The best i3gamer of 2013

2012 bobs away on the rushing river of history, washing into the past a dozen Dunwall guard bark memes, at least one controversially-terminated space saga and a worryingly-exhilarating excess of animal slaughter. But what’s that on the horizon, surging through the frothy wake of the year just gone? It’s – surprise! – 2013.
The next 12 pages detail nearly every reason to be excited about the 365 days to come, and the armada of delights they bring. There are more combat bows than you can shake a punctured elk at, an unholy host of horrors, genre-smashing interstellar epics, multiplayer mega-franchises, petrolhead-pleasers, reinvigorated point-and-clickers, Kickstarter darlings, Greenlight outliers and many, many more. Click on to discover why 2013 may just be the most exciting year for gamers yet.
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2014 AND BEYOND

ACTION

Watch Dogs

Publisher: Ubisoft
Release: Late 2013
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Though in recent years, Ubisoft has been happy to milk the Assassin’s Creed licence until its ruddy teats squeaked, let us not forget that the space-wizards-thru-history mega-franchise was born of huge creative risk: a new IP that cost so much develop that, rumour has it, sales didn’t cover the cost of development until its sequels were on shelves. Now, the same gigantic studio, Ubisoft Montreal, has unveiled Watch Dogs – a game with no smaller a scope than Assassin’s Creed, combining the complex sedition of information warfare with brutish third-person action and, it is suspected, with some sort of clever multiplayer/singleplayer crossover. It’s not only a showcase for the kind of polygon-crunching power the cutting edge PC can generate (finally loosed from the shackles of last-gen cross platform releases) but it also establishes a fiction that Ubisoft hopes will see it through the next decade.

Dead Space 3

Publisher: EA
Release: February 8
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The sudden appearance of a co-op mode in this venerable space-horror franchise may sound like the marketing department got a little trigger happy with the back-of-box checklist, but there are reasons to be optimistic. Firstly, didn’t we all the say the same gloomy things about Mass Effect 3’s excellent multiplayer? Secondly, Dead Space already showed it could deliver terror to a twosome in its (actually terrific, sadly undersold) Wii light-gun game. What’s more, the game’s roots have hardly been forgotten: it’s still perfectly possible to play the game on your tod. This one promises to add themes of insanity and perception to the traditional jump-scares and body-horror.

Tomb Raider

Publisher: Square Enix
Release: March 5
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Vulnerability and survival are the watchwords for this reinvention of the Tomb Raider series, which finds a young and unworldly Lara Croft shipwrecked on an island – a far cry from the backflipping, dual-wielding daredevil treasure-seeker who murdered her way through polygonal archeological hoards during the mid-nineties. Crystal Dynamics are certainly brave in taking this iconic character in such a dark, mature direction – but will the cost to our heroine’s empowerment prove too great a price to pay?

Star Wars 1313

Publisher: LucasArts
Release: Late 2013
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“Dark and mature” may not be the go-to description for Star Wars, particularly since LucasArts’ acquisition by the House of Mouse, but such is the promise for this third person actioner. Set in the bowels of Coruscant, the subterranean Level 1313, you take on the role of a bounty hunter embroiled in a murky criminal conspiracy. Early glimpses suggest the game will ignore lightsabers and force powers in favour of gadgetry and guns, and the claims are for a more grounded and gritty fiction, instead of the fruity pangalactic melodrama to which we are accustomed.

Strike Suit Zero

Publisher: Born Ready Games
Release: January 24
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Space combat has proven popular on Kickstarter but the interplanetary dogfighting of Strike Suit Zero wasn’t born from the crowdfunding process. Instead, this rather beautiful off-world blaster had been a while in development already and will be using the $175k it raised to, uh, kickfinish the project, and then kickpolish it, too.

Fortnite

Publisher: Epic Games
Release: TBC 2013
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Perhaps keen to prove that there’s more to Unreal Engine 4 than high-definition beefcakes gunning down space goblins in the destroyed beauty of a future city, Epic Games’ first proof of their new technology will be the cartoonish tower defence game, Fortnite. The clean, chirpy visuals belie technological innovation, however: UE4 will allow players huge freedom in the way they construct their anti-zombie fortifications, editing each wall with a 3×3 grid. The plan is that the game will have a long-tail, with many post-release updates, eventually allowing players to construct Rube Goldberg-style machines of death.

Starforge

Publisher: CodeHatch
Release: TBC 2013
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Minecraft with guns, realistic graphics, and both ground and low-orbit construction. Interested? Starforge is a ridiculously ambitious crowd-funded indie project that’s already come a remarkably long way. You deform terrain and build a fortress to protect yourself from aliens, and when all else fails, use a shotgun to blast them into pieces. If the small team can make those weapons feel nice to fire, it’ll be a winner.

Grand Theft Auto 5

Publisher: Rockstar
Release: Spring 2013
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There’s been no confirmation of Rockstar’s next blockbuster for PC, but it would be a world gone topsy-turvy if Grand Theft Auto 5 was marooned on consoles for ever. This isn’t Red Dead Redemption, a game developed by a studio with around three PC credits to its name – this is GTA, a series whose every main instalment has appeared on PC. And it’s developed by Rockstar North, a team that (even including its legacy as DMA Design) has brought all bar seven of its games to PC. And where are the internet petitions to port Walker over from the Amiga, I might ask?
Guaranteed to be one of the biggest releases of 2013, GTA 5 sees the player take on the role of three different characters trying to make a crust amid the tinseltown glamour and sunbaked squalor of Los Santos. And it’s likely to be an ill-gotten crust at that, given the series’ heritage of exuberant criminality: heists, hits and high-speed chases are all to be expected, interspersed with all the leisure activities a high-rolling hoodlum might desire.

Remember Me

Publisher: Capcom
Release: May
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“We’ll always have Paris,” as the saying goes – not so much in the Neo-Paris of 2084, when memories can be erased or altered by Memory Hunters. You play as one such mnemonic saboteur, called Nilin, herself rendered amnesiac by agents of the oppressive Parisien regime. Thirdperson acrobatics and assassinations ensue as you try to piece together the conspiracy, and featuring the world’s most complicated sounding combat system. You also get to wreck men’s minds by jumping into their memory and replaying events to reconfigure their recollection. Convince someone they killed their girlfriend during an argument, for instance, and you may just drive them to suicide. How lovely.

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist

Publisher: Ubisoft
Release: Spring
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Ninja-spy Sam Fisher without voice-actor Michael Ironside is like bread without butter. Talking butter. Sardonic, gravelly-voiced, talking butter. But despite the new vocal chords lent to Fisher, this sixth outing for the sneak-em-up series may yet prove to be more loyal to the action of the earlier games. While Splinter Cell: Conviction saw Sam on the lam, decimating a small army of enemies with little attempt at secrecy, Blacklist’s latest trailers show off non-lethal takedowns – much more to the tastes of the discerning spy.

Lost Planet 3

Publisher: Capcom
Release: January
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Previous instalments in this thirdperson shooter series have been an intriguing but not always comfortable mix of Gears of War and Shadow of the Colossus, with players cooperatively slaying giant beasts and hordes of future-pirates on the world of EDN 3 – in the first instance a bleak ball of ice, thawing to a steaming jungle in its sequel. This game promises to be a prequel, so we can assume a few stiff breezes and frosty mornings. It also promises to be more narrative-led – which is worrying given the entirely charmless fiction of previous games. More worrisome still is the fact that the original developers aren’t on board, replaced by Spark Unlimited, responsible for crimping off the reeking digi-turd which was Turning Point: Fall of Liberty. Brr.

Star Trek

Publisher: Namco Bandai
Release: Early 2013
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Bridging the gap between JJ Abrams’ reboot and the upcoming Star Trek: Into Darkness, this tie-in will certainly deliver Hollywood glitz with its cast – and usually that would be all you could expect. But this is being handled by Digital Extremes, a studio with an admittedly mixed portfolio, but one riding high after the triumphant carnage of the Darkness 2. They may well have the chops to enliven even the most linear thirdperson actioner.

DmC: Devil May Cry

Publisher: Capcom
Release: 25 January 2013
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There were wails of anguish in console-land when this reboot of beloved demon-bashing combo-brawler Devil May Cry was first announced. But if the word from those with review code is good – and so far the mutterings are most auspicious indeed – then few complaints will survive the game’s release. It seems that British devs Ninja Theory may have the moves to make even Bayonetta blush. The one worry is how well it’ll port to PC, a duty outsourced to Polish team QLOC – but a promised 60 FPS, with no maximum limit, is a rather good start.

