The Xbox Store and PSN are about to enter a yuletide lull, with just a handful of releases due over the course of the week. On the Switch eShop, it’s business as usual – another thirty-odd games are vying for your time and money.
WRC Generations – The FIA WRC Official Game heads to both the eShop and retail, quite possibly being the last physical release of the year. It sees the rally world transition to the hybrid era, promising more content than any WRC game prior. Gameplay footage is available on YouTube if you want to see how it compares to past iterations.

Then there’s the tactical city defense sim Kaiju Wars – with its 15+ hour campaign – the faux NES-style vertical shooter GyroBlade, the comical card battler Floppy Knights, and the Christmas-themed heavy metal twin-stick shooter Headbangers in Holiday Hell. Somebody must have received one too many Brut gift sets.
The Souls-like Mortal Shell also gains a complete edition, with – as you’d expect – all DLC and updates. This includes an alternative boss fight soundtrack from the metal band Rotting Christ. Lovely.
A trio of surprise releases have also snuck out. The Punchuin comes from Shin’en, being a pixel art puzzle platformer starring a punching penguin. A two-player mode features. Sonority, meanwhile, is a third-person puzzle adventure with a musical theme, looking quite polished. Then in the sailing adventure Sail Forth, it’s up to your fleet to save the planet from a watery grave.

Also look out for the ‘90s style competitive puzzler Popplings, the 8 player(!) Pixel Cup Soccer – Ultimate Edition, Aery spin-off Aero Striker – World Invasion, and The Tale of Clouds and Wind – a re-release of an Asia-only Mega Drive scrolling brawler. Or Genesis, if you prefer.
This might be our last eShop round-up of 2022 – just three releases are currently lined up for next week. If more games surface, we may be able to squeeze out one more round-up between naps.
New Switch eShop releases

Mortal Shell: Complete Edition – £24.99
For the first time, Mortal Shell: Complete Edition brings together all content updates and DLC into one formidable package.
Included in Mortal Shell: Complete Edition is the game-altering Virtuous Cycle expansion – an entirely new roguelike mode that brings random and repeatable savagery to Fallgrim.
Also present is Hadern, once your elusive teacher, now yours to master as Mortal Shell’s fifth possessable and playable character.
Mortal Shell: Complete Edition also features the Rotten Autumn content update, which adds unique Shell shades, a new mini-quest, a powerful new photo mode, and an alternative boss fight soundtrack from black metal band Rotting Christ.

Meet the Floppy Knights: tangible projections summoned from floppy disks! Tactics fuse with card game mechanics as Phoebe and Carlton, a brilliant young inventor & her robot-arm bestie, square off in turn-based battles. Select your Knights, hone your deck, and execute your strategy for victory!

Explore the Deepblue!
• Put the wind to your back and cast out into High Adventure over a vast ocean spanning dozens of eccentric regions.
• Discover countless isles bursting with their own flora, fauna, friendly folk, and fearsome foes.
• Playfully pursue a pod of curious dolphins, admire the beauty of the sun sinking into an icy horizon, or run down a clutch of cowardly criminals only to accept their apologies to the tune of wild cannonry.
WRC Generations – The FIA WRC Official Game – £44.99
2022 will see the WRC transition to the hybrid era. This is a revolution for the rally world, significantly affecting performance, changing strategies and making drivers and teams adapt.
In terms of gameplay, new mechanics have been integrated to represent the demands of the hybrid engines. In order to win, you have to carefully manage your battery by adapting your engine mapping throughout the special stages you take part in.
As community satisfaction is always a priority , you can now share customised livery and stickers with other players. The best creations will be rewarded and highlighted.
For fans of competition, the new Leagues mode lets players challenge opponents with a similar level online. Finish ahead of your competitors to move up the ladder in the Legends category.
WRC Generations includes more content than ever before in a rally game.
Sit behind the wheel of a big delivery truck and try to navigate it through complex maze of roads, traffic and obstacles!
Astronomical Club For Queers – £8.99
Friendship is the most important thing
You are a transgender civet named Louie. After the flood, at your friend’s family home, you stayed at the family home of your friend, a gay fox named Oliver.
