
• Undisputed

Xbox One

• 10-08

• Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred
• Kingdom Two Crowns: Call of Olympus

• 10-09

• Camp Sunshine
• Rogue Sentry
• Tents & Trees

• 10-10

• Amanda the Adventurer
• Construction Simulator - Dynapac Pack
• Dagon: Complete Edition

• 10-11

• Nick Jr. Party Adventure
• Paper Plane Arena - A Medieval Fantasy
• Transformers: Galactic Trials

PlayStation 5

• 10-08

• Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred
• Silent Hill 2
• To the Moon

• 10-09

• Camp Sunshine
• Rogue Sentry

• 10-10

• Amanda the Adventurer
• Construction Simulator - Dynapac Pack
• Dagon: Complete Edition
• Last Time I Saw You
• PowerWash Simulator: Shrek Special Pack
• Sky Oceans: Wings for Hire

• 10-11

• Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero
• Learn to Play Vol. 7 - Safe Journey
• Metaphor: ReFantazio
• Nick Jr. Party Adventure
• Starship Troopers: Extermination
• Transformers: Galactic Trials
• Undisputed
• Wingspan

PlayStation 4

• 10-08

• Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred
• Kingdom Two Crowns: Call of Olympus

• 10-09

• Camp Sunshine
• Rogue Sentry

• 10-10

• Amanda the Adventurer
• Construction Simulator - Dynapac Pack
• Dagon: Complete Edition
• Tsugunohi: Supernatural Supermarket

• 10-11

• Learn to Play Vol. 7 - Safe Journey
• Metaphor: ReFantazio
• Nick Jr. Party Adventure
• Transformers: Galactic Trials
• Wingspan

Nintendo Switch

• 10-08

• Deads On The Road: Shoot Zombie Hunting 2024
• Extra Coin
• Kingdom Two Crowns: Call of Olympus
• Mark of the Deep
• Massi

• 10-09

• Andromeda Survivors
• Camp Sunshine
• Hidden in my Paradise
• Mimi the Cat - New Friends
• Mimi the Cat: New Friends
• PopSlinger Vol. 2: Loveless
• Rogue Sentry

• 10-10

• Bandit Buster: Western
• Big City Driver: Truck Parking Simulator
• Bloodless
• Cats and Seek : Osaka
• Cats and Seek: Osaka
• Crasho Cars
• Crazy Traffic: City Parking Simulator
• Dagon: Complete Edition
• El Panadero -The Baker-
• FAITH: The Unholy Trinity
• Ghost in the Pool
• GhostlyRyokan
• Last Time I Saw You
• Miss Rosen's Wowtastic Marching Band
• Natsume Ryouran: High-Spec Noukin Youko no Renai Kitan
• Nichijou Mystery Shouko ga Michibiku Shinjitsu
• PowerWash Simulator: Shrek Special Pack
• Sky Oceans: Wings for Hire
• Stable Stories - Forest and Meadow Ride
• The Sekimeiya: Spun Glass
• Tombs & Treasure
• Truck Driver: Parking Simulator
• Tsugunohi: Supernatural Supermarket
• UFO Robot Grendizer: The Feast of the Wolves

• 10-11

• Casual Sport Series: Hockey
• Cats in Boxes
• Europa
• My Big Sister: Remastered
• My Universe: 2 in 1 My Baby Bundle
• Nick Jr. Party Adventure
• RPG Maker WITH
• Son of a Gun
• Thronefall
• Transformers: Galactic Trials
• Wingspan: Special Edition
• Wizards Owl: Magic Delivery

• 10-12

• Gym Business : Fitness Empire Simulator