Gif: Atlus / Nintendo / BioWare / Bandai Namco / Calligram Studio / Kotaku
October hits different. The spooky month is often bursting with new games to play ahead of the end of the year, and 2024's buffet of releases is keeping the tradition alive. From PC to Nintendo Switch, from Super Mario Party Jamboree to Dragon Age: The Veilguard, here are 34 games you should have on your radar this October, in order of release.
There’s been some debate about whether October 2024 feels a bit light compared to the peak years of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, at least when it comes to weekly blockbusters with flush marketing budgets. This year is probably a slower one overall when it comes to those types of games, providing a bit of a lull between 2023's unprecedented hit parade and the list of big games that are already stacking up in 2025.
But in other ways, it’s a perfect snapshot of how the release calendar has changed. There are Early Access PC releases, cult-hit indies getting new life with console ports, and expansions to forever games that people can spend years playing and still find new ways to enjoy. And if you’re an RPG nerd like me who doesn’t have 200 hours to spare, you’re facing some tough choices about how to allocate your scarcest resource of all this month.
Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X/S
Genre: Asymmetrical multiplayer shooter
Buy it from: Steam
Four years after it’s original launch on PS4 and PC, Predator: Hunting Grounds is back with a PS5 version and its debut on Xbox Series X/S. IllFonic Inc. is publishing the game now and promising to bring new content to the multiplayer game this year and next.
Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC
Genre: MMORPG
buy it from: Amazon
NCSoft’s free-to-play MMO Throne and Liberty has been brought stateside by Amazon Games and it features a lot of wild stuff, from massive battles with shifting environments to characters who transform into animals to become their own fast-traveling mounts. It sounds big, beautiful, and messy.
Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, PC
Genre: Top-down bullet hell
Buy it from: Steam
Imagine Vampire Survivors except you can actually control the attacks of your little demon-slaying character as they blow away mobs of eldritch horrors. Kill Knight is pitched as an arcade bullet hell game predicated upon the simple pleasure of shooting lots of stuff very fast. It looks neat and, somewhat refreshingly, it’s not a roguelike.
Play it on: PC (Steam Early Access)
Genre: Action roguelike
Buy it from: Humble Bundle
Six years after the first game blew up on Steam, Wizard of Legend 2 will bring a new aesthetic and overhauled combat to PC this month with an Early Access launch. The art style looks amazing. We’ll see how much it feels like the rest of the game is breaking new ground or rebuilding from scratch.
Play it on: PS5, PC
Genre: Interactive horror movie
Buy it from: Amazon | Best Buy | Humble Bundle
The slasher movie-inspired Until Dawn gets a visual overhaul nearly a decade later. Originally a PS4 exclusive, the game has been remade in Unreal Engine 5 for a release on PS5 and PC. The game stars Rami Malek, Hayden Panettiere, and a bunch of others as players make various choices to guide the teens through a horror-filled night.
Play it on: PC
Genre: Noir detective mystery
Buy it from: Steam
Phoenix Springs is a point-and-click adventure about a reporter searching for her long-lost brother. It’s also one of the most visually evocative games I’ve ever seen. You rummage around the world collecting phrases and observations and then combine them in the right way to advance the story. I played it at Summer Game Fest earlier this year came away intrigued.
Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC
Genre: Action-adventure
Buy it from: Amazon | Best Buy
Diablo IV’s main campaign gets its next chapter this month. While technically an expansion, Vessel of Hatred brings alongside it a wealth of changes to the base game that will streamline the leveling system and further improve upon the late-game paragon upgrade board. We’ll also finally get to confront Mephisto, the Lord of Hatred and one of the series three main Prime Evils.
Play it on: PS5, PC
Genre: Survival horror
Buy it from: Amazon | Best Buy | Humble Bundle
The Silent Hill 2 remake promises a faithful recreation of the original survival horror game alongside additional content and new secrets to discover. The game’s developers at Bloober Team said it will run approximately twice as long as the PS2 classic. It also includes some new tweaks to combat to help modernize the action a bit.
Play it on: Switch, PC
Genre: Platformer adventure
Buy it from: Steam
Puzzle platformer Europa was first revealed a couple of years ago. It’s now almost here following an initial delay. The world looks lush and the puzzles seem whimsical enough. Much of the exploration seems to revolve around a jetpack that you can upgrade over the course of the game to reach farther and higher.
Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC
Genre: Anime sim and fighting game
Buy it from: Amazon | Best Buy | Humble Bundle
Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero is shaping up to be the biggest DBZ game ever and a solid revival of the 3D anime arena fighter. It sports the biggest roster ever for the series and some robust tools for exploring alternate story timelines and also creating your own and sharing them online. Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 4 here we come.
Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC
Genre: Fantasy RPG
Buy it from: Amazon | Best Buy | Humble Bundle
Metaphor: ReFantazio asks the bold question, What if Persona but Game of Thrones? The turn-based RPG combines medieval political turmoil with new real-time action dungeon crawling elements as well as a more tactical flavor of combat. You can try before you buy thanks to a free demo on consoles and PC.
Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X/S
Genre: Shooter sim
Buy it from: Amazon | Best Buy | Humble Bundle
Give a squirrel a nut and it will eat for a day. Give it a gun and you’ll have the makings of a bizarre Steam sensation. This month the third-person shooter hits console after arriving on PC in August. Part open-world sandbox, part puzzle sim, Squirrel with a Gun lands somewhere between a goofy meme and a fun but short animal action experiment.
Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, PC
Genre: 2D puzzle platformer
Buy it from: Steam
The makers of the exceptionally gorgeous Gris have returned with Neva, a similarly beautiful 2D adventure about a young woman and her wolf companion as they explore a dying world. There’s some combat but the main pull seems to be the incredible artwork and melancholy vibes.
Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC
Genre: Survival horror
Buy it from: Best Buy
A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead is an adaptation of the sci-fi horror series featuring a new story set in the same world as the hit movie. The aliens with super good hearing that only show their weakness upon being subjected to certain high-pitched frequencies are perfect fodder for a game. We’ll see if Saber Interactive, hot off shipping Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2, can pull off the concept in a way that feels satisfying.
Play it on: Switch
Genre: multiplayer party game
Buy it from: Best Buy | Humble Bundle
Super Mario Party had character-specific dice blocks but was light on content. Mario Party Superstars had tons of mini-games but very limited board selection. Can Super Mario Party Jamboree finally be the Switch Mario Party to rule them all with good mechanics and lots of content? Is this the one that will finally get post-launch updates like the online multiplayer game deserves? God I hope so.
Play it on: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Switch, PC
Genre: Action-adventure
Buy it from: Amazon | Best Buy
Arriving a year after Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem hit theaters, Mutants Unleashed is hoping to combine the arcade co-op brawling fun of old with the series’ modern look and sandbox exploration expectations. I’m not expecting it to hang as one of the best TMNT games ever, but it’s been a while since we got a big 3D licensed adaptation to dig into.
Play it on: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PC
Genre: Action-adventure
Buy it from: Best Buy | Humble Bundle
Unknown 9: Awakening looks like a third-person Dishonored that takes inspiration from Assassin’s Creed-style historical fiction worldbuilding. The game stars Anya Chalotra, who plays Yennefer in Netflix’s The Witcher, and supplies her with a bunch of paranormal powers to fuel the game’s stealth set-pieces.
Play it on: PC
Genre: Factory sim
Buy it from: Steam
Factorio: Space Age is another update masquerading as a game, but I’m putting it on this list because the expansion is the same price as the base game and appears to be packing nearly as much content. It looks like Mass Effect: The Factory Sim, with players able to travel to new planets, discover new secrets, and take on hordes of aliens with their resource-harvesting prowess.
Play it on: Meta Quest 3
Genre: Action-adventure
It’s not the Batman: Arkham sequel some fans have been pining for, but it is another Batman game set in the Arkham universe. This time the puzzle-solving, villain-punching comic book action is just playing out in first-person in VR. If you happen to have a Meta Quest headset, lucky you! There’s no word yet on if Batman: Arkham Shadow will ever get ported to other VR headsets.
Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch
Genre: Tactical RPG
Buy it from: Best Buy
Wildermyth has been out for years on PC but now it’s finally coming to console. It’s kind of like a D&D campaign by way of Final Fantasy Tactics. The visual novel-esque storytelling is the focus but the grid-based RPG gameplay is also rock solid. Before there was Baldur’s Gate 3, there was Wildermyth.
Play it on: PC (Early Access)
Genre: Multiplayer zombie-fest
Buy it from: Steam
A co-op campaign. A rural Pennsylvania town full of zombies. Permadeath. No More Room in Hell 2 is another multiplayer experiment that pits eight players against hordes of undead and the limits of their own ability to effectively communicate, coordinate, and problem-solve on the fly. It’ll launch with one map, called Power Plant, at the start of Early Access.
Play it on: PC
Genre: Top-down open-world RPG roguelike
Buy it from: Steam
Whatever the opposite of a cozy sim is, that’s Streets of Rogue 2. The sequel aims to mash together Stardew Valley and Grand Theft Auto into a top-down immersive RPG sandbox fully of carnage. It sports a mission to take back the nation from a corrupt president and a massive procedurally generated map. Console ports are due out sometime after the initial PC release.