Clang

Publisher: Subutai
Release: February
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A PC arena-based duelling game for one-on-one battles? Sure, fine. That very same thing, but made under the direction of sci-fi author and legendary mega-nerd Neal Stephenson with the input of sword-fighting experts and – lest we forget – named Clang? Yes. Yes, please. The game will introduce a new, more realistic way to control your weapons, apparently, and will be an evolving project with a story and other content added over time.

Smite

Publisher: Hi-Rez Studios
Release: 2013 (closed beta out now)
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Hi-Rez, the makers of the exquisite Tribes: Ascend, have had this thirdperson take on the DotA formula in beta for some time. Instead of defending Ancients with a team of eccentric legendary warriors, however, here you fight to protect your pet minotaur with a cross-pantheon selection of gods taken from major world religions – a fact which has proven controversial with men of the cloth.

Dark

Publisher: Kalypso Media
Release: Q2 2013
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A stealth action game in which players take on the role of a vampire anti-hero attempting to bring down a shadowy corporation in a futuristic cel-shaded city – or “a world of blood and darkness” as the press release rather hysterically puts it. As well as being possessed of supernatural sneakiness, our protagonist can face down the police and all many of night-time terrors with a range of vampiric powers that allow him to turn to smoke or close for the kill with lightning speed.

Devil’s Third

Publisher: TBC
Release: TBC 2013
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Things have been a little quiet since THQ withdrew as the publisher for this thirdperson shooter and melee combat game set on a war-ravaged future Earth. It has good pedigree, coming from a studio forged by principal developers of the Ninja Gaiden games, but neither the presence of near-legendary developers and a multi-million budget proved sufficient reason to keep it on THQ’s slate. We await to hear its fate.

Battle Cry Of Freedom

Publisher: Flying Squirrel Entertainment
Release: TBC 2013
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Ambitious indie multiplayer game set during the American Civil War. Promises battles with more than five hundred players, buildable barricades, trenches, and explosives, and even musicians that can play a range of period-appropriate tunes. It’s still very early days, but worth keeping an eye on.

Furious 4

Publisher: Ubisoft
Release: TBC 2013
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Originally set to be the fourth entry in the po-faced, pseudo-reverent WW2 shooter series, Brothers In Arms, early trailers for Furious 4 took such a divergent and whimsically vicious tone that the project was hurriedly hived off on its own. Since its initial reveal, however, the Tarantino-inspired action caper has been little seen or heard, with Gearbox claiming that there’s been a substantial facelift in the interim.

XCOM

Publisher: 2K Games
Release: TBC 2013
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Another project with an uncertain fate, this action-based reboot of XCOM met with such acrimony from fans of the original turnbased strategy game that its release date scurried off into the distant future, allowing Firaxis’ more loyal squad-tactics remake, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, to take centre-stage. It’s status is now unclear, with development bigwigs like the talented Jordan Thomas leaving for BioShock Infinite. The talk is now of a budget-download only release – quite the switcharound from the original plan. Will it even re-emerge with the XCOM name attached?

Monaco

Publisher: Pocketwatch Games
Release: 2013, or: ‘when it’s done’
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Players take on role of primary-coloured pixellated thieves, each with specialised roles, in this four-player top-down heist game. It’s great: it won the IGF and a whole bunch of other gongs way back in 2010. Where’s it got to since? Sources assure us it is indeed still in development, and not spending ill-gotten gains in the casinos of Rio de Janeiro as rumoured.

Beyond Good And Evil 2

Publisher: Ubisoft
Release: Late 2013
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Every silver lining has a cloud: Michel Ancel’s efforts to resurrect 2D platformer hero Rayman proved so tremendously and ebulliently successful that it has delayed his return to Beyond Good And Evil 2. All that’s been seen of the sequel to the superb off-beat action adventure is a rendered trailer and a few splashes of concept art, but if Ancel’s recent form is anything to go by, we won’t be getting half-measures. 2013 is a push, but crazier things have happened.

Cross Of The Dutchman

Publisher: Triangle Studios
Release: TBC 2013
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Though the promised demo has missed its October launch date by some way, the signs are that development on this action adventure title still continues apace. Based on the folk legend of Frisian freedom fighter Pier Gerlofs Donia, this hopes to be a historically loyal recreation of the story and setting, despite the lush caricaturish style.

Zone: Commando

Publisher: Xitol Softworks
Release: February 2013
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Initially set for release in the middle of 2012, this multiplayer sci-fi shooter’s release date has been in hasty retreat. According to Xitol’s Twitter feed, the project is still alive, but there’s still not much to go on beyond pre-alpha screenshots and promises.

Rambo: The Video Game

Publisher: Ubisoft
Release: Early 2013
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While Rambo has since become synonymous with action by dint of its excessive sequels, it’s far from certain that the first film, which is largely about a man undergoing a PTSD-induced meltdown in some woodland, will really adequately satisfy as a shooter. Still, it can’t be any worse the Ubisoft’s recent efforts with The Expendables, right?

Legend Of Dungeon

Publisher: RobotLovesKitty
Release: January
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This may just be the reason Kickstarter was invented: to fund a four-player roguelike dungeon crawler with a delicious pixel-art style. And presumably the people who helped it hit its funding target six times over agree.

Super Comboman

Publisher: Interabang Entertainment
Release: May
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A 2D platformer/beat-’em-up hybrid with heavy emphasis on – you may have guessed – combos. Super Comboman sees you rock a sweet mullet and a talking fanny-pack while slamming enemies with an unending string of slickly animated moves. Cute stick-album art-style, too.

Retrovirus

Publisher: Cadenza Interactive
Release: January
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A shooter with six-axes of freedom, Retrovirus matches the zippy pace of FPS games of yore with the stomach-spinning spatial freedom of disorienting shooter classic, Descent. As an agent of the resident anti-virus program, you must defend a computer system from an infectious onslaught with a slew of physics-enhanced weaponry like gravity wells and chain reactions.

Forced

Publisher: BetaDwarf
Release: February
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This arena-based fighting game pitches its top-down co-op combat somewhere between Left 4 Dead and Diablo, with four divergent classes and a cooperative combo system. Players battle together through a series of gladiatorial arenas, defeating waves of gruesome fantasy creatures with the aid of a globular spirit mentor, who can assist them by swiping pick-ups and interacting with things “outside the physical realm”.

Dungeonland

Publisher: Paradox Interactive
Release: Q1 2013
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Set in a lethal medieval themepark, Dungeonland is a class-based co-op action game for up to four players. The perspective may put you in mind of Diablo or Torchlight, but with its promise of tossable sheep, ludicrous costumes and frog facts, its tone clearly finds inspiration elsewhere.

Humans Must Answer

Publisher: Sumom Games
Release: TBC 2013
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While one bunch of ex-Stalker developers went on to make Survarium, a multiplayer Stalker game in all but name, others had clearly had quite enough of The Zone and its bleak, unrelenting peril. Instead, they’ve gone on to make a 2D bullet-hell space shooter in which a race of space-faring chickens attempts to wipe out the galactic scourge of mankind.

Mew-Genics

Publisher: Team Meat
Release: TBC 2013
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There have been few clues from developer Team Meat as to what genre this feline-themed game fits into. The occasional screenshots have teased some sort of damage system – that much we know – and Team Meat’s portfolio would suggest a bias towards action. But given that the screenshots also teased “poop-rates” the mind boggles at what sort of action that might be.

State Of Decay

Publisher: Microsoft Studios
Release: TBC 2013
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Undead Labs are a more than a little bit late to the zombie-survival-open-world-game party, but hopefully their entry will be a little less controversial than War Z’s debut. This one promises an ever-evolving world with fortifiable strongholds.

Overgrowth

Publisher: Wolfire Games
Release: TBC 2013
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Anthropomorphised rabbits, wolves, cats, rats and dogs kick seven bells out of each other in this thirdperson kung-fu adventure game set in a pre-industrial world. The spiritual successor to 2005’s Lugaru, it’s been a long, long time in development and the creators’ ambitions have sprawled, expanding on the original’s fluid combat system with context-sensitive attacks, reversals and environmental interaction. It also comes with a sandbox mode and suite of editing tools.

