2024’s Biggest Video Game Releases: The Fall Update
Why hello there! If that distinctive pumpkin spice aroma and abundance of skeleton decor weren’t a dead giveaway, fall is upon us. While the year might be almost over, there are still a ton of video games waiting to be released. So, here are 2024’s biggest video game releases for the fall.
September Releases
September is already well underway, and hopefully, you’re already playing AstroBot on PS5. If you already got that platinum and need a little more charming whimsy, on the 17th, The Plucky Squire hits PS5, Xbox Series, PC, and Switch. This game will have you hopping between dimensions in the literal spatial sense but also losing yourself in a book or two. Looks cute!
On the 17th, Farah: The Sundered Tribes comes to Early Access on PC. This game seems like it might appeal to Monster Hunter fans, largely because of the monsters but also because of the fact you hunt them. It also has some lofty ambitions with aerial traversal and keeps things grounded with village management among other cool features. It’s coming to consoles later on.
On the 19th, Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster gives Capcom’s second favorite zombie series a makeover. Not a full remake, but a considerable step up from your average HD upres. That’s on new-gen consoles and PC. A few days later, on the 24th, Epic Mickey Rebrush gives the 2010 Wii game a similar overhaul. This has Disney’s most famous rodent teaming up with the slightly lesser-known but luckier rabbit Oswald for some magical misadventures. This game is coming to PC as well as everything with a controller.
On the 24th, GreedFall 2: The Dying World will presumably come to consoles at some point, but PC players get to take it for a spin a little bit early as it hits Early Access. This follow-up to the 2019 action RPG can be approached as a standalone story and looks to be a substantially different experience, swapping out the fast-paced combat of the first game for a more tactical Dragon Age Origins-inspired battle system.
On the 26th, Echoes of Wisdom hits Switch, which means it’s time for the denizens of Hyrule to say, “Well, excuse me, Princess!” for a change. Princess Zelda wreaks havoc on the land, doing all sorts of wacky things like smashing pots and doing magical things with furniture and other cumbersome household objects in an effort to save that bumbling layabout Link who got kidnapped this time for a change. Love that! Between this game and Princess Peach Showtime, 2024 is the year where Nintendo finally bucks the tradition of having princesses needing to be rescued. Good for them!
If you’d rather just fight large voxelated bugs with your bros than do magical princess stuff, don’t worry. You can do exactly that in Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2 on both PlayStations and Switch. If you’d rather fight more realistic space creatures among other things on other planets, Starfield gets its first major expansion with the Shattered Space DLC, which hits Xbox Series and PC on the 30th.
October Releases
October is when spooky season shifts into high gear. On the 8th, you can dig through the ditches and burn through the witches and slam in the back of Diablo 4’s big expansion, Vessel of Hatred, which is on the Xboxes, the PlayStations, and the PC. What’s the most hateful vessel? I’m going to go with one of those Canadian milk bags or perhaps that redesigned Gatorade bottle that costs the same but holds less, all in the name of aerodynamics. I never realized that wind resistance was preventing me from getting hydrated faster, but what do I know? I’m no athlete or scientist. What am I good for? Not much, anyway.
Speaking of hateful aerodynamic things, that same day, you can reunite with Pyramid Head and Company when the Silent Hill 2 Remake hits PS5 and PC. As you know, in Japan, he’s referred to as Red Pyramid Thing. Doesn’t have the same ring to it, it just sounds like somebody forgot what parking cones are called. Ah, that went well.
If you like weird-ass monster designs and bizarre names for things but don’t like being frightened, on the 11th, Metaphor: ReFantazio has you covered on both counts unless you’re a huge chicken. This is the latest RPG from the folks behind Persona and Shin Megami Tensei, and this time they are going full fantasy. A bunch of the enemy designs are pulled straight from the medieval menagerie of Flemish painter Hieronymus Bosch, so this looks like a regular Garden of Otherworldly Delights. That’s on both PlayStations, Xbox Series, and PC.
Still on the 11th, Dragon Ball Sparking Zero hits PS5, Xbox Series, and PC. Don’t be fooled by the title sounding like a diet soda; this is, for all intents and purposes, Budokai Tenkaichi 4. It’s been 17 years since the last installment, so it’s safe to say that the hype levels for this game are, well, it’s over 9,000! What? 9,000? They’re definitely not less than 9,000, let’s put it that way.
If Silent Hill was too loud and you wish everyone would shut the hell up so you can be scared in peace, well, make some noise for A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead on the 17th. This is a single-player narrative survival horror game set in the universe of the hit movie franchise. Obviously, it’s going to involve a fair amount of stealth, but an interesting wrinkle is that the protagonist has asthma, so trying to speedrun this may wind up blowing your cover. That’s on new-gen consoles and PC.