Hear more information, see more stars
Listen carefully to the podcast with your buddies – pansexual alligator Miles and lesbian dog Kylie and learn more about the approaching Halley’s comet. Admire the night sky with the help of a telescope together with asexual cat Darwin.
Roller Katz: BF – Episode 1 – £4.49
Our protagonist is Diana Katz, a child prodigy who invented a robot with unique qualities. Kiara is a robot capable of jumping, skating, rolling, and destroying everything in her path. With these abilities she will keep the peace safe in Clean City.
Roller Katz gameplay mixes the genre of platforms with high speed, skating and different gadgets with which to defeat your enemies.
The long levels have multiple paths full of surprises, places to skate, bars over which to grind, rivers to jump over, etc. All this accompanied by enemies who will try put an end to the adventures of our partner Kiara.
Pixel Cup Soccer – Ultimate Edition – £14.44
With fast-paced gameplay, Pixel Cup Soccer is just the fun part of soccer!
Play it alone or locally with up to 8 friends, you can choose whether to play competitively, cooperatively, or even both!
It features great pixel art and soundtracks that evoke nostalgia of the glory days of the 80s and 90s arcade games.
Move, pass, and shoot the ball to victory! You will learn to play in one minute, but it takes much longer to master it.
The simple controls enable a rich set of features such as charging and aiming your shots, directing your corner kicks and throw-ins, shooting lobs, slide tackles, and more.
A Maiden Astrologer Divines the Future – £7.57
The main character of this work is “Izumi Mizushiro”, a maiden Astrologer.
She lives with her younger sister “Towa”.
One day Izumi starts experiencing unexpected troubles, and while Izumi and others are looking for the cause of the problems, they are visited by a girl named “Maki”.
From there, they experience both new encounters and farewells.
This work is an adventure game that you can enjoy about an astrologer named Izumi who feels happy and rewarded when “making someone happy” or “being able to support someone”.
Moorhuhn Pirates – Crazy Chicken Pirates – £6.29
An idyllic Caribbean archipelago is infested with Moorhuhn pirates. It is up to you to restore peace to these shores!
Be quick – you have only 90 seconds to enter the supposedly peaceful idyll and finish your raid. If it weren’t for the pirates …
A one-legged captain, a gunner, a knife-wielding grouse and a treasure hunter… the island harbors countless dangers, hidden extras and secrets.
The lords of the island are by no means willing to surrender themselves and their treasure without a fight …
They will defend their hideout with cannons and cutlasses and finally plunge bravely into the waves in their rowing boats for a desperate counterattack …
Mind Jab is a both a race to build enough sanity and/or resources to win and a challenge to avoid losing all your sanity.
Take turns to play (or discard) a card from a hand of 6 cards, earning resources, dealing damage, and building bonuses. Use empathy, diplomacy and rationality to boost your own mind, weaken your opponent’s, and build enough sanity to win.
It is impossible not to be eclipsed by the idea of going to heaven and living eternal life. However, you have to earn that place. You will meet at the gates of heaven the angel who will decide your destiny, he will want to be sure you deserve to enter and he will ask you many questions, remember very well! If you get a wrong answer he will never trust you and you will not pass the gates of paradise.
Play out a Kaiju movie as the mayor of Floatio city, tasked with holding off the overwhelming strength of a Kaiju attack with (hopelessly) outclassed military. Defend your city as five unique and devastating Kaiju grow in power with every attack. Unfortunately, they can’t be killed, but can be slowed down and forced to fall back… for now.
Monsters move towards the nearest building, and the scientists have mathed the exact odds of where they might go next. Build sacrificial army bases and airfields to distract the Kaiju. If standard methods aren’t enough, deploy experimental weapons such as freeze rays and transforming mechas to keep them at bay. Or you can always park tanks and jets in the monsters’ path to slow them down (don’t worry, we have a good insurance policy). If all your efforts fail, don’t be ashamed and run away! Be prepared to evacuate the laboratory using transport trucks, boats, or planes when the Kaiju get too close.
