September's more packed than any month in recent memory, as publishers rush to debut games before Grand Theft Auto 6's November 19th release. Ahead of that seismic gaming event, check out these five titles ranging from action to horror to fantasy.
Onimusha: Way of the Sword
I've played countless video games that put you in the hands of a swordsman cutting down foes. So it's a shock to me too to say that Onimusha: Way of the Sword is the best-feeling action game of them all. Never has a dodge, parry, or frame-perfect counter felt so dang good.
Nor have they looked so cool. Capcom developers told Game Informer that their biggest goal was to take the action of cutscenes from previous Onimusha games and turn it into playable gameplay. Way of the Sword achieves that with fluid animation that makes every encounter feel like a choreographed martial arts movie.
It's not all great. Re-used bosses and a half-baked open world design lead to pacing issues and a kind of unnecessary fatigue. Which is weird. Capcom usually puts out tightly paced, lean games. It's a blight on something otherwise so polished.
But just when I think I'm out, Onimusha pulls me back in with an unbelievable spectacle of a boss fight. The game is another notch on Capcom's belt of great releases this year, and further proof that it might just be the best video game publisher working today.
—Vincent Acovino, producer, All Things Considered
Blood of the Dawnwalker
Sprawling open-world RPGs are weighing me down. They dump hundreds of icons on the map, and three hours later I'm collecting flowers instead of saving the world. Blood of Dawnwalker has offered the cure, and it's all thanks to its clock mechanic.
You play Coen, the titular "Dawnwalker," who swings swords and casts magic during the day. By night, he shifts into a vampire to tear through enemies, teleport short distances, and climb up walls like Spider-Man. Time only advances when you commit to major quests, using precious chunks of your finite 30-day timeline.
At one point I wanted to take down a heavily-guarded encampment. I felt vulnerable, so instead of rushing in I spent my last daytime slot gathering intel. Once night struck, I went full bloodsucker, easily scaling the fortress walls and laying waste to the entire battalion.
To be clear, the clock doesn't penalize exploration. You can wander freely without burning time. But it forces you to prioritize what quests to commit to, which feels surprisingly liberating. Instead of the "gotta catch em all" of endless bloat, the game rewards you with a focused power curve and sharp narrative arc.
—James Delahoussaye, producer, TED Radio Hour
Silent Hill: Townfall
Played in first-person, this Silent Hill spinoff explores the deserted Scottish island town of St. Amelia in 1996. You play as Simon Ordell, an amnesiac who's summoned to the town to "make things right."
As you make your way through the fog-shrouded town, you're equipped with a twist on a classic Silent Hill mechanic: the CRTV, a pocket television that can pick up signals for hints and enemy detection.
Your weak combat abilities encourage you to be stealthy. You can use glass bottles and abandoned radios to lure enemies away or quickly jump into closets to hide. However, enemies will relentlessly stalk you, even if you manage to avoid detection.
This is when the novelty of the CRTV wears off, as you can only view one monster at a time and must scan other channels to see the location of others. Sneaking can tilt from thrilling to tedious and time-consuming, especially during times where instant-kill enemies are involved. And while Townfall's tech nostalgia makes it unique, it also started to bother me as I had to shove floppy disks into computers and save the game by manually dialling a phone.
Townfall hits the right Silent Hill notes: fog, grotesque monsters and psychological torment. It's a pity that its mechanics were more likely to annoy than scare me.
—Angie Silva, senior production specialist
Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave
Fortune's Weave isn't so much about time travel as it is about time management. You play a sci-fi guardian angel, reaching from a post-apocalyptic present to one of four parallel timelines that each star a colorful gladiator. You'll spend more time running errands than you'll spend in the arena, however.
Each week, you'll steer your heroes through a vast map dotted with cities, dungeons, fishing holes, foraging spots and randomized battles. Keep an eye on the calendar, though, as you'll want to return to the capitol city every week to train your burgeoning army, lead them in service to Roman-ish gods and treat them to extravagant meals. If you're like me, you'll also nearly bankrupt yourself on gifts to bribe the game's four dozen or so recruitable characters to join your side.
It's a more ambitious game than predecessor Fire Emblem: Three Houses, for better and worse. More characters with less unlockable dialogue spread between them. More story strewn over a bloated 100+ hour runtime. And more drama — blood and betrayal, love and war. Characters overflow with emotion and stage-whisper like they're in an opera. You can even direct them to act in plays at the local amphitheater!
Inconsistent as it might be, Fortune's Weave rewards patience and inspires devotion. Just pray you have the time to make the most of it.
—James Mastromarino, NPR Gaming editor and Here & Now producer
Control Resonant
It has been seven years since the 2019 release of the original Control — Remedy's mind-bending weird fiction masterpiece about an intrepid woman searching for her missing brother inside the Oldest House, the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Control.
Now, Remedy has finally released a proper sequel. Control: Resonant takes place seven years later, on the day Jesse's lockdown of the Oldest House finally fails.
In the original game, Dylan loomed as an existential threat who Jesse had to rescue and then contain. This time around, Dylan is the main character and Jesse has gone missing. The new game plays similarly to the original. But where Jesse fought her demons at a distance, Dylan mostly interacts with the world by slamming it with one of many shape-shifting weapons.
It is overwhelming at first, and punishingly dangerous. But once you settle into the rhythm of it, you begin to see the bones of the deep worldbuilding and hauntingly beautiful art direction that made Control such a beloved title. Rather than focusing exclusively on the Oldest House, Resonant drops you right in the middle of a shattered Manhattan — just a millennial guy with an oversized hammer, fighting lava monsters, making friends with magical taxicabs, and trying to put right the epic, psychic disaster that he caused seven years ago.
— Jason Sheehan, contributor
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