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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 you can play right now and a running list of the that are launching this year.
Korter 1996
Release: June 20
Developer: Mari-Anna Lepasson, James Flannery
Korter 1996 is a fascinating point 'n' clicker that is both [[link]] charming and ever-so-slightly sinister. You've just [[link]] moved into a flat in a sprawling complex, only to find that this flat has passages allowing access to the homes of your neighbours. That's the sinister part. The charming part is that you're not being too much of a creep: as an avid decorator of your own little flat, you're really just going around collecting stuff (which is thievery, but whatever). This item hunt dovetails with a series of puzzles that slowly unlock the story behind this bizarrely structured apartment block. It's a gorgeous-looking game about loneliness in the pre-internet age.
Them
Release: June 19
Developer: Lexip Games
I love the premise of Them: you're a nine-year-old kid who has stumbled upon an old '90s videogame arcade. It's a dark, empty and extremely grim videogame arcade, but anyone who attended a LAN in the '90s knows that extremely hostile environments are no obstacle for determined gamers. Split between modern first-person exploration and ye olde 2D pixel platforming, our hero is inevitably drawn into one of the gaming cabinets, though he'll also need to solve puzzles in "real" full 3D environments. This one will take about two hours to complete.
Tower Wizard
Release: June 20
Developers: Barribob
Tower Wizard is an idle game about—what else?—building a wizard tower. As an incremental game in the style of Cookie Clicker, it's all about watching numbers go up, but also—and perhaps this why it's proven so popular—towers go up, with increasingly ornate complexity. There's the usual onslaught of upgrades designed to make your growth more efficient and satisfying, and unlike a lot of the competition, Tower Wizard has an ending. It's managed to amass over 900 "overwhelmingly positive" reviews within three days, so it must be doing something right.
Chronicles of the Wolf
Release: June 19
Developer: Migami Games
Fans of the old sprawling Castlevania games are eating extraordinarily well this century: there is an almost exhausting amount of exploration platformers on Steam. Chronicles of the Wolf is among the most orthodox takes on the genre I've seen lately, because it really does look [[link]] like what might happen if you threw every '90s Castlevania into a blender. To drive home the point, the game even features Bloodless from the Bloodstained series (produced by Castlevania vet Koji Igarashi). I'm not really complaining, because I love this gothic pixel art style, and Chronicles... seems to lean heavily into the RPG aspects.
Blessed Burden
Release: June 19
Developer: Podoba Interactive
Blessed Burden is a first-person parkour game with an art style reminiscent of the surreal aspects of early 3D FPSs like Unreal Tournament and Quake. You play as a priest who needs to descend into the pits of hell (perhaps even deeper!) to destroy the root of all evil. The stakes are high, in other words, and speed is essential (though you can go slow if you want, the Steam page assures). It looks genuinely tense in action, and there are even upgrade trees, which is a lot for a game well beneath a tenner.