Play missions from all over the world as you progress through the fight against Kaiju in a 15+ hour story-based campaign. Throughout the campaign, you’ll have the chance to gain an advantage with upgradeable ACE units and Project Deck customization. Test your wits in tactical puzzles, command dozens of units in large-scale scenarios, and fend off repeated attacks in defense missions while developing your city economically. And if you’re hungry for more, test your command skills in weekly challenges!
Aero Striker – World Invasion – £9.99
Be ready for an action-packed twist on our “Aery” series.
The whole premise is to enjoy yourself and relax after a stressful day of work while shooting evil aliens that are trying to take over the world.
The game is a highly stylized action-packed flight combat simulator game that is intentionally designed to be easy to make it more enjoyable and less nerve-racking. Therefore, the aim is not to be challenging but to have fun making aliens explode while experiencing the sensation of flying. The game has been requested by a lot of our fans and you are now ready to fight the evil aliens in 5 different game modes and on more than 10 different maps.
The Rusty Sword: Vanguard Island – £0.89
The Rusty Sword: Vanguard Island is a short, top-down adventure game inspired by several 16-bit games you know and love. It features a small island overworld, a large non-linear dungeon, countless monsters to battle, classic art that takes you back through time, and a nostalgic soundtrack. In the game, you venture on a quest to find the hidden Vanguard Relic.
Fight Club – Join us if you can – £3.59
In Fight Club – Join us if you can, you try to join a secret group where discipline and success go hand in hand. However, you have to get accepted by its members. You will meet the members of the club who will want to be sure that you deserve to be a member of this select group and they will ask you a lot of questions. Remember very well! If you get the wrong answer they will never trust you and you will not prove that you are worthy of being part of the club.
Dr. Kobushi’s Labyrinthine Laboratory – £8.99
Save Falafel from within a towering, puzzling laboratory in this super challenging retro puzzler!
Dr. Kobushi’s Labyrinthine Laboratory is a mind-bendingly challenging puzzle game that mixes homage to retro classics with funny dialogue and innovative puzzle mechanics. Guide the adventurous Ayla as she attempts to rescue her dog, Falafel, from the confines of a mysterious towering laboratory deep within a solitary forest. Over a hundred ultra-challenging pixelated puzzles will have you avoiding killer robots as you engage with memorable characters.
Over 100 puzzles: Can you beat Dr. Kobushi’s tower? Over 100 thought-provoking puzzles will challenge your creativity and insight.
Weave your way across the board collecting baubles and trinkets to fill her Christmas baskets with Christmas cheer. Race against the clock to collect the combinations Mia needs so she can complete the orders and make enough money to convert her flat into a Christmas wonderland.
Keep an eye on what Mia’s collecting and test your memory with special ornament levels where you’ll need to collect the correct patterns of trinkets to make the items.
Use your coins to upgrade Mia’s flat and gain extra time, or buy equipment to help you succeed like an alarm clock to slow down time!
Struggling on a level, or just want some company? With local multiplayer your friends can jump in and help (or hinder) you on any level.
An arcade-style pixel art 2D vertical scrolling shooter. As retro as it gets. Shoot straight, collect points, power up your weapons, and destroy oncoming enemies and bosses. Choose your difficulty level and make your way through eight challenging stages.
A party game with simple controls anyone can enjoy!
Pass around the Joy-Con™ and play with up to six players!
Experience a whole variety of intuitive, easy-to-play minigames.
Try to find your new favorite!
Fight your way out from Core Station in the depths of the Earth’s Crust, back to the surface 30 miles above and bring help for all those trapped below.
Upgrade your ship and weapons as you go. Get new blueprints for upgrades from the boffins at Core Station. You’ll need everything they can give you to fight off the Drones who have inundated the tunnels.
Each run is procedurally generated, new and unexpected challenges every playthrough. Featuring thumping music to shoot to!
