Top 15 New And Upcoming PC Games Still To Come In 2018

We're already halfway through the 2018 video game release schedule Time flies when you’re trying to save people from impending death in Frostpunk

There are six months of new PC games left to get though and Matthew and I have picked out 15 to talk about in this video So strap yourself in for another two-for-one/combo video deal and don’t forget to share your own anticipated games in the comments… All I’ve wanted from Tomb Raider's new and rebooted survivor timeline is tombs, with a side order of tombs, garnished with environmental puzzle solving in tombs So I can, you know, actually raid them And Shadow of the Tomb Raider may finally deliver, with montages of the game featuring spiky tombs, watery tombs, crumbly tombs and tombs that combine all those things into total nightmare tombs The setting itself leans toward the exotic combining populated cities and the ruins of a fictional Mayan-like civilisation buried amid humid jungles I can only imagine what kinds of beautiful areas are ripe to explore and possibly gawk at

As much as everyone wants to pretend these games are about psychological depth, I think we can expect something more akin to the big boots adventurer, gun toting, big cat taming experience of the earlier games The narrative spin looks intriguing too – turns out that Lara's sticky fingers may have brought about the apocalypse, which puts Trinity in the rather awkward position of having to be the hero for once and save the world, although Lara will give it a try herself Mainly by killing people with spiky objects And with a new grapple hook as well as stealth attacks from above and guerilla camouflage attacks from the ground, I think she can make a pretty good go of it Bethesda’s decision to take their apocalypse online in Fallout 76 has split opinions like a slow motion bullet splits a Super Mutant’s head

On one hand it presents a wasteland where every other human survivor is real, leading to emergent stories and high tension as potential allies shiftily scope each other out On the other hand: it could be a nightmare world of endless griefers, teabagging our bleeding corpse the second we step out of the vault Either way, this is going to be a stripped back and sparse Fallout, even by wasteland standards Missions are doled out by robots or computers and much of the emphasis shifts to building your settlement Yes, you too can craft your dream house for some horrible teenager to come and murder you in

As nervous as some of this makes me, I remain cautiously optimistic about this one I really like the idea of the game tapping into West Virginian folklore for some more outlandish monsters And the nuke system, wherein survivors can gather parts of the nuclear codes to fire live nukes, sounds suitably barmy Wherever you drop the nuke creates an irradiated zone stuffed with rare loot – which sounds a bit like The Division’s Dark Zone, except you get to control where it unfolds With enough interesting twists like that, it might be worth enduring the ritual humiliation that comes with these online endeavours

I was hoping for Life is Strange 2, but Dontnod are instead giving us a prequel to that game – a free story set in the Life is Strange universe It wasn’t what I wanted, but I would happily sacrifice Arcadia Bay all over again to play it right now Luckily for those residents I don’t have to, as The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit is out on June 26th The tale focuses on Chris, who escapes his lonely life by becoming Captain Spirit In his imaginary world he fights robots and monsters with the power of his mind

I’d say that in his head the sky’s the limit, but he’s actually only one cardboard spaceship away from grander adventures I particularly like how his superhero costume transformation is influenced by Sailor Moon, which is just bloomin’ brilliant – yes, I am one of *those* people Although it looks like a self-contained experience, Captain Spirit has ties to Life is Strange 2, we just won’t know how or why until that game surfaces If the entirety of Life is Strange 1 turns out to have been in Chris’ imagination though, I’ll be a little miffed Until then I am looking forward to something short and sweet, creative and heart-wrenching from this little game, that will probably leave a lasting mark on my own child spirit

I expect nothing less from Dontnod Forza Horizon is all about very shiny cars tearing around a large open world But more importantly, the fourth installment is the first racing game to boast realistic sheep shearing The world adheres to changing seasons – each one lasting about a week of real time – so you’ll see fluffier sheep during the winter, and bald sheep in the summer Of course, the game isn’t just about watching farm animals from inside sports cars – each season has a huge impact on racing too

