The Video Games You Should Play This Weekend – July 17, 2026

The Mermaid Masks, the most recent entry within the Detective Grimoire collection from SFB Video games, duties gamers with investigating the loss of life of Magnus Mortuga, captain of a mysterious submarine. It combines point-and-click journey mechanics with one-of-a-kind puzzles, however it principally entails speaking to a colourful solid of suspects and gathering proof to trace down the wrongdoer. It is a recreation I would suggest to only about anybody: its character artwork is charming and lovingly animated, its music is thrilling and complicated, and the writing is stellar, from the bigger plot beats to the moment-to-moment dialogue. Whereas it is the third (or fourth, should you’re a stickler) recreation in its timeline, connections to prior entries are minimal, so there is not any must get caught up. For my full ideas, try my evaluate.

It was not particularly designed this manner (until Brian Shea was secretly masterminding this entire factor when he assigned me these evaluations), however I reviewed Star Fox (2026), Rhythm Heaven Groove, and Denshattack again to again, that are all video games the place you play a degree for about three to 5 minutes, and you could be sure to do a bunch of issues appropriately in that brief period of time. It was an odd journey to play all these one after one other, however maybe the weirdest of the bunch is Denshattack, which is a excessive bar whenever you’re competing with Rhythm Heaven Groove, a recreation the place it’s important to disguise from a sneezing moon.

In my evaluate I wrote that Denshattack is “the most effective post-apocalyptic stunt prepare driving motion sports activities simulator anime ever created,” and I stand by that assertion. I even authorized it to be used in a possible accolades trailer the sport might wish to use sooner or later. However the factor I get at is that even when it does tackle a variety of influences and proudly show their appreciation and love for them, Denshattack feels actually distinctive. It is a bit like a heightened motion sports activities recreation, like a Tony Hawk or an SSX, however you are driving a prepare. It is form of insane, but in addition fairly nice for that cause. You’ll be able to learn my full evaluate proper right here.

Co-created by Evil Trout, developer of one among my favourite 2025 video games, The Roottrees Are Lifeless, comes this ingenious new thriller. You management an investigator making an attempt to study the reality behind the mysterious deaths of a gaggle of individuals at a mansion referred to as Galley Home that occurred in 1936, utilizing a machine that permits you to reconstruct and look at scenes from the time of the incident. Like Roottrees, the sport turns into an engrossing train of listening to conversations and utilizing context clues to find out the identities and whereabouts of every ill-fated customer to Galley Home on that fateful night time, a timeline divided into 26 segments. Utilizing deductive expertise to fill within the blanks of who was doing what and the place, whereas studying characters’ intriguing relationships with one another, and discovering the reality of the unlucky circumstance that befell them, is fascinating, cleverly constructed, and retains you guessing with quite a few surprises. Mixing the detective gameplay of Roottrees with components of Clue makes The Incident at Galley Home one other worthwhile puzzle recreation to lose your self on this weekend.

On the floor, this D-topia’s sterile but charming artwork route suggests a comfortable expertise, and that’s true to an extent. Because the 18-year-old Shiro, you’re the most recent arrival to a domed AI-controlled metropolis referred to as D-topia, a human paradise based on its blissful human residents. Designated as a Facilitator, your job is to take care of the town by serving to residents with any issues and repairing mechanical points; going to work entails fixing more and more various math/quantity puzzles that the AI tells you haven’t any sensible software aside from conserving you productive.

Every day you get up, go to work, roam the town’s smooth and pristine districts to work together and bond with a colourful solid, and go to mattress. However what makes D-topia intriguing is how a lot its residents get pleasure from dwelling a life the place machines do their considering for them. D-topia’s AI feeds them, buildings their every day routines, and even controls what they see utilizing visible manipulation tech, all within the identify of eliminating any type of discomfort, bodily and emotional. Regardless of the obvious lack of wrestle, confronting conditions that problem D-topia’s euphoria, akin to deciding the destiny of a citizen who harmlessly ate greater than his allotted snacks or discovering a cat whose existence violates the AI’s strict legal guidelines, provides a doubtlessly sinister undertone I’m step by step making an attempt to excavate. Chipping away at D-topia’s cheerful facade will hopefully yield fascinating truths about how the sausage is made on this Pleasantville-esque futuristic journey.

There are a variety of privileges on this line of labor, however reviewing Heave Ho 2 was one among my favorites to date, because it meant I bought to spend the day on the sofa taking part in video games with my brother. Heave Ho 2 is ideal for that, with its foolish physics and collaboration-focused gameplay. As heads with arms, every clasps the opposite’s hand to kind a protracted chain of limbs, clambering throughout eight worlds as hilarity ensues. I do not love each world (I am you, Chef’s Orders), however it’s a tough recreation to remain mad at, particularly as a result of you may play by way of the areas in any order. At simply $10, it is also fairly low cost, and shopping for Heave Ho 2 throughout its launch week means you additionally get Heave Ho 1 without cost, so it is a good time to leap in. For my full ideas, try my evaluate.

You will have 30 seconds earlier than the world ends (once more) in Ascend to Zero. A clock on the high of your display screen in each run of this survivors-like roguelite won’t allow you to overlook that, both. Utilizing quite a lot of avatars, you need to enter the ultimate corridors current on the precipice of the world’s finish and struggle your method to its apocalyptic core. Your stats will develop with every run, utilizing quite a lot of currencies, as will your arsenal of weapons, each melee and ranged, and the armor set and different game-changing tools you convey into this sprint to the tip. Whereas 30 seconds fly by, your distinctive time-stop capability pauses the clock, permitting you to inflict heavy injury on surrounding enemies whenever you’re prepared for the seconds to start out ticking by once more, and utilizing this transfer to defeat bosses and mobs is essential to including extra time to the clock.

Whereas it appears like an motion recreation at first look, due to its survivors-like fight, the place you construct upon an auto-attacking set of weapons whereas transferring round to make sure they hit their targets, Ascend to Zero performs extra like a administration recreation – the way you handle your time, the methods completely different chips and talents have an effect on the seconds you could have left, and your fight ranges, that are all the time on the rise as increasingly troublesome enemies await you within the subsequent room, is the distinction between success and the tip of the world. It’s solely $12 however is at the moment on sale on Steam for lower than $10 and is effectively price your time.