Exploding demon flesh, bullet hell ballets, farm-to-table RPG combat—whatever you’re in the mood to play, one of the games below is bound to hit the spot. Here are the games we recommend you check out, and which we personally can’t wait to get back to playing this weekend.
Saros
© Housemarque / KotakuPlay it on: PS5
I’ve played through Saros twice already and I yearn for more. I want more terrifying bullet-hell creatures throwing colorful orbs at me while I zip around and fire my auto-aiming assault rifle at them. My mind races as I keep thinking over its introspective cosmic horror mystery box story. Now that everyone else is playing it, I can at least experience it vicariously through others, and you could be one of them! In fact, I highly recommend you be one of them this weekend. If you’re scared away by its difficulty, Saros has a lot of options that help you tailor its challenges to your liking, so even if you dropped Returnal, you might have a better time with its spiritual successor. – Kenneth Shepard
Dosa Divas
Outerloop GamesPlay it on: PC, Switch, PlayStation, Xbox
I meant to play more of Dosa Divas when it launched earlier this month than I did, but I accidentally got caught up in Tomodachi Life and Titanium Court. With both of those very esoteric games behind me, I’m ready for a nice, straightforward RPG. Dosa Divas is from the developer of Thirsty Suitors and Falcon Age, and it has the vibrant color and playful style I’ve come to expect from those folks. You play as two sisters stomping around in a cooking mech, frying up and feeding dosas to people living in a world where most meals are processed, tasteless, capitalist slop. I’m looking forward to playing this and then getting really hungry and driving to the only dosa place in town which is like 40 minutes away for a midnight dosa and chai (yes, it’s open that late). – Rebekah Valentine
Dragon’s Dogma 2
CapcomPlay it on: PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S
Back when it came out, I found Dragon’s Dogma 2 both captivating and irritating. Its fantasy world was tremendously absorbing; I especially love the way that, when night falls, you can get swallowed up in true and total darkness as a canopy of stars opens above you, the kind of night you experience in real life only when you’re outside of major cities and which most games, even those with day-and-night cycles, fail to authentically reproduce. The combat was terrifically rough-and-tumble, feeling like a 3D realization of the sort of fantasy battling Capcom so brilliantly delivered in classic arcade games like Knights of the Round and Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow over Mystara. But I also found the endless prattling of my pawns—the beings who make up the rest of your adventuring party—extremely tiresome, as they repeat the same little conversations and observations over and over again. After a solid 25 hours or so, I set the game aside.
But lately the darkness has called to me again; returning to Dragon’s Dogma 2 recently, I wrapped up its main quest and really enjoyed some of its late-game developments and revelations. However, what’s really knocked my socks off is the secret, optional path you have to follow to access the endgame and the true ending. I won’t go into detail here but it involves the kind of audacity and mystery that really makes a game come alive for me, the sort of secret that lurks under the surface of a game you think you fully know and understand before it emerges and pulls the rug out from under you. Yes, I still wish my pawns would stop their incessant yammering, but even with it, returning to this game and discovering the surprises it had in store has been a very good decision. – Carolyn Petit
Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred
BlizzardPlay it on: PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC
I finally tore myself away from Marathon for a bit to dig into the new expansion for Diablo 4, by which I mean I waited until my Marathon buds went to bed at midnight last night and then traveled to the Skovos Isles to mount a campaign against Mephisto. Bleak stuff. Beautiful and very fun but also very, very bleak stuff. I’m playing a Warlock starting from level 1 and so far I’m not sold on it being more fun than Paladin, but I’ve wrapped up chapter 1 and so far the story side of the Lord of Hatred campaign is excellent.
Everything from the art and writing to being back in the saddle with Lorath has me excited about returning to Diablo after so many seasons away. I still don’t see myself sticking with the new expansion past the story content, but it’s going to be a tough tug-of-war with both this and Saros vying for my attention this weekend. After being pretty unexcited by Vessel of Hatred, the new stuff so far feels as good as anything in the original campaign. – Ethan Gach
Far, Far West
Evil RaptorPlay it on: PC via Steam Early Access
Back in February, I checked out the Steam Next Fest demo for Far, Far West, a robotic cowboy co-op FPS that is like a less brutal and sillier take on Helldivers 2. Now, Far, Far West is out, and I’m excited to hop back in (maybe with some buddies) and play more of this online shooter that lets me drop in and blast away enemies without having to think too much.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Helldivers 2. But there is something really nice about how chill and silly Far, Far West is compared to Sony’s brutal third-person shooter or extraction shooters like Marathon, which offer a similar “drop in, kill stuff, complete some activities, get out” loop. Far, Far West provides similar vibes, but there’s no asshole waiting to snipe you and no instadeath lurking over the next hill. Just more skeletons and monsters to blast away while you get stronger and stronger.
A perfect weekend game to play with friends, if the full game is even half as fun as the demo. – Zack Zwiezen
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