Driving is icy in the winter, but also offers shortcuts as lakes and rivers freeze over Spring brings the April showers and summer is when you accidentally drop a cornetto on your car’s expensive leather seats Forza Horizon 4 is especially close to our hearts as it takes place in Britain – or rather a heavily condensed version of it that somehow packs Scottish highlands, welsh valleys and England's endless boring fields into one landmass It’s great britain as it exists in the imagination of every tourist, where Edinburgh is a twenty minute drive from London But when said drive is performed in one of over 450 cars, and with Playground Games’ stonkingly beautiful looks, who’s going to argue about accuracy? Horizon has always been the energetic young scamp to Forza Motorsports boring big brother, and looks set to repeat the trick come rain or shine

Every once in awhile the video game gods answer your prayers and deliver you the thing you’ve been hoping and praying for I thought Shenmue I and II ports were this year’s miracle taken care off, but now we’re getting Yakuza Kiwami and Zero on PC too God is real, and he loves Sega games To the uninitiated let me explain to you the ultimate, perhaps the only, interactive Yakuza experience The open-world role playing series delights with a hodgepodge of street brawls, criminal politics, snazzy dressing and karaoke

Because real men fight and then sing away the pain It’s all set to the fictional backdrop of Kamurocho (based on the real location of Kabukicho) a city brimming to full with arcades to play, baseballs to swing at, spas or host bars to visit if you’re feeling flirty, and the odd goon to smack around with whatever item comes to hand Kiwami is a remake of the first Yakuza game, which sees the exploits of disgraced Yakuza lieutenant (and eventually adoptive father) Kazuma Kiryu who, upon being released from prison, discovers the friend he took the fall for is now a powerful boss Much punching follows Zero is the 80s-set prequel to the whole series and also involves punching, only this time you’re wearing horribly garish suits

While the rest of the world and his dog – or should that be warrior cat? – have been slaying beasts in Monster Hunter World since January, we’ve been patiently waiting for the PC port to hatch from a giant egg so we can bash its head in with a giant mallet It’s not cruel, it’s the Monster Hunter way And anyway, monster murder is never needless in Capcom’s hunts – every kill is an opportunity to chop up your prey and forge the innards into even pointier weapons This lets you take down the even bigger monsters and so the process repeats, until you’ve played for hundreds of hours and are grinding rare parts from the most vicious endgame dragons It’s a series that has skipped PC – aside from Japan and China-only entries – so you won’t even be bored when all the old monsters put in an appearance

Of course, in World, even these old favourites can give you a better run for your money For the first time they stomp around open world jungles and swamps which give them more escape routes and the chance of a fellow monster wandering over to join the fight It’s even better with three fellow hunters along for the ride, with one maniac charging in with his axe as another shoots the group with healing bullets and the third boosts morale by laying down a funky tune on the hunting horn If humans aren’t available you can bring a psychotic cat along for the ride It sounds like a fever dream, but is quite real and quite brilliant

Compulsion Games’ We Happy Few is a game about keeping your cool in a world out to kill you So it makes thematic sense that the team has been keeping its head down, quietly beavering away on improving a game that has failed to impress in its early access form There’s a lot of promise in this procedurally generated psychedelic survival horror – so much so that the studio has been acquired by Microsoft Now on the final straight, We Happy Few is confidently revelling in its twisted, oddball, funny as heck, surprisingly dark subject matter, all with tongue firmly in cheek It’s frankly brilliant and harkens back to all those iconic British shows of the era, so that every step into real darkness is lacquered in rainbows and happiness

This is horror that fixes you with a queasy smile as it slips in the knife Comparisons are being made with Bioshock – both in the panicked first-person survival action and in the gradual introduction of an alternate history And if you played Compulsion’s debut game Contrast, you’ll know that they may have a few fresh surprises/takes up their sleeve This trip down joyful lane will be releasing on August 10, which is an awful lot sooner than I know I expected but I really am happy about it, you see? I’m smiling, honest! Having the option to play as a male or female character in a series like Assassin Creed means that role-playing can play, well, more of a role But this is only one of Odyssey’s sweep of changes

Other than the choice of either Kassandra or Alexios as your assassin, the game adds a sense of diplomacy through dialogue trees, something in-keeping with the historical Greek setting as the birthplace of Western Philosophy, politics, ‘the ideal’ through art and more Since the game is set during the Peloponnesian War where Athenians fought the Spartans, gorgeous, large-scale battles play a part Romance is a thing now, too, with the same lovers available to both protagonists Hired mercenaries are also making a comeback, and there’s a new ability meter that can charge powerful attacks such as the ‘Spartan Kick,’ which looks absolutely ridiculous but in the best possible way But Odyssey is also looking back to the greatest hits of Assassin’s-Creed-past; for example, the naval warfare of Black Flag is returning in Odyssey

