January 5 – Scott Pilgrims vs. The World: The Game Complete Edition (PC)
January 11 – Children of Silentown (PS5/PS4/Xbox Series X|S/Xbox One/Switch/PC)
January 12 – Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot (PS5/Xbox Series X|S)
January 13 – One Piece Odyssey (PS5/PS4/Xbox Series X|S/Xbox One/PC)
January 17 – Surviving the Abyss (PC)
January 19 – Persona 3 Portable (PS5/PS4/Xbox Series X|S/Xbox One/Switch/PC)
January 19 – A Space for the Unbound (PS5/PS4/Xbox Series X|S/Xbox One/Switch/PC)
January 19 – Colossal Cave (PS5/Xbox Series X|S/Switch/PC)
January 19 – Persona 4 Golden (PS5/PS4/Xbox Series X|S/Xbox One/Switch)
January 20 – Monster Hunter Rise (PS5/PS4/Xbox Series X|S/Xbox One)
January 20 – Fire Emblem Engage (Switch)
January 24 – Forspoken (PS5/PC)
January 27 – Dead Space Remake (PS5/Xbox Series X|S/PC)
January 31 – Season: A Letter to the Future (PS5/PS4/PC)
January 31 – Inkulinati (Xbox Series X|S/Xbox One/PC) (Early Access)
While the new year is generally considered a good time for self-reflection and resolutions to change one’s ways, the WellPlayed lads have slipped right back into the old comfy jorts a mere few days in. Nathan is engaged at half-mast (that’s a pirate joke, it’s fine), Mark is cycling “new year, new me” personas and I’m just trying to drink enough water so that the mildly antagonist slogans on the side of my new 3L motivational bottle don’t call me a dehydrated bitch again. So put those (potentially foolish) new year ambitions to rest a moment and take a gander at what we consider to be the most exciting games coming out this month
James
First up is Colossal Cave, a love letter and adaptation of a 1970s text-adventure from Cynus Entertainment. A fantasy journey for the mind from Will Crowther and Don Woods, the game has been updated into a first-person experience from industry darling Roberta Williams. Colossal Cave seems like a quaint and charming romp that will serve as both retrospective and transformational art. Speaking of old things made new, Chasing Static is dropping on consoles, offering up a PSX-era-looking horror experience that uses sound as its primary gameplay tool. The distorted visuals and grim tone look fantastic, never mind how refreshing it is to see one of these retro-aesthetic titles riffing on cultural touchstones that aren’t small-town Americana.
Elsewhere, Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden are finally arriving on home consoles, the latter I can’t wait to finally experience for myself and not just through YouTube retrospectives I fall asleep to. After the disappointment that was The Calisto Protocol late last year, the market is undeniably primed for a Dead Space revival so cleaved-off fingers are crossed that this remake will deliver the goods. It certainly looks stunning, and the additional characterisation and fully explorable ship seem like fantastic additions, but remakes can be tricky at the best of times. Let alone when it’s one of the most beloved games of its generation. After a lengthy and somewhat troubled development cycle, Season: A Letter to the Future is finally bearing fruit too. A bicycle road trip game that looks to be commenting on about a dozen socially conscious ideas while trying to be a Vibes game, this one has been packing my jorts for a while now and I’m nervously keen to see how the thing actually plays.
Nathan
Yo ho ho, he took a bite of gum-gum. I never thought we’d actually see the day, but a turn-based One Piece JRPG is upon us. It feels like a fitting reward for yours truly having whipped through 750 episodes of the phenomenal anime over the past 15 or so months. I lose track. In Odyssey, Luffy and the Straw Hat pirates relive their saga in a dream state, having the opportunity to alter the defining events of the series. If the drama seen in the last couple of trailers is anything to go by, the fans are in for a treat!
Aside from my aforementioned game of the month, I’m keen to dip into a few established tentpole series getting ports, remakes, and a whopping new entry. Starting with the latter, Fire Emblem Engage has me hot and bothered because you know ya boi loves his turn-based tactics games. I’ve yet to even play the Tactics Ogre remaster though. Engage has me excited as I kind of didn’t enjoy the social side game to Three Houses, and this latest entry looks like a return to solid, uncompromised tactics battling.
Dead Space returns with a decent looking remake of the riveting first title. It’s actually surprising more games haven’t been able to nail the dismemberment survival horror mechanics since the 2008 classic. You’re not allowed to play it until you finish Signalis, though. Them’s the rules. Persona 3 Portable, the game that got me into Persona and Shin Megami Tensei, is getting its first release outside of the PlayStation Portable. And lastly, Monster Hunter Rise is making its way to current gen consoles. I’ve bought this game on Switch, PC, and like every other localised game in the series, have yet to play more than a half dozen hours. Will a third purchase finally see me catch the Monster Hunter (wire) bug?
Mark
2023 holds plenty of promise, a collection of AAA and Indie titles both highly anticipated and long-awaited filling out an already bumper first few months of the year. January is no exception, what with Dad Space …I mean, Dead Space making an anticipated return and Fire Emblem Engage set to take all my spare time. A new Fire Emblem certainly has my jorts ready to burn (I honestly don’t know what that means, so just run with it), but it isn’t the only one that has me keen to start the year off right.
For one, there’s the returning Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden making the jump to new consoles. The lads above have already touted their interest, so let me throw in my two cents and say I’m more keen to play P3P, a game I missed originally on the PSP that’s been largely overshadowed by the later two sequels. Call me curious to see how the series has evolved over time, and whether it can hold up as well as P4G and Persona 5 Royal. Having all three titles on my Switch makes me a happy boy, and if the rumours are true it won’t be the only Persona games I’ll be playing this year…
Elsewhere, there’s a couple of quality indies (as always) that have caught my attention. Lone Ruin is the latest from the Super Rare Games publishing label and promises a roguelike twin-stick shooter that looks an awful lot like Hyper Light Drifter, and that’s a compliment. Season: A Letter to the Future is one part unusual and two parts perfectly catered to a nice, casual way to kick off the year, though the demo from late last year didn’t sell its premise as well as it could have. Then there’s A Place for the Unbound, published by Indonesia’s own Toge Productions (aka the team behind the very good Coffee Talk) that will pull at the heartstrings across its pixelated adventure of two friends with supernatural powers.
