Welcome to week two of August and this week kicks off with an online PvP war game featuring the conflict between the United States and Vietnam. If that's not your kind of game, then how about being the leader of a totalitarian colony or maybe a secret agent? You can even get to relive your high school days—assuming you went to high school—or do your own DIY repairs, alternatively you could loot a dungeon. We've got a few other games launching this week too, if none of the above is for you.

Hell Let Loose: Vietnam / This week's major release / Thursday 13 August
Enter the explosive conflict of the Vietnam War and fight your way through some of the fiercest clashes in modern history. Join the battle raging across an extreme landscape of vast mountain gorges and thick jungle, where the North Vietnamese Armies clash with the military strength of the US Armed Forces. Build tunnels, fly helicopters, drive patrol boats, use historically accurate weapons and work with your team to achieve victory. Steam link

Bungie is seemingly betting on its new Vault Breaker PvE game mode to help bolster Marathon's player counts, even though it only appears to have resulted in a small blip in concurrent player counts when the new game mode launched on July 21. Most recently, Bungie has announced that Marathon's Vault Breaker will be extended.

As of the announcement, Vault Breaker will run until August 18, instead of the previous end date of August 4. The extension was likely implemented in order to gauge interest and player retention in the roguelite PvE mode and gather player feedback after a July 28 update that introduced substantial changes to Vault Breaker, including a new solo queue and enemy AI tweaks that should make solo play in Vault Breaker less punishing.

Relic Entertainment today announced that Company of Heroes 3: Final Stand is now available on Steam for $29.99 USD / £23.99 GBP / €28.99 EUR with a 10% introductory discount for two weeks, alongside an additional 20% bundle discount for existing Company of Heroes 3 owners. Available as a standalone product, Final Stand captures the strategy and intensity of Company of Heroes' cinematic battles in a fast-paced wave defense experience for solo and cooperative play.

Built on the beloved tactical foundation of Company of Heroes, Final Stand expands the series' signature combat with roguelite progression that encourages experimentation, adaptation, and replayability. Players must dig in, build layered defenses, and survive against escalating waves of enemy forces across 12 increasingly challenging rounds, featuring intimidating bosses and dynamic battlefield events unique to Final Stand.

Since Marathon launched in early March, the PvPvE extraction shooter has been having a rough time with player retention, dropping from a peak Steam concurrent player count of 88,337 players shortly after launch to daily peaks of just around 5,000-6,000. Bungie recently announced that it would be testing a much-requested PvE-only mode, with the new roguelite Vault Breaker game mode going live from July 21 to August 4.

Now, in a recent developer blog post, Bungie explained that the Vault Breaker test is simply the first step into the PvE gameplay and confirmed that it will be taking the PvE gameplay a step further in Season 3. It's unclear whether this will build on the existing Vault Breaker game mode or if it will be a new PvE game mode entirely. Bungie has said that it will use lessons and feedback from Vault Breaker in the design and development of what it calls the "full PvE mode," however.

Relic Entertainment is proud to announce Company of Heroes 3: Final Stand. Launching July 29 on PC via Steam, Final Stand captures the strategy and intensity of Company of Heroes' cinematic battles in a fast-paced wave defense experience for solo and cooperative play.

Built on the beloved tactical foundation of Company of Heroes, Final Stand expands the series' signature combat with roguelite progression that encourages experimentation, adaptation, and replayability. Players must dig in, build layered defenses, and survive against escalating waves of enemy forces across 12 increasingly challenging rounds, featuring intimidating bosses and dynamic battlefield events unique to Final Stand. Final Stand will launch at $29.99 USD/£23.99 GBP/€28.99 EUR on July 29. Players can take advantage of a 10% launch period discount, while Company of Heroes 3 owners will receive an additional 20% bundle discount.

Witchfire, the single-player, dark fantasy RPG shooter from The Astronauts, has released Revelations, a major update introducing a wealth of new content, localization for 15 languages, and a dialogue system. Players can now engage in multithreaded conversations with Fallen Preyers, making pivotal choices that impact both gameplay and story. This system establishes the narrative baseline for the game's upcoming 1.0 release, providing fleshed-out storylines that unveil the tragic history of the Preyers.

Revelations introduces the Marshland, a hostile wetland map crawling with new abominations. This grim region hides the secrets of the Cathedral of Saint Aurelian, shedding light on historical Vatican failures and the mystery of a forgotten Fallen Preyer.

