On an average day about a dozen new games are released on Steam. And while we think that’s a good thing, it can be understandably hard to keep up with. Potentially exciting gems are sure to be lost in the deluge of new things to play unless you sort through every single game that is released on Steam. So that’s exactly what we’ve done. If nothing catches your fancy this week, we’ve gathered the best PC games you can play right now and a running list of the 2022 games that are launching this year.
Best Month Ever!
Steam page
Release: May 6
Developer: Warsaw Film School Video Game and Film Production Studio
Launch price: $17 | £14.01 | AU$24.60
Best Month Ever! is a narrative adventure game set in 1960s United States. It follows the journey of single mother Louise and her son Mitch, and a strong focus of Best Month Ever! is shaping the way Mitch experiences the world, in order to “influence what kind of person Mitch turns out to be and what values shall guide him once he comes his own man”. As a result, it’s an adventure heavily guided by excruciating decision making, with each having monumental consequences on both Mitch and how the narrative plays out. There are nine endings to work towards, and the graphics are charmingly cinematic.
Yaengard
Steam page
Release: May 5
Developer: Planeshift Interactive
Launch price: $22.49 | £17.54 | AU$32.35
Yaengard is a turn-based RPG with a huge focus on the qualities of your party members. Sure, that’s probably not so unusual, but in Yaengard it’s not just your party members’ stats and classes that matters: their personalities are equally important. These personalities are shaped by narrative decisions made throughout, but each is also customizable with special combos and more. Heavily inspired by D&D, studio Planeshift notes Yaengard’s “classic tabletop RPG-style gameplay”, and there are roguelite elements as well, in the way each party member is different for each campaign.
Tile Cities
Steam page
Release: May 5
Developer: yevhen8
Launch price: $3 | £2.09 | AU$4.50
Tile Cities is a “relaxing puzzle game” that taps into the pleasure of watching a city grow, except unlike in conventional city builders, you don’t have to worry about plumbing, electricity, and whether you’ve got too many roads. As the trailer above shows, you’ll be placing city block tiles together, taking care to match the shapes correctly. To slightly complicate things, some tiles are better matched than others, so you will need to think a little bit about, for example, tram lines connecting with depots. There’s also an ultra-relaxing creative mode, if you don’t want to think at all. Frankly, that sounds nice.
Crowns and Pawns: Kingdom of Deceit
Steam page
Release: May 7
Developer: Tag of Joy
Launch price: $18 | £15.29 | AU$26.05
Launched as part of LudoNarraCon last week, Crowns and Pawns: Kingdom of Deceit is a point-and-click adventure set in modern day Europe. It follows the story of Milda, a Chicagoan who travels to Lithuania to receive an inheritance. But claiming it is complicated by the fact that a mysterious man also wants the spoils of that inheritance. This conflict triggers a big mystery-solving adventure that involves an ancient relic, a run-down house, and family secrets that go back as far as the 15th century. It’s a gorgeous, fully-voiced adventure with plenty of exploration and puzzle solving.
The Cleaner
Steam page
Release: May 6
Developer: Dystopia Corp
Launch price: $12 | £9.11 | AU$17.20
Heavily inspired by Hotline Miami and SuperHot, The Cleaner is a lightning quick first-person shooter that prizes perfect execution and style. Mercifully, perhaps, there’s “no cliche storyline” and “no cutscenes”, so this is very much a sequence of shooting puzzles. A single bullet can kill you, which means you’ll need to make the most of your ability to slow down time, all the better for some Matrix-style bullet dodging.
