On an average day about a dozen new games are released on Steam. And while we think that's a good thing, it can be understandably hard to keep up with. Potentially exciting gems are sure to be lost in the deluge of new things to play unless you sort through every single game that is released on Steam. So that’s exactly what we’ve done. If nothing catches your fancy this week, we've gathered the best PC games you can play right now and a running list of the 2022 games that are launching this year.
MADiSON
Steam page
Release: July 8
Developer: Bloodious Games
Launch price: $35 | £30 | AU$49.95
This week's first-person horror entry is—you guessed it—set in the creepy halls of a terrible, sprawling house. Comparisons to P.T., Visage and Resident Evil 7 are probably apt, but MADiSON centres around the cruelty of a single demon antagonist who has spent decades forcing the player-character to do some pretty terrible stuff. Like another recent horror game, Fobia - St. Dinfna Hotel, MADiSON has a camera as its central tool for puzzle solving, and while there are definitely hectic encounters, it looks like you'll spend much more time exploring in MADiSON than you will bludgeoning supernatural phenomena to death. If you simply cannot get enough of horror games set in residential squalor, this is an easy recommendation.
Moonphase Pass
Steam page
Release: July 9
Developer: Remote Alchemy Studios
Launch price: $7.19 | £5.21 | AU$10.35
Here's a retro-styled roguelite that looks like a showpiece for your fancy EGA monitor. Moonphase Pass is described as a "roguelite meeple placement game," but it doesn't look a whole lot like a boardgame: Instead, the turn-based affair has you focusing on resource management, so that your lunar crew stands a chance against "the Red Moon's many different enemies". It being a roguelite, you can collect moon fragments in your journeys, all the better to unlock permanent upgrades back at base. The roguelite market is swollen to bursting, but Moonphase Pass offers a strange, austere sci-fi mood that feels compelling.
Garage: Bad Dream Adventure
Steam page
Release: July 8
Developer: 作場金属製作所 Sakuba Metal Works
Launch price: $19.90 | £15.49 | AU$28.95
Created by Japanese surrealist Sakuba Tomomi, this bizarre specimen originally released in 1999, but now comes to Steam after decades in the wild. It's a point and click adventure, with an art style very unlike anything you've likely seen before, but it kinda comes across as H.R. Giger working on a Fatal Frame offshoot that plays a bit like Bad Mojo. "The player character is thrown into an enclosed world filled with sewage, with decaying wooden buildings and rusted metals," so reads the Steam description. A series of words that will scream "must buy" to many, no doubt. For more, Jonathan wrote a bit about Garage last month.
Intruder in Antiquonia
Steam page
Release: July 8
Developer: Aruma Studios
Launch price: $11.69 | £9.89 | AU$16.65
Another point and click adventure, Intruder in Antiquonia follows Sarah, a young investigator who has found herself in a town with no internet. It's not a matter of poor infrastructure either: the locals simply hate the internet, and who can blame them? Sarah's more pressing concern is why she ended up on the outskirts of Antiquonia in the first place, and figuring that out (without the aide of Google) is what this fairly straightforward adventure is all about. The art style comes across a bit early-2000s-phone-game, but the premise is really fun.
夜詛YASO curse of soirée
Steam page
Release: July 8
Developer: 市松製化, ItimatuSeika
Launch price: $19 | £14.49 | AU$26.95
More Japanese surrealism, YASO Curse of Soirée is a first-person exploration game by the creator of GOHOME, which was met with some low key but enthusiastic acclaim back in 2020. Protagonist Kirima Shoka has lost her good luck charm in "an unfamiliar Western-style building" so must go back inside to retrieve it, but do not expect that to be a straightforward process. Expect bonkers set pieces, discomforting horror elements, and for absolutely nothing to make sense.
