This week in PC games: is Highguard a nothingburger? Plus, Winnie the Cthulhooh, Code Vein 2 and a plant-based RTS

Mawning all and happy new week to the sickos who celebrate the return of Monday. It’s time for another helping of cosmic despair as we slide irresistibly down the Gullet of Entropy, pawing in vain at the Tonsils of Hubris. Also, some new PC game releases. Maybe save your pennies for Wednesday and Thursday, which are uncommonly rammed.

Monday 26th January

• It’s time for John Highguard to guard high in Highguard, the Keighley-anointed sci-fantasy raid shooter that has attracted more critical writing pre-release than most games get in total by virtue of 1) it being made by former Apex Legends and Titanfall devs 2) nobody knowing a goddamn thing about how it plays
• Oh no, John Highguard has been sucked into Winnie’s Hole (early access), this being a frightful cosmic horror roguelite based on the hitherto-cuddly A.A. Milne character. Battle through the Hundred Acre Forest as Winnie while mutating his insides using block-shaped viruses.

Tuesday 27th January

• For many years now, people have been trying to make ‘Minecraft survival with airships’ a thing, and failing. I don’t understand why it hasn’t caught on. I love airships. Anyway here’s Echoes Of Elysium, launching into early access with six player co-op and a “vast procedural clockwork world”.
• Created by the fearful bounders behind The Swindle and Lair of the Clockwork God, Earth Must Die is a point-and-click* sci-fi comedy about an alien failson emperor, featuring a sparkling VA cast.
• The Spirit Lift is a Buffy-core roguelite deckbuilder romp about teens exploring a haunted hotel, floor by floor.

Wednesday 28th January

• In Roots Devour you are the absolute worst tree. Extend your tendrils through the forest, drinking the blood of non-sylvan lifeforms and deciding whether to merely witness or prey upon a furtive population of humans.
• DON’T LET THEM IN unless they genuinely just want to buy pasta and chips in Hellmart – a horror game about being a supermarket clerk, in which smiling customers are to be regarded with suspicion.
• Lanesplit is a glossy first-person biking sim by twilight with a touch of the Nicolas Winding Refns.
• Ghost Keeper (early access) appears to be a new version of polterzeitgeisty Sims parody Ghost Master. Set up a houseful of haunts without getting exorcised.
• Seek out a mysterious signal at the heart of post-apocalyptic Antarctica in slightly Funko Pop-esque survive-o-wander Nova Antarctica. You’d think vanilla Antarctica was already apocalyptic enough, but they had to go the extra thousand miles.

Thursday 29th January

• There have been over 30 Resident Evils and we’ve still yet to kill all the videogame zombies. Here to finish the job, maybe, is The Midnight Walkers (early access), a first-person extraction shooter set in a megamall with a timed poison gas system.
• Calyx (early access) is an RTS in which you pit a conventional military force against a steady tide of ravenous plantlife.
• Feastopia is an atypically edible, Against The Storm-inspired roguelite city-builder in which you must supply better and better food to an infant god, or else end up on the menu.
• Space Warlord Baby Trading Simulator is the self-explanatory sequel to/escalation of Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator.
• Cairn is a thoughtful, heavily-laden climbing adventure from the makers of Furi and Haven.
• I Hate This Place is a comicbook-inspired survival crafting horror in the tradition of Darkwood. It sees an 80s girl investigating the mysterious Horned Man, while fighting spiders and mutants.
• Don’t Stop, Girlypop is a Y2K arena shooter with sherbet in its veins, a crystal flip phone in one hand, and some kind of pink chrome lipstick launcher in the other.
• Code Vein 2 is Bandai Namco’s latest anime Soulslike with a time-travelling, fix-the-past-to-save-the-NPC premise and some crackpot character designs and outfits. There is a bell-waving octopus gunship and your sidekick’s corset is an X-ray screen. Discuss.

Friday 30th January

• Half Sword (early access) is a grimdaft physics-based medieval combat game in which you swing by moving the mouse. Expect much clanging and some entrails.
• It’s time for a remake of turn-based mech bonanza Front Mission 3. Ah, I remember playing this briefly on PS1. I think I was lured away from it by Alundra 2, in the end.

Question for the comments thread: how do I stop Steam game pages autoplaying trailers when shuffling the top media display? It routinely scares the pants off me when I have several tabs open. Some day, Gabe Newell will pay for his crimes. In the shorter term, the RPS team are spending this week thinking about Hytale, Deep Rock Galactic, Yakuza, Arknights Endfield and various secret things.

What are you up to? Nothing good, I hope. Let us know if there’s a recommendation-worthy game we’ve skipped. I left a few out because I’m utterly aghast at your apathy on this front. Don’t let me tell you what to like. Show me you have guts and a little spine! Not like the lady in Code Vein 2, though.