Warframe

Publisher: Digital Extremes
Release: TBC 2013
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You wait for one free-to-play online shooter with a disyllabic name beginning “War-”, and then two come along at once. Not to be confused with Crytek’s near future blamfest Warface, Digital Extreme’s effort is a procedurally generated co-op affair set in a sci-fi universe. Players take on the role of the Tenno, a race of space-ninjas battling against their former overlords, the Grineer, by suiting up with specialised exoskeletons known as Warframes.

Archeblade

Publisher: Codebrush Games
Release: March 2013
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A third-person multiplayer brawler which combines the character-specific movesets and combos of arcade fighting games with the cooperative tactics of a team-shooter. The devs were forced to cancel their Kickstarter, but still say the game is on schedule for its March release.

The Showdown Effect

Publisher: Paradox Interactive
Release: Q1 2013
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A sort of 2D side-scrolling Action: Half Life, The Showdown Effect features up to eight players battling it out with weapons ripped from the hands of cheesy 80s action heroes. It’s a roll-call of cliches – but Magicka creators Arrowhead Studios have shown themselves to be pretty pithy fellows. You can sign up for that macho madness at The Showdown Effect’s beta page.

Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow 2

Publisher: Konami
Release: TBC 2013
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Though the first Lords of Shadow missed a PC release, the vampire-hunting yarn was a pleasant surprise for many in the console world, winning players round with a highly competent (if derivative) mix of thirdperson action, exploration and puzzling. The sequel skips from medieval times to the modern day, with the protagonist, now going under the name of Dracula, awaking from a long slumber. Expect the acrobatic hacking and slashing of enormous supernatural creatures and enough of the red stuff to defeat even the most powerful of detergent cleaners.

Sacred Citadel

Publisher: Deep Silver
Release: TBC 2013
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A three player side-scrolling beat-em-up with a rather sumptuous art-style, Sacred Citadel sees players overthrow the oppressive Ashen empire with a slew of melee combos and acrobatic death-dealing. It also promises to update the arcade formula with RPG-lite upgrades and, according to the website, “flawless gameplay”. Good to know.

Akaneiro: Demon Hunters

Publisher: Spicy Horse Games
Release: Early 2013
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Another action-RPG paying homage to Diablo, Akaneiro: Demon Hunters has the considerable advantage of Spicy Horse Games’ aesthetic sense, which introduces an ink-wash art style to the faux-isometric click-fest. It’s also very, very loosely based on Red Riding Hood, transposing the story to feudal Japan and introducing hordes of monsters to splatter apart. It may be a slight departure from canon, but it’ll be free-to-play and co-op, so who’s complaining?

Ether One

Publisher: White Paper Games
Release: Early 2013
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First person adventure that takes place in the ‘broken mental structures’ of a woman called Jean. It’s the first part of two, and it’s got lofty aims – the devs claim to want to ‘explore the importance and fragility of human memories’.

The Adventurer

Publisher: The Farm 51
Release: TBC 2013
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An action adventure FPS set in the 30s with a globetrotting, treasure-hunting theme – sounds more like an Indiana game than and indie game. The Adventurer doesn’t seem abashed about its inspiration though, promising tomb raiding, traps, lost treasure and a list of exotic locations from Egypt to the Arctic.

Zwei

Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Release: Late 2013
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Zwei’s the codename for the first project from Bethesda-owned, Shinji Mikami-headed Tango Gameworks. They’re keeping tight-lipped about its contents, but one thing has been promised: it’ll be a return to the celebrated Resident Evil developer’s formative genre of survival horror.

Collateral

Publisher: Dancing Dinosaur Games
Release: TBC 2013
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Pitched as a cyberpunk taxi-driving game, Collateral’s twitchy car combat recalls something of the Twisted Metal series – except here, the cars fly, dogfighting amid a garish, futuristic cityscape. It’s not likely to be an overly serious dystopian vision, however, as witnessed by the giant, bloated Elvis statue in the city centre and the numerous nods to The Fifth Element.

Tiny Barbarian DX

Publisher: StarQuail Games
Release: January
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What is best in life? To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to play retro 2D action games, much like the excellent free Tiny Barbarian. Following that success, StarQuail Games have successfully Kickstarted Tiny Barbarian DX – a series of four further short-form adventures which expand our diminutive hero’s combos, improve platforming, add boss-fights and giant mounts and even boost the protagonist’s height by a whole pixel. The first episode is due in January with the rest to follow shortly after.

Volgarr The Viking

Publisher: Crazy Viking Studios
Release: February
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This sidescrolling action game almost doubled its Kickstarter target and is already well on its way to completion. The game comes from a veteran duo of 2D arcade games, and lists a number of venerable influences – Super Ghouls and Ghosts, Castlevania and Rastan – promising to adapt the best ideas from each into this violent hack-and-slash.

The Dead Linger

Publisher: Sandswept Studios
Release: 2013
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Another first-person zombie survival game promising the world – in this case literally, since the game boasts a “planet-sized” post-apocalypse to roam. This is quite a small planet, however, going by the wiki’s figure of 25,000 square kilometers. But unlike Day Z, here it’s all procedurally generated and the claim is that you can interact with anything you see. It’s a long way from fulfilling all of its pledged feature-set however, with a good deal of work to be done to get before it competes either visually or mechanically with existing zombie shooters. Paid alpha access is already available at a reduced rate.

Nekro

Publisher: darkForge Games
Release: Q4 2013
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A top-down action game that namechecks Dungeon Keeper and Myth, Nekro sees you take on the eponymous role of a dark lord of the undead, raising monsters from the ground to raze townships to the ground. The more you destroy, the more powerful you become, and you can even craft your own spells by combining reagents you find around the randomly generated world. Even better, the game has defecating pigs.

Zombie Playground

Publisher: Massive Black Inc
Release: March
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It all started with Jason Chan’s awesome illustration of a group of kids battling the shambling grey hordes from atop a helter-skelter. Some time (and near enough $170k of Kickstarter funding) later, and that pre-teen zompocalypse concept has congealed into a thirdperson team-shooter. Though it may be viewed through a child’s imagination, with fanciful touches like tentacled biology-class mannequins and neon-coloured toy guns that fire actual sizzling plasma death, the copious gore attests to the fact that this is certainly not a game for kids. It’s got a pumping soundtrack too, courtesy of hip-hop producer Aesop Rock.

Moon Intern

Publisher: LarryPixel
Release: November
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On the surface a side-scrolling action game, Moon Intern quickly reveals itself to be something much more reactive and dynamic, with missions, jobs and events being generated on the fly to suit your playstyle. One day you may find yourself delivering lightbulbs and the next exorcising a haunted space station – each mission allowing for a variety of solutions, and whichever you choose biases the selection of future missions towards either action or puzzle. Some events are so drastic that they may change your relationship with every NPC in the colony. Thrillingly ambitious stuff, wrapped in a charming retro presentation.

Mercenary Kings

Publisher: Tribute Games
Release: May
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The creators of Scott Pilgrim Vs The World and Wizorb return with another retro-styled title, this time in the vein of Metal Slug – but with weapon crafting. They’re also looking to build in some of the co-op magic of games like Monster Hunter and Phantasy Star Online, with the superbly eccentric talents of master pixel-pusher Paul Robertson providing art direction.

Octodad: Dadliest Catch

Publisher: Young Horses
Release: TBC 2013
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If you’re not inspired to buy Octodad: Dadliest Catch for the pun alone, you can test the waters with the free original game, in which you attempt to control the flailing limbs of a sea-creature attempting basic domestic chores. Similar cephalopod-based physics-enhanced calamity is promised in this sequel, as our protagonist attempts to conceal his nautical origins from his increasingly suspicious human wife.

The Cave

Publisher: Sega
Release: Early 2013
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From the mind of Ron Gilbert – creator of Maniac Mansion – and his new found friends at Double Fine, comes this side-scrolling platform-adventure set inside a talking cave. A roster of barmy characters, each of whom harbours a murderous secret, plumb the labyrinthine depths in search of their darkest desires. Up to three players can play the game, taking on separate roles and skill-sets, as in Trine.

Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs

Publisher: Frictional Games
Release: January
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This firstperson horror story sequel sees its production pass from series creator Frictional Games to TheChineseRoom, the masters of atmosphere behind the unsettling metaphysical fable Dear Esther. The game isn’t a direct sequel, transporting events from the gloomy medievalism of Brennenburg Castle to London at the advent of industrialisation. But the birth of technology doesn’t leave our new protagonist any better equipped to fight the unheimlich terror he finds there: as in the first game, expect to spend most of your time running and hiding, trying not to lose your mind as unspeakable evil closes in.

