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 2021 games that are launching this year.
Rain on Your Parade
Steam page
Release: April 16
Developer: Unbound Creations
Launch price: $13.49 | £10.79 | AU$19.35
A lot of games want you to feel like a hero, so it's nice when a game comes along that lets you indulge your fantasies of being unnecessarily mean. Rain On Your Parade is like the ultimate being-an-asshole simulator, because in it you play as a rain cloud, and it's your job to ruin people's days (even dinosaurs' days) by raining on them. Across 40 levels you'll skilfully destroy the best laid plans of humans, across "weddings, cities, farms, military bases, parking lots and much more." If you've ever wanted to be a nasty cloud, this is for you.
The Space Between
Steam page
Release: April 16
Developer: Christoph Frey
Launch price: $5.39 | £4.31 | AU$7.65
Before you accuse The Space Between of cynically jumping on the retro PSX bandwagon, do note it first released on Itch.io back in 2019. This new Steam release is worth mentioning because it really is an engrossing and eerie narrative adventure game that you can complete in less than a hour. "The architect Martin Melanson, commissioned to build a theater, meets a woman named Clara, outside of his apartment complex at night," reads the description. "Attracted to each other, they visit the theater's building site. While they explore the unfinished stage, surrounded by scaffolds and lost in thoughts, reality slowly fades, where the curtain opens and a dark play about closeness and separation begins."
Voxel Tycoon
Steam page
Release: April 15
Developer: Voxel Tycoon
Launch price: $25 | £19.49 | AU$35.95
Launched into Early Access last week, Voxel Tycoon is an ambitious take on the transport and logistics management sim, set on an endless, procedurally generated map. In development for "a few years," the current build is a completely playable transport tycoon game and modding support is already available, though it'll get a load of other features in the future like multiplayer, weather, sea and air vehicles and—most importantly—railway shunting. If you're into OpenTTD or anything else in this style, Voxel Tycoon looks like a sure bet.
Emily is Away <3
Steam page
Release: April 17
Developer: Kyle Seeley
Launch price: $9.99 | £7.20 | AU$14.50
The third instalment in this series follows the format of previous ones, namely, that it's a visual novel that takes place in social media user interfaces. This one returns to the halcyon days of Facebook, back when people still updated status updates in third person and racist uncles still didn't have smartphones. As a result, Emily is Away <3 looks a tad more complex than the first two games. It's already amassed an "overwhelmingly positive" rating on Steam, so if you liked the other two games or are curious to see what the fuss is about, it looks like Kyle Seeley nailed it with this one.
TaleSpire
Steam page
Release: April 15
Developer: Bouncyrock Entertainment
$25 | £19.49 | AU$35.95
With the pandemic putting a dampener on in-person table top sessions, TaleSpire arrives at an opportune time. It's basically a digital table top game creator that leans heavily into the handcrafted stylings of real, flesh world adventuring. Better still, as GM you can create sprawling games in advance, or just improvise on the fly. While in Early Access, the game (or tool) is already fully functional, with more features planned to be added over the next 12 months.
These games were released between April 12 to 19 2021. Some online stores give us a small cut if you buy something through one of our links. Read our affiliate policy for more info.
Steam has changed its policy on DLC content and season passes, so now players are entitled to proper compensation if future plans fall through: 'Customers will be offered a refund for the value of unreleased DLC'
Indie distribution platform Itch.io now requires asset creators to disclose the use of generative AI in their work
