The Video Video games You Ought to Play This Weekend – July 17, 2026

The Mermaid Masks, the newest entry within the Detective Grimoire collection from SFB Video games, duties gamers with investigating the loss of life of Magnus Mortuga, captain of a mysterious submarine. It combines point-and-click journey mechanics with one-of-a-kind puzzles, nevertheless it largely entails speaking to a colourful forged of suspects and gathering proof to trace down the offender. It is a recreation I would suggest to simply about anybody: its character artwork is charming and lovingly animated, its music is thrilling and complicated, and the writing is stellar, from the bigger plot beats to the moment-to-moment dialogue. Whereas it is the third (or fourth, in the event you’re a stickler) recreation in its timeline, connections to prior entries are minimal, so there is no have to get caught up. For my full ideas, take a look at my evaluate.

It was not particularly designed this fashion (except Brian Shea was secretly masterminding this complete factor when he assigned me these critiques), however I reviewed Star Fox (2026), Rhythm Heaven Groove, and Denshattack again to again, that are all video games the place you play a degree for about three to 5 minutes, and you have to be sure you do a bunch of issues accurately in that brief period of time. It was an odd journey to play all these one after one other, however maybe the weirdest of the bunch is Denshattack, which is a excessive bar if you’re competing with Rhythm Heaven Groove, a recreation the place you must conceal from a sneezing moon.

In my evaluate I wrote that Denshattack is “the perfect post-apocalyptic stunt practice driving motion sports activities simulator anime ever created,” and I stand by that assertion. I even permitted it to be used in a possible accolades trailer the sport might wish to use sooner or later. However the factor I get at is that even when it does tackle quite a lot of influences and proudly show their appreciation and love for them, Denshattack feels actually distinctive. It is a bit like a heightened motion sports activities recreation, like a Tony Hawk or an SSX, however you are driving a practice. It is sort of insane, but additionally fairly nice for that cause. You may learn my full evaluate proper right here.

Co-created by Evil Trout, developer of one in every of my favourite 2025 video games, The Roottrees Are Useless, comes this ingenious new thriller. You management an investigator making an attempt to study the reality behind the mysterious deaths of a gaggle of individuals at a mansion referred to as Galley Home that occurred in 1936, utilizing a machine that means that you can reconstruct and look at scenes from the time of the incident. Like Roottrees, the sport turns into an engrossing train of listening to conversations and utilizing context clues to find out the identities and whereabouts of every ill-fated customer to Galley Home on that fateful evening, a timeline divided into 26 segments. Utilizing deductive abilities to fill within the blanks of who was doing what and the place, whereas studying characters’ intriguing relationships with one another, and discovering the reality of the unlucky circumstance that befell them, is fascinating, cleverly constructed, and retains you guessing with quite a few surprises. Mixing the detective gameplay of Roottrees with components of Clue makes The Incident at Galley Home one other worthwhile puzzle recreation to lose your self on this weekend.

On the floor, this D-topia’s sterile but charming artwork path suggests a comfy expertise, and that’s true to an extent. Because the 18-year-old Shiro, you’re the newest arrival to a domed AI-controlled metropolis referred to as D-topia, a human paradise in response to its blissful human residents. Designated as a Facilitator, your job is to take care of the town by serving to residents with any issues and repairing mechanical points; going to work entails fixing more and more various math/quantity puzzles that the AI tells you don’t have any sensible software apart from conserving you productive.

Every day you get up, go to work, roam the town’s modern and pristine districts to work together and bond with a colourful forged, and go to mattress. However what makes D-topia intriguing is how a lot its residents take pleasure in dwelling a life the place machines do their considering for them. D-topia’s AI feeds them, buildings their every day routines, and even controls what they see utilizing visible manipulation tech, all within the title of eliminating any type of discomfort, bodily and emotional. Regardless of the obvious lack of battle, confronting conditions that problem D-topia’s euphoria, reminiscent of deciding the destiny of a citizen who harmlessly ate greater than his allotted snacks or discovering a cat whose existence violates the AI’s strict legal guidelines, provides a probably sinister undertone I’m progressively making an attempt to excavate. Chipping away at D-topia’s cheerful facade will hopefully yield fascinating truths about how the sausage is made on this Pleasantville-esque futuristic journey.

There are quite a lot of privileges on this line of labor, however reviewing Heave Ho 2 was one in every of my favorites to this point, because it meant I obtained to spend the day on the sofa enjoying video games with my brother. Heave Ho 2 is ideal for that, with its foolish physics and collaboration-focused gameplay. As heads with arms, every clasps the opposite’s hand to kind a protracted chain of limbs, clambering throughout eight worlds as hilarity ensues. I do not love each world (I am taking a look at you, Chef’s Orders), nevertheless it’s a tough recreation to remain mad at, particularly as a result of you’ll be able to play by means of the areas in any order. At simply $10, it is also fairly low-cost, and shopping for Heave Ho 2 throughout its launch week means you additionally get Heave Ho 1 without cost, so it is a good time to leap in. For my full ideas, take a look at my evaluate.

You might have 30 seconds earlier than the world ends (once more) in Ascend to Zero. A clock on the high of your display in each run of this survivors-like roguelite is not going to allow you to overlook that, both. Utilizing a wide range of avatars, you could enter the ultimate corridors current on the precipice of the world’s finish and struggle your option to its apocalyptic core. Your stats will develop with every run, utilizing a wide range of currencies, as will your arsenal of weapons, each melee and ranged, and the armor set and different game-changing tools you convey into this sprint to the top. Whereas 30 seconds fly by, your distinctive time-stop capacity pauses the clock, permitting you to inflict heavy injury on surrounding enemies if you’re prepared for the seconds to start out ticking by once more, and utilizing this transfer to defeat bosses and mobs is vital to including extra time to the clock.

Whereas it appears like an motion recreation at first look, due to its survivors-like fight, the place you construct upon an auto-attacking set of weapons whereas shifting round to make sure they hit their targets, Ascend to Zero performs extra like a administration recreation – the way you handle your time, the methods totally different chips and talents have an effect on the seconds you’ve left, and your fight ranges, that are at all times on the rise as increasingly troublesome enemies await you within the subsequent room, is the distinction between success and the top of the world. It’s solely $12 however is at the moment on sale on Steam for lower than $10 and is properly price your time.