Gone Home

Publisher: The Fullbright Company
Release: Mid-2013
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From the veteran devs behind Bioshock 2’s Minerva’s Den comes this “story-exploration” game. In the exploratory, non-violent vein of Dear Esther, Gone Home is a domestic mystery firmly rooted in 1995. The player returns to the family house to find it deserted, and pieces together the clues of its recent past. Though it’s set on a spooky, stormy night, this is assuredly a non-combat experience – but its tale of intertwining lives, written between the lines of Forestry Commission ledgers, postcards and other household ephemera, is rich and moving.

Republique

Publisher: Camouflaj
Release: September
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An adventure game set in an Orwellian surveillance society, Republique sees the player take on the role of guardian angel, remotely manipulating the environment through their hacking skills to guide the main character, Hope, to safety. The devs promise this isn’t a point-and-click adventure, but contains a strong, gesture-based action element. That said, this is no run-and-gun escapade, and it’s uncertain if or how the PC version of the game will escape the restrictions of the iPhone’s touch-based design paradigm. With veteran talent on board, however, a distinctive theme and some natty looking hacking gameplay, this is certainly one of the most exciting Kickstarter projects to have hit its target.

Brothers: A Tale Of Two Sons

Publisher: 505 Games
Release: Spring
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Starbreeze, well known for their ultra-violent shooter fare, are holstering their guns for this moving tale set within a mountainous medieval world. There’s not a gory QTE execution to be found anywhere within the 3-4 hours of the downloadable adventure, which instead focuses on the interlocking abilities of two brothers as they search the land for a cure for their dying father. The quest, designed to evoke emotions than test abilities, is framed by a collaboration with movie director Josef Fares – and its various puzzling encounters can be solved in distinct ways by each of the brothers. Saying much more would be to undermine its emotional heft, but this could easily shape up to be one of the indie darlings of 2013.

Double Fine Adventure

Publisher: Double Fine
Release: Late 2013
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Here it is: the monster that started it all. Without the astounding success of Double Fine Adventure’s nostalgia-baiting Kickstarter project, we wouldn’t be seeing this current deluge of resurrected point-and-click franchises. Double Fine Adventure itself comes from names indelibly associated with the LucasArts point-and-click classics of yore – and this heritage was alone was enough for people to throw nearly $3.5 million at the company before a concept was even outlined. Still, one has since taken shape: some sort of girl-meets-boy yarn, stretched across interweaving sci-fi and fantasy realities.

Routine

Publisher: Lunar Software
Release: TBC 2013
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The occupants of a moonbase have disappeared – for reasons that can only be deeply horrific – so inevitably you are tasked with going in there alone and poking about. Needless to say, something stalks you through the lustrously rendered corridors and gantries of this survival horror game. But this isn’t a simply ghost-train; permadeath, non-linear exploration, and dynamic scares make this a prospect as intriguing as it is unsettling. You can read our massive interview and preview here.

Somewhere

Publisher: Cargo Collective
Release: February
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Surreal, abstract environments and non-intuitive navigation are the principals behind this otherworldly experience. Bizarre architectural constructs, peculiar interactions and even weirder sounds form something as rich as it is disorienting. Wherever Somewhere is, it certainly ain’t Kansas anymore, Toto.

Europa

Publisher: Quick Fingers
Release: TBC 2013
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What started as a small-scale indie project for a seven day long FPS-building competition has sprawled into an open-world exploration-game set on one of Jupiter’s moons. Though he garnered headlines with the throwaway claim of “Fallout 3 in space”, don’t expect it to match the length, or the level of violence, of that game. The developer may even remove weapons altogether.

Coma: A Mind Adventure

Publisher: Coma Team
Release: TBC 2013
Link
From the team behind the superb Left 4 Dead 2 campaign Warcelona, comes something a little more restive: a firstperson puzzler set inside the mind of a comatose patient. That mental landscape is a beautiful but troubling place to be, however, as the patient in question is struggling with a terrible sense of remorse. The player aims to resolve these issues by travelling through the lush pastures and woodland of the imagination, and manipulating the weather and time of day to navigate obstacles. It looks gorgeous and its metaphysical tale clearly packs an emotive weight – could it be this year’s Dear Esther?

Dream

Publisher: Hypersloth
Release: Q1 2013
Link
This non-linear first-person puzzle-adventure takes place in the dreams of a directionless, young graduate struggling with the loss of his uncle and obsessed with the intricacies of his own imagination. Staged across three acts, the player explores ancient temples, rocky deserts and tundra as he unpicks the secrets of the graduate’s unconscious mind. Looks bloody gorgeous too, and should prove doubly atmospheric with its pledged support of the Oculus Rift VR headset.

Lilly Looking Through

Publisher: Geeta Games
Release: May
Link
An adventure game of some incredible beauty, this sumptuously animated fantasy sees the player point-and-click their way through puzzles with the aid of a magic pair of goggles. These allow the protagonist, a young girl named Lilly, to flit between past and present world states. The puzzles and movement seen in the currently available demo are restricted to hot-points, but it’s still hard not to get lost in the Pixar-quality animation.

Fables

Publisher: Telltale Games
Release: TBC 2013
Link
Based on the DC Comics series of the same name, Fables concerns the plight of fantasy and fairytale creatures, forced to eke out an existence in New York City after The Adversary forces them from their own realm. Like Neil Gaiman’s epochal Sandman saga, it seeks to weave together the panoply of human mythology into a cohesive and decidedly adult whole. Few clues exist as to how this will work as an adventure game, but given the calibre of Telltale’s adaptation of the Walking Dead, hopes are high.

The Thought Saved for Last

Publisher: Igor Hardy
Release: Early 2013
Link
An Indie Dev Grant nominee (ultimately losing out to Simon Roth’s Maia), The Thought Saved For Last is an adventure set within the sort of existential nightmare that’d be fitting for an episode of The Twighlight Zone. You control a man simply trying to get home after he misses the last bus – when things start to become very weird indeed.

Among The Sleep

Publisher: Krillbite Studio
Release: TBC 2013
Link
We often bemoan the prevalence of buzzcut space-marines and lantern-jawed lunks in games – and you couldn’t find a game in starker opposition to mass-market focus-tested tastes than this: a first-person adventure game in which you take control of a two-year-old and navigate an suspiciously deserted house, apparently under the control of malign supernatural forces. This kid’s got a lot of counselling ahead of it.

Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture

Publisher: The Chinese Room
Release: TBC 2013
Link
While one-half of TheChineseRoom busy themselves with the sequel to Amnesia, others are at work on this equally unsettling project. Considered the natural follow-up to melancholic island story Dear Esther, this takes the devices of exploration and environmental narrative to an open world – an open world in the grip of a Revelations-style apocalypse.

Tengami

Publisher: Nyamyam
Release: Late 2013
Link
A dark fairy tale set in ancient Japan, Tengami is an utterly gorgeous collision of artistic styles, blending ink wash brush work with oragami, pop-up books and paper marionettes. And this aesthetic influences the puzzles too, with a clever interplay between the 3D world and its reality as a 2D construction.

The Stanley Parable HD Remix

Publisher: Galactic Cafe
Release: TBC 2013
Link
The original Half-Life 2 mod was a wry meta-commentary on linearity and narration in videogames, with branching paths for every decision you made to defy the narrator’s intentions. Hailed as genius by some, the game’s remake will bring it to a larger audience while hopefully leaving a few surprises for fans of the original.

Broken Sword: The Serpent’s Curse

Publisher: Revolution Software
Release: Q1 2013
Link
A new 2D entry to the famed point-and-click Broken Sword series, in which the intrepid investigative duo Nico and George have previously chased Templars and investigated Mayan tombs. This new game takes the action to Turkey, and promises a loyal recreation of the earlier games’ appeal, with many of the original team on hand and the threat of an external publisher’s influence lifted thanks to a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign.

The Journey of Iesir

Publisher: TBC (definitely not Big Blue Cup)
Release: TBC 2013
Link
A gorgeous looking point-and-click set in a jocular medieval world, heavily influenced by its Nordic past and contemporary pop-culture wit. The player is a struggling playwright in search of inspiration – but finds calamity, art crime, and demon-possessed moose-headed alchemists instead.

