Five Steam deep cuts from last week, including Chinese horror and eldritch solitaire.
Best of the best
2025 games: Upcoming releasesBest PC games: All-time favoritesFree PC games: Freebie festBest FPS games: Finest gunplayBest MMOs: Massive worldsBest RPGs: Grand adventures
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 2025 games that are launching this year.
Everdeep Aurora
Steam page Release: July 10Developer: Nautilus Games
People keep comparing this gorgeous platformer to games from the Game Boy Advance era, which isn't wrong, but it feels closer to something you might have found on an Amstrad Action cover mount back in the '80s, albeit with a higher pixel count. Set underground in the aftermath of an apocalypse, you play as Shell, who is—and this is important—a cat. Shell's mother is missing, so she needs to dig deeper and deeper into the unknown to find her. Naturally, things get more bizarre and dangerous the further she gets. This is ostensibly a platformer, though it has a lot of mining, making Steamworld Dig an obvious reference point.
Dread Flats
Steam pageRelease: July 11Developer: Ghostcase
Everdeep Aurora may be cute, but the rest of this week's column is consistently morbid. Dread Flats is probably the worst offender: it's a first-person horror about exploring a "murder building". Set in 1990s China, it's definitely exploration-forward: you'll spend the majority of the game poking around in a big residential tower block that has seen better days (to be extremely euphemistic about it). The residents we meet are pretty effed up, as the trailer makes abundantly clear, so expect a lot of panicked running or, if you're smart, a fair bit of stealth.
Last Report
Steam page Release: July 12Developers: Moonpixel GamesAnother horror game, this time in the form of a point 'n' click adventure. You play as a night shift park ranger who notices some pretty unsettling stuff on the CCTV. Via exploration, conversations with fellow park rangers (all of whom are a bit suss themselves), and the monitoring of camera footage, the disturbing history of the park unfolds. It looks like a mix of Five Nights at Freddy's and Firewatch.
Occlude
Steam pageRelease: July 11Developer: Tributary Games
It's an occult card game, basically, but with a "reality-bending" narrative and a cryptic, challenge-based approach to familiar rules. Judging by the Steam description, I think the less you know about Occlude the better, but it heavily emphasises secrets and mysteries. If Balatro is hauntological poker, I guess this is eldritch solitaire? I don't really play card games, but if you do, this seems like it's trying something new.
Azrael's Tear
Steam page Release: July 12Developer: Intelligent Games Ltd., Ken Haywood
There are few things that excite me more than forgotten, vaguely cursed-looking '90s PC games, and Azrael's Tear is a perfect example. Originally released on CD-ROM in 1996, it's set in the distant future of 2012, and follows the protagonist's search for the Holy Grail in a mysterious underground sanctum that seems far more technologically advanced that it should be. I've never played this, but it has an approach to first-person exploration that feels akin to something like Ultima Underworld or System Shock, but with a heavier emphasis on puzzles and problem-solving.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Geek Tyrant
42 minutes ago
- Geek Tyrant
PREDATOR: BADLANDS Trailer Features a Yautja Warror on His First Hunt on the Most Dangerous Planet — GeekTyrant
20th Century Studio has released the awesome full trailer for Predator: Badlands , which tell the story of a young Yautja warror on his very first hunt, tracking down a deadly creature on the most dangerous planet in the universe. Prey director Dan Trachtenberg returns to direct this new Predator story, which is set in the future on a remote planet, where a young Predator, outcast from his clan, finds an unlikely ally in Thia (Elle Fanning) and embarks on a treacherous journey in search of the ultimate adversary. Dek isn't your average trophy-hunting Yautja. Played by Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, he's what Trachtenberg calls 'the runt of the litter.' But, Dek's got the makings of a classic lone wolf antihero. Trachtenberg says: 'He's a thing of few words, pretty blunt. He cuts straight to the point. Literally and figuratively.' The film tells the story of personal redemption through battle, and an attempt to shift the franchise's perspective. 'That feels like a big idea, not just within Predator, but in sci-fi generally,' Trachtenberg previously explained. 'In most sci-fi universes, the 'creatures' are either bad guys or sidekicks. In [Badlands] it's: 'What if you were with the creature on this crazy mission to prove itself, seeing everything through its eyes?'' I'm very excited about Predator: Badlands and it looks awesome! The movie also stars Elle Fanning and it opens in theaters on November 7.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Legendary Shadow of the Colossus and Katamari Damacy creators think Roblox's popularity is proof we're past the point where graphics really matter to players
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Fumito Ueda (the hugely influential developer behind Ico and Shadow of the Colossus) and Keita Takahashi (the similarly iconic creator of Katamari Damacy) recently sat down to chat about the state of games as they are right now, and both icons agree: graphics don't matter half as much as they used to. In an interview with Denfaminicogamer, reposted in English on Reddit and translated using Google and DeepL, the legendary duo noted that most players no longer seem to care as much about glossy graphics. Takahashi specifically pointed to Roblox's popularity with kids who don't seem to mind its blocky, lo-fi aesthetics, while Ueda thinks that, in general, we're past the era where individually rendered blades of grass were a selling point to gamers. Ueda also went into detail about how developers of their generation came up in an era where game tech was always evolving - bigger sprites to 3D to HD - but things have kind of plateaued since then. Developers now need to focus on wowing players in other ways, Ueda went on, and put resources into the actual heart of the game. The AAA industry's hyper-fixation on 'photorealistic' graphics has created a significant challenge, with games like The Last of Us Part 2 costing $220 million to produce and Marvel's Spider-Man 2 costing an unsustainable $300 million. So, yes, spend more resources making something interesting rather than rendering every individual pore on a character's face, please. Fumito Ueda is now working on a still untitled game that debuted at last year's TGAs, which looks to have giant mechs and an epic scale that's not too dissimilar to his previous work. Meanwhile, Keita Takahashi just released the adorably quirky To a T about a teenager permanently stuck in a T-pose, hence the name. (It's one of the most overlooked games of the year and it's on Game Pass, so you have no excuse!) 15 years after it was announced, the Shadow of the Colossus film adaptation might still be made according to director – and they have a script
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Mafia: The Old Country will be less of an open-world game than Mafia 3 as the devs agree it was too much and didn't fit the series
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Mafia 3 is the much-derided, misunderstood entry that many fans point to as the series abandoning its roots and becoming something it shouldn't – and it looks like the developers agree. That's why the prequel game Mafia: The Old Country is ditching the open world and going back to a more linear mission structure. Even though both Mafia 1 and 2 feature large worlds that you can freely roam, neither is really considered an open-world game. That's because the story missions take place in a set order and there isn't much in the way of side activities, but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck… Anyway, according to a new interview from IGN, the developers agree with players that a full open-world filled with distractions isn't a good fit for the Mafia series. The negative response to 3, combined with the positive one for the 2020 Mafia: Definitive Edition remake of the original 2002 game, led Hangar 13 to reconsider its approach – not every game can be GTA, after all. Mafia: The Old Country is launching on August 8, 2025, and it serves as a prequel to the original trilogy. As the name suggests, we'll be heading back to the heart of the mobster society: 1900s Sicily. It's an action-adventure game with a heavy focus on stealth. Even though it's not an open-world game in the more modern sense, it will likely benefit from GTA 6's delay. There are only so many crime simulators we can stomach in quick succession. While you wait, check out our list of the best adventure games that you can sink your teeth into.
