We’re nearing the end of the gaming year, but that doesn’t mean you can relax this year. Instead, the month ahead has much to offer in terms of quantity and quality, with a handful of heavy-hitter games waiting to swallow any remaining spare hours. Looking ahead, the big draws for August include From Software’s return to sci-fi action with Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon, EA’s fantasy-shooter Immortals of Aveum, and the return of the original Chainsaw Man with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Important games coming in August 2023
Baldur’s Gate 3
Larian Studios is now ready to release a Baldur’s Gate sequel that some fans have been waiting for decades, after years of early access fine-tuning. It’s a new beginning for everyone, as the entire release clears the slate. In this D&D fantasy game, you’ll be able to design a hero–or ne’er-do-well!–from one of several classes, engage in adventures around the realm, and potentially even find a grizzly romantic life mate after you start.
WrestleQuest
Even with the advent of new WWE and AEW titles this year, Austin 3:16 believes that the world still needs more wrestling games to elbow-drop some action into your life. WrestleQuest is that new contender, a hero’s adventure in tights in which classic RPG combat collides with wrestling moves, match styles, and gimmicks galore in this love letter to the powerbomb’s history. In this game, wrestle with fate and make it tap out as you pound your way to the top of the pro wrestling food chain.
Stray Gods: Role-Playing Musical
While you’ll have to wait a few more days for Stray Gods to be released–you can blame Baldur’s Gate 3 for that–the role-playing musical is still shaping up to be one of the year’s most memorable games. Gods, passion, and murder in a universe brought to life by a stellar ensemble cast and beautiful illustrations, are music to our ears as you begin on an odyssey to change your fate in this urban fantasy story.
Atlas Fallen
The slays of our time are like sands through an hourglass. Atlas Fallen binds the gauntlet of destiny to your arm and allows you to take on a tyrant deity with powerful sand-infused weaponry and super-powered combat in a strange world packed with old perils, secrets, and shards of the past. Rise from the ashes, collect the essence of your foes to build your unique play style, and work to free humanity from the iron grip of a merciless god.
Stray
Stray, one of the top PC and PlayStation games of 2022, finally makes its way into 2023 on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One. Stray is a creative adventure that combines platforming, light puzzle-solving, and frightening gauntlets, all of which are experienced from the perspective of nature’s fiercest and cutest predator, a stray cat yearning for its way home. Stray, a gripping puzzle adventure set in an enthralling post-apocalyptic environment, goes all in on its feline charm and is well worth picking up when it arrives on Xbox.
Everspace 2
Starfield may be set to take over the space exploration spotlight in September, but Everspace 2 will have a head start in August when it launches for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. Everspace 2 is a fast-paced single-player space shooter with the galactic DNA of Freelancer, but it expands on that inspiration with a captivating plot, furious outer space dogfights, and mysteries to solve in the remote reaches of the universe.
Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew
Mimimi Games is heading out of the Old West and into the Caribbean for their next game, Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew, after resurrecting Desperados in 2020. Shadow Gambit is a stealth strategy game set in an alternate history of the golden age of pirates. It’s all about outwitting your enemies and using your crew’s magical skills to carry off daring heists against ghastly rivals.
Vampire Survivors
Since its initial release on PC last year, the prevailing perception has been that Vampire Survivors would be ideal for the Switch. Prepare to waste hours of your life in this addictive bullet hell game. Vampire Survivor requires only one finger to play, but when the challenge grows to ludicrous levels of peril, it’s all hands on deck. Vampire Survivors was one of GameSpot’s greatest PC and Xbox games of 2022, despite its deceptively easy gameplay. And it’s now a lock to be one of the best Switch games of 2023.
Bomb Rush Cyberfunk
Self-styled graffiti crews tagging beautiful concrete walls with exotic color tags? Bomb Rush Cyberpfunk, the spiritual successor to Dreamcast classic Jet Set Radio, could only be Bomb Rush Cyberpfunk. In Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, you’ll be able to do more than simply brighten up the walls of New Amsterdam; you’ll be able to pull off some stylish tricks, explore five boroughs, and take on rival gangs in Crew Battles as you master the extreme sports of skateboarding, inline skating, and BMX cycling.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Leatherface and his ilk are returned in a new game that has gone to great measures to recreate the slasher vibe of this renowned horror film genre. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, like several other games that make good use of a horror film franchise IP, is an asymmetrical multiplayer experience in which a team of survivors will have to face not only the homicidal Leatherface, but several of his family members as well in their race to stay alive.
Madden NFL 24
EA’s yearly football game is back, and this year’s emphasis is on providing a sporting experience that is more authentic and hits harder than ever before. The game’s new Sapien technology adds more realism and diversity to athletes’ physiques, better AI generates more dependable teammates, and the latest edition of FieldSense gives an improved gameplay foundation to allow you more control during each match.
Immortals of Aveum
Immortals of Aveum has a tome of magic locked and loaded for August, despite a minor delay. Ascendant Studios has spent years developing this first-person magic shooter, and as Jak, you’ll be tasked with mastering three types of magic, joining an order of ancient arcane protectors, and entering the Everwar to determine Aveum’s fate once and for all.
Blasphemous 2
The Penitent One returns for a new war against heretical forces, enduring an infinite cycle of life, death, and resurrection to discover ancient mysteries. Expect a weird new area riddled with merciless traps, vicious combat, and swarms of terrible monsters to slaughter your way through for this second round of delivering final judgment from the sharp end of a sword.
Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon
From the dark fantasy kingdoms of Elden Ring and Dark Souls to the vast reaches of outer space, Armoured Core 6 sees From Software return to its mechanized stomping grounds. Armored Core 6 is all about the mercenary lifestyle, as you fine-tune your mech to take on all sorts of colossal dangers, with the extra touch of From Software’s perfectly honed design philosophy.