The Twilight Zone

Publisher: Legacy Games
Release: Spring 2013
Link
Though this adventure skews to a casual audience, the devs sound astute in recognising the key elements of that most quintessential of weird science TV shows – combining its supernatural oddities with a chilling intelligence and social relevance. It may even get a little bit meta too: the protagonist is an actor, somehow sucked into the multiple fictional worlds of the TV series, unable to escape each until he discovers what role he has to play within the episode.

Extrasolar

Publisher: Lazy 8 Studios
Release: TBC 2013
Link
Blurring the line between adventure game and real-life crowdsourced science project, Extrasolar is an intriguing ARG, detailing the latest voyage to Mars by the eXoplanetary Research Institute, whereupon its many mini-rovers will map the planet with the aid of players. Images returned by the rovers are then analysed for clues, and the exotic lifeforms catalogued within – but to what end is this research being done? Who is behind the mysterious XRI? Who can you trust? Intriguing stuff with a sturdy science-nerd core.

Jane Jensen’s Moebius

Publisher: Pinkerton Road Studio
Release: March
Link
Yet another Kickstarter appeal to point-and-click nostalgia, Moebius comes from “master storyteller” Jane Jensen, responsible for the Gabriel Knight games. Here, improbably-named antiques dealer Malachi Rector is hired by equally improbably-named billionaire Amble Dexter to investigate the death of a woman in Venice. Metaphysical thrills ensue.

Hero U: Rogue To Redemption

Publisher: Far Studio
Release: October
Link
Wouldn’t you know it, it’s another successful Kickstarter campaign from the creators of a classic adventure series – this time Quest For Glory. A 2D point and click adventure game, unsurprisingly, with a snappy sense of humour.

Outlast

Publisher: Red Barrels
Release: TBC 2013
Link
A deserted asylum on a stormy night is the setting for this gruesome first-person horror adventure. The early sightings leave no cliche unturned – drink two fingers of whiskey every time you see an upturned wheelchair with its spokes mysteriously still turning, glimpse a flash of movement while using night vision goggles or discover the bodies of soldiers sent in to contain the situation. But if all this seems a little well worn, then its “target footage” trailer does suggest some mechanical novelty in the way you get around the place: namely, Mirror’s Edge-style parkour.

Starbound

Publisher: Chucklefish
Release: Early 2013
Link
A “story with a sandbox”, Starbound follows your attempts to rebuild an abandoned space-station, after you crashland on it while fleeing the destruction of your homeworld. Missions take you to a constellation of procedurally generated worlds, presented in side-scrolling 2D. Investigate, explore and harvest resources, and ultimately find yourself a new planet to terraform and settle.

Shadowgate

Publisher: Zojoi
Release: November
Link
One of the ground-breaking early examples of the adventure genre, first-person dungeon-puzzler Shadowgate is getting itself a remake thanks to – stop me if this sounds familiar – a successful Kickstarter campaign helmed by the original developers.

The Inner World

Publisher: Headup Games
Release: Spring 2013
Link
A hand-drawn 2D point-and-click adventure game set within a giant hollow in a universe of infinite soil. The hollow is ventilated by three wind tunnels, seemingly governed by wind gods who then turn their back on the people of the hollow. With the air supply running out, it’s down to a clueless court musician and his thieving friend Laura to puzzle their way to salvation.

Enola

Publisher: The Domaginarium
Release: TBC 2013
Link
A horror adventure game propelled by a deep and involved love story, Enola investigates those traditionally romantic themes of fear, isolation and murder, and avoids supernatural horror in place of more ‘human’ fears. Like getting bills in the post then, I assume.

Prominence

Publisher: Digital Media Workshop
Release: TBC 2013
Link
A science fiction first-person point-and-click of the oldest of old schools. Pre-rendered backdrops describe a deserted, high-tech facility, as the amnesiac protagonist uncovers clues to their whereabouts via audio recordings and data archives.

Reincarnation: The Root Of All Evil

Publisher: B-Group Productions
Release: August
Link
The latest in the Reincarnation series – originally planned as a webcomic which has since morphed into a point-and-click franchise. The Root Of All Evil is to be the biggest entry to the series yet thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign, as its Hellish protagonist seeks to return the netherworld to its former glory.

Leisure Suit Larry In The Land Of The Lounge Lizards

Publisher: Replay Games
Release: Q2 2013
Link
The 25th anniversary remake of smutty point-and-click snigger-fest Leisure Suit Larry In The Land Of The Lounge Lizards achieved over $650,000 via its Kickstarter campaign. The return of Larry’s legendary creator Al Lowe is certainly encouraging after the series recent abysmal Lowe-less outings.

The Raven

Publisher: Nordic Games
Release: TBC 2013
Link
The Raven tasks players with tracking down the titular art thief across a 1960s Europe in what is described as a ‘fast-paced’ point-and-click adventure game.

The Samaritan Paradox

Publisher: Petter Ljungqvist
Release: Late 2013
Link
Set in Sweden during the eighties, The Samaritan Paradox is a lo-fi point-and-click adventure that sees players trying to hunt down a dead author’s last work. Unsurprisingly, the story goes much deeper than that, as the player unravels a terrible conspiracy.

Quest For Infamy

Publisher: Infamous Quests
Release: Early 2013
Link
The team behind the remakes of King’s Quest 3 and Space Quest 2 have raised thousands for this point-and-click adventure on Kickstarter – but the game isn’t merely a rerun of the mechanics of old. Instead, Quest For Infamy brings novel conceits, like character classes, to the hoary old genre.

HeXit

Publisher: CyberPhobX
Release: TBC 2013
Link
This sci-fi point-and-click adventure – inspired by Blade Runner, Total Recall and police procedurals – failed to reach its funding goal on Kickstarter, but the team has promised it will still develop the title. However, the blog has remained fallow for several months.

Xing

Publisher: Aya Studios
Release: TBC 2013
Link
A mixture of adventure game, puzzler and firstperson platformer, Xing is set across a number of lushly drawn tropical islands (with dynamic day-night cycles!) and promises the player strange powers: the physical manipulation of space and control of time.

Hidden Dawn

Publisher: E-One Studio
Release: TBC 2013
Link
A fantasy-adventure set in the aftermath of a world-razing conflict. You star as Heru, a young girl hunted by sinister forces because of her latent magical abilities: control of vegetation, gravity, and thought.

Adam Syndrome

Publisher: Dark Motif
Release: TBC 2013
Link
Not, in fact, a terrestrial sequel to Alien Syndrome, but instead a dark point-and-click mystery about a bloke called Adam Reed investigating the death of his wife. The game has completed pre-production at the time of writing and is looking for a publisher.

Jack Houston And The Necronauts

Publisher: Warbird Games
Release: December
Link
It’s the sci-fi of the fifties – ray guns, bubble helmets and all – transposed into a traditional point-and-click adventure. As test pilot Jack Houston, you leave the Earth in 1999 for the first manned mission to Venus, only for a crash-landing to leave you in cryo-sleep for 1000 years. Awaking to find the world controlled by “savage beast men who worship a devil god with the power to control the dead”, Jack must face point-and-click peril in a struggle for the planet’s salvation!

The Last Crown: Haunting Of Hallowed Isle

Publisher: Darkling Room
Release: TBC 2013
Link
The sequel to 2007’s The Lost Crown, this latest instalment sees players travel to an English coastal island, unravelling its mystery with an arsenal of ghost-hunting techniques.

Asylum

Publisher: Senscape
Release: TBC 2013
Link
From Buenos Aires-based developer Senscape comes this psychiatric horror yarn. It promises that the rather unsanitary-looking Hanwell Mental Institute will be fully explorable – and based on blueprints of actual asylums.

The Dream Machine: Chapter 5

Publisher: Cockroach Inc
Release: Late 2013
Link
The final part of the beautiful Dream Machine episodic releases, Chapter 5 will see more of the award-winning point-and-click adventuring created with claymation and other real world items.

Wychwood Hollow

Publisher: Shadow Tor Studios
Release: TBC 2013
Link
A supernatural first-person mystery/adventure game set in Cornwall – place of standing stones, ancient mystery and the vengeful spirit of murdered witches. The form the game will take is, however, uncertain: not much has been seen of Wychwood Hollow beyond the live-action teasers on the game’s site.

A Night At Camp Ravenwood

Publisher: Screen 7
Release: TBC 2013
Link
A remote camp for delinquents, owned by vampires and run by a biker gang: that’s Camp Ravenwood. The game is very much a traditional point-and-click adventure with its tongue lodged firmly in its cheek.

