(Image credit: Larian Studios)
2024 games: Upcoming releases
Best PC games: All-time favorites
Free PC games: Freebie fest
Best FPS games: Finest gunplay
Best MMOs: Massive worlds
Best RPGs: Grand adventures
On an average day about a dozen new games are released on Steam. And while we think that’s a good thing, it can be understandably hard to keep up with. Potentially exciting gems are sure to be lost in the deluge of new things to play unless you sort through every single game that is released on Steam. So that’s exactly what we’ve done. If nothing catches your fancy this week, we’ve gathered the best PC games you can play right now and a running list of the 2024 games that are launching this year.
Slot Waste
Steam page
Release: August 1
Developer: Pickpanpuck productions
Slot Waste is about an inexplicable production line of unknown utility. It’s your job as “the spirit of the factory” to aide each component of the factory line; in other words, Slot Waste is made up of ten surreal mini-games. This isn’t a horror game per se, but it’s definitely unsettling, with creatures of mysterious provenance drawn into the task of powering these bizarre systems and contraptions. I’m reminded of the Tom Waits’ song ‘What’s He Building?‘. This is what he’s building, probably.
Motordoom
Steam page
Release: August 3
Developer: Hobo Cat Games
It’s impossible to get excited about a new Vampire Survivors clone, but the genre has a bunch of brilliant ideas to pillage. Motordoom is one of the most interesting evolutions of the survivor format to date: it’s a third-person “freestyle-sports” roguelite shooter. So imagine Rollerdrome, replace its vibrant comicbook art style with grimy PS2 textures, and add an ever-growing number of swarming enemies into tight trick-friendly arenas. Like Vampire Survivors each map is strewn with blue XP gems, but you’ll also accrue points for performing impressive trick and kill combos. Oh, and if all this sounds like too much, you can just toggle auto-shoot and focus on pulling off stunts.
Kitsune Tails
Steam page
Release: August 2
Developers: Kitsune Games
I was sold on Kitsune Tails right away by the gorgeous 16-bit style pixel art, which is a pretty unambiguous salute to Super Mario Bros. 3. This platformer also borrows a lot of ideas from that ’90s classic, including outfits that furnish special abilities. The chief distinguishing quality here is that instead of starring Italian plumbers, it stars—in the words of our sibling site Gamesradar—”lesbian fox girls” (kitsunes are mythical foxes from Japanese folklore). I’m especially excited by the prospect of post-game kaizo levels, for the masochists among us who take dextrous platforming way too seriously.
Smack Studio
Steam page
Release: August 1
Developer: ThirdPixel Interactive
After a stint in Early Access this platform fighter with a huge suite of user-generated content tools has hit 1.0. So it’s Smash Bros Maker, kinda, and the creation tools sound pretty impressive: it’ll automatically turn your 2D pixel art into 3D animations, with a process that “maps 2D images to bones in a 3D skeleton”. You can also edit animations on a frame-by-frame level, and of course, special effects can be created. As for the fights themselves, Smack Studio has full online support with rollback netcode, as well as local multiplayer. Hopefully this can build a huge community of brilliant creations and not just 100 variations on Tails.
Malware
Steam page
Release: August 1
Developer: Odd Games
This game makes me anxious. It simulates an installation wizard hellbent on tricking its user into installing malware on your computer. That means you’ll need to be super vigilant with every new prompt, double and triple checking the meaning behind seemingly ignorable auto-checked options like “use the information assistant” (my skin crawls imagining the janky UI of this impossible-to-delete program). As you become more and more adept at defying underhanded malware installations you’ll start to get requests for help from other hapless ’90s PC users. You’ll become an anti-malware hero, in other words. This looks like some amusing fun, and it even supports Steam Workshop. Make your own fake malware!
