The Video Games And More You Should Play This Weekend – September 4, 2026

Remember that old samurai Onimusha series from the early 2000s that was basically Resident Evil with swords, and it was really cool and something you may or may not have played at your friends’ house because your parents wouldn’t buy it for you because of demons and blood? Well, guess what: it’s back. Onimusha: Way of the Sword is the first new Onimusha game from Capcom in over two decades, and after covering it all month long for Game Informer’s cover story hub, I’m happy to report that the final game is absolutely worth your time and money. The combat is incredible – challenging, intricate, complex, and constantly building on itself. The characters and setting are good fun, too, and though it has more repetition in its combat arena design than I’d prefer, you still get to kill stuff with protagonist Musashi’s sword… and that’s always a great time. It’s out today, and you can read my Onimusha: Way of the Sword review while it’s downloading. Oh, and if you’re worried about difficulty, don’t be: Onimusha: Way of the Sword has an incredible easy mode.

I was optimistic about The Blood of Dawnwalker after reading my coworker Brian Shea’s articles from his cover story trip, but I was still very surprised by how much I like the game. You play as Coen, a Dawnwalker (which means you’re a vampire by night and a human by day) who has 30 days to save his family from an evil vampire lord. Each quest you complete advances the clock by a little, and you only have a limited amount of time before the game concludes, which means you have to pick and choose your missions carefully. What I didn’t realize until playing, however, is that there’s no main quest – you choose what feels important to you in your journey to save your loved ones. It’s an incredibly empowering combination, and I really feel like my decisions matter when I focus on a quest to reforge an ancient sword instead of buddying up with some revolutionaries. I also enjoy the directional combat, the different mechanics in the night and daytimes, and the general atmosphere. Our reviewer Diego was a little less enthusiastic than I, so your mileage may vary, but if you’re a fan of games with choice-based stories, I highly recommend The Blood of Dawnwalker.

Game Informer‘s The Blood of Dawnwalker review

I like Orbitals, but I don’t love it. It’s an absolutely gorgeous game with visuals inspired by 80s anime and a wicked soundtrack to match. The characters are fun and charming, and even the menus are expressive and unique. The vibes are immaculate, but the actual gameplay is just okay. It’s co-op only, and you’ll spend its 6-hour runtime collaborating with a partner to solve puzzles and save your home space station. I just wasn’t impressed with the game itself – it has some good ideas, but fails to meaningfully stand out the way similar co-op-only games do. I also don’t love the story, but it’s admittedly not much of a hurdle until the final moments. Despite those gripes, it’s still such a joyous experience that I recommend it nonetheless. If the art style draws you in, you’re in for a pretty good weekend with a friend. For my full thoughts, you can read my review here.

Friday the 13th: The Game developer IllFonic has finally made the asymmetrical horror game I’ve been wanting since playing as Jason and camp counselors, and it’s called Halloween: The Game and is out now. Kind of. IllFonic is doing the whole “pay for the more expensive edition and get early access to it” thing I hate (because it preys on FOMO and is just generally lame), so you can technically hop in right now. But if you decide to wait for the real launch, that’s next week, on September 8. Either way, I recently wrapped up its single-player campaign (IllFonic’s first) and am starting my multiplayer journey ahead of reviewing the game sometime next week. If you’re a fan of John Carpenter’s Halloween, this single-player campaign is a passionate love letter to it… but it’s also only a couple of hours long and basically a glorified tutorial for actually playing as Michael Myers in the game’s primary multiplayer experience. So, would I recommend picking this game up for just its campaign? No, absolutely not. But if you’re a fan of asymmetrical horror games, or if you’ve never tried an IllFonic joint (they’re good fun, with or without friends to join you), Halloween: The Game is shaping up to be great.

Crimson Moon has Souls-inspired combat, but it isn’t a true Soulslike. It’s actually more of a roguelike thanks to its run-based blueprint, where you embark on missions as a nephlim (a human-angel hybrid) to slay a bevy of grotesque and dangerous demons. I’m not sure entirely why – I’m sure it benefits whatever version of Earth this is – but you’ll likely not care too much because the combat is completely serviceable, the run-based format is more forgiving since you have multiple lives before you start over, and the elaborate presentation is impressive for a $20 game. While it’s not perfect, Crimson Moon offers a pretty good time, likely even more so if you rope in a friend for two-player co-op. I played the first two hours of the game on a stream this week, so be sure to check out that VOD if you want a better look at Crimson Moon in action.