Kinky Island

Publisher: Screen 7
Release: TBC 2013
Link
A freeware joke project has transmogrified into a funded production thanks to years of iterative development and a successful IndieGoGo campaign. As the name would suggest, this homage to classic point-and-click games is not for kids and contains some ripe themes.

The Adventures Of The Black General

Publisher: Private Moon Studios
Release: TBC 2013
Link
A first-person adventure game which sees players on the trail of a legend, controlling one Thomas-Alexandre Dumas. Combining historical elements (Napoleon) with mystical ones (Egyptian theology).

Rick Future: The Adventure Game

Publisher: MetalPop
Release: Early 2013
Link
Based on a German audio play series of the same name, players can control three different characters in this spoof sci-fi puzzler. Each has different skills which will need to be combined to overcome the game’s obstacles.

Tex Murphy: Project Fedora

Publisher: Big Finish Games
Release: TBC 2013
Link
Subject of yet another unexpectedly successful Kickstarter campaign, this sees the hardboiled PI from the future return for another adventure of mystery, drama, live-action cut-scenes and natty hats.

SpaceVenture

Publisher: Two Guys From Andromeda
Release: February
Link
A new sci-fi comedy adventure game from the creators of the Space Quest series. It was successfully funded to the tune of ‘a lot of money’ thanks to the combined powers of nostalgia and Kickstarter.

Psych

Publisher: Legacy Games
Release: TBC 2013
Link
A casual puzzle-adventure game based on the US TV show Psych in which a dude pretends to be psychic and somehow the police decide they should employ him.

Where Are You? A Tale Of Love

Publisher: Red Sun Games
Release: January
Link
Taking control of a man named Derrick – who has, conveniently, no memory of why he has awoken in the place he has – players must piece together a mystery of who Derrick is, all while solving puzzles and picking up items.

Montague’s Mount

Publisher: Polypusher Studios
Release: Throughout 2013
Link
Montague’s Mount is a first-person adventure game, described by its developers as a ‘psychological rollercoaster’. The game will come in three episodes, each released at different points throughout 2013. And it’s all set on a bleak Irish island.

The Intruder

Publisher: Mister Royzo
Release: TBC 2013
Link
The Intruder is a survival horror game set in a poorly-lit but otherwise mundane environment, through which you are hunted by a supernatural being (which, for once, is not the Slender Man). It’s all about managing your time: you have a few in-game days to prepare for the inevitable encounter – you need to eat, sleep, arm yourself and, going by the trailer, don your hardiest brown trousers.

 

FPS

Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2

Publisher: Namco Bandai
Release: January 18
Link
The original game was a right old mess and yet defied critics, QA testers and any sense of worldly justice with some two-million plus sales. Its sequel promises to rectify the mistakes, ditch its more gung-ho shooter sections and return to authentically stealthy sniping action. The CryEngine 3 makes it all look rather spiffy, and will hopefully curtail the number of instances when the player tumbles through the floor into infinity.

Aliens: Colonial Marines

Publisher: Sega
Release: February 15
Link
Gearbox are riding high with the success of Borderlands, but their forever-in-development Aliens tie-in has attracted mixed reports. As a space squaddie in the Marine Corps you are sent back to uncover the fate of the USS Sulaco, and by happy coincidence, help fill out the gap between the second and third movie with the corpses of your comrades. Iconic moments from the movies will be recycled here, as the Marines battle several new flavours of alien and mercs in the pay of the Weyland Yutani corporation. Turret guns, flamethrowers, and frantic door-welding are all in evidence – but will the sheer quantity of xenomorph slaughter rob them of their individual menace?

Bioshock Infinite

Publisher: 2K Games
Release: March 1
Link
Bioshock was set in an underwater objectivist utopia gone awry and its successor is not so much a sequel as a funhouse mirror; transporting the action to an alternate universe, another time – 1912 – and yet another failed experiment in utopianism. This time set in a flying city called Columbia, Bioshock’s art deco gives way to neo-classical sobriety – built as a testament to American exceptionalism, but now shredded by vying factions. You play as Booker DeWitt, a former Pinkerton agent, dispatched to Columbia to retrieve a girl with incredible powers – who then remains your near-constant companion, establishing the emotional heart to the game and expanding your tactical options when faced with a horde of crazed Columbian citizens. Though the gunplay still feels very Bioshock, with handheld spells called “vigors” allowing you to ignite people or summon clouds of crows the actual structure of the game feels more like the directed experience of Half-Life 2 than the hub-like environs of Rapture. The interplay between Booker and his charge, Elizabeth, meanwhile, may set a new watermark for player-AI relationships.

Crysis 3

Publisher: EA
Release: February
Link
The first Crysis sent the player sneaking, dashing and leaping through extremely open, dense, jungle settings, while the second trapped you in a gorgeously drawn but lamentably trammelled New York – necessarily restricted so the game could fit onto those dinky little consoles. In its third supersoldiers-vs-aliens outing, Crytek attempts to meld the two, unleashing you in a New York some years after its reclamation by nature. Its certainly a showcase for the tech beneath, and Crysis has always offered an interesting array of combat options with the protagonist’s nanosuit allowing you to switch between super strength, speed and stealth. But it’s always come unstuck in its enemy design – the aliens just proved little joy to fight, and it doesn’t look like they’re being left out of the picture here, unfortunately.

Red Orchestra 2: Rising Storm

Publisher: Tripwire Interactive
Release: TBC 2013
Link
Developed as a collaboration between Tripwire Interactive and the Red Orchestra 2 modding community, Rising Storm is a total conversion that moves the action from Stalingrad to the Pacific theatre. Previous games have had slightly shaky singleplayer campaigns, but proved their worth online, with single-shot death, shellshock and clumsy weaponry conjuring a tremendous sense of oppression and panic.

Dead Island: Riptide

Publisher: Deep Silver
Release: April 26
Link
Riptide follows on directly from the events of the original game – an openworld shooter RPG set in the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse on a tropical island. Though seemingly rescued at the end of the last game, a tsunami sets the survivors back at square one, and so begins again the process of collecting resources and aiding fellow non-zoms in distress. Hopefully building upon their existing work will allow the dev to focus on squashing some of the game-wrecking bugs players encountered first time round.

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow 6: Patriots

Publisher: Ubisoft
Release: TBC 2013
Link
Domestic terrorism on American soil is a fairly brave subject to cover when it comes to mainstream videogames and probably requires delicate handling. Perhaps that’s why so many of the development team have jumped ship following the rather cold reaction to its early trailers. It may have undergone a total overhaul – as do so many of Ubisoft’s big budget releases. We can probably still expect rappelling out of buildings, vision modes and co-operative door breaching to make an appearance, but as to the game’s structure, little is known. Alas, there’s little reason to hope it will ditch the cinematic action nonsense of latterday Clancy games for the series’ origins as a supremely tactical squad shooter

Prey 2

Publisher: Bethesda
Release: TBC 2013
Link
Early previews of this game showed a tremendously appealing vertical slice of sci-fi opening world shooting, with the player taking on the role of a human air marshal accidentally transported to an alien planet during the events of the first game. Here he becomes a bounty hunter, clambering and diving all over the Blade Runner inspired cityscape with some rather tasty firstperson parkour tricks, and no small amount of gadgetry. It looked exhilarating to play, with a wealth of combat and traversal options available to you, as you pursued your quarry through the neon and gunmental of a dizzyingly vertical environment. Alas, some sort of kerfuffle between devs Human Head and their publishers at Bethesda has halted production. Will it emerge from limbo in 2013? Here’s hoping.

Metro: Last Light

Publisher: THQ
Release: TBC 2013
Link
Publisher THQ’s money troubles may have done a great service to Metro: Last Light – its constant discounts and Steam firesales have meant that the game’s excellent predecessor, subterranean supernatural shooter Metro 2033, has ended up in many more hands than it might have otherwise and whet appetites for the sequel. Set in the labyrinthine tunnels beneath Moscow – which connect its nuclear-shielded subway system with cold-war-era military bunkers and underground rivers – Metro told a linear tale of survival following a man-made apocalypse. Monstrous mutants stalk the remnants of humanity, while other supernatural phenomena ravage the lands, and mankind struggles with itself – different factions forever at war in the gloomy echoing caverns. This sequel hopes to recreate the claustrophobic tension of the original, with its cumbersome weaponry and weary sense of embodiment.

Arma 3

Publisher: Bohemia Interactive
Release: TBC 2013
Link
There’s over 320 square kilometres of military sandbox in this latest instalment in the super-realistic military shooter series, now relocating the conflict to a near-future mediterranean. Alas, two of the principal developers of the game were arrested for spying while on holiday in Greece – on the very island on which the game’s environment is based. Production has slowed while Bohemia Interactive petitions the Greek authorities to see sense.

Warface

Publisher:Trion Worlds
Release:TBC 2013
Link
One of the most exuberantly silly names for a shooter it might be, but its doing serious business: Warface already has millions of players in Russia, with the free-to-play multiplayer shooter coming to Western shores as soon as they’ve settled on a regionally-appropriate business model and infrastructure. Though it looks like grimly realistic shooter fare, this is actually a giddily fast-paced team-shooter with outlandish perks and buffs.

Shootmania Storm

Publisher: Ubisoft
Release: January 23
Link
Supporting the Trackmania-style framework of creative tools and online tournaments, Shootmania is a sort of pro-player shooter sandbox, allowing you to build levels, tweak game variables to your satisfaction, organise competitive matches and livestream it all from within the game itself. Being so malleable means it lacks a potent aesthetic of its own, however.

Sir, You Are Being Hunted

Publisher: Big Robot
Release: July
Link
A procedurally-generated world inspired by bleak British moorland is the setting for this indie survival game – moorland populated by exceedingly gentlemanly robots intent on killing you for sport. Pitched as a tweedpunk anglophile Stalker, it looks to be a complex game of interacting dynamic systems: different robot factions can be lured into conflict with each other, giving the player a chance to slip through the damp bracken unnoticed.

0x10c

Publisher: Mojang
Release: March (alpha)
Link
Trying to work out what 0x10c is could be a game in itself. Lead developer Markus “Notch” Persson describes it as a Firefly simulator, after the spacefaring TV series. What that means in practice is a hulking hybrid of genres, with the player embodying a character inside a ship, rather than the directly controlling the ship itself, as it voyages through a free-roaming universe. It’s part space-trading game like Elite, part disaster-prone space-ship-sim like FTL, part twitch shooter like Quake, part planet-based resource game like, well, I don’t know what. The ship’s computer is a fully-functioning emulated 16-bit CPU, which you can programme, exchanging code with other pilots (it’s multiplayer, too, by the way) to snag the best docking algorithms, or automated turrets. It’s a colossal endeavour – so don’t expect more than a paid alpha this year.

Rise Of The Triad

Publisher: Apogee Software
Release: Q1 2013
Link
The original ROTT was a frivolously chaotic FPS from the era of sprite-based shooters. It had an inventive arsenal, oodles of gore and a breakneck pace – all of which seem to be returning in this loyal remake. The Unreal Engine 3 brings it up to speed visually – with the evil cultist’s monastery offering architecture with complexity far beyond that possible in the first game’s modified Wolfenstein 3D engine. But that doesn’t mean the devs will be messing with the game’s irreverent tone: this is no gritty reboot. Early glimpses see the player collecting coins, detonating gigantic explosions and otherwise causing carnage worthy of the original’s name.

Battlefield 4

Publisher: EA
Release: Late 2013
Link
The beta access promised as part of Medal Of Honor: Warfighter’s pre-order bonus spilled the beans on Battlefield 4’s existence. Though few can have been surprised that DICE would make another game in the series, it’s early announcement, and the fact that that it would be slated before another Bad Company game, has raised eyebrows. And perhaps for this reason, DICE have remained silent on when we can expect BF4’s beta to actually open or what it might entail. Our hopes for the series: a return to huge, non-linear, highly destructible environments instead of the gung-ho COD-alike singleplayer bombast. Also, more vehicle horns. Honk!

Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 4

Publisher: Activision
Release: Late 2013
Link
Along with flooding in the south west of England and country-wide, bum-crippling outbreaks of the norovirus, a new COD game is a certain fixture for late 2013. It’s not officially confirmed as a Modern Warfare game yet, but Captain Price’s voice actor let the cat out the bag, saying he was primed to record lines for a new game. He’s since claimed to have been quoted out of context, but it’s hard to see how that context would change the substance of what he said. Script leaks reported by Gamesradar hint at some details of a generic man-shooter kind: the main character will be a battle-hardened soldier (surprise!), while enemy armour, air support and carcinogenic dust also make an appearance. It seems we can also confirm that the game won’t be set entirely in Phuket, if at all.

Interstellar Marines

Publisher: Zero Point Software
Release: TBC 2013
Link
This ambitious indie sci-fi shooter has been knocking around for nearly eight years now, but recently built momentum thanks to the release of some playable demos and the increased popularity of pre-order-based crowdfunding. Even so, Zero Point failed to hit their lofty $600k Kickstarter goal for the Prologue chapter of Interstellar Marines. The full game is nonetheless coming – with its promises of non-linear gameplayer, open-ended level design, rich storytelling and four player co-op intact.

Zeno Clash 2

Publisher: Atlus
Release: Q1 2013
Link
The original stands out as one of the most inventive games of recent years, set in an alarming, bizarre reality of Zenozoik, populated by alarming, bizarre man-creature hybrids, who you could then punch to death in the firstperson. Sweet. The sequel looks to pick up where the first game’s unsettlingly Oedipal story left off, though takes the action to a Zelda-style open world (now powered by Unreal Engine 3 as opposed to Source). It’s a thrillingly ambitious project from one of the most brazenly barmy imaginations in game development.

Bedlam

Publisher: Redbedlam
Release: Q3 2013
Link
Bedlam is to be both a game and a book – the first foray into sci-fi by Scottish crime author Christopher Brookmyre. In fact, the game hopes to be part of a trilogy of FPS games, offering a meta-narrative to the book’s own FPS-influenced themes of alluring, violent digital fantasy.

The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct

Publisher: Activision
Release: Mid-2013
Link
With Telltale’s unprecedentedly brilliant adventure game adaptation drawing to a close, the way is clear for this FPS TV-series tie-in from Terminal Reality. It’s a prequel, following TV show characters Daryl and Merle Dixon, as they fight their way through dead-heads in the countryside of Georgia. Early signs don’t get the pulse racing, but then few predicted how good Telltale’s adventure game would be either.

Call Of Juarez: Gunslinger

Publisher: Ubisoft
Release: Early 2013
Link
After the ill-advised lurch into the present with The Cartel, the ever-shonky six-shooter series is back in the wild west with Gunslinger. Though technically unpolished, the games have always had a few intriguing mechanical innovations and some colourful characterisation among the grizzled outlaws you encounter along its linear path. This time, Techland has ditched the multi-character epics for a sleeker downloadable title. Here, you’re cherry picking episodes from the memory of a gunman of the old frontier, who variously teamed up with big-name bounty hunters and their big-name bounties. Expect slow-motion gunfights and plenty of frontier dust.

Takedown

Publisher: Serellan
Release: July
Link
With the likes of Ghost Recon now tumbling headlong into the big-budget FPS furrow left by COD, many wish for the days when the Clancy brand stood for bitter realism and tactics. Takedown is stepping up to fill this gap, and their promised return to squad strategy of the original Rainbox Six and later SWAT games has netted them $200k on Kickstarter. Tangos beware.

Dirty Bomb

Publisher: Splash Damage
Release: Late 2013
Link
The company behind Brink and Enemy Territory bring us another class-based multiplayer shooter – this time a free-to-play terrorism-tussle set in the heart of near-future London. Early footage shows many of their classic class paradigms and abilities continuing into this new game. How it’ll be monetised is yet to be revealed, though surely anyone would put down a fiver just to nuke Croydon.

MMO

The Elder Scrolls: Online

Publisher: Bethesda
Release: Mid-2013
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The Elder Scrolls online has weathered a mixed reception since its announcement. On one hand, it’s the largest Elder Scrolls game ever made – and the first to allow players to explore the entire continent of Tamriel. On the other, there are those who argue that an MMO of the traditional sort can’t do the series justice – after all, Skyrim’s just as famous for its basket-based emergent tomfoolery as it is for its actual RPG mechanics. The real reason to watch The Elder Scrolls Online is the talent behind it – the ex-Mythic developers responsible for the innovative Warhammer: Age of Reckoning and, before that, Dark Age of Camelot. Don’t write off the old-school MMO just yet.

