Welcome back to This Week In Games Australia, your weekly look ahead at all the games you’ll be playing in the next seven days.
This week, there might as well be just one game on this list. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, one of the most anticipated games of 2023, will launch this coming Friday. It’s not uncommon for the AAA release calendar to clear out when a game of this magnitude arrives on the market. Even the biggest publishers in the world know you don’t go up against Zelda. PlayStation learned this lesson the hard way when it launched Horizon: Zero Dawn just three days before Breath of the Wild. It avoided making that mistake again, getting Horizon: Forbidden West‘s DLC out a few weeks ago. Even Xbox got its major title for the quarter, Redfall, out the door last week to avoid a clash.
Far rarer to witness: the indie calendar parting like the Red Sea to make way for AAA. And yet, they have. There are far fewer indies coming out this week across platforms than there usually is. Such is the power of a new Zelda title, even the indies aren’t brave enough to launch in the same week. There’s a tacit understanding that once it launches, no one is playing anything else. This week’s list will cover the handful of brave indies that were still willing to take the plunge, and then we’ll talk about Tears of the Kingdom at the end.
Don’t forget: if you’d like a preview of this piece each and every week, you can check out The Kotaku Australia Podcast each and every Friday! Ruby and I chat through what we’ve been playing, and what’s coming out in the next week that we think you should keep an eye out for. You can find the show on your favourite podcast platforms, including Spotify and Apple Podcasts. If you’d prefer the video version, you can find that on our YouTube channel.
Alright, enough jibber jabber. Here’s what you’ll be playing this week (Zelda).
May 9
Darkest Dungeon 2 (PC)
It’s been in early access for a while, but Darkest Dungeon 2, the sequel to the cult hit roguelike dungeon crawler finally goes into 1.0 release this week. The original Darkest Dungeon was not a game for the faint of heart — it is a brutal game, one that sucker punches the player at unexpected moments, throwing horror and unexpected psychological drama into an already complex tactical RPG.
Dokapon Kingdom Connect (NS)
Ruby make a loud squealing sound when she watched the trailer for this game and insisted we put it on the TWIG list. Dokapon Kingdom Connect is a remake of a classic party game that is similar in style and execution to Mario Party. Lots of chibi anime characters compete for glory in a competition organised by an addled king. If you’re determined to add a bit of extra spice to your next games night, this could be a good option.
That Potato Game (PC)
If there’s one thing Kotaku Australia loves, it’s carbs. That Potato Game is a platformer where you play as a little potato guy and you have to roll him around to puzzles. Rock solid pitch, it’s going on the wishlist.
Model Eight (PC)
I looked high and low for a trailer I could embed on this one, but came up empty. It does exist on the Steam page, however, so head over and check it out. Model Eight is a low-fi shmup that recalls classics of the genre like Raiden and Ikaruga. I’m a big shmup fan, I love the hard retro aesthetic. This is an automatic buy for me.
May 10
Midautumn (PC)
Midautumn is an “RPG and roguelite supernatural game about blasting evil spirits, saving your hometown from gentrification, and Asian diaspora culture.” Sounds like a bloody good time to me. It’s cool to see more and more games among the indie contingent that are in conversation with various cultural diaspora. There are feelings and worldviews tied up in lives and families connected to being part of a family that comes from somewhere else that can be hard to communicate for those that live with them. Games give us a window into all of it, and Midautumn is just one example.
For complete transparency, Sisi Jiang, who writes for Kotaku US, worked on the Midautumn development team, something I didn’t realise until she mentioned it on Twitter!
Project Screwed (PC)
Project Screwed is a little bit horde survival and a little bit Overcooked. You’ll need to build a base with up to four mates and survive wave after wave of enemies trying to wreck your shit. The ideal game for a bit of party night chaos. Apologies, this was another game I tried really hard to find a trailer embed for. You can find one on its Steam page.
May 11
Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2 (PS5, XSX, PC, NS, PS4, XBO)
Fuga: Memories of Steel 2 is a little like someone took the broader RPG elements of Fire Emblem and married them to the tactics of Advance Wars with the characters of Armello. If that’s not enough of a hard sell for you, I don’t know what is.
Local News with Cliff Rockslide (NS)
“Cliff Rockslide is the owner of Butterfly Valley’s largest news streaming service with a massive number of seven subscribers. Your job is to help him grow his channel by recording everything even remotely exciting with your camera.” Come on, that’s a great pitch. I’m in, and I know Ruby is too.
May 12
Another Fisherman’s Tale (PSVR2)
Based on the title, you could be forgiven for thinking this was a fishing game. There is fishing involved it from time to time, but what’s actually happening here is a pirate adventure game in VR. Undersea exploration, creeping through sunken wrecks and loot-filled bootlegger caverns — it’s enough to bring a tear to this Sea of Thieves fan’s eye.
Mechabellum (PC)
Mechs? Tactics? Mechs and tactics? Literally sign me up. If that pitch didn’t make you sit bolt-upright in your chair, it’s likely we can’t be friends. Apologies.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (NS)
A game so big I removed it from TWIG’s usual alphabetical format so it could be last. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a game fans have waited for since Breath of the Wild redefined Nintendo’s legendary series in 2017. It is a direct sequel in a franchise where such a thing is pretty rare. It also feels like it might be the Switch’s swan song, at least for the hardware as we currently know it. With previews indicating Tears of the Kingdom suffers from some performance issues and a curiously empty release calendar for the remainder of the year after Pikmin 4, it seems like the Switch might have finally come to the end of the road. To be book-ended by era-defining Zelda games would be as fitting a send-off as I can imagine.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is out this coming Friday, a sentence I can’t quite believe I’m writing. All those Directs with no new information. All those quarterly financial reports that gave us crumbs. And now it’s nearly here. Its release will be one of those beautiful ‘cultural touchstone’ moments reserved for truly important games. Like Elden Ring last year, there’s going to be a few weeks where everyone you know is playing Zelda.
Can’t wait.
See you in Hyrule on Friday, friends.
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