Play it on: PC
Genre: Platform fighter
Buy it from: Steam
Rivals of Aether II will attempt to build on the foundation of its predecessor with a bigger roster, more mechanics, and a 3D art style versus the 2D animated look of the original (RIP). Like the Smash Bros. platform fighters that inspired it, the sequel is adding shields and the ability to pummel opponents caught in a throw, while the parry system returns from the first game.
Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, PC
Genre: Choose your own adventure dating sim
Buy it from: Steam
As it says on the tin, Date Everything is a game in which you can romance whatever you want. All the objects in your house become anthropomorphized for your interactive and relationship-building (or sabotaging) pleasure. How many characters does that come out to? The datable roster caps out at an incredible 100 characters.
Play it on: PS5, PS4, Switch, PC
Genre: RPG
Buy it from: Amazon | Best Buy | Humble Bundle
Romancing SaGa 2 came to the SNES back in 1993 but wasn’t localized in the West until 2017. Revenge of the Seven is a 3D remake that updates the classic RPG with 3D graphics and full voice acting, as well as some turn-based combat improvements. Despite its retro roots, SaGa 2 features early examples of storylines that are more open-ended and character-led than the typical, linear plots of most RPGs popular on consoles at the time.
Play it on: PS5, Switch, PC
Genre: Psychological horror visual novel
Buy it from: Amazon | Best Buy
Last year’s surprise horror cult hit Slay the Princess is jumping to console this fall by way of an expanded edition called The Pristine Cut. The time-loop game revolves around a hero tasked with killing a princess lest she escape and doom befall the world as a result, with creepy intrigue ensuing from there. It made a number of best games of 2023 lists, including Kotaku’s.
Play it on: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PC
Genre: Military shooter
Buy it from: Amazon | Best Buy
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 has the distinct honor of being the first game in the series to be released following the integration of Microsoft and Activision Blizzard, as well as the first one to be available day-one on Game Pass PC and Ultimate. The latest in the spycraft-infused military thriller subseries introduces omnimovement in multiplayer, allowing players to run, slide, dive and shoot in any direction.
Play it on: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Switch, PC
Genre: Action platformer
Buy it from: Amazon | Best Buy | Humble Bundle
Sonic X Shadow Generations combines a remaster of Sonic Generations with a new Shadow-centric side-story. The game blends traditional 2D Sonic platforming with 3D on-rails action that feels more like a quick-time event. The results are mixed but flashy, and I quite liked what I played of the game back at Summer Game Fest.
Play it on: PS5, PS4, Switch, PC
Genre: Action-RPG
Buy it from: Amazon | Best Buy
Ys X: Nordics is the latest entry in Nihon Falcom’s sprawling action-RPG series, but it makes some important tweaks to the series’ typical fare. The party combat is replaced by dual protagonists that players swap between at will, and exploration has been moved to the seas. Players have a giant boat that doubles as a home base and can even engage in ship-to-ship battles.
Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, PC
Genre: Narrative-driven adventure
Buy it from: Amazon | Best Buy | Humble Bundle
A direct sequel to the original Life Is Strange, Double Exposure mixes up the formula by giving protagonist Max Caulfield the ability to swap her consciousness to alternate timelines. It gives her another chance to see her murdered friend and maybe change the future, or to repeat the same mistakes.
Play it on: PC
Genre: Survival horror
Buy it from: Steam
Post Trauma is the debut game from Red Soul Games, channeling classic horror games with fixed camera angles but spruced up with modern graphics. It follows a tormented train conductor who begins investigating strange occurrences only to become trapped in a psychological hellscape that will require some combat and puzzle-solving to escape.
Play it on: Mobile
Genre: Trading card game
Buy it from: Apple App Store, Google Play Store
Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket is The Pokémon Company’s latest attempt to finally make the beloved trading card game actually fun to play on mobile. If they can pull it off, it could be the next Marvel Snap. Or it might just end up offering an improved infrastructure for the sickos who have already been playing the Pokémon trading card game on mobile for years.
Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC
Genre: Action-RPG
Buy it from: Amazon | Best Buy
It’s been a decade since Dragon Age: Inquisition and BioWare has a lot to prove with Dragon Age: The Veilguard. The direct sequel focuses on the elven apostate Solas and impending catastrophe at the hands of all-powerful deities. Expect branching dialogue and in-depth relationship building alongside squad-based, third-person action-RPG combat.
Play it on: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Switch, PC
Genre: Action-adventure
Buy it from: Steam
Shadows of the Damned was applauded for its personality and style when it landed back in 2011, but the gameplay was panned for being middling and shallow. Revolving around a road trip through hell to rescue the protagonist’s girlfriend, Hella Remastered sports overhauled graphics and a new game plus mode, but otherwise seems mostly like the same old game that No More Heroes designer Goichi Suda and Resident Evil designer Shinji Mikami cooked up together all those years ago. We’ll see if that alchemy hits different in 2024.
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