Arguably an even more harrowing survival horror experience releasing that day is Super Mario Party: Jeree, which features 110 mini-games and seven boards, the most of any installment in this insufferable, unkillable franchise. I take back what I said about Nintendo being progressive. I think it would be in everyone’s best interest if there were fewer mini-games in each new Mario Party, and ideally, by now, there should be none at all.
In an insane world, it is the same who is called crazy. That’s my ideal Mario Party game: you don’t have to do any stupid bull or roll any fake dice to watch the characters take their sweet-ass time going around the fake board or ruin any friendships with cruel and unusual scoring systems that make no sense whatsoever. Please, we are depressed. You turn the game on, you see these beloved characters, they just stand around doing nothing. That’s the game right there.
Look, I’m sorry if you enjoy Mario Party, but if you can find pleasure in such a tedious and infuriating experience, you clearly have an unassailably positive outlook on life, and I think you’re going to get through it just fine. The only hope is the sweet relief of death. Oh, you got to be kidding me.
Anyway, on the 18th, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed is our first proper video game tie-in for the latest iteration of those heroes in a half-shell that were introduced in Mutant Mayhem. This is a budget-priced licensed game dropping just in time for the holidays, so I’m not expecting Game of the Year material, but if it’s a decent and playable little adventure set in that universe, that could be a bunch of fun. Plus, it’s got two-player couch co-op, which is definitely something to say “Cowabunga!” about. That’s coming to everything.
Even less of a known quantity is the aptly titled Unknown: Awakening, a third-person action-adventure that’ll have you playing as a psychically endowed heroine named Haruna, played by Anya Chalotra, best known as Yennefer of Vengerberg from The Witcher Netflix show. It sounds like you can do some cool supernatural stuff like possess enemies during combat. Hey, if you’re into lore, it’s also got a comic book, a trilogy of novels, and a scripted podcast, so now you know. That’s on PC, the Xboxes, and the PlayStations.
On October 25th, you can go trick-or-treating at Saddam Hussein’s house. I can’t even say it. Did you hear the news? A war just broke out up on Earth. It’s in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, and if you haven’t been keeping track, this year’s installment of the beloved shooter sets its literal and figurative sights on the Gulf War. If you’d rather cause some mischief in multiplayer, a newly introduced feature is the ability to take other players hostage using them as human shields and whispering stuff in their ears via proximity-based voice chat. I’m sure everyone will utilize that feature in a respectful and sportsmanlike fashion. What could possibly go wrong? That’s on everything but Switch. Sorry, kids, if you want to go to Saddam Hussein’s house on Switch, you got to build it in Minecraft first. Ladies and gentlemen, we got him.
Shadowy government conspiracies are great and all, but what about shadowy private sector hedgehogs? Well, Sonic can get down with his worst self in Sonic Shadow Generations that day as well, just in time to get hyped for his big-screen debut in the third live-action Sonic movie hitting theaters in December.
On the 29th, Life is Strange gets its fourth mainline installment with Double Exposure, which will see original protagonist Max Caulfield returning for more supernatural adventures. This time around, she’ll be swapping between alternate timelines to solve a mystery. That’s on new-gen consoles, Switch, and PC.
Finally, on Halloween proper, Dragon Age: Veil Guard hits new-gen consoles and PC. If you’re a Dragon Age fan, you know what’s up, and if you’re not, well, what’s been stopping you from getting into this series aside from BioWare not making a new game in a literal dragon’s age? Assuming that the dragon is 10 years old, anybody hoping that Veil Guard is a good starting point for newcomers, it is theoretically possible, but it’s also being positioned as a direct sequel to not just 2014’s base game Dragon Age: Inquisition but specifically its Trespasser DLC. So, you may want to watch some lore explainers if this is your first Dragon Age rodeo.
November Releases
A couple of games have loose October release windows but no specific date as of shooting this video. Batman: Arkham Shadow is exclusively coming to Meta Quest 3, and I know a lot of people are bummed it’s not a conventional Arkham game, but everybody I know who’s played this had really good things to say about it. So, maybe a reason to check out a Meta Quest 3 if that seems like your cup of tea.
Meanwhile, poker DLC for a fishing game sounds like the most boring thing imaginable unless you’re like really, really, really a dad, except if it’s poker DLC for Dave the Diver. I have no idea how this works exactly, but I imagine it involves all hands on deck, maybe watching out for some card sharks.
Speaking of boats, Mario and Luigi fans can set sail on the Brother Ship on November 7th, the sixth mainline installment in the RPG series centered around those fraternal plumbers with mustaches. That’s on Switch. That same day, River City Saga: Three Kingdoms sees hot-blooded tough guy Kunio continue his adventures in the 14th century Han Dynasty, practicing the art of war, making strategic political gambits, and probably punching some random dude so hard that he shouts “Barf!” and drops his lunch money. That’s on PS4, Switch, and PC.