Shadowrun Online

Publisher: Cliffhanger Productions
Release: TBC 2013
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After a rather limp showing on console a few years ago, legendary cyberpunk pen and paper RPG Shadowrun is getting another stab at life online. Cliffhanger Productions’ Unity-powered MMO will allow players to become mages, hackers, cyborg warriors and more. It’s the blend of traditional fantasy and near-future sci-fi that has always made Shadowrun stand out – this is a world where elves wear tanktops and assassinate corporate dragons. Player actions will impact the ongoing storyline of the pen and paper version, which is a nice touch.

Neverwinter

Publisher: Perfect World Entertainment
Release: Early 2013
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Cryptic’s latest shares a setting but little else with the BioWare RPG series of a few years ago. It’s an action-heavy online RPG set in the Forgotten Realms’ most famous city, a hundred years after a terrible disaster. It’ll be free to play, and there’ll be a proper content creation tool that’ll allow players to create their own questlines. Cryptic had success with something similar in City of Heroes – here’s hoping they can build on that success.

Firefall

Publisher: Red 5 Studios
Release: Early 2013
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Firefall is a hugely amibitious free to play shooter that is attempting to be all things to everyone – co-op MMO blaster, competitive FPS, serious e-sport contender. Jetpacks abound, but despite the presence of Tribes designer Scott Youngbood you’re better off thinking more along the lines of Guild Wars 2 and Planetside 2. The developers have been active in responding to the community over the course of the game’s long beta, and there’s a lot of promise in Firefall’s vision of a vibrant, monster-stalked future Earth.

Everquest Next

Publisher: Sony Online Entertainment
Release: Late 2013
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Not much is known about EverQuest Next, but SOE president John Smedley hopes that it will “define the next generation of MMOs.” The developer reportedly scrapped the game’s design and started over to avoid the subscription slump experienced by content-led MMOs like Star Wars: The Old Republic and The Secret World. SOE are looking to build the “the largest sandbox MMO ever designed.” Hopefully, that means a step away from prescriptive raiding and endless grind and back towards actual immersion and meaningful interactions between players.

Marvel Heroes

Publisher: Gazillion Entertainment
Release: TBC 2013
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Recently shown off to the press in an early form, action RPG Marvel Heroes has been slow to win hearts and minds. You drag classic superheroes on a Diablo-style ganking spree taking place in the Marvel universe. It’ll be free to play, but expect to shell out for premim heroes and alternate appearances. Potentially of interest to serious Marvel buffs – is that Rocket Raccoon? – but those less enamoured of the comics giant might want to wait for the reviews before investing their time.

Survarium

Publisher: Vostok Games
Release: Late 2013
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A post-apocalyptic MMOFPS by the chaps behind the excellent STALKER games is an exciting notion, but little is known about Survarium save that it takes place following a worldwide ecological disaster and that players will battle ‘maddened animals and birds’ in the ruins of civilization. Hopefully the presence of other players will enhance – rather than undermine – the pervasive sense of threat that made STALKER so special.

Age Of Wulin/Wushu

Publisher: Gala Networks
Release: 2013
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Age of Wulin is a Chinese-developed MMO currently being adapted for a western audience. It’s set during the Ming dynasty and focuses on martial artists from various schools. While not wholly realistic, there’s a strong attention to historical detail and the tone is more magic realist than outright fantasy. There are a few novel ideas in play, too – when you log out, your character remains in the world, performing your crafting professions as an NPC.

Project V13

Publisher: Interplay
Release: TBC 2013
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Following legal troubles between Bethesda and Interplay, not much is known about the oft-rumoured Fallout MMO. There was an attempt last year to spark interest around a series of ARG websites, but don’t hold your breath on this seeing a release this year.

WildStar

Publisher: NCSoft
Release: TBC 2013
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Wildstar is a cartoonish sci-fi MMO that promises to give players a wide range of options for progression, with combat, crafting and exploration all fully viable games in their own right. The developers recently announced an innovative in-game housing system that’ll ensure there’s space for every player by ejecting individual chunks of land into the sky with rocket boosters. Hey – it’s more imaginative than instancing.

Wizardry Online

Publisher: Sony Online Entertainment
Release: Early 2013
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The official Wizardry Online website claims that the anime MMO has been in development for thirty years, which seems like a bit of a stretch. It’s a ‘hardcore’ online RPG that features permadeath and looks a little like Dark Souls, were it not for the bobble-headed anime characters.

World Of Darkness

Publisher: CCP Games
Release: TBC 2013
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CCP are promising a faithful take on White Wolf’s pen and paper vampire RPG, so expect to spend more time talking to the monsters than slaying them. There’s talk of a complicated political system that’ll allow players to make power plays and betray one another by the rules of the Masquerade, the vampire code of conduct.

Otherland

Publisher: Gamigo
Release: TBC 2013
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An action MMO set inside a series of virtual worlds – some fantasy, others medieval, others science fiction – that themselves comprise a virtual world. If there were ever a time that the Inception horn was justified, now would be it. It’s free to play, and based on the novels of the same name by Tad Williams.

Infinity

Publisher: I-Novae Studios
Release: Late 2013
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Infinity has been around forever, it seems – a dream of a procedurally generated universe featuring seamless space-to-surface flight. The developer is planning a Kickstarter campaign early in the year to finally get this starship MMO into game-like shape – but whether it’ll be enough to compete with Star Citizen and a resurgent Elite remains to be seen.

City Of Steam

Publisher: Mechanist Games
Release: TBC 2013
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3D indie action MMO that, impressively, runs entirely in a browser. It features traditional fantasy races transposed to the post-industrial world. Expect dungeons, orcs, and clockwork motorcycles. They’re really commiting to that steampunk thing: the world is a giant cog floating in space.

World Of Warplanes

Publisher: Wargaming.net
Release: Q1 2013
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The follow-up to World of Tanks transplants Wargaming.net’s multiplayer formula to the skies. Take on squadrons of player-controlled WWII aircraft, level up, and upgrade your plane before heading out to do it all over again. Like its caterpillar-treaded cousin, it’ll be free to play but spending money will unlock exclusive vehicles and speed up your advancement.

Heroes And Generals

Publisher: Square Enix
Release: TBC 2013
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Heroes & Generals combines a multiplayer FPS (that’d be the ‘heroes’ bit) with a persistent web-based strategy metagame (you know, ‘generals’). It’s set during World War II, and you can access the strategy component on the move by using a smartphone.

The Castle Doctrine

Publisher: Jason Rohrer
Release: TBC 2013
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The Castle Doctrine is an MMO by indie developer Jason Rohrer, based around the concept of home defence. The doctrine in question is an aspect of U.S. law that allows homeowners to defend their property. You’ll need to buy traps in order to prevent other players from stealing your things – but where do you get the money? That’s right: by stealing other people’s stuff. Not much else is known at the moment, but Rohrer’s ‘Sleep is Death’ showcased some innovative ideas about multiplayer storytelling.

Transformers Universe

Publisher: Jagex Games Studio
Release: TBC 2013
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Autobots and Decepticons do as Autobots and Decepticons will in the MMO debut of the Transformers franchise. Early footage shows off a brightly-coloured take on the series, suggesting something closer to the original cartoon than the recent movies. Which can only be a good thing, frankly. It’s being developed by Jagex, of Runescape fame.

Defiance

Publisher: SyFy
Release: April
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A massively multiplayer action game that ties into a SyFy channel TV show. It’s set in the area around San Francisco in a future where alien terraforming has littered the world with Hellbugs. Don’t let the name fool you! They’re pretty terrible. There’s a little of Firefall to the art style and premise, but the cross-media aspect is a novel touch.

The Missing Ink

Publisher: Redbedlam
Release: TBC 2013
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A cute British indie MMORPG where every player gets their own sandbox world to manipulate as they see fit. It’s browser-based on PC, but there’ll be mobile versions to allow players to log in while they’re out and about. The art style is adorable – a mixture of chunky 3D and ‘paper doll’-style players and monsters.

Cartoon Universe

Publisher: Warner Bros Interactive
Release: Q1 2013
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An MMO based on Warner Bros. cartoons – think Looney Tunes, Scooby Doo and co. Run quests, play games on arcade machines, and defeat bosses – it’s straightforward stuff, but as you might expect the game is being aimed squarely at a younger audience.

World Of Warships

Publisher: Wargaming.net
Release: TBC 2013
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The third part of Wargaming.net’s World War II action trifecta is a battleship deathmatch game. Planes and tanks, we’re familiar with – warships are a stranger proposition, and it’ll be interesting to see how the developers handle the relatively slow pace of naval warfare. Expect a major difference in playstyle between ship types – an aircraft carrier is a very different beast from a frigate or a submarine.