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New Game Releases 10/28/25 – 11/03/25

Andy Tuttle

Top Releases:

Happy Tuesday and welcome to another edition of New Game Releases! Today’s top title is the latest open world RPG from Obsidian, The Outer Worlds 2. Now, the first Outer Worlds was well received but, in my opinion, fell a bit flat with its sparse worlds and repetitive quests. I had high hopes for the sequel, as the team mentioned learning a lot from feedback on the first game. However, Obsidian’s other big open world RPG this year, Avowed, was, again in my own opinion, how do I put this gently…TOTAL CRAP. Couple that with the fact that this game is going to be $70 bucks (it was almost $80, remember that?) and I’m personally going to wait a while before I pick it up (if I ever do). Microsoft clearly wants all of us to pay for Game Pass in order to play their games, but I’m not doing that either, they can fuck right off with that. I’m sure many of you are excited for The Outer Worlds 2 and I totally get that, I just can’t join in on your enthusiasm.

The Outer Worlds 2 (PC/PS5/Series X|S) – Releases Oct. 29th

Developed by: Obsidian Entertainment
Published by: Xbox Game Studios

The rest of our top titles are a mixed bag that, I hope, piques your interest. For all you Burnout fans out there, we have Wreckreation, a car demolishing/racing game from the British studio, Three Fields Entertainment. They are made up of former Criterion employees who, of course, created the Burnout series, with Wreckreation purporting to follow a similar gameplay style. We have a brand new extraction shooter game this week, ARC Raiders. If you don’t know what an extraction shooter is, I am going to assume you are either not a teenager or a 40-year-old going through a midlife crisis with his “boyz”.

Rounding things out are two remakes and a retro game collection. In remakes, we’ve got a couple of classic RPGs coming to modern consoles, first is Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake, which follows the same graphical style as 2024’s Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake (and was first popularized in Octopath Traveler); second is Tales of Xillia Remastered, which first appeared on the PS3 in 2011 (before coming West in 2023). This was the 13th game in the Tales series, and the first of two entries in the Xillia subseries. Finally, we have the Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection, a comprehensive collection of classic MK games, developer interviews, original design documents, and more. The games included are:

Wreckreation (PC/PS4/PS5/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Oct. 28th

Developed by: Three Fields Entertainment
Published by: THQ Nordic

ARC Raiders (PC/PS5/Series X|S) – Releases Oct. 30th

Developed by: Embark Studios
Published by: Embark Studios

Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake (PC/PS5/Switch/Switch 2/Series X|S) – Releases Oct. 30th

Developed by: Square Enix/ARTDINK
Published by: Square Enix

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection (PC/PS4/PS5/Switch/Switch 2/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Oct. 30th

Developed by: Digital Eclipse
Published by: Digital Eclipse/Atari

Tales of Xillia Remastered (PS5/Switch/Series X|S) – Releases Oct. 31st

Developed by: DOKIDOKI GROOVEWORKS
Published by: Bandai Namco

Ports and Expansions:

It’s a big week for ports, with five coming out, including two trilogies that couldn’t be more different (Monument Valley and Turok). One odd thing, Two Point Museum doesn’t appear to use the Switch 2 mouse controls, which would have been a no-brainer; bizarre.

Everything else:

Notable Releases from 10, 20, and 30 (and sometimes 40) years ago:

Games:

In notable games, 2015 gave us Need for Speed for the PS4 and Xbox One. A re-boot of the franchise (because, you know, the NFS story just got way too confusing), players find themselves as part of a “family” who all dream of becoming famous street racers (and probably commit crimes, who knows). Like other recent NFS games, there was a heavy online component built into the reboot, with players taking on street races against other players from around the world. As you might imagine, Need for Speed requires players to be connected to the internet to play the game, yet another in a long line of “always online” games that plagued the industry in the 2010’s.