Ghost Ship and Coffee Stain Publishing officially launched Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core on May 20 as the next instalment in its co-op, sci-fi, action, FPS series, this time with a roguelite twist to the gameplay. Rogue Core builds on the foundations of Deep Rock Galactic's sci-fi setting, dwarven mining characters, and co-op FPS gameplay but switches things up to make things more fast-paced and intense. Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core places greater emphasis on the combat, upgrades, and build diversity, thanks to its roguelite mission structure, and at the time of the early access launch, it offers players five classes to choose from to enable greater choice and build diversity. Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core is available on Steam for $29.99. The character choices are Guardian, a tanky support class with concussive attacks; Falconer, who uses a drone to execute long-range attacks and offer support to teammates; Retcon, a character with the ability to rewind time to restore ammo and health in order to escape and recover from danger; Spotter, a classic marksman with toxin-based damage and built-in wall hacks; and Slicer, a melee-focussed character with an energy blade and a highly mobile,

In Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core, players take up the mantle of the Reclaimers, the corporate security force of Deep Rock Galactic, and take on timed missions in which they start off each mission with only basic equipment and have to collect upgrades throughout the mission. While gear and upgrades collected on each mission are lost when the mission completes, there is meta-progression and class customization baked-in, allowing players to change the dynamics on a more permanent basis. More classes are also on the cards, but no commitments have been made as to what they will be or when they will be added. Each mission has various optional and mandatory objectives to complete, and players will have to weigh the risk of running out of time with the rewards from the optional objectives. The developer says that each run should take around 45-50 minutes. Since the game launched, community feedback has already started to shape the future of Rogue Core, with the dev team already shipping a hotfix with improvements to the tutorial missions, difficulty tweaks, and bug fixes, with more in-depth updates and mechanics changes coming in future updates. The Early Access launch trailer for Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core is available below.

Right on schedule, as teased by Capcom in late April, the promised Resident Evil Requiem combat minigame DLC has officially arrived on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox series X|S. Leon Must Die Forever—whose name must be a reference to the flood of endless, bullet hell roguelites, like Death Must Die, that have recently popped up on Steam—features fast-paced combat, as players step into Leon's shoes once again to take on hordes of undead to clear stages and take on the final boss. The minigame takes on a distinctly roguelite structure, with both permadeath and player upgrades in the form of enhancer abilities that are unlocked as you progress.

As alluded to previously, the minigame will unlock once players complete the main story quest, and it will rely on a high degree of replayability. Players will be able to select from a number of difficulty modes, and players will have a time limit to clear the levels and make it through the boss encounter. The update and the accompanying minigame are both free, and the update also adds fixes to gameplay bugs and implements Adaptive Triggers, vibration feedback, and motion sensing for the DualSense Wireless controller on Steam.

The Vampire Survivors "turboturn" spinoff, Vampire Crawlers, has officially launched on Steam in Early Access, serving as yet another reminder that what seems to really matter in gaming is fun factor. Despite the bizarre combination of turn-based deck-builder, dungeon crawler, and roguelite, Vampire Crawlers has peaked at 40,802 players within 48 hours of launch, according to SteamDB. It has also managed to hit fifth place in Steam's top sellers chart and shore up nigh-universal praise, with an "Overwhelmingly Positive" 98% positive review rating on Steam. Even in the first 48 hours, Vampire Crawlers has already come close to the 77,061 peak concurrent player count of Vampire Survivors. It should also be noted that these numbers are for Steam alone, and Vampire Crawlers also released on Nintendo Switch 2, PS5, and Xbox Series.

The Steam reviews praise the game for its addictive, original mix of gameplay mechanics and satisfying gameplay loop, but a number of reviews also commend it for how well it keeps gameplay feeling fresh with new mechanics and interesting encounters. One minor complaint that pops up in a few reviews is the overall length, at just 15-20 hours, according to a few reviews, given the long legs that Vampire Survivors has had, it would not be surprising to see plenty of additional content come to Vampire Crawlers in the coming months and years. The Vampire Crawlers launch trailer follows.

Welcome to another week of April and this week's major release is from an industry legend that has both major hits and major flops behind him, with his latest game taking place in the world of Fable. As for the rest of this week's release, we kick off on the same theme as last week, but with some farming action instead of cat knights. This is followed by cards and vampires, a flooded world that isn't Waterworld, a reimagined cold-war that went hot and finally we end the week with some Sci-Fi action on Venus. We've also included a few more games that didn't quite make this week's list.

