New Releases: March 14th-20th, 2024

Before baseball season begins later this month, MLB The Show 24 takes a leadoff, heading onto consoles this week. Alone in the Dark also arrives this week, providing a reimaging of the 1992 survival horror title. If none of those sound interesting, KinnikuNeko: Super Muscle Cat (pictured) will be flexing its way onto PC. Here’s the complete list of what’s arriving:

PlayStation 4
Dungeon Drafters (digital, $19.99)
Highwater (digital, $19.99)
Ib (digital, $14.99)
Master Maker 3D Ultimate (digital, $4.99)
MLB The Show 24 (digital, $59.99)
PJ Masks Power Heroes: Mighty Alliance (digital, $39.99)
Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection (digital, $31.50)
What the Golf (digital, $19.99, $9.99 PS+)

PlayStation 5
Alone in the Dark (physical & digital, $59.99)
Cartel Tycoon (digital, $29.99)
Hi-Fi Rush (digital, $29.99)
Outcast: A New Beginning (physical & digital, $69.99)
Paint the Town Red VR (digital, $19.99)

Switch
Anime Girls: Sun of a Beach (digital, $7.99)
Balloony (digital, $4.99)
Baron of Blood (digital, $12.99)
Capybara, Ducks, Rats and Bananas Bundle (digital, $16.99)
CarX Highway Racing (digital, $9.90)
Corbid! A Colorful Adventure (digital, $11.99)
Cozy Hamlets (digital, $5.29)
Death Trick: Double Blind (digital, $14.39)
Dog Racing – Lovely Pet Friends Paw (digital, $11.99)
Dreamland Solitaire: Dragon’s Fury (digital, $5.99)
Dungeon Drafters (digital, $19.99)
Ecchi Paradise (digital, $7.69)
EGGCONSOLE Ys II PC-8801mkIISR (digital, $6.49)
Escape Game The Abandoned Hospital (digital, $4.99)
Fantastical Mystery Adventure Ultimate Jumbo Jet Murder Case (digital, $39.99)
Garden Life: A Cozy Simulator (digital, $39.99)
GYLT (digital, $29.99)
Highwater (digital, $19.99)
Hot Rider Racing Simulator (digital, $11.99)
Infantry Attack (digital, $7.99)
Kingdom Come Deliverance: Royal Edition (digital, $49.99)
Lawn Mowing Simulator (digital, $24.99)
Lazriel: The Demon’s Fall (digital, $9.17)
Master Maker 3D Ultimate (digital, $4.99)
Match Village (digital, $4.99)
MLB The Show 24 (digital, $59.99)
Monster Tribe (digital, $19.99)
Orion Haste (digital, $5.99)
PJ Masks Power Heroes: Mighty Alliance (digital, $39.99)
Pogo Joins the Circus (digital, $9.99)
Pool Blitz (digital, free)
Power of Ten (digital, $11.99)
Rebel Transmute (digital, $19.99)
Rainbow Moon (digital, $14.99)
Rainbow Moon + Rainbow Skies Strategy RPG Bundle (digital, $29.99)
Simple Number-Based Color Sense IQ Test (digital, $6.99)
Sky Runners Infinite: Parkour (digital, $12.99)
Sphinx – Riddles of the Nile (digital, $9.99)
Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection (digital, $31.50)
The Vale: Shadow of the Crown (digital, $19.99)
Tiny Tales: Heart of the Forest (digital, $14.99)
Truck and Forklift Logistic Simulator (digital, $14.99)
Unables (digital, $12.99)

Xbox One
Astebros (digital, $12.99)
Bing in Wonderland (digital, $13.49)
Dungeon Drafters (digital, $19.99)
Highwater (digital, $19.99)
Master Maker 3D Ultimate (digital, $4.99)
MLB The Show 24 (digital, $59.99)
PJ Masks Power Heroes: Mighty Alliance (digital, $39.99)
Power of Ten (digital, $11.99)
Rebel Transmute (digital, $19.99)
Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection (digital, $31.50)

PC
Alone in the Dark ($59.99)
Highwater ($19.99)
KinnikuNeko: Super Muscle Cat ($TBA)
Lightyear Frontier ($TBA)
Oh Deer ($TBA)
Out of the Park Baseball 25 ($TBA)
Outcast: A New Beginning ($49.79)
Never Mourn ($TBA)
Pesticide Not Required ($TBA)
Raw Metal ($TBA)
Slice & Dice ($TBA)
Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection ($28.01)

Rob’s pick: Unless you’re a sports fanatic, there’s little reason to buy each new annual franchise entry. The business model is built around iterative changes and roster updates, so yearly updates can feel meager. But if it’s been a few seasons since you’ve played MLB: The Show, this year’s effort might be worth considering. It’s one of the best adaptations of the sport around, courtesy of a pitcher/batter duel that can make a full nine-inning game steadily engaging.

The biggest change this year is the inclusion of defensive ‘impact plays’, which purport to add a bit of variability and some QTEs when you’re playing the game’s Road to the Show RPG-like component. I wasn’t a big fan of the original release of Dungeon Drafters but I’ve been told the developers have been actively trying to improve it. Let’s hope they’re able to make good on their ambitions.

Ryan’s pick: Nice macho! Kamotachi’s side-scroller KinnikuNeko: SUPER MUSCLE CAT gets my seal of approval this week. There’s a keen level of art detail in this scroller, and I think the part that really got me interested in the game is they really seemed to have nailed the anime aesthetic and animations. The music also is spot-on, and the opening theme song was really impressive. If muscular nyanko are your thing, then definitely tilt your glasses towards this quirky platformer.

My runner-up this week can be categorized under low-key Switch gaming, so allow me to close my eyes and give a brief nod to Lawn Mowing Simulator. Maintaining a lawn and then having to prepare to even begin to mow it is an incredible feat, so being able to simply jump in and begin mowing without having to put any effort makes me feel like this is a pretty amicable experience. Mowing a lawn either digitally or in person in general can be a pretty zen experience, and with less variables such as weather, temperature, moss, or insects, I think I’m going to enjoy a brief jaunt on the mower on the Switch this week.

Matt S’ pick (editor, DigitallyDownloaded): It’s not technically a new release in the West this week, but I’m going to talk about it anyway: Jump on over to the Japanese eShop, download yourself a copy of Fitness Boxing featuring Hatsune Miku, and get prepared for a workout. It’s out now and it’s great. Miku works you hard and she will make you sweat (hehehehehehe), but you do legitimately feel like you’ve had a workout at the other end. With plenty of tracking features and the ability to set goals and such, it does come across as a genuine fitness application. And it just happens to have the cutest trainer you could ever hope for.

Substantially less cute but also very worthwhile is the reboot of Alone in the Dark. Not only does this have serious star power (the Violent Night guy!), but it is also a return to a form of survival horror with puzzle rooms and keys and all that good stuff. Stuff that other horror properties (like Resident Evil) have moved on from as they’ve become more action-based. Alone in the Dark is as vintage as the costuming and noirish setting, and it’s great to see that more cerebral form of horror experience return.