Want the biggest games of next month? These are the biggest!
August is almost over, and the great game rush of September is upon us. Publishers are gearing up to view September as a month where they can maximize sales with big, new releases. They don’t see an issue with not spreading out the release dates. It’s the beginning of the end for the summer, and the community is looking for games to settle into the colder months.
August is ending strong with both late month releases Control, and Astral Chain is having plenty of critical success. Not to mention World of Warcraft: Classic hopes to rekindle the classic MMO’s fire that fans think has been missing for some time now. And this was a weak month when compared to what’s coming next.
Here are the biggest games coming out next month.
Monster Hunter World: Icebourne – PS4, Xbox One – 6th
In what is probably one of the most ambitious expansions to a non-MMO game ever, Icebourne looks to add content similar to the size of a Monster Hunter Ultimate game in itself. The expansion takes the player to a new land named Hoarfrost Reach, and as the names might suggest, you need to keep warm. There’s a mountain of content getting promised to release, and the promotional material Capcom has shown looks quite promising. The PC release will follow in Early 2020.
eFootball Pro Evolution Soccer 2020 – PS4, Xbox One, PC – 10th
What must be considered the most bizarre name change to an established franchise in some time, this year’s edition of PES is looking to continue its ongoing upward trajectory of improvements. There’s more club partnerships (including one Lionel Messi, who back on the cover), and improvements to AI that Konami hope to launch the series back to the top of the Premier League. They’ve got a 17-day head start on arch-rival FIFA 20 too.
Gears 5 – Xbox One, PC – 10th
Gears 5 drops the ‘of War’ from its name and adds the emotive story of Kait Diaz as she struggles to deal with her Locust roots. Marcus Fenix and son JD (the protagonist of Gears 4), and JD’s friend Delmond Walker round off the line-up. Microsoft and The Coalition look to use Gears 5 as a marquee game for their recent efforts to the PC market. Here’s hoping that the game fits the bill. Oh, there’s also multiplayer. With added Terminator characters.
Borderlands 3 – PS4, Xbox One, PC (Epic Game Store) – 13th
Gearbox has had a rocky few years. CEO Randy Pitchford declared war on nearly everyone. Battleborn, Gearbox’s last major release, tanked so hard rumors circulated the studio might be struggling to stay afloat. So what better way to risk everything than to put together a long-overdue sequel to Borderlands 2? And when you have Guns with legs, who’s going to turn down that opportunity to play? Let’s hope that the amount of exposure the game has seen since it’s announcement hasn’t diminished the quality in the game.
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening – Nintendo Switch – 20th
In what was one of the most pleasant surprises of Nintendo’s Directs this year, the remake of Link’s Awakening is a smart decision. It is one of the more under-appreciated entries into the series. It likely did not get as much exposure when it initially released due to its original Gameboy release. DX helped, but it’s not talked about as one of the best games when it certainly has a claim to it, especially as it was a fully-fledged Zelda game on a handheld. This cute remake for Switch should right that wrong.
The Surge 2 – PS4, Xbox One, PC – 24th
A game that has perhaps snuck under the radar of the big publisher releases (it shared a release date with the great Injustice 2), The Surge was mostly Sci-Fi Dark Souls. While it wasn’t quite at the level of From Software’s titles, what it did, it did it very well. It sold well enough for developer Deck13 Interactive to go for a sequel. Whether it will be able to set itself apart from this busy month of big releases (middle of October might have been a better time to stand out) remains to be seen.
Code Vein – PS4, Xbox One, PC – 27th
Another game with inspiration from the Souls games, CodeVein has a more distinctly Japanese feel to it. It has a straight-up anime opening cinematic, which you can see below. However, the game looks fantastic, and Bandai Namco is not exactly strangers to these types of games from their work on the Souls series. Here’s hoping that it can bring a post-apocalyptic world to life.
FIFA 20 – PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC – 27th
One of Europe’s best selling games year after year, FIFA 2020 brings with it a new cover star (Real Madrid’s Eden Hazard). It also comes with improvements to the Career mode, which have been long overdue. There’s also a new mode called VOLTA football, which is essentially a FIFA Street style mode within the mainline FIFA games. The usual incremental improvements to gameplay are there, and further additions to the Ultimate Team Icon catalog have introduced. Just don’t try playing as Juventus. They are there, but technically they’re not.
