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 2022 games that are launching this year.
Crystal Project
Steam page
Release: April 1
Developer: Andrew Willman
Launch price: $14 | £11 | AU$19.95
Crystal Project is a gorgeous looking retro JRPG with a much more open ended approach to exploration compared to its contemporaries. Here, you and your party have a vague goal—beat bosses, collect 'Crystals'—but you're welcome to do all this whenever you like, in whatever order you like. It's a sandbox JRPG, in other words, which is unusual for a genre that even when "open world", likes to funnel the player along a critical path. The art style resembles Octopath Traveller, with its mix of 3D environments with 2D pixel-art character sprites, but refreshingly (and extremely unlike Octopath Traveller) there are no random encounters. Looks like a hit for retro turn-based combat lovers.
Sokobos
Steam page
Release: April 2
Developer: Daisy Games
Launch price: $4.24 | £3.39 | AU$6.37
It's Sokoban with an ancient Greek theme, basically. Across 60 levels, you'll be constructing various Greek buildings and monuments by pushing the right blocks into place, but these blocks need to be the right colour, which means you'll need to make a detour to the correct paint block. It's good, simple, taxing fun, and it's presented as a Greek tragedy too, somehow. There's a leaderboard and "infinite undos," which should make things a little less stressful.
Quijote: Quest for Glory
Steam page
Release: March 31
Developer: Cubus Games
Launch price: $1.49 | £1.49 | AU$2.95
Here's a tactical card strategy based on Cervantes' classic 15th century novel Don Quixote, so expect hilarity, and probably a scene involving windmills. Launched into Early Access last week, Quijote touches on "the most significant episodes" of Don Quixote, presumably those involving conflict, as the core of the game is about tactical card battles. Card battles against windmills? We can only hope. The Early Access version has two of seven planned chapters, and is expected to release into 1.0 by spring 2022.
Princess Farmer
Steam page
Release: April 1
Developer: Samobee Games
Launch price: $15 | £11.39 | AU$21.50
Here's a hybrid of the visual novel and match-3 genres with pixel art so colourful the team at Samobee Games must surely have invented new colours. It's a pleasure to look at, though whether the game will appeal rests entirely on your patience for match-3. It follows the story of the Princess Farmer, who has mysteriously gained the power to, yes, "hoist up whole rows of veggies with ease to make matches and smash obstacles." Something weird is afoot in the woods, and the Princess Farmer must figure out what that weird thing is by matching things. Local cooperative play is supported.
G-Darius HD
Steam page
Release: March 31
Developer: Taito Corp, M2 Co. LTD
Launch price: $25.49 | £21.24 | AU$38.24
Here's a HD remaster of G-Darius, an absolutely brain melting schmup from 1997. Full disclosure: I'm not a massive fan of playing sidescrolling shooters, but I'm a huge fan of the style of 1990s sidescrolling shooters, and G-Darius has some of the most gorgeous presentation you'll see, with a soundtrack that feels both of its time and mindbogglingly futuristic. This package features five versions of the original: "arcade-perfect" ports of G-Darius and G-Darius Ver.2, as well as HD versions of both. There's also the console port of G-Darius, with a new widescreen option. If you don't play it, you should at least watch it.
