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.
Debtors' Club
Steam page
Release: August 27
Developer: mecagames
In Debtors' Club you play as a tax collector working for City Hall. That means it's your job to make sure local businesspeople pay their taxes, which is a hard job because lots of businesspeople don't like to pay their taxes, especially in a city rife with corruption. Not to mention that no one likes a tax collector! Taking the form of a decision-based narrative game with roguelite elements, a lot rests on the demeanour you wish to strike as a tax collector—do you want to be calm and negotiating, or do you want to send some toughs along to demonstrate who's the boss? You're the boss. You're the tax collector.
Endzone 2
Steam page
Release: August 26
Developer: Gentlymad Studios
This Early Access colony builder reminds me of Frostpunk, in the sense that it's set in a grim, barely inhabitable future. It's definitely more focused on the building and planning aspect however, though survival, resource gathering and morale management inevitably factor in given its post-environmental disaster setting. You also get to explore the wasteland in a bus, which makes scoping out new settlement opportunities and lucre a bit easier. Finally (and this is totally subjective) there is far less snow, which makes it more appealing to me. Endzone 2 will stay in Early Access for at least a year, during which time Gentlymad Studios will add unspecified new features, as well as a range of new buildings, missions and expeditions.
Toy Shire
Steam page
Release: August 26
Developers: Bluespy Studios
Here's a tower defence game that fesses up to what tower defence games really are: digital versions of the toy soldier adventures you played as a kid. Toy Shire isn't trying to hide that it's inspired by the Toy Story films, with each of its twelve levels set across four different familiar domestic environments: a bedroom floor and bathroom sink feature, for example. In addition to the campaign there's a creative mode that allows you to build your own levels, though during the Early Access period Toy Shire will also get an endless mode and multiplayer, among other features. It's expected to launch into 1.0 in about a year.
Gori: Cuddly Carnage
Steam page
Release: August 29
Developer: Angry Demon Studio
Turns out Crypt Custodian wasn't the only good cat game to come out last week. Gori is a hack 'n' slasher with 3D platformer elements starring a hoverboard-riding cat. The hoverboard seems to control like a snowboard or skateboard would, so the action is all about balletic high speed movement combined with deft handling of hand-to-hand combat and shooting. It looks fun and fluid in action, and the art style walks a fine line between almost gritty (in a Howard the Duck way) and cheerfully colourful.
Death in Unison
Steam page
Release: August 29
Developer: Blank Dream Studios
Death in Unison is a creepy first-person cooperative horror about running an island prison full of extremely effed up criminals. Two players sit in separate rooms performing a stream of tasks that require remote collaboration, which means that voice chat is a necessity. Unfortunately, there's not much room for error when you're a systems person on an island prison: if it just so happens that, for example, the very dangerous criminals make it out of their cells, then the proverbial crap will hit the fan. This one's not for the faint hearted, especially if you choose to play it alone, which is also an option.
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
