July 2nd – Keen: One Girl Army (Switch)
July 3rd – Marvel’s Iron Man VR (PS4)
July 3rd – Little Town Hero (Xbox One)
July 7th – Catherine: Full Body (Switch)
July 7th – Superluminal (PS4/Switch)
July 9th – CrossCode (PS4/Xbox One/Switch)
July 10th – Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 (PS4/Xbox One/PC/Switch)
July 10th – Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise (Switch)
July 10th – Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town (PC/Switch)
July 14th – Death Stranding (PC)
July 14th – Void tRrLM(); // Void Terrarium (PS4/Switch)
July 14th – Rocket Arena (PS4/Xbox One/PC)
July 15th – Ooblets (PC Early Access/Xbox Game Preview)
July 17th – Ghost of Tsushima (PS4)
July 17th – Paper Mario: The Origami King (Switch)
July 23rd – Rogue Legacy 2 (PC)
July 23rd – Roki (PC)
July 28th – Othercide (PS4/Xbox OnePC)
July 28th – Destroy All Humans! (PS4/Xbox One/PC)
July 28th – Skater XL (PS4/Xbox One/PC)
July 28th – Grounded (PC Early Access/Xbox One Game Preview)
July 30th – Hellpoint (PS4/Xbox One/PC/Switch/Linux/Mac)
July 31st – Fairy Tail (PS4/PC/Switch)
July TBA – Creaks (PS4/Xbox One/PC/Switch/Mac)
We’re just over the hump of probably one of the worst years in recent memory. Not only has a virus ravaged the entire world, but a game about a virus ravaging the entire world killed my favourite character, such that I simply had to take to Twitter and threaten to murder both the creator of the game and the actor that portrayed the fictional character who killed the other fictional character. Talk about a cycle of violence. Games have a way of bringing out the best and worst (and last) of us, but do you know what really shows the world what’s on the inside? A razor-sharp bloody samurai sword that’s what (segue!). It’s hard to imagine any title this month more capable of stealthily assassinating a pair of authentic feudal Japanese jorts than Ghosts of Tsushima, but this is WellPlayed, where even a re-remastered re-release of RE4 is enough to warrant a look in. Let’s see what Team Teal are hungry for this July.
I can’t believe it’s July already. This year seems to be evaporating so quickly, and there are even more games that I need to play coming this month. Void tRrLM(); // Void Terrarium caught my eye when I stumbled upon the intriguing original Japanese trailer, thankfully it’s coming west this month so I can enjoy it fully. Void Terrarium has you playing as a decommissioned maintenance robot who discovers a girl in a fungus riddled wasteland. With the help of an AI you have to make a refuge for her inside a terrarium to keep her alive. Jumping from creepy cute to chibi cute the next game on my list for July is Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town, a remaster of one of the best Harvest Moon games ever. I love farming sims and I’m looking forward to going back to my roots and putting on my farming jorts again. As soon as I heard we were getting a Paper Mario game on Switch I could barely contain myself. I’m excited to explore all the different areas in Paper Mario: The Origami King and enjoy all the papery puns. Lastly, also coming to early access is Ooblets, a game I’ve had my eye on for ages. It’s just so friggin cute and combines so many game elements I love from monster taming to farming.
So it’s around this time of year where we experience a gaming drought; a number of months where very few notable games come out and we all retreat back to our old faithful titles for another playthrough. Well, 2020 has decided to say, ‘Fuck that, have a whole bunch of bangers instead.’’ Yep, it’s a good thing that I’m at the tail end of The Witcher 3 because I’ll be booked out for the entirety of July. Grounded will no doubt be a game that I play for a few hours, enjoy and then not go back to for a long while, but it doesn’t mean that I’m any less keen to see what Obsidian has cooked up. Superliminal has been on my mind ever since it was announced that it was coming to PS4 as I love a puzzle game with character. I can’t wait to be shit at Skater XL, and Rocket Arena will most likely be a bit limp but I’m in for the ride and I’ll also finally get to play my own copy of Destroy All Humans after playing a friend’s copy back in the day. Phew, what a calendar. Wait, I feel like I’m forgetting something. Oh yeah, my most anticipated game of the year, Fairy Tail! Jokes aside, Ghost of Tsushima is days away as you’re reading this and I could not be any more excited to immerse myself in its gorgeous, brutal world. Thank you July, you’re a champion.
Let’s make this quick and easy because I’m not going to pretend that July doesn’t belong to Ghost of Tsushima and Paper Mario: The Origami King. Both are first-party exclusives destined to live in the shadow of other first-party exclusives, but both games I’ve been ultra-keen to get my hands on since they were announced. That’s not all July has in store for my Winter jorts though, as the fresh financial year also brings with it some more indie-flavoured joints like the Early Access launch of monster-befriending-life-sim Ooblets, or first-person, mind-melting puzzler Superliminal. There are a bunch of others too, July is honestly stacked, but I’m sure our Lord and Saviour Zach Jackson would be quite cross with me if I didn’t shout out Röki, the brilliant-looking Scandi narrative adventure that WellPlayed has been collectively frothing for the longest time. It’s gonna be a busy month.
We’re at the halfway mark of the year, the post-E3 wasteland where everyone can take a collective breath, slide into our relaxed jorts and dive into our backlogs for a few weeks before the holiday season kicks into gear. But as it’s shown many times over, 2020 is a different beast, and speaking of beasts July is the month we finally get to play Röki in its entirety – a dark fairy tale about a misunderstood monster. It’s the debut game from Polygon Treehouse – one of my most anticipated of the year and I cannot emphasise how excited I am for this title. Before that though we have Ghost of Tsushima, which looks pretty damn tasty, even if it does look like a big-budget Onimusha knockoff…Then there’s Revolution Software’s new point-and-click adventure Beyond a Steel Sky, and although it’s not a new Broken Sword game, I am keen to see what it’s all about.