Need for Speed received average reviews from critics who praised the game’s graphics and race controls (including some really fucking sick drifting), but gave low marks to the game’s short single player campaign, repetitive missions, poor AI racers, and the inability to pause the game. As far as players go, though, Need for Speed was able to sell about 2.7 million copies, worldwide, which isn’t bad, I guess, but it certainly isn’t good when you compare it to the sales of previous entry, Need for Speed Rivals, which moved over 4 million copies.

In the ten years since Need for Speed, we’ve seen three more entries in the series, Payback, Heat, and Unbound, the last of which released in 2022. I’m not sure what the current plan is for this series, EA seems to be allowing Forza Horizon to dominate the arcade/street racing genre. Who knows when, or even if (probably when) we get another Need for Speed game. I guess the real question is, do you care?

From 2005, we have the game Star Wars Battlefront II, which arrived on PC, PS2 and Xbox, as well as on handheld devices, with a version releasing on the PSP. Continuing the gameplay from the first Battlefront, SW:BF2 is an online multiplayer shooter in which players take part in large scale battles set in the Star Wars universe. While the game does contain a single player campaign, and was even seen as a step up from the first Battlefront, the core focus of the game is its online multiplayer aspect.

Critics mostly enjoyed the game, giving praise to the improved single player mode, with caveats; they felt that both the enemy & ally AI was poor, and that the campaign itself was not enough to sustain one game, Battlefront 2 needed the multiplayer piece in order to feel complete. Non-gaming outlets were far kinder to the game, however, calling the game one of the most visually appealing games they’d ever seen, with thrilling combat and a well written single player story.

For the Xbox version, a DLC pack was created, for a cost of $4.99 USD, players could add two new heroes, four new maps, and the enabling of “Hero Assault Mode” for several of the existing maps (this was a mode where two teams play as only as famous Star Wars characters). The base game, as well as the Xbox DLC, were re-released on modern consoles in 2024 as part of the Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection.

From 1995, we’ve got the game Hexen: Beyond Heretic, for PC. The sequel to the first person fantasy shooter, Heretic, Hexen was the second game in Raven Software’s “Serpent Riders” trilogy, which concluded with 1997’s Hexen II. Like its predecessor, Hexen uses a modified version of the Doom engine, which allows for jumping, as well as the ability to look up and down.

The most significant modification, however, was the addition of “polyobjects” which are, in essence, moving walls. As Doom and its ilk are built to give the illusion of moving through 2D space, having walls move three dimensionally was thought impossible. However, with Hexen, the developers at Raven were able to figure out a way for doors and walls to open outward or inward. By pulling in a 2D texture from another point in the map, the dev team was able to further improve on the 3D illusion. This came with its own problems, however, as the tops of these “polyobjects” could not be filled in, so moving over them would break the illusion, while a technical glitch would occur if you had more than one “polyobject” in a sector. A cool feature, but limited in its use.

Praised by just about every gaming outlet at release, Hexen was a technical marvel on PC and did just enough to set it apart from all the other “Doom clones”. Critics focused on two items in particular, the ability to choose your character class and the game’s unique “hub world”, where players could choose which level of the game to accomplish in whatever order they so chose. Hexen felt massive, at the time, and went a long way to immerse players in its world. It was named among the best video games of 1995, most notably among PC gaming outlets.

Selling over 1 million copies, the success of Hexen would see the game ported to home consoles in 1997 to a, eh, less than stellar reception. Coming to Saturn, PlayStation, and Nintendo 64, each version of the game was inferior to the PC release. In the case of the Saturn & PlayStation, the graphics would need to be severely downgraded, while the Nintendo 64 version, which looked a little better, would have to strip out the game’s FMV sequences and CD quality audio. In 2025, Hexen and its predecessor, Heretic, would be released on modern consoles, which also included Hexen’s original expansion, Deathknights of the Dark Citadel and a new expansion Vestiges of Grandeur.

From 1985, we have the arcade game Tiger-Heli. I don’t know what was going on in the 80’s and 90’s, but it felt like helicopters were everywhere in pop culture. There a lot of games where you play as a helicopter (Choplifter, Jungle Strike, etc.) and a lot of movies & TV shows about helicopters (Blue Thunder, Airwolf, etc.). It was a thing, I guess, which is probably why Japanese developer Toaplan decided to make their own, with Tiger-Heli.

