We’ve just entered a whole new month of 2020, and who knows what else the year might throw our way. Thankfully, it’s not all bad, or at least, hopefully it won’t be. Things on the digital front are a lot more promising than real life, and there are some intriguing indie games coming out this week you’ll wanna check out.
This week features strategy games and a new battle royale title that are worth paying attention to. So, enough dillydallying, let’s jump into it.
Crusader Kings III
The first of our big strategy offerings comes from Paradox Interactive. The video game company is well-known for its grand strategy games, but this looks like its latest could well be the best one yet. The third entry in a fairly well-loved series, Crusader Kings III lets you choose a house to start off in. You then guide not just one character, but an entire dynasty. That means you get to see how things change across time, and you’ll have to compete with a lot of different factions and people across the length of the game.
Your aim is to guide the bloodline from one success to another, all the while also finding your own way to control the world. The game’s set within the middle ages, so don’t expect anything in the way of technology really. However, you can play out a lot of different strategies, and it’s immensely gratifying to see the great-great-great-great-granddaughter of your first character still holding true to the same ideals.
Alongside the substantial single-player offerings, you can also play against other people online. That’s always a nice option if you prefer to know that you’ve won against real players instead of just the ones coded into the game. There are already reviews of this one out, and it looks like it could well be a contender for Game Of The Year.
Crusader Kings III is out now for PC and Linux via the Paradox Store, Steam and the Microsoft Store.
Iron Harvest
The next strategy game on the list is very, very different. Unlike Crusader Kings III, which is set in the middle ages, Iron Harvest takes place in an alternate version of 1920. While technology in our world during the roaring ’20s hadn’t advanced all that much, in this timeline, massive dieselpunk mechs are the standard when it comes to warfare.
It follows the events of World War I, but just as the world is recovering things go horribly awry again. A gigantic and mysterious power is threatening the entire of Europe, and it’s your job to control the resistance and fight back With your own army of gigantic mechs. And to be honest, what more could you want from a game than big lumbering, clumsy-looking mechs that rain pain and terror upon anything that is foolish enough to stand in their way?
You can even play through the game with co-op too, or if you get bored of fighting against AI opponents you can fight against other players online. It’s got a lot of legs (this is funnier when you see the mechs), and if you’ve been looking for something a little different in the strategy genre then this could well scratch that itch.
Iron Harvest is out now for PC.
Spellbreak
Here’s something that’s not a strategy game. Spellbreak was initially set to arrive on Gamescom opening night in August, according to Geoff Keighley,, but it only got released onSeptember 3. We’ve got no idea why,what happened, or why it wasn’t really addressed, but we do think it’s worth noting here, if only to check that we weren’t the only ones that noticed it.
Spellbreak is billed as an “epic fantasy action spellcasting” game. You get to choose a class and then fight against other characters using spells that you can customise or with items that you find. It’s a battle royale game at its core, but it’s got a few different modes outside of that particular brand of chaos.
The thing that makes Spellbreak really fascinating is the sheer volume of customisation options. You’ve got six classes to choose from, but then you can mix loads of different spells, runes, and items together to make your own playstyle out of them. You can also play along with a story mode that should be releasing fairly regularly. Who knows, maybe it’ll even compete with the likes of Fortnite? It is free, after all.
Iron Harvest is out now for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch.