Games

New Game Releases 11/04/25 – 11/10/25

Top Releases:

  • Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment (Switch 2) – Releases Nov. 6th
  • Europa Universalis V (PC) – Releases Nov. 4th
  • Sonic Rumble (PC) – Releases Nov. 5th
  • Devil Jam (PC/PS5/Switch/Series X|S) – Releases Nov. 4th
  • Biped 2 (PC/PS4/PS5/Switch/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Nov. 5th
  • Surviving Mars: Relaunched (PC/PS5/Series X|S) – Releases Nov. 10th

Just three weeks after the release of Pokémon Legends: Z-A, Nintendo has another big holiday title (and one of the few Switch 2 exclusives this year) with Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment. A companion to The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Age of Imprisonment is the third entry in the Hyrule Warriors spin-off series that fuses characters from The Legend of Zelda with the gameplay from Koei Tecmo’s popular Dynasty Warriors series (typically referred to as musou games). More Zelda games are always a good thing, but this genre is pretty niche (at least in North America), I’m curious how many casual Zelda fans will pick this up.

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment (Switch 2) – Releases Nov. 6th

Developed by: AAA Games Studio (a division of Koei Tecmo)
Published by: Nintendo

Rounding out the rest of the major releases, strategy fans can look forward to Europa Universalis V, while children/adults in a state of arrested development can enjoy the free-to-play party game Sonic Rumble. This is the first game in the series to be developed by Rovio Entertainment (creators of Angry Birds) after Sega purchased them in 2023.

While there are over 50 titles coming out from smaller developers this week, two I wanted to highlight are Devil Jam, a very Hades-esque rouge like that will either be surprisingly good or devilishly bad; you see what I did there? The other is Biped 2, a co-op adventure game in which players must work together to solve various platforming puzzles & challenges.

Europa Universalis V (PC) – Releases Nov. 4th

Developed by: Paradox Tinto
Published by: Paradox Interactive

Sonic Rumble (Android/iOS/PC) – Releases Nov. 5th

Developed by: Rovio Entertainment
Published by: Sega

Devil Jam (PC/PS5/Switch/Series X|S) – Releases Nov. 4th

Developed by: Rogueside
Published by: Rogueside

Biped 2 (PC/PS4/PS5/Switch/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Nov. 5th

Developed by: META Publishing/NEXT Studios/PlayJoy Studios
Published by: META Publishing

Finally, in the world of remasters, we’ve got Surviving Mars: Relaunched, a city building simulator from the Bulgarian developer Haemimont Games. Originally released in 2018, Relaunched is part remaster and part “complete edition”, as it will contain the base game, as well as all previously released DLC. There will be some new content, as well, and as an added perk for owners of the original Surviving Mars, Relaunched will be available at a 50% discount from whatever digital storefront you initially purchased the game from.

Surviving Mars: Relaunched (PC/PS5/Series X|S) – Releases Nov. 10th

Developed by: Haemimont Games
Published by: Paradox Interactive

Ports and Expansions:

For Christmas, one year, I ironically got my friend Farming Simulator for the DS and he was genuinely happy to have received it. I had to suddenly question everything I assumed about the series, throwing me into an existential crisis. What did he know about the game that I didn’t? How can he be happy with something that’s clearly dumb; it’s dumb, right? Maybe he was just happy that me, a friend, got him something because he values the relationship we have. These are the things that keep me awake at night.

  • Farming Simulator 25: Highlands Fishing (PC/PS5/Series X|S) – Releases Nov. 4th
  • 1000xRESIST (PS5/Series X|S) – Releases Nov. 4th
  • Syberia – Remastered (PC/PS5/Series X|S) – Releases Nov. 6th
  • Anima Gate of Memories: I&II Remaster (PC/PS5/Series X|S) – Releases Nov. 7th

Everything else:

Notable Releases from 10, 20, and 30 years ago:

Games:

In notable games, 2015 saw the release of Fallout 4, one of the most critically acclaimed games of the year. Opening up in Boston (or the Commonwealth) in the year 2077, players find themselves living an idyllic American life when, suddenly, nuclear war breaks loose. Led to nearby Vault 111, the player, their spouse, and their baby son, Shaun, are placed into croygenic sleep. Awakening 150 years later, the player discovers that their husband/wife have been killed and that their son has been kidnapped. Setting out into the world, players must contend with all of the dangers that the post-apocalyptic wasteland has to offer, in order to rescue Shaun and exact revenge on the people responsible.

Highly anticipated at launch, Fallout 4 was a critical and commercial smash, receiving overwhelmingly positive reviews and selling over 1 million copies on Steam in just 24 hours, nearly 5 million in the first year, over 25 million copies to date. Fallout 4 was nominated for “Game of the Year” by at least seven different voting bodies and winning three of them, from the DICE Awards, the British Academy Games Awards, and the Game Critics Awards (it would lose to The Witcher 3 at The Game Awards).

In subsequent years, Fallout 4 would receive two major DLC expansions, Far Harbor and Nuka-World (which allowed you to build your own theme park), and has seen enhanced editions ported to the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. An even further enhanced edition is slated to arrive on Nov. 10th for PS5 & Xbox Series X|S, with a Switch 2 version coming in 2026.

From 2005, we’ve got the rhythm game Guitar Hero, the first in a long line of games that would take the world by storm for the next 5 years. Conceived by the company Red Octane, they would approach the developer Harmonix, who had modest success with their own rhythm games, Frequency and Amplitude, to create a game that allowed players to live out their rock & roll fantasies, jamming along to great music but without having to actually, you know, learn how to play a real guitar.

Inspired by the Japanese rhythm game series Guitar Freaks, players would use a guitar shape controller to simulate playing a real guitar. Replacing the strings with buttons and a strum bar, players would tap the buttons and flick the bar in time with colored gems that would stream down the screen as a song would play. If players were unable to keep in time with the gems, they would fail the song and have to start over.

Red Octane, acting as publisher, would shop the Guitar Hero idea around to multiple companies for funding, as well as co-publishing, with one of the most high profile being Acclaim. They would initially balk at the idea, saying the no one would ever purchase the huge guitar controllers needed to play the game; they later regretted this decision. With a budget of only about 1 million dollars, the creation of Guitar Hero began modestly, with Harmonix staff testing out ideas with prototype controllers, pumping out a new song in about a day.

The team had a core setlist of about 30 to 40 songs they wanted for the game, as well as about 100 more they called their “wishlist”. With the guitar being the major focus, all of the songs came from the hard rock genre, with a mix of new bands, like Queens of the Stone Age, and classic bands, like Black Sabbath. Obtaining licenses for the songs were difficult (and expensive), as was getting copies of the original master recordings, prompting Harmonix and Red Octane to create cover versions of each song, pulling in studio musicians to re-record them. On screen, when a song would start, you’d see the title and then text saying “…as made famous by…”, i.e., “More Than a Feeling, as made famous by Boston”.

Through extensive play testing, Harmonix found the game addictive, making the whole process a labor of love. Knowing that what they and Red Octane were trying to do was challenging, the hope was that they could get the game onto the market just to say it existed. If it failed, well, at least they got their passion project out the door. If it succeeded, though…well, who would have thought that Guitar Hero would succeed?

When the game finally launched in November of 2005 it was met with widespread critical acclaim. Everything about Guitar Hero was perfect; the soundtrack, the guitar controller, the gameplay, the character design, the single player mode, it was a triumph and easily the greatest rhythm game ever made when it released. Generations of teenagers would fantasize about being a rock star while jamming on air guitar in their bedrooms since the invention of rock & roll, Guitar Hero finally let them experience it. Seeing the crowd react to their “sick guitar skillz” from the tightly designed “gem tracks” further enhanced this experience, sending dopamine straight to the lizard part of the brain to anyone who played the game.

Guitar Hero was a smash with players as well, earning $45 million by the end of 2005, and moving 1.5 million copies by the end of 2007. While those numbers are impressive, Guitar Hero was still a bit of a niche product and it took some time for the public at large to really catch on to the game. Harmonix would work on two further entries with Red Octane and new publisher Activision, Guitar Hero II and Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s, before branching out on their own to create the successful Rock Band series.

After the departure of Harmonix, Activision would give development duties to Neversoft, best known for the Tony Hawk series of games, who would user it through the next few years, releasing two more guitar-only sequels, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock and Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, before following in the footsteps of Harmonix’s Rock Band, which allowed for drums and vocals, with the games Guitar Hero World Tour, Guitar Hero: Metallica, Guitar Hero: Smash Hits, Guitar Hero 5, Band Hero, Guitar Hero: Van Halen, Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, and Guitar Hero Live (from developer FreeStyleGames). Across each of these games, as well as two for the DS, the Guitar Hero series made over 1 billion in sales, making it one of the best selling video game franchises of all-time.