Developed as a vertical scroller, Tiger-Heli was Toaplan’s first shoot ’em up, or shmup, a genre that they would go on to have success in through the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. In Tiger-Heli, player control the Tiger attack helicopter, taking on a variety of air & ground based enemies. Scattered throughout the stage are color coded bunkers that players can shoot to collect a powerup. Green bunkers will give them a bomb, while red & gray bunker will summon a smaller helicopter to join them (up to four), shooting either ahead of players or to the side of them.

With a successful run in Toaplan’s home country of Japan, the company contracted publisher Romstar to release Tiger-Heli in the United States, where it achieved moderate success. A port for the NES would arrive in 1987, published by Acclaim, where it was received somewhat poorly by critics but an absolute smash with players, selling over 1 million copies. The success of Tiger-Heli would keep Toaplan afloat for about a decade, with the company declaring bankruptcy in 1994, seeing almost all of their IP (including Tiger-Heli) sold off to a company called Tatsujin who are, now, owned by mega conglomerate, Embracer Group.

Movies:

In notable films, 2015 saw the release of the film Our Brand is Crisis, a dramatized adaptation of the 2005 documentary it shares its name with. Directed by David Gordon Green who seems to either make the most amazing films of all-time or the absolute WORST films of all-time, the film stars Sandra Bullock in what was clearly supposed to be an Oscar vehicle for the starlet. In Our Brand is Crisis, Bullock plays the role of “Calamity” Jane Bodine, who is sent to Bolivia to help manage the Presidential campaign of a politician named Pedro Castillo.

Produced by George Clooney and Grant Heslov, who scored big with films like Good Night, and Good Luck, Ides of March, and Argo, the reviews for Our Brand is Crisis were middling, at best, and was a box office disaster, similar to their other failures, Leatherheads and The Men Who Stare at Goats. While Bullock’s performance was praised, it did not get her an Academy Award nomination and the film has been quietly relegated to the annals of forgotten, would-be prestige films.

From 2005, we’ve got the animated film Chicken Little, which I saw opening weekend with my family. Despite being 24 in 2005, I still had a little sister who was 10, and my dad would absolutely take her to go see the latest animated feature. It didn’t matter what it was, we were there, opening weekend, come hell or high water. This was only six years after my parents divorce and I wanted to take the happy moments when I could. I’m glad I did, because our family didn’t stay this close for much longer. Everyone has either moved away or ignores one another, and that bums me out.

I don’t really have much to say about the movie, it’s fine, the performances are cute. Oh, it is Disney’s first full computer animated film, after abandoning traditional 2D animation. It opened in first place and would go on to gross $314 million, worldwide. I love my parents, but they made mistakes, and I hope I don’t repeat them. Star Zach Braff was a famous comedian at the time, know for the TV show Scrubs; now he does T-Mobile commercials.

From 1995, we’ve got another movie that clearly wanted to win some Oscars, but didn’t, Home for the Holidays, directed by Jodie Foster and starring Holly Hunter. Set during Thanksgiving, Home for the Holidays is a comedic drama, “dramedy” if you will, about a thirty-something single mother (played by Hunter) who heads home to be with family after being fired from her job and learning that her daughter wants to spend Thanksgiving with her boyfriend’s family.

Of course, zany shenanigans ensue, people fight, people cry, some says “let’s get bizayy” (I assume), and everyone learns a lesson. Luke warm praise from critics and a dismal “C+” score from audiences doomed the film at the box office, where it just barely made back its $20 million dollar budget. It fared a little better on home video and has become somewhat of a cult classic in recent years, likely due to being one of, like five movies about Thanksgiving.

Speaking of cult classics, our 1985 notable film is one of the biggest, Stuart Gordon’s horror masterpiece Re-Animator. Loosely based on a story by H.P. Lovecraft, Re-Animator tells the story of a twisted scientist named Herbert West who is obsessed with bringing people back from the dead. While West has a viable serum to do this, every corpse he reanimates becomes violent and irrational.

