Okay, now that that’s out of our system, it’s time to talk about all the games we’ve been playing over at Discord for the last month! May saw a huge boom of incredible indie game releases, including Animal Well, Little Kitty Big City, and one I’ve been personally waiting for: Crow Country.
For May, we’ve got Matt, Emi, Jonathan, Tracie, and Mark ready to dish out the news on what they’ve been playing. If you read last month’s Staff Picks and were wondering if Matt cleared anything out in his backlog, bad news: the answer is “no,” and “the backlog got bigger.”
Now if you’ll excuse me, while everyone talks about what they played, MultiVersus finally (re)released this week and I’ve been missing my main Reindog.
Happy Soon-to-be-Summer! What have you been playing during May?
May seems to be the “play games you never finished from your deep backlog”. They include…
Ghost of Tsushima DIRECTOR’S CUT
Hollow Knight (beat the final boss, 66% complete)
Dead Cells (gotta beat the Castlevania DLC)
Fallout 4
Half-Life: Alyx
Animal Well
June is when HUGE gaming announcements are revealed, such as those at Summer Games Fest. What’s your dream game reveal next month?
Gimme Doom or Wolfenstein! Or a “surprise! We were working on Fallout 5 the whole time and it comes out at the end of this year!” from Bethesda
Anything you’re looking forward to playing over the next month, new or old?
See above and then add Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, Destiny 2: The Final Shape, and The Rogue Prince of Persia.
Happy Soon-to-be-Summer! What have you been playing during May?
I know my last update said I had a few games to finish, and I’ve been really committed to putting more hours into Baldur’s Gate 3. I think I’ve added 70 hours to my playtime, and the end of Act 3 is in sight. Though it’s maybe a bit bittersweet for my first playthrough to be coming to an end, I’m determined to finish by the end of May!
Outside of that, I’ve been strengthening my friendships through KallaX. I like co-op games like Overcooked! 2 and PlateUp!, so my friends and I have had a good time so far. Although my friend did throw me into space more than once.
On the less cooperative side, I’ve also been playing Oh Deer, a hide-and-seek game that has created a lot of laughs so far. You’re either the hunter and need to find the fake deer, or you’re the hunted, looking for a place to blend in. Until you can turn the tables, of course.
June is when HUGE gaming announcements are revealed, such as those at Summer Games Fest. What’s your dream game reveal next month?
Oof, that’s tough. I like so many different genres — I can’t choose!
Anything you’re looking forward to playing over the next month, new or old?
I added Ghost of Tsushima to my list recently, so maybe that will leapfrog over everything else on my to-be-played [list]. Quite a few Yakuza games also found their way into my Steam library.
Happy Soon-to-be-Summer! What have you been playing during May?
This month I HIGHLY recommend Hollow Knight. This “Metroidvania” game from Team Cherry provides fun, challenging, and satisfying gameplay. Many have called it a 2D Dark Souls, and I get the comparison but don’t let that scare you off. It is a challenge and some mechanics are similar but I haven’t thrown my controller once. With any Metroidvania-style game, it can get frustrating not knowing where to go, but just when I give up hope, I find a way. Just like life!
June is when HUGE gaming announcements are revealed, such as those at Summer Games Fest. What’s your dream game reveal next month?
Anything from Capcom. They have been releasing some bangers lately.
Anything you’re looking forward to playing over the next month, new or old?
My “stack of shame” is only growing. I still need to play Cyberpunk and Final Fantasy, but realistically I’ll probably give Indika a go. Even though my official recommendation for the month is Hollow Knight, can we get a trailer of Indika in here? The people need to know!
Happy Soon-to-be-Summer! What have you been playing during May?
This month, I’ve been playing a fun indie survival crafting game called Abiotic Factor, developed by New Zealand studio Deep Field Games. You play as a group of scientists in a research facility that has been experimenting on aliens – which is actually an amazing premise for a survival game. Imagine just playing some nerdy scientists stuck in a lab, and you have to gather scraps to put together your own little base and try to survive in the lab against an uncontrolled containment of aliens.
It very much gives old Half-Life 1 vibes, even with some subtle nods to Half-Life in there. The game only released in Early Access this month, but it has been so incredibly fun to play with friends.
June is when HUGE gaming announcements are revealed, such as those at Summer Games Fest. What’s your dream game reveal next month?
This might be too much of a dream, but any news on Dragon Age Dreadwolf would be amazing. I’ve seen some news here and there about the game being nearly finished – if we got some new trailer during Summer Games Fest I would be elated.
Anything you’re looking forward to playing over the next month, new or old?
I briefly started Hades 2 Early Access, but haven’t spent as much time as I wanted to into the game. It seems like I’ve been playing more early access games than anything else this past month – but, hey, I’m loving them!
Happy Soon-to-be-Summer! What have you been playing during May?
May was a blur. I played a decent amount of THE FINALS for the first time. Definitely feels like you need a dedicated crew to play with otherwise trying to play and communicate with randos leaves a bit to be desired. No offense randos. I’m not on mic, either.
Played the ARK remaster or whatever, and don’t know if I’ll ever play it again. Why is there so much pooping? Also, played the new Regicide mode in Chivalry 2 which definitely feels like the last big reveal for this game before 3 is announced. But I'm a cowardly archer and ever since they nerfed the archer, it’s hard for me to get back into this game.
Is this a safe space to rant? If not, remove this (Editor’s Note: I also only play Archer, so continue.), but like the hit reg in that game for projectiles is busted (arrows literally go through people so often) and completely removing the arrow pull was an over-correct. Should have just minimized that imo. But, not like dog-pilling devs or anything, and everyone hates Archers anyway, so whatever.
And because I traveled a little bit, I busted out the handheld and played some Lunar 2: Eternal Blue. Slow and steady progress. Banger OST.
June is when HUGE gaming announcements are revealed, such as those at Summer Games Fest. What’s your dream game reveal next month?
My dream? A new Nights into Dreams game or Legend of Dragoon remaster. I don’t know.
Anything you’re looking forward to playing over the next month, new or old?
Maybe that Jedi ARPG game that just hit Game Pass.
Getting Set for Summer’s Biggest Reveals
June’s gonna be crazy: potentially hundreds of game announcements, with plenty of surprises in store and new titles planned that will make waiting until the big fall season of game releases feel REALLY long. Why is November so far away…
See an announcement next month that one of our contributors would like. Poke us on X, Instagram, or TikTok, and let us know! (If you see anything with a retro aesthetic and horror-themed, let me know personally.)
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