November 7th is also the release date of the PS5 Pro, which certainly looks like the most cutting-edge and exciting way to play all of the latest next-gen games that already looked pretty good on your base PS5 and are also probably available on PS4. Maybe one of these days, Sony will reveal some exclusive first-party games that truly justify and take advantage of a new PlayStation, but something tells me that this isn’t a must-have console just quite yet unless you have $700 in particular that you hate and you want to get rid of it somehow, in which case, that’s probably a good way to spend that money. Maybe. I don’t know, you can buy something else too.
On the 14th, Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake kicks up the 403D 3D3 and the beloved JRPG that debuted way back in 1988. If you’re wondering how you missed the first two HD-2D remakes, don’t worry, it’s not you. Those are slated for release sometime next year, but three takes place before one and two chronologically, so this is as good a starting point as any. That’s on PS5, Xbox Series, Switch, and PC.
On the 15th, Assassin’s Creed: Shadows lets you jump into the tabi boots of dual protagonists Nao and Yasuke as they slice and dice their way through feudal Japan. People have been asking for an Assassin’s Creed game with ninjas and samurai since day one, but apparently, the idea of a black protagonist in Japan is a dealbreaker for some folks despite the fact that Yasuke is the first AC protagonist actually based on a historical figure. And hey, I get it, historical accuracy is super duper important in a series of video games that started out being about a bartender time-traveling into his ancestors’ DNA using a VR tanning bed to do parkour and fight the Pope and steal alien technology shaped like biblical fruit or something along those lines. Anyway, Shadows is on new-gen consoles and PC. If you want a samurai game where you play as a Japanese dude, they put out like two or three of those a year, and if this isn’t your ideal Assassin’s Creed game, well, sit tight because they put out a new one of those practically every year. So, about this time next year, you’re probably going to be a 17th-century witch doing parkour and turning into cats and fighting old German dudes or something along those lines.
On the 15th, Path of Exile 2 enters Early Access on PS5, Xbox Series, Mac, and PC. The first installment has drawn its fair share of die-hard fans since it hit PC way back in 2013, so I imagine quite a few people have cleared a path in their schedules to exile themselves from all other responsibilities to focus on this sequel.
On November 19th, you can experience all of the chaos and panic of holiday air travel from the comfort of your own home in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. But you can also do way more interesting stuff, and this year’s standalone installment is also getting hot air balloons, tornadoes, wildfires, aerial firefighting to put out said wildfires, skydiving just for the hell of it, little tiny gliders, big ginormous jumbo cargo planes, experimental aircraft testing, and a bunch more features. Plus, virtually all the add-ons you might have purchased for the previous version will work with this one as well. This game was already one of the most impressive pieces of software ever made when it launched, and it’s just flabbergasting how much more stuff has been added since then. That’s on Xbox Series and PC.
A day later, it’s time to get in the zone for the long, long, long-awaited Stalker 2: Heart of Chernobyl, another sequel that die-hard fans have been waiting well over a decade for and which will likely attract its fair share of new players. It certainly looks stunning in action, and hopefully, experiencing it for yourself is even better. That’s also on Xbox Series and PC.
December Releases
Things start to slow down a bit in December, but the year is going out with a couple of big bangs.
On the 6th, Marvel Rivals officially launches on new-gen consoles and PC, which gives the tried-and-true and maybe a little tired hero shooter formula an injection of officially licensed and aggressively redesigned Marvel characters.
Then, on the 9th, you can see what’s cracking with that fedorable whip-toting archaeologist Indiana Jones as he uncovers the mysteries of the Great Circle. That’s on the great Xbox Series and the wonderful PC. It’ll be coming to PS5 at some point next spring.
It’s not a game but rather a show about games, so it’s probably worth mentioning anyway. Secret Level is the CGI animated anthology series that premieres on Prime Video on December 10th. This is from some of the people who gave us Love, Death, and Robots and who are also behind some of the most gorgeous CGI game trailers from E3’s past. So, if you ever wished that CGI trailers were just short films instead of commercials, here you go.
Also, on December 10th is Monument Valley 3, which will be coming exclusively to Netflix Games. I’m a little unclear where you’ll actually be able to play it. It’ll definitely be on mobile devices, and Netflix Games work on certain streaming devices and smart TVs but not all, so your compatibility may vary.
The last game of the year with a release date is Alien: Rogue Incursion, which is coming to VR by way of Meta Quest 3, PSVR2, and PC VR on December 19th. It is a canonical action-horror game set in that dismal xenomorph-infested universe, and while the obvious comparison is Alien: Isolation, the odds will be slightly more in the player’s favor this time around. You’ll be playing as a former colonial marine, and you’ll have a pulse rifle at your disposal, which packs a bit more punch than Isolation’s loadout of proverbial sharp sticks and harsh language.
A whole bunch of games have nebulous late 2024 release windows, which they may or may not actually hit, and it’s entirely possible their release dates get confirmed between me saying this and you hearing it, but here’s what’s waiting