Hoping to perfect it at Miskatonic University (after being kicked out of a university in Switzerland), West first begins his experiment on his roommate’s recently perished cat; it doesn’t go well. Later, West and his roommate Dan go to the morgue, which Dan has unlimited access to as a medical student, to reanimate corpses there; it does not go well. Things continue to escalate, including the death (and reanimation) of the university’s Dean, before West and Dan must save their research, oh, and Dan’s fiancée who almost gets oral sex from the decapitated head of a zombie.

The idea for the film came to Gordon after discussing the sheer number of Dracula films but very few Frankenstein films. With a friend suggest he read and adapt Lovecraft’s Herbert West – Reanimator, Gordon set about to do a stage play until he got the itch to turn it into a feature film. Initially, Re-Animator was set to be completely serious but, after seeing the success of films like Evil Dead and The Howling, Gordon and his producers felt they could go more light-hearted with it, and inject some humor into their depraved story.

Released in only 129 theatres in October of 1985, Re-Animator would make over half a million dollars in its opening weekend, going on to gross over $2 million in just North America. While that may not seem like a lot, this was more than double its $900k dollar budget, and this didn’t even take into account home video sales, which is where Re-Animator made the REAL money.

Re-Animator was a critical darling, making fans out of well known pundits Roger Ebert and Pauline Kael. While they admitted there was copious amounts of gore, Re-Animator was also smart, with clever, biting satire (no pun intended). The performance of Herbert West by actor Jeffery Combs was also highly praised by critics who felt that he took a role that could have easily been played as a scenery chewing maniac, and made it feel grounded, even relatable. There was a seriousness and a stoicism that made you believe that what West was doing, vile as it may be at times, was absolutely justified.

The success of Re-Animator would lead to a long filmmaking career for director Stuart Gordon, though mostly in the B-Movie genre. He would make two sequels to the film, Bride of Re-Animator in 1990 and Beyond Re-Animator in 2003. Consistently brought up as one of the greatest cult films of all-time, Re-Animator is a tour de force of shock & gore. While it may seem a bit tame when compared to modern schlock fests like Terrifier, we certainly wouldn’t have films like it without Re-Animator. Give the movie a look this Halloween, for either the first time or the hundredth; you’ll be glad you did.

Albums:

In notable albums, 2015 gave us Hit Your Head by the band Drug Church. I wouldn’t blame you if you’d never heard of Drug Church, it’s not like they’re using their songs in Honda ads, but they are among the latest wave of punk rock bands that you SHOULD be aware of. Hit Your Head was the band’s second full length album, following their debut Paul Walker. While not a major commercial success, Hit Your Head did well enough to allow the band to continue, with their next album, 2018’s Cheer receiving widespread critical acclaim, while their 2023 album Hygiene would find its way on to a couple of Billboard charts.

From 2005 we have the self-titled debut album Wolfmother. Formed in Australia in 2004, Wolfmother exploded onto the music scene in 2005 with the smash hit “Mind’s Eye”, but is probably most well known for the songs “Woman” and “Joker & the Thief”, the latter of which was featured prominently in the 2009 film The Hangover. Hailed as one of the best albums of 2005, critics and music pundits believed Wolfmother would be at the forefront of rock & roll for years to come. Were they? Eh, sort of.

From 1995, we’ve got the album Different Class from British pop-rockers Pulp. Part of the 1990’s Britpop invasion, which saw the success of groups like Radiohead, Blur and, of course, Oasis, Pulp were a bit more heady, a bit more…cool than the others. They didn’t have the pretentious air of Radiohead did, they didn’t have the cocky ambivalence of Blur, and they didn’t have the pompous aloofness of Oasis, they were just Pulp.

Different Class was a critical and commercial smash, driven largely by the single “Common People”, which hit #2 in the UK singles chart, but failed to chart in the US. Growing up, I didn’t really know anything about Pulp, you had to be “in the know” to know about Pulp, and if you weren’t, well…you weren’t. In a different life, I might have been a bigger Pulp fan and, based on one college professor I had, he thought I was one already for no other reason than I assume I came across as “cool”.

