New Game Releases: Week of November 4, 2018

This week marks a relative calm in the proverbial storm of fall releases.

However, between intriguing VR experiences and an array of Switch ports, there are still plenty of titles to be excited about.

On Tuesday, FromSoftware makes their VR debut with Deracine for PSVR.

Set in an old, secluded boarding school, players will assume the role of an invisible fairy living in a world where time stands still. From this frozen vantage point, the fairy can learn more about the parallel human world, collecting clues and unraveling a mystery looming around the school’s children.

In a recent blog post about Deracine, Masaaki Yamagiwa, the game’s producer, shed some light on how Hidetaka Miyazaki arrived at a game so different from his acclaimed Souls series:

When director Hidetaka Miyazaki first experienced VR, he felt an impressive sense of presence — as if VR characters existed while simultaneously feeling absent and disconnected from our world. Deracine is a game that tries to capture this strange feeling that is unique to VR and create an interesting experience by making this concept the core of its setting and world.

Tuesday also marks the release of World of Final Fantasy Maxima, a “powered up version” of 2016’s World of Final Fantasy. Maxima will release on PC, PlayStation 4, Switch, and Xbox One, and owners of the original PC and PS4 releases can opt to upgrade through paid DLC, rather than purchasing Maxima in full.

World of Final Fantasy exists as something of a hybrid of Final Fantasy and Pokemon, asking players to “imprism” the game’s “mirages,” increase their levels and skills, and use them in battle.

With its cutesy art style and surprisingly deep gameplay, World of Final Fantasy‘s initial release was met with generally favorable reviews, and Maxima comes with a few new additions to the base game:

• An Avatar Change system that allows players to transform their characters into some of the franchise’s most memorable protagonists (including Cloud, Lightning, and Terra), and use their signature moves
• New mirages to imprism
• A fishing minigame

Finally, some great Switch ports are rounding out the week.

Moonlighter, releasing on today, is an excellent little adventure featuring an industrious shopkeep that spends their days improving their town and their nights dungeon-crawling.

And, on Friday, we get Forgotton Anne, a platformer with a beautiful score and an art style that smacks of Hayao Miyazaki’s gorgeous films.

Are you picking anything up this week? Let us know in the comments, and see below for a more complete list of releases.

Monday, November 5

• Moonlighter (Switch)

Tuesday, November 6

• ARK: Survival Evolved: Extinction DLC (PC, PS4, Xbox One)
• Deracine (PSVR)
• Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry (PC)
• Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom (PS4, Switch, Xbox One)
• Overkill’s The Walking Dead (PC, PS4, Xbox One)
• The Shapeshifting Detective (PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One)
• SYREN (PSVR)
• World of Final Fantasy Maxima (PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One)

Thursday, November 8

• Mercenaries Wings: The False Phoenix (Switch)

Friday, November 9

• 11-11: Memories Retold (PC, PS4, Xbox One)
• Forgotton Anne (Switch)
• Tetris Effect (PS4, PSVR)