From 1995, we’ve got the tactical war game Worms, a turn based multiplayer party game from British developer/publisher Team17. Created by a computer shop employee named Andy Davidson, Worms began as a single developer indie project in 1990 called Artillery, in which two players would fire artillery guns in an attempt to destroy one another. Davidson would further refine the game in 1993/1994, replacing the tanks with cartoon worms, calling this new version Total Wormage, and entered it into an Amiga competition. While the game failed to place, Davidson brought the game to a computer trade show in London and showed the game to the people at Team17 who instantly fell in love it.

Offering Davidson a publishing deal, the game was renamed, again, to Worms, which Team17 felt was more straightforward, easier to market, and fit better with the game’s dry humor. The gameplay in Worms is not unlike that of Artillery, with two players using their team of worms to eradicate their opponent’s team. Each worm has access to a limited suite of tools & weapons (similar to Lemmings and Cannon Fodder) that they can use to attack opponents, reshape the landscape, or move around the map. The first player to lose all of their worms is declared the loser.

At release, Worms received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics, calling it sharp & witty, with a fun factor that eclipses most other games. While the game did not have the best graphics or controls, these were easily overlooked by how enjoyable every Worms match was. In fact, the bad controls are part of the game’s strategy, as one wrong step can send your worm plunging off the map or into the vicinity of a grenade. At the end of the year, Worms would find itself named among the best games of 1995 by several outlets, earning nominations and runner-up prizes in the “Best Strategy Game” field from various voting bodies.

Following its debut on PC and PlayStation, Worms would get ported to multiple other consoles, including the Saturn and the Jaguar around the world, while seeing releases on the Amiga, Super NES, Mega Drive (Genesis), and Game Boy in Europe. With 250k copies sold in the first year, Worms was a major success for Team17, prompting the release of a sequel, Worms 2, in 1997, and 25 more entries over the next 30 years, including 2025’s Worms Across Worlds for Apple Arcade.

Movies:

In notable films, 2015 gave us Spectre, the fourth James Bond film to star Daniel Craig in the role, and re-introduced Bond’s famous nemesis, Blofeld (played by Christoph Waltz). While the film was a box office smash, grossing $880 million worldwide, it was a bit of a critical turkey. Many critics felt that the Craig era of Bond hit its pinnacle with its third entry, Skyfall, and Spectre could not match it. However, the film would receive an Academy Award in the “Best Original Song” category for Sam Smith’s haunting (but utterly boring) theme song, “Writing’s on the Wall”.

There were still some exciting set pieces, and Dave Bautista’s performance as a cold blooded assassin was commended (as was a blink & you’ll miss it performance from Monica Bellucci). In the end, Spectre is far too long with far little pay off, and a villain, in Blofeld, who feels boring & uninspired, written into the movie purely for nostalgia sake. Craig would appear in one more Bond film, 2021’s No Time to Die, before calling it quits.

From 2005, we have the family adventure Zathura, about two quarrelling brothers who learn to love one another after a board game almost kills them. Based on the children’s book by Chris Van Allsburg, Zathura is a kinda/sorta sequel to his other book, Jumanji, though the only unifying theme is that a board game comes to life and almost kills some children. Directed by Jon Favreau, hot off the heels of Elf, and co-written by Jurassic Park screenwriter David Koepp (who also wrote another 2005 sci-fi film featuring actor Tim Robbins, War of the Worlds), Zathura was expected to be a big hit…and then it wasn’t.

While the film would feature well known names like Josh Hutcherson, Kristin Stewart, and Dax Shepard, all three were far from the nadir of their popularity. If the film was supposed to be tied to Jumaji, well, the marketing team did a poor job of letting people know about it, and it just didn’t resonate either critically or with audiences. The film would open in third place with a dismal $15 million take, falling well short of box office champ Chicken Little (in its second week), as well as the other big new release, the thriller Derailed, starring Clive Owen and Jennifer Aniston.

Zathura would only manage to squeak out a paltry $65 million, worldwide, just barely making back its budget (before marketing costs). It wasn’t all bad news, though, as Jon Favreau would use the film to land Iron Man, while Hutcherson would go on to star in The Hunger Games series, Stewart would go on to star in the Twilight series, and Dax Shepard would become “that guy” you’d see in various 2000’s comedies.