Considering that transporting goods across the sea was of the utmost importance to the Greeks and that their enemies the Persians had 1000s of warships at that time, it makes sense here But to that I say: history-schmistory! I just want to ram my boat into other boats and hear the Greek equivalent of Black Flag’s sea shanties Perhaps even more interestingly, in the writing of your Odyssey, this entry has an almost cosmic push-pull to it, largely because of the gravity of ancient Greece as an eminent cultural, historical, political and mythological marker in Western history A perfect marriage of role-playing action and ancient civilisations to satisfy our inner video game nerd and history buff The game emerges from the labyrinth on October 5th and count me in! I’ll have one spartan kick with a side-order of Socrates-speak, please! Hitman 2 feels like it should be called Hitman Season 2 – like 2016’s Hitman this is a collection of six assassination sandboxes that will be supported by additional elusive contracts after release

The difference is, all six levels arrive at once instead of being doled out episodically How you feel about this depends on how you play Hitman If you like to squeeze every drop of murderous opportunity out of a level, than the monthly releases of the first season were the perfect delivery system But for those of us that just want to do horrible things as a bald man in nice holiday destinations, the Hitman 2 approach is fine And it’s not as if the levels are being dumbed down – the new Miami stage, for example, features a fully simulated race track running through the middle, letting you try to kill a target as they scream across the tarmac or try to lure her off the track with other nefarious means

You’ll also be able to hide weapons in Agent 47’s returning briefcase and have to contend with smarter AI that can see your big bald noggin in reflections I absolutely adored 2016’s Hitman game – apart from that rubbish bit where you had to keep breaking into the lab in Sapienza – so am definitely up for causing more chaos here Turn-based strategy games are kinda my personal Kryptonite, but Wargroove is channelling the friendlier face of war The fact that one of the playable commanders is a a dog hints that newcomers are welcome on Chucklefish’s cartoon battlefields Even when all my men have been ground to dust by my enemies I’ll just remember that I’m a dog and this will cheer me up

Wargroove plays like a spiritual successor to Nintendo’s Advance Wars Think: tight grid-based combat, easy-to-read pixel art and a nice, clean interface Of course, as in Nintendo’s games, it’s all about hooking you in with simple rules and then letting you drill deep into the strategies And if even that sounds overwhelming, there’s co-op play so several brains can collude on the right move I’m convinced that all this stuff combined together will be able to make a strategy convert of anyone

And once it does have its claws in you, there’s online competitive play and map editors to keep your war-addled mind fed for eternity Just remember to feed the dog along the way, yeah? Transference is an experimental VR experience, which sees you delving into someone else’s consciousness… it sounds an awful lot like all those video game lab rat scenarios you unfortunately find yourself in – hello SOMA? I just hope this psychological thriller ends when I take the rig off… *brrrrrr* The game is a first person exploration game, whereby to ‘escape’ you have to dig through the world for clues To do this you hop between the perspectives of three family members Expect to gain access to a whole heap of psychonauts-style emotional baggage The game blends real actors in a computer generated space, and involves the transformation of world states that you can manipulate to transport objects, open pathways forward or use to more narratively contextual ends

Unlike with many VR games, or games in general really, you can inspect multiple items in 3d space at once, which is a neat use of VR’s more open perspective All that said, I have been looking for a VR game that doesn’t try to scare you outright but unsettle, maybe even disturb, you on the kind of level that leaves a lasting effect So I have my eyes firmly locked on Transference, which is coming out Fall or Autumn, if you’re on our bangers and mash side of the Atlantic I realise that many of my choices in this list have been dumb blockbusters, so here’s something with more nuance: Just Cause 4 It sure looks like a just cause game, but this time with extreme weather like lighting, sandstorms and tornados

