Happy new year! This week the Kotaku weekend guide returns with a brisk list of games for your consideration. Maybe some of these you hadn’t considered playing before, or perhaps others have been sitting on your backlog. In that case, consider this your reminder to get working on that stubborn list of yours.
Moving into 2024, we’re taking a look at an indie darling from 2021, last year’s winner for “Outstanding Visual Style” at the Steam Awards (hey, some of those picks did kinda make sense), and a couple of others.
With that, let’s start pushing through the winter blues and get to some weekend recs for game time well spent.
Sable
Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Windows (Steam Deck OK)
Current goal: Collect more Chum eggs
Sable was one of the many games on my four-digit-sized wishlist on Steam. Then a dear friend of mine grabbed a copy and we talked a bit about its premise and art style…and I was instantly very sorry it had sat on my wishlist for so long. A quick purchase (and then several hours of play) later and I am very, very hooked.
If you’re not familiar with it, Sable is set in a sprawling desert of an open world, dotted with pockets of civilization and crashed spaceships (it was inspired by the desert environments Rey starts her journey in during The Force Awakens). It features that old, abandoned sci-fi tech vibe that’s drawn me to various post-civilization works like Horizon. The world is explained (thus far at least) just enough for you to get a sense of what might’ve happened, but you’re largely just wandering through echoes of the past and serene landscapes very reminiscent of Moebius.
It’s got a nice Breath of the Wild quality to it, just a bit more downtempo and chill, with a refreshing absence of violence and conflict. The result is that I spend more time in a bit of a vibey flow state, letting the sci-fi vistas wash over me without the disruptive mandate to swing a sword or shoot a gun. As Sable, a character going through a rite of passage that amounts to “go out and see the world,” folks have dozens of little tasks for you to do. But unlike other open worlds where such a structure feels pretty contrived and overly convenient, it’s contextualized in this world pretty well. Characters like Sable are understood to have a lot of time on their hands—and her neat ability to hover through the air (think Link’s paraglider) allows her to explore areas that many normal folks simply can’t.
It pops to life on the Steam Deck OLED, which is nice as it doesn’t exist on the Switch, making the Steam Deck (and alternatives to it) Sable’s go-to place for portable play.
If I’m being critical, the soundtrack, though very, very beautiful, does feature pianos and guitars…which take my mind to our contemporary reality, not an alien, desert landscape where I’d prefer to hear things that I can’t connect to understandable instruments. But the visuals and the vibes mean that I’m usually not bothered by it—and really, this isn’t an issue any normal person should have.
— Claire Jackson
ZIIAOL (Fan remake of Zelda II)
Play it on: Windows (Steam Deck YMMV)
Current goal: Get through Death Mountain
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link has been much maligned over the years, but I’ve always admired it a great deal. A game from an era when sequels could be wildly different from their predecessors, it offered an invigorating new perspective on Hyrule, both literally with its 2D, side-view combat and dungeon exploration, and figuratively, showing us bustling towns and elegant palaces where the first game’s Hyrule had felt barren and ruinous. Now, a new fan-made remake which goes by the shorthand of ZIIAOL is getting attention. I’ve only scratched the surface so far, but I’m already loving it. It seems to preserve the terrific challenge of the original while reinvigorating its world with new wonders to discover.
Yes, there are “quality of life” improvements galore here. A nifty tunnel system, for instance, lets you move between the towns you’ve visited almost instantly, functioning as a kind of fast-travel across the game’s vast map. And, in what I consider a lovely touch, the “extra life” dolls that can be found here and there function as permanent upgrades to your life count, rather than just single 1-ups. I’m now facing the game’s grueling Death Mountain section, and having four lives each time I give it a go is a welcome boon.
What all these QoL improvements don’t do, thankfully, is make the game easy. It’s still tough as nails, a quintessential example of “NES difficulty,” and that, in my opinion, is as it should be. I may be banging my head against the wall at times but it’ll all be worth it for the ultimate satisfaction of victory. I’ve already been delighted by numerous additions to the game’s world that disrupt my familiarity and help it feel like a new game, and I’m eager to see what other surprises await. At least, if I can ever get through Death Mountain. — Carolyn Petit
Atomic Heart
Play it on: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Windows (Steam Deck OK)
Current goal: Start the game
2024 is here, which means the avalanche of video games starts soon. Although January will see some solid launches, including the side-scrolling adventure game Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown and the 3D fighter Tekken 8, my eyes are set on two games that drop on March 22: Capcom’s high-fantasy RPG Dragon’s Dogma 2 and Team Ninja’s samurai-‘em-up Rise of the Ronin. While I wait for these duo releases, something else’s been beckoning for my attention: Atomic Heart.
A first-person shooter that’s been dubbed the “Russian Bioshock,” developer Mundfish’s Atomic Heart kinda came and went when it dropped on February 21, 2023. It received generally favorable reviews across aggregators Metacritic and OpenCritic, but I missed its launch as I was far too preoccupied with Soleil’s hack-and-shoot action-adventure game Wanted: Dead. Now that I’ve got plenty of time before the games I’m really looking forward to come out, I figured I’d dig through some of my 2023 backlog, starting with Atomic Heart. I don’t have much of a goal in mind here. Really, since I haven’t played it and have heard some bad things about it—particularly around enemy design—I wanted to check it out. The setting, an alternative historical look at the 1950s Soviet Union, is intriguing. And the powers, which are quite reminiscent of Bioshock, piqued my interest. I just hope the game is as fascinating as it sounds. — Levi “Elle” Winslow
Blow up those robots with Game Pass (and try it out with PS Plus)
Got a Game Pass sub? Good news: Atomic Heart is available with your membership. If you’re a PlayStation Plus Premium subscriber, you can test drive Atomic Heart for two hours. There’s also a free demo on Steam (bet ya didn’t know that!).
Hearthstone
Play it on: Windows, Android, iOS
Current goal: Make my go-to deck golden
This is an update to a previous post where I declared in these very pages (web-pages?) that I’d reach Legend, the highest echelon of Hearthstone ranked play, by the end of December.
As a matter of integrity I must inform you, dear reader, that we did not quite make it to those lofty heights. However…I still did pretty damn good! I ultimately was able to climb to Diamond 3 rank; but a few notches below Legend, before month’s end. Please clap.
My opponents were fearsome to say the least. Back-to-back matches saw me go up against a Warlock named Toguro (whether it was the younger or elder brother I could not ascertain) followed up by a Druid who went by Lucifer. Ominous. Yet somehow, someway, we gutted through both of those with a W.
What carried me to Diamond was my go-to “Highlander” Hunter deck. It’s a hodge-podge of synergies: beasts, deathrattle, and the like. No two games play out the same, and you can win or lose to anyone! A thrill.
I’m proud of what this decklist has accomplished, which is why I’ve given myself a simpler task this weekend: honor the heart of these cards by making them golden. It’s all purely aesthetic, really I just want to pay respect to the hard work they’ve been putting in for me.
As for this month’s season, we’re off to a promising start; currently sitting at Platinum 2 at the time of this writing. I’ll see you on ladder, my pals. — Eric Schulkin
And those are our picks for the week! What games are you playing this weekend?
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