From 1995, we’ve got the movie Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, the sequel to Schindler’s List, I mean Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. Oh man, where do I start here? I loved this movie, and its predecessor, as a kid (I guess teenager at this point in 1995) despite how bad I knew they were at the time. I wasn’t the only one who loved this movie, though, as When Nature Calls (which is a piss joke, GET IT) would gross over $200 million, worldwide, against a budget of only $30 million.

Critics HATED the movie, calling it one of the worst of the year. What do they know? They probably all look like the Monopoly Guy and don’t understand the comedic genius of a nude Jim Carrey being birthed out of the womb of a robotic rhino; fucking idiots. To this day, whenever I am hot, I will say, unprompted, “kinda hot in these RHINOS!“, because I am funny and I relate to the common man.

Albums:

In notable albums, 2015 saw the release of Art Angels from the artist Grimes. Seen by critics as more accessible than her previous three releases, Art Angels would debut at #1 on the Billboard Alternative Albums chart and peak at #36 on the Billboard Top 200 chart, her highest chartings at the time. Grimes’ art school/punk rock/cyber goth/kawaii look is an acquired taste, for sure, and her music is certainly catchy enough, but it does nothing for me, personally.

Critics, on the other hand, fucking loved the album, naming it among the best releases of 2015, with British magazine NME placing it at #1 on their list of releases. Despite the critical acclaim, neither Grimes or the album would receive any Grammy nominations which is, I mean, bizarre, considering not just how much praise Art Angels received from critics, but with how commercially successful it was as well.

From 2005, we’ve got the album Confessions on a Dance Floor from Madonna which is, like, the fifth time Madonna was supposedly “back” in the previous ten years. Hey, maybe Madonna was never gone, you ever think about that? Maybe she just put out consistently good albums that were of varying genres so, like, Critic A might have though this collection was her comeback, while Critic B might have though the other was her comeback, despite her having never gone anywhere. Whatever, music critics are dumb.

The album debuted at #1 on the Billboard Top 200, selling over 350k copies in the U.S. in the first week, and a whopping 6 million worldwide in the first week. The album would receive two Grammy nominations; Best Dance Recording for the song “Get Together”, and Best Electronic/Dance Album (which it would win).

Closing things out this week, from 1995, we have the album Alice in Chains from the band Alice in Chains. While the grunge sound was starting to fall out of favor among the youth of America, Alice in Chains was still able to debut atop the Billboard Top 200 chart, selling about 190k copies in the first week, before going double platinum in the US. The album was driven by two hit singles, “Grind” and “Heaven Beside You”, with the latter hitting #52 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The album would receive two Grammy nominations, both in the Best Hard Rock Performance category, for the songs “Grind” and “Again”.

Sadly, things would not stay positive for the band in the ensuing months after the release of Alice in Chains. While the group would make a few live television appearances in support of the album, and play four dates with Kiss on their North American reunion tour, Alice in Chains were unable to go on their own extended tour. The main reason for this was singer Layne Staley’s addiction to drugs, making it difficult to work with him. In fact, Alice in Chains was almost not recorded due to Staley’s drug use, causing delays in its creation.

While the band would never officially break up, Alice in Chains would never perform again with its singer, Layne Staley, going on a prolonged hiatus in 1996. Staley would continue to slip into a downward spiral of drug abuse, succumbing to his addiction in 2002, dying from a lethal combination of cocaine and heroin.

Fallout 4 (PC/PS4/Xbox One) – Released Nov. 10th, 2015

Notable Film Release: Spectre – Starring Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz, Léa Seydoux, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris, Ralph Fiennes, Andrew Scott, and Dave Bautista
Click here to watch the trailer
Notable Album Release: Grimes – Art Angels
Click here to listen to the album

Guitar Hero (PS2) – Released Nov. 8th, 2005

Notable Film Release: Zathura – Starring Josh Hutcherson, Jonah Bobo, Dax Shepard, Kristen Stewart, and Tim Robbins
Click here to watch the trailer
Notable Album Release: Madonna – Confessions on a Dance Floor
Click here to listen to the album

Worms (PC/PlayStation) – Released Nov. 7th, 1995

Notable Film Release: Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls – Starring Jim Carrey, Ian McNeice, and Sophie Okonedo
Click here to watch the trailer
Notable Album Release: Alice in Chains – Alice in Chains
Click here to listen to album

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