Only ever hitting the Billboard Heatseekers chart in the US, the album would peak there at #34, but the rest of the world couldn’t get enough of the band its enigmatic front man, Jarvis Cocker. This is how uncool I am, I had no idea until, literally five minutes ago, that Jarvis Cocker was in the band Pulp. Hell, I thought Jarvis Cocker was the guy who sang The Wonder Years theme song, but that’s Joe Cocker. Every know and then I need a little reminder that I am, truly, very uncool.

Closing this out this week, from 1985, we’ve got Psychocandy, the debut album from rock band The Jesus and Mary Chain, though I think using the term “rock band” to describe them is a bit generous. While they do have things like drums, bass, and guitars, I don’t know if I’d exactly say they’re “rockin”, you know? In fact, you can arguably trace the definition of “alternative rock” to The Jesus and Mary Chain, who felt darker than R.E.M., but not nearly as depressing as a group like Bauhaus (yet, somehow slower).

Okay, maybe calling them the first “alternative rock” is wrong, but we may be more apt to refer to them as the first “shoegaze” or “noise” band, undoubtedly influencing bands that would arrive in their wake. Formed in London in 1983, The Jesus and Mary Chain got their start like a lot of young, artistically minded bands do, by hating everything on the radio. Feeling that all of the new bands were playing “keyboard music”, The Jesus and Mary Chain wanted to bring guitars back to the radio but, like, make them sound really weird.

Gaining a following in London, the band would eventually sign a record deal with a small label to release their first single, “Upside Down”. The success of that track led to them signing with a Warner Bros. subsidiary, Blanco y Negro Records, who would release Psychocandy. Well received by critics and audiences in 1985, Psychocandy would go on to be named among the best albums of the year. While their would kind of lose some of the noise-rock/shoegaze sound over their next few releases (even employing keyboards), their anti-mainstream ethos still shone through, even if they were kind of bubbling under the surface of it.

Need for Speed (PS4/Xbox One) – Released Nov. 3rd, 2015

Notable Film Release: Our Brand Is Crisis – Starring Sandra Bullock, Scoot McNairy, Billy Bob Thornton, Anthony Mackie, Ann Dowd, Joaquim de Almeida, and Zoe Kazan
Click here to watch the trailer
Notable Album Release: Drug Church – Hit Your Head
Click here to listen to the album

Star Wars: Battlefront II (PC/PS2/PSP/Xbox) – Released Nov. 1st, 2005

Notable Film Release: Chicken Little – Starring Zach Braff, Joan Cusack, Dan Molina, Steve Zahn, Garry Marshall, Amy Sedaris, Mark Walton, and Don Knotts
Click here to watch the trailer
Notable Album Release: Wolfmother – Wolfmother
Click here to listen to the album
https://open.spotify.com/album/5ywynDHLHT3l8QSu41TcmC?si=ULOfU5DXQ2CnIU1m_R-ICQ

Hexen: Beyond Heretic (PC) – Released Oct. 30th, 1995

Notable Film Release: Home for the Holidays – Starring Holly Hunter, Robert Downey Jr., Anne Bancroft, Dylan McDermott, Geraldine Chaplin, Steve Guttenberg, Claire Danes, Cynthia Stevenson, and Charles Durning
Click here to watch the trailer
Notable Album Release: Pulp – Different Class
Click here to listen to album
https://open.spotify.com/album/3ly9T2L4pqTZijFgQssd3x?si=D5LcSViUSb-NI4RS7E8k4w

Tiger-Heli (Arcade) – Released Oct. 1985

Notable Film Release: Re-Animator – Starring Jeffrey Combs, Bruce Abbott, Barbara Crampton, David Gale, and Robert Sampson
Click here to watch the trailer
Notable Album Release: The Jesus and Mary Chain – Psychocandy
Click here to listen to album

I can’t end this article without a Drug Church song. Enjoy “Aging Jerk”:

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