Unsurprisingly, it’s these big windy brutes that are hogging the spotlight, sucking up anything that isn’t stuck to the ground – including poor Rico Rodriguez Whether you see them as a threat or an opportunity is up to you, but it doesn’t feel like you’re playing in the spirit of Just Cause if you avoid them Elsewhere the focus is on punching up the playfulness of Avalanche’s sandbox – you’re given even more tethers for connecting objects together and pulling huge structures to the ground But you’ve also got big balloons you can attach to objects – combine those with booster rockets and you can turn any land based vehicle into a hot air balloon They’ve also added bulldozers and wrecking balls to the vehicle list – frankly, I’m amazed it’s taken this long

The idea of gaming’s messiest hero whizzing about with a balloon-lifted wrecking ball is enough to earn it a place on my most anticipated list It arrives just before Christmas, which is definitely when I’m feel that destructive need the most I’m am now an absolute sucker for soulsborne games like Code Vein, though this also strongly resembles the God Eater series, a monster hunter-esque role playing action game with a deep story First off, you play a superpowered vampire that you can customise, which really should be all you need to know, I mean, what more do you need? The game is set in a futuristic dystopia which is as good a setting as any for carefully watching your stamina bar as you whack unrelentingly aggressive bosses We’re talking dungeon crawling, weapons sets, complex character builds

and draining the blood of your enemies to grow more powerful because, again: Vampire Code Vein also offers a partnered experience: you can play in co-op with a friend or through an NPC buddy system You can supposedly play alone for the extra challenge as well but aren’t vampires lonely enough as it is? You can bond and grow affinity with your partner NPC, which each have their own personalities and backstories

You could argue that having a souls like game with a party is cheating but since they can die too, I think it adds something fresh to battles and the narrative drive behind it And since I really enjoyed the similar Pawns system in Dragon’s Dogma, I am all for a souls-like game implementing teams, no matter how small It’s especially good news for the meanies among us who might enjoy the thrill of employing a follower only to let them die and cruelly refuse to revive them… Battlefield V deals with the ugliest battle of all time: trying to get some corners of the internet to accept playable female characters Everyone else is focusing on what has actually changed: which is the ability to lay down sandbags Okay, so the addition of a toolkit that lets every class build defences isn’t the sexiest of updates, but it hints at a Battlefield that is more interested in the strategic long game than shallow flashiness

I enjoyed the giant blimps and the flamethrower pick-ups in Battlefield 1, but they often felt like large set pieces that funnelled maps down scripted routes In Battlefield 5 you have the choice to shape the flow of battle by laying anti-tank blockades or patching up broken walls It’s one of many tiny tweaks that give you more options during play – like the fact that any class can revive a fallen soldier – although medics do it faster – or the option to dive onto your back and fire from the floor like they do in the movies You can even drag heavy artillery to new positions with a vehicle I honestly don’t know how anyone has time to focus on all the lady soldiers with all this other stuff going on

And then there’s the looming promise of a Battle Royale mode – something that currently exists in name alone Some new match types already begin with the attacking side jumping out of planes, so they’ve got that bit ready to go – I’ll be intrigued to see whether they can push servers to a 100 player count Dice have been doing big battles for yonks – surely this is going to be a solid take on the genre? Okay, a port of 2009’s Tales of Vesperia is a bit of a wild card I’ve not actually played it, which is why I’m looking forward to a definitive version heading to PC this year It certainly ticks a lot of my boxes, from the delightful Bonnie Pink theme – as mentioned before, I am one of *those* people – to a vast cartoonish overworld where you can while away a billion or so hours

It even had a recipe-hoarding cooking system, years before Final Fantasy’s Ignis was coming up with new recipehs The Tales series of JRPGs is known and loved for its more involved combat system, with Vesperia pumping it up with greater freedom of movement and huge chain attacks that let you feel very clever about yourself This is actually the tenth instalment and the positive reception it garnered back in 2009 earned Tales of Vesperia a cult-like status, marking it as a standout in the series This alone is the reason I would like to play the Definitive Edition now that it is coming to PC And if turns out to be awful? I’ll just have to delete this video and go back to watching Bonnie Pink music videos on YouTube

Of course, these are just 15 games in a ludicrously stuffed year Hell, in the time it took you to watch this video, 47 new games released on Steam So we won’t be offended if you want to add your own suggestions to the comments below We’d love if it you subscribed so that you can watch all our lovely videos we make about these games Remember, if you want to rebel against the algorithm, click the notifications bell to see more content from us as and when it drops! Thank you for watching and we hope to see you all soon

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