By Nelson Schneider - 08/24/25 at 05:49 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! Fall will be upon us before we know it, and with it will come the Autumnal rush by the Games Industry to push out as much pre-holiday slop as they can in order to flood the market and hope desperately that something in their grapeshot barrage of trash actually connects with the hearts and minds of the Gamer audience. Judging by September’s release slate, the Industry has their cannons fully loaded… let’s see if any of it is worth the powder to blow it up!
After going through ALL the releases and tossing out the plethora of ports that aren’t worth the keystrokes to mention, we’ve STILL got a TON of Shovelware titles coming in September, with every major category represented. In fact, the Shovelware is so prolific, it EQUALS the number of new game releases in the same time span (Just imagine how bad it would be if I didn’t cull out all the gratuitous portage beforehand!).
In the Licensed Swill category, we’ve got an IP ensemble… thing that claims to be an RPG of some sort, featuring the entire cast of Nicktoons. We’ve also got a new Party game about LEGO, inspiringly called “LEGO Party!” The ancient stop-motion “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” Christmas special is getting its second videogame conversion with the same title (I don’t think this is a remake of the DS-era game, and it’s too unimportant to dig any deeper). Another ‘Agatha Christie’ novel is getting a game adaptation. “Gabby’s Dollhouse,” which is apparently a Dreamworks movie IP for really little girls, is getting a game. Bratz dolls are being exhumed from the landfill in order for marketers to have another crack at turning little girls into sluts in the post-Woke era. The ‘Terminator’ IP is getting yet another new game. And, finally, “Garfield Kart” was apparently successful enough (probably because Epic gave the publisher a big sack of money in order to give it away as a freebie) to spawn a sequel.
In 2Cazual2Exizt Barely-a-Game Swill, we’ve got 40 games! But they’re all-on-one, so “40 Sports Games in 1” doesn’t skew the release weighting all by itself.
In Annualized Swill, we’ve got… a bunch of Sports games, but what else did you expect besides Sports and maybe some wannabe e-Sport garbage like ‘Call of Duty?’ Anyway, Basketball is trying to be a little bit different by releasing “NBA Bounce” to mix things up a bit… but just to make sure they have their bases covered, they’re also releasing another ‘NBA’ with the year after it. And to keep the Euro-trash and Cana-dopes happy, there’s Soccer and Hockey coming too.
Finally, in Noteworthy Ports, we’ve got a second remake of “Final Fantasy Tactics,” called the “Ivalice Chronicles,” which will apparently NOT include the bonus content from the PSP “War of the Lions” release. Boo-hiss! “Pac-Man Pac-World 2” is getting a remaster, for as comically as it failed to turn one of the original arcade mascots into a platforming mascot. “Tomb Raider 4-6” are getting remastered and sold in one big lump together… and I’m not even sure which ones these are, as I stopped buying ‘Tomb Raider’ games after the third one proved that the series consistently sucked. Lastly, “The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky” is getting remade into “Trails in the Sky: 1st Chapter,” transforming the crufty and tedious Turn-based RPG into an Action-RPG that can have Turn-Based Mode toggled on and off. Yeah… still not going to get into this series.
Moving on to brand new games that can’t be dismissed as auto-trash due to licensing or marketing, we have a LOT of multi-platform releases to look forward to in September, across a wide variety of genres, with a mix of sequels and new IPs as the cherry on top. For those who like Driving, there’s “Project Motor Racing” coming from Giants Software, so it’s definitely not related to the ‘Project CARS’ IP, but almost definitely wouldn’t mind being confused with it. Less serious Driving gamers can look forward to the next Sega Karting game, “Sonic Racing: Crossworlds,” and I definitely am. Those who like Driving, but don’t necessarily like driving cars can pick up the second game in Marvelous’ ‘Armored Core’ knock-off, “Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion,” which I will probably do, as the first game wasn’t great, but showed potential. Survival Horror fans can choose between the old, with “Silent Hill f,” or the new with “Cronos: The New Dawn.” People who hate themselves AND the concept of fun can pick their poison with the new Roguelike “Hotel Barcelona,” Rogue-lite “Towa and the Guardian of the Sacred Tree,” or Soulslike “Hell is Us.” People who like to “make their own fun” can do so in the new physics-based Sandbox, “Wobbly Life,” which has apparently been in Steam Early Access for 5 years. Those who demand no fun OR suffering from their games can pick up “Garden Witch Life” in order to master cooking in a Fantasy world. Anyone who can hear the words ‘Ninja Gaiden’ and not reactively flinch can pick up a new sequel to the original 2D NES series, “Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound,” that is, allegedly, a LOT easier than the original NES series… until you try to do New Game+ or set the difficulty slider above “Normal”… but if you’re doing that on purpose, it’s your own fault and I don’t feel sorry for you. Lastly, there’s the latest and luke-warmest sequel in Randy Pitchford’s signature fuster-cluck, “Borderlands 4,” which the MJ Crew will buy and play together at some point, because there are really very few cooperative experiences like ‘Borderlands’ out there, no matter how cringe-inducing the writing becomes.
At last, we come to exclusives. Surely Nintendo has some top-notch system-sellers lined-up to get people drooling over the Switch 2… aaaand NOPE. Exclusives are looking particularly dismal, with only a single Switch 1 Visual Novel, “Illusion of Itehari,” gracing Nintendo’s platforms. Of course, Xbox has NOTHING (LOL, Xbox) again, while Sony is getting another ‘Atelier’ Alchemy RPG (read: lots of grinding for material drops) and three ‘Hyperdimension Neptunia Rebirth’ games that are prooobably remakes, but whatever.
Well, that was a LOT of crap, but there were a few possible nuggets hidden in there as well. The MJ Crew will definitely be grabbing “Borderlands 4” to play cooperatively, once all the inevitable DLCs are released and bundled together for 50%+ off. I’ll also be grabbing “Sonic Racing: Crossworlds” for local multiplayer (though we still haven’t really done a whole lot with the preceding “Team Sonic Racing”) and “Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion” in a last-ditch hope that the spiritual successor team can release a sequel that fixes all the issues with their first game, and also proves less tedious than From Software’s latest real ‘Armored Core’ release. All of these purchases will be through Steam, of course.
Backlog Embiggened: +3
