Out this week: Choo-Choo Charles, Rough Justice ’84, The Rumble Fish+, Railbreak, Tiger Blade, Three Minutes To Eight, more

‘Twas the week before Christmas, when all through gaming’s madhouse;

Publishers were stirring, dropping new releases as quietly as a mouse;

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes that digital store credit soon would be there;

The children were nestled all snug in their beds;

While visions of Swole Peter Griffin danced in their heads…

Over twenty five games are due on Xbox alone this week, indicating a last minute rush for valuable digital store presence. Quite a few of these are belated conversions, making the jump from PC to console. There’s an unexpected arcade conversion too, in the form of 2004’s one-on-one brawler The Rumble Fish+, now with vital rollback netcode.

Others to look out for include the board-game style detective management sim Rough Justice ’84, the open-world spider-train survival game Choo-Choo Charles – which has ‘overwhelmingly positive’ reviews on Steam – on-rails zombie shooter Railbreak, retro style platformer Ravva and the Phantom Library, and the dark adventure DETECTIVE – Stella Porta Case.

Then there’s the sci-fi visual novel Synthetic Lover, pixel art adventure Three Minutes To Eight, the PSVR2 Korean neo-noir action slasher Tiger Blade, a belated Xbox release of the 3D platformer Paperman: Adventure Delivered, Kemco’s JRPG Jinshin (also on Xbox,) procedurally generated first-person shooter STUFFED, and the mining rogue-like Wall World. The PS5 also gains a native version of the solo-developed Gravity Trickster.

No Switch games head to retail this week – in fact, there’s nothing scheduled for around a month – but over on the eShop we can expect Devolver Digital’s environmental strategy game Terra Nil, the chill skateboarding racer Tanuki Sunset, bullet hell Metroidvania TEVI, and the retro shooter XIIZEAL – also known as XII Stag.

A new release round-up for next week looks doubtful, but we should be able to squeeze another eShop round-up out for next week. Hopefully there’s more than just Switch shovelware out.