Happy Monday, friends, and welcome back to This Week In Games Australia.
This week, the prelude to what would ordinarily be the E3 deluge actually has a few new release surprises in store. There’s a new expansion for Elder Scrolls Online that takes players to a location none of the previous games has ever visited. Nintendo is hitting the pitch in Mario Strikers: Battle League. And Supermassive has put its episodic Dark Pictures Anthology on hold to drop its first full-fledged horror game since Until Dawn.
Without further ado, here’s what you’ll be playing this week.
June 7
The Elder Scrolls Online: High Isle (PS5, XSX, PC, PS4, XBO)
There’s a new expansion for The Elder Scrolls Online out this week, and that’s kind of interesting to me because I’ve basically heard nothing about it. There’s usually a marketing blitz around a new TESO expac, but I haven’t seen so much as a preroll trailer on YouTube this time.
High Isle is set in the Systres Archipelago, a region of Tamriel not yet explored in any of the mainline games. To date, the area has only been mentioned in Redguard back in 1998, and again in the TESO Deadlands DLC last year. I suppose this had to happen for TESO eventually. When your expansion model is built on, well, map expansion, eventually you’re going to run out of canonically explored landmass to include. Will it feel like a proper Elder Scrolls location? Will it be enough to pull any of you away from Final Fantasy XIV? I guess we’ll find out together.
Spellforce 3: Reforced (PS4)
Spellforce 3 is an RPG/RTS hybrid that sits somewhere between Diablo and classic Warcraft. The elevator pitch: build an army of your own design and use them to go loot spelunking. That sound you just heard was the ears of Diablo 2 skelemancer players around the world pricking up at once because that’s all they’ve ever wanted.
June 8
20 Minutes Until Dawn (PC)
The Vampire Survivors clones have begun to arrive already. 20 Minutes Until Dawn doesn’t look like it does anything significantly different to VS, but it does have a cool aesthetic and it’s taking a more arcadey approach to character selection and background. If you’ve 100%ed VS and you’re itching for more while you wait for the next patch, here’s where you can get it.
June 9
Tour de France 2022 (PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO)
Some of you will be wondering why I included this in our weekly list. The fact is, I have a lot of love for games like this. They cater to an incredibly small, specific audience, and they try really hard to emulate in a video game something very few would actually want to do in real life. But, for the people who care about the Tour de France, and imagine themselves participating in it, I hope this gives them everything they want and more, quite frankly. There is no difference between me being excited for F1 22 and someone else being excited for this. Let us enjoy our oddly specific video game sports sims together.
June 10
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba – The Hinokami Chronicles (NS)
This one’s a retail release of the Demon Slayer game. I’m told by friends that have played it that it’s pretty good! I have not seen Demon Slayer, though I am assured by those same friends that it is also very good.
The Quarry (PS5, XSX, PC, PS4, XBO)
The latest choose-your-own-adventure horror game by Supermassive (Until Dawn, The Dark Pictures Anthology) is about an American summer where strange and murdery things are afoot. The game’s cast, like Until Dawn before it, contains some actual Hollywood names like David Arquette (Scream), Ted Raimi (Ash vs Evil Dead), Ariel Winter (Modern Family) and Brenda Song (Dollface). Like Until Dawn, the game’s major draw is that it simulates classic horror movie tropes while allowing the player to affect the outcome of the story.
This one’s going to be my Pick of the Week. I loved Until Dawn, and I fully expect to love this as well. I’m not usually the kind of person that likes games driven by quick-time events, I’m a well-known disliker of Quantic Dream and everything David Cage has produced. But what Supermassive’s games provide is a unique and deeply enjoyable couch co-op experience. Get a few friends over on Friday or Saturday night, fire up a Supermassive game, give everyone a character to look after and pass the controller when their segments come up. I promise you will have an absolute ball.
Mario Strikers: Battle League (NS)
Speaking of absolute balls, Mario Strikers: Battle League is out this week, finally giving me a sequel to my favourite Mario sports title ever. The beauty of Mario Strikers is not that it is a football game, it is that is the football equivalent of fucking Dark Souls. Mario Strikers Charged remains one of the most challenging sports games I’ve ever played, and if Battle League can get even close to that, I will be a very happy boy indeed.
That’s it for this week! See anything you like? Anything we missed? Let us know in the comments below.
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