Masters of Albion / Early access / This week's major release / Wednesday 22 April
A bold reimagining of the God Game genre from the creator who defined it. Shape a living world as a god - or step into it and experience it through your people. Build, guide and defend your town by day, then survive the night when everything is under threat. There is no single solution. Only yours. Steam link

Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard Game from Vampire Survivors, the first-person, "turbo-turn" deck-builder game with roguelite elements from the developer of Vampire Survivors, has just received an official launch date, pricing, and an outrageous new trailer, to boot. According to the release date announcement on Steam, Vampire Crawlers will launch on April 21 at $9.99 (£9.99, €9.99, and ¥1200) on Nintendo Switch, Steam, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series consoles.

Vampire Crawlers combines traditional deck-builder and card-battler mechanics with the fast-paced feel, somewhat akin to a boomer shooter. It is based on the same IP as Vampire Survivors and features much of the same visual style, just with a different POV and the obvious changes to the gameplay style. The spin-off features an incredibly low barrier to entry in terms of hardware, meaning it will be a good time-killer for Steam Deck players, and there are apparently mobile ports coming later in 2026. At launch, there will be no cross-platform save support, but the developer is planning to add the feature when the aforementioned mobile ports are ready. The release date trailer for Vampire Crawlers follows.

With the early access launch of Morbid Metal, an indie-developed hack-n-slash roguelite, just around the corner, the game's lead developer, Felix Schade, has taken to X to confirm that players will not need an Ubisoft+ account or the Ubisoft launcher to play the game, despite the game being published by Ubisoft. Apparently, it had been a frequent question asked of the developer, given that the game is being published by Ubisoft.

Third-party launchers can be a pain at the best of times, but they tend to be particularly maligned when combined with an online account requirement. They also potentially hamper a game's compatibility with Linux devices, which is a particular sticking point for Valve's Steam Deck. At the time of writing, Morbid Metal has a Platinum rating on ProtonDB, suggesting that Linux compatibility will not be an issue at launch.

Lightbulb Crew is thrilled to announce that Ex Sanguis, their blood- and strategy-rich game, will release on Steam in Early Access on May 21st! So what's Ex Sanguis all about? You're here to lead elite warriors, called Stillae, to save a dying world from the forces of stasis. And how do you do that? Through many blood-filled turn-based battles, of course!

While engaging in turn-based combat, you'll be able to strategically trigger a chain of events across the battlefield to turn the tide. Use Timeline Effects that can hasten, delay, or swap time positions to impact the turn order in a way that favors you and disadvantages foes.

It's no secret that Hades has been a hit indie franchise, with Hades 2 garnering 112,947 concurrent players on Steam when it launched out of Early Access. Now, as of April 14, 2026, almost exactly two years after the Early Access launch, Hades 2 will also be available on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S consoles as well as Xbox Game Pass and Game Pass PC. The indie roguelite hack-n-slash game will be launching to consoles with all of the patches and improvements that have been released on PC during the game's time on Steam.

Hades 2 is currently available for pre-order on the Xbox store for $23.99, but it will retail at $29.99 on release day. Both Microsoft's gaming handheld and the Steam Deck have shown that Hades 2 does not require top-of-the-line hardware to run, but it's reassuring for console gamers to know that Hades 2 will support both 4K resolution and 120 FPS for the Xbox platforms. Hades 2 follows the Melinoë, the sister of Zagreus, the protagonist of the original Hades game, as she plots her way through the winding underworld packed with figures from Greek mythology. The Hades 2 console launch trailer follows.

Today, the tactical roguelite RPG Valor of Man, developed by Legacy Forge and published by Numskull Games, launches on PC via Steam. Valor of Man combines tactical turn-based CRPG combat with the popular roguelite format to deliver a unique replay experience filled with meaningful choices and tactical complexity. With this 1.0 launch, the game introduces two new systems: Chaos Mode and Masteries.

In Chaos Mode, players can select from unlockable modifiers to create their own difficulty, allowing for more challenging or accessible experiences. Masteries are a collector's dream; the menu shows players which items, abilities, conditions and artifacts they've successfully beaten a run with, adding a meaningful long-term measure of achievement for all skill levels.