The NBA 2K series is perpetually the most frustrating sports game franchise. It possesses quite possibly the best gameplay, visuals, and Franchise mode in all of sports gaming, but so many of its other offerings are riddled with microtransactions in ways that feel, at times, more aggressive than many free-to-play titles. This year, developer Visual Concepts seems to have dialed back the microtransactions in MyCareer, the single-player focused mode, allowing you to largely avoid the live-service billboard that is The City in favor of focusing on your created player’s career, but the elements are still there if you step outside the comfort of your player’s apartment. However, now you can choose whether you want to play through a narrative prologue where your character rehabilitates from a career-threatening injury to make it to the NBA, skip straight to the NBA action, or even play in a different era of the NBA; playing at a time when titans like MJ and Shaq were dominating the courts is a really nice touch. And that time-travel ability continues to extend to the still-excellent Franchise mode, making this a solid entry in the long-running king of the court.

This under-the-radar title could be easily overlooked, but for fans of classic 2D platformers (especially in the vein of Donkey Kong Country) that would be a mistake. This is a charming and approachable platform adventure that can be played either solo or with a partner, in which you happily bounce and swing through jungle (and other) environments, collecting pick-ups, uncovering secrets, and mastering a surprisingly nuanced control scheme. While the game starts out very approachable, the levels gradually ramp up to offer significant challenge, demanding you master the three marsupilami characters’ distinct movesets as you switch between them on the fly.

Catchy music, vibrant visuals, and finely tuned gameplay all help this game hit some impressive notes. There’s also a fun unlockable “Salsa Mode” that uses the in-game music to ramp you up into a combo of pick-ups before your meter vanishes, leading to a fun and replayable twist on the already-played levels. There’s barely any real story here in the game, so don’t worry that the “2” in the title is going to leave you confused. The game is an outgrowth of a long-running Belgian comic book character, but rest assured, the taut and enjoyable gameplay of this particular project requires no special French connection to enjoy. Find the game on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, or PC.

The various Microsoft layoffs have been devastating for the gaming industry and the long-term impact of all that destruction won’t be clear for some time, but one little hopefully bright spark of optimism in that darkness is that developer Double Fine (creators of Psychonauts and lots more) were able to spin-off and become independent again. That process wasn’t without its difficulties as Double Fine had to do some layoffs, but the important detail is that Double Fine is still making games and that’s good news.

Double Fine’s penultimate game with Microsoft was Keeper, a game where you play as a sentient lighthouse, and it’s available now on PlayStation 5. Keeper coming to PlayStation 5 was likely already in process before the studio was forced to spin off, but its release feels a little extra special considering its Microsoft separation and newfound re-independence. Who knows exactly how the ownership of Keeper works. It’s entirely possible Microsoft is profiting on sales of the PlayStation 5 version, but it feels like it belongs to Double Fine, which I hope it does.

For more on the game, which Matt Miller described as “an astonishingly beautiful visual experience,” you can read Game Informer‘s Keeper review at the link.

Longtime fans of Jackbox Games’ many excellent party video game releases likely need no introduction to the concept of Fibbage. It’s been a popular and included option in various iterations of the series since 2014, and playing the video game version remains a most amusing time. But we all enjoy a break from our screens from time to time, and the popularity of the video game version has driven Jackbox to release a physical card game that perfectly captures the same fun while gathered around a table.

In this version, players take turns reading a card with an unusual piece of trivia upon it, such as “In March 2006, a burglar in Osaka, Japan, knew he screwed up when he broke into a building that contained 20 ____. The answer (in this case “Sumo Wrestler”) is written on a whiteboard by the player who revealed and read the card, while everyone else writes down their own pretend answer. Players then vote on which answer is actually true, with points for the player who tricks the most people, and an additional bonus point for the funniest answer. It’s all quite lighthearted and silly, and this card game version ably stands by its original digital counterpart as an ideal pick for your next get-together with friends.