Sound clever in meetings with this concise snapshot of the new games you need to know about.
Here every Friday you’ll find big games gone global, fresh soft launches, the latest release dates and everything in between.
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Monster Hunter Now (Capcom/Niantic)
This Niantic and Capcom collab is going live worldwide on September 14, and there’s a lot more detail if you want it in the 34 minute-long showcase above. The Capcom team says it has taken four years of work to get to this point, and mechanically Niantic’s location-based stylings feel like a good fit for the series. Let’s hope it performs better than some of Niantic’s other recent releases. Pre-registration is open now.
Return to Monkey Island (Terrible Toybox/Devolver)
This one’s out now on iOS and Android, a continuation of the classic point and click series with original Monkey Island makers Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman on board. New art director Rex Crowle (ex-Media Molecule) has given the visuals a makeover, and it’s published by Devolver.
Brixity (Devsisters)
Cookie Run maker Devsisters’ next title is a “relaxing sandbox city-building game” which is now open for pre-registration ahead of its release on August 24. It’s about rebuilding Earth “brix by brix”, says the press release, and players of Cookie Run: Kingdom and Cookie Run: OvenBreak can receive in-game items if they register.
Tower of God: New World (Netmarble)
This grabbed noticeably good feature spots on both Google Play and the App Store for this week’s launch. It’s a team battler from Netmarble based on a popular South Korean webtoon.
Dragon Nest 2: Evolution (Tencent/Level Infinite)
Tencent label Level Infinite has launched yet another large-scale fantasy adventure, this time an MMORPG. This is the second Dragon Nest game from South Korean developer Eyedentity Games, a series that Level Infinite says has been played by over 300m people to date.
Dragonheir: Silent Gods (Nuverse)
After publishing Second Dinner’s monster hit Marvel Snap, ByteDance-owned Nuverse announced it is helping get this fantasy RPG to market later this year. It is developed by Chinese outfit SGRA Studio. Pre-reg is open now.
Word Yatzy (FunCraft)
The Wordgrams maker’s new game is now in soft launch, a turn-based word puzzler that is “already outperforming Wordgrams on multiple KPIs,” according to FunCraft CEO and cofounder Michael Martinez on LinkedIn.
Spaceplan (Devolver)
Not so much a new game but a completely rebuilt one, this deep cut from Devolver has been rereleased with some quality of life improvements and backend updates that’ll keep it live on the stores for the long-term, according to its creator on Twitter. It’s an idle game with a bizarre story threaded through it, for those not familiar.
The Queen’s Gambit Chess (Ripstone)
UK studio Ripstone, maker of high-end chess and poker games, has made this new Netflix game, describing it as a “love letter” to the show. It follows recent releases Oxenfree II: Lost Signals, Sonic Prime Dash and Too Hot To Handle 2 onto the growing service.
Hello Kitty Island Adventure (Sunblink)
This week’s Apple Arcade release is effectively Animal Crossing meets Hello Kitty – it’s developed by Sunblink, a fairly low-key US studio based in Colorado founded by former Backflip boss Julian Farrior.
Stone Story RPG (Martian Rex)
This real indie deep cut is out now on iOS and Android after nine years of development and four in early access on Steam. It has picked up a few notable awards and is a kind of idle-RPG that’s animated entirely in ASCII-art.
Reverse: 1999 (BluePoch Games)
We’d honestly never heard of this developer or game until we received a press release about it this week, and later clocked that the above reveal trailer got 1.7m views in under a week.
So clearly Hong Kong-based developer BluePoch is onto something with this lavish time-travelling strategy-RPG; a closed beta begins on August 4 ahead of its global launch later this year.
A Monster’s Expedition (Draknek)
This acclaimed puzzler has arrived on the ‘real’ App Store at £9.99 / $9.99, having previously been housed within Apple Arcade. Notably, save files from the Arcade version are supported in this new edition. It doesn’t appear to be on Android yet.