Decades ago, every known star and habitable planet mysteriously vanished, along with whatever and whoever happened to be on them, leaving behind an empty universe of asteroids and lifeless moons where the only remnants of humanity are those who were on space stations or starships at the time. With supplies gradually dwindling and infrastructure falling into disrepair, the survivors have spent the subsequent years frantically searching for any trace of remaining natural resources. Up until now they have been unsuccessful…
Then, a mysterious anomaly known as a Blood Ocean (which is exactly what it sounds like) was discovered on an otherwise barren moon. It’s not the first Blood Ocean found since the vanishing, but initial scans show a collection of potentially useful anomalous locations in a deep undersea (underblood?) trench that require further investigation.
And you’re the unlucky sap who gets to investigate, in an aging submarine cobbled together from rusty space station parts.
Set entirely within a claustrophobic one-man submarine nicknamed the “Iron Lung,” you must blindly navigate an ocean of blood to take photographs of key locations, and hope whatever lives below doesn’t find you.
Sucker for Love: First Date – £7.39
Obsessed with occult rituals, you have finally obtained the last thing you need to summon the eldritch horror that has been haunting your dreams; a strange, bright-pink Necronomicon. You perform the only ritual that doesn’t appear to be insane ramblings, and inadvertently summon Ln’eta, a cute cthulhu-like girl. She agrees to a kiss, on the condition that you perform a few rituals from the book for her first. Looking back at the Necronomicon… all of the other pages suddenly make sense?
PICROSS X : PICBITS VS UZBOROSS – £17.99
Solve puzzles as they come at you non-stop and survive to the end!
This Picross focuses on 5×5 high-speed puzzles!
Enjoy a thrilling, stylish new kind of Picross!
Connect between different hubs and destinations, like factories, police stations, cafes, libraries, boutiques, saloons, hotels, pizzerias, pet shops or schools.
As new hubs become active, an increase in demand will occur. You must upgrade and redistribute destinations to keep your cargo system flowing.
Headbangers in Holiday Hell – £5.99
You didn’t buy a hideous woolly jumper. You didn’t buy, gift and receive enough presents. Worst of all, you didn’t even get a Christmas tree! Now Santa Claus is sending his craziest minions to quell your non-conformist antics. Let’s introduce them to the untamed power of Heavy Metal!
Headbangers in Holiday Hell is a twin stick roguelite full of heavy metal and comedy.
Free your fellow Headbangers from hordes of insane Christmas critters, and then it’s time to take on Santa Claus himself!
Play in free style or against the timer with one or two grappling guns and finish more than 10 enormous levels by dodging obstacles and deadly traps.
It’s easy to play, it’s fast and it’s fun.
Popplings away!
Dive into the world of Popplings in this competitive puzzle game! Strategise your line clears to beat your opponents, making use of each character’s unique power-ups!
Popplings takes you back to the nineties with its nostalgic feel in both style and gameplay.
The Tale of Clouds and Wind (QUByte Classics) – £4.49
The Tale of Cloud and Wind (QUByte Classics) is a beat’em up game with lots of action and hours of gameplay. Choose between 3 outlaw heroes and help them battle through oppressing armies of evil men.
The Tale of Cloud and Wind features several different alternate endings depending the character and the difficulty you play the game through. It features different power ups and colorful 16 bit graphics. You can play two players simultaneously or pass through the game solo.
A Guidebook of Babel is a plot adventure game with butterfly effect at the core. After death, you will soon realize you’ve boarded the Babel…and while this may feel like the twilight zone, you will be given a pen to rewrite the past so future events can unfold.
You are on a quest to solve the mystery of the treasure of Punch Mountain. Punch your way down, collect money and diamonds, improve your punching skills and make some new friends along the way.
You are Captain Thomas Welmu, a Spacefleet science officer, lost on the other side of the galaxy. Dark forces are en route to Earth to destroy our planet – and you are carrying the only thing that can stop them.
Race back home across the galaxy. Collect new friends on your journey. Make new enemies. You won’t be able to save everyone. Who will you leave behind? Which civilizations will you save – or destroy – along the way? The decisions are all up to you.
In Sonority the players explore a lost world in which music is magic and with whose help you can progress through the game.
The puzzles are solved by the correct arrangement of notes. The solution is deduced acoustically or using symbols. No previous musical knowledge necessary.

Next week: Xanchuchamel, Path of Ra, and Concordia: Digital Edition – Venus.