You’ve probably noticed that this week there have been fewer new articles and updates.
That’s not because there was a lack of news worth covering for TBL, but simply because, since last Monday, I’ve been on vacation for a week, and up until today, I just haven’t had the time to sit at the PC and share the latest with you.
Most likely, next week I’ll put together all the key news in a single article to catch up. That said, I didn’t want to miss the weekly recap for any reason, especially with so many interesting releases to highlight.
This week brings us a promising isometric CRPG, a roguelite-structured RPG where you lead a house of monster hunters, not only battling but also managing your bloodline, a hefty DLC for an already massive 4X strategy game, plus several noteworthy tactics titles, and two must-try demos.
In short, plenty of new content for my weekly recap, so let’s dive right in.
Necromancer for a week
- Developer: QuietPenguinGaming
- Release date: 15 August
- Platforms: PC
- Steam Page
Let’s start with Necromancer for a Week, which is one of those games that immediately stands out because of its unusual premise: you’re given only seven nights to prove your worth as a rising master of the undead.
Every run starts with a single creature by your side, but before long, you’ll be digging up tombstones to add new allies and experimenting with tomes that unlock different moves and passive abilities.
The game forces you to work with just two monsters at a time, and each turn gives you only three action points, so you have to decide whether to attack, defend, or set up a combo.
Runs are short, usually under an hour, but the challenge-based unlock system, like winning a fight without using offensive abilities, keeps you coming back to see what other strange creatures you can add to your roster.
Dice Gambit
- Developer: Chromatic Ink
- Release date: 14 August
- Platforms: PC
- Steam Page
Sliding from the high-stakes creature duels of Necromancer for a Week, Dice Gambit offers a contrastingly grand and quirky adventure where you’re not just battling monsters, you’re managing an entire, debt-riddled noble lineage of Inquisitors.
Set in the vibrant yet chaotic city of Neo‑Talis, you begin by creating your own family’s look and legacy, pick a partner to marry for strategic, sometimes absurdly strategic, dynastic gains, and eventually guide their heirs through classes and combat that unfold via dice rolls.
Meanwhile, the dynamic relationships you build with eccentric nobles feel alive and oddly charming. Underneath its colorful, Renaissance‑inspired art style lies a deep tactical core where layering synergies and choosing custom builds feels endlessly satisfying. I can’t recommend it enough.
Hidden Pass
- Developer: GG Studio
- Release date: 14 August
- Platforms: PC
- Steam Page
Shifting gears from the noble dice‑driven shenanigans, Hidden Pass taps into a more atmospheric and strategic resonance, whisking you away across drifting sky‑islands as the Wanderer, part explorer, part tactician, and definitely out to rewrite their fate.
Each expedition is a blend of tactical turn‑based combat, tower‑building grit, and roguelite unpredictability, wrapped in an intriguing dark fantasy world full of techno‑magical secrets.
What I find genuinely compelling is the way your Wanderer’s Tower becomes both home base and a character in its own right. In this floating fortress, you research technologies, manufacture automatons fueled by the rare Elyrium, and reinforce your field party mid‑combat when losses happen.
Battles themselves stretch across three vertically layered grids, and units with wings or anti‑gravity gear can flit between levels to outmaneuver grounded foes, adding tactical depth to the skirmishes.
Outside of battle, every run changes based on your meta‑progression; you’ll unlock upgrades, gear, and new units, meaning each expedition to the Elyrium Belt’s heart feels fresh and personal.
Inkshade
- Developer: Studio Vezelle
- Release date: 14 August
- Platforms: PC
- Steam Page
Moving from the layered sky-soaring strategy, Inkshade plunges you into a darker, more surreal realm, one where you’re no longer commanding automatons but navigating a twisted wooden board game conjured by an eerie, otherworldly gamemaster.
It’s a turn-based tactics roguelite that feels like guiding darkly animated miniatures across locked, cobweb-laden rooms, each piece stained with cruel black ink, tiny avatars of despair and power all at once.
Inkshade marries tactile board-game aesthetics with procedural depth: as you play, you refine and upgrade a boarding party of wooden figures, solving puzzles or exploring branching paths to recruit fallen foes, willingly or not, right into your crew.
Developer Vezelle, working solo, by the way, describes the vibe best: “If Tim Burton designed a creepy wooden board game, and it was run by H. P. Lovecraft’s interpretation of the Crypt Keeper, you’d get Inkshade.”
Once you crack the main game, a post-game roguelike mode called Journey of the Vagabond opens up, letting you carry forward your progress and challenge yourself even harder under the gamemaster’s ever-watchful eye.
Beneath the Six (E.A.)
- Developer: Magicave
- Release date: 14 August
- Platforms: PC
- Steam Page
Beneath The Six unspools a brighter, yet still delightfully uncanny, dungeon‑delving roguelite, built entirely around dice that birth your identity. Every day throws a fresh, twisted dungeon at you, and your character emerges from a deck of over 130 collectible dNo dice, each roll shaping your class, stats, skills, and even your weapon‑wearing style.
Whether you’re leaning into brute strength, sneaky rogue tricks, or arcane sorcery, the dice sets you assemble feel genuinely personal. There’s something oddly compelling about showing your mates that wicked mutant warrior you crafted, or teaming up in four‑player co‑op to crack that day’s dungeon together.
You face a new dungeon each 24 hours with its own traps, treasures, and quirks, and then there’s an arena mode that loosens the screws even further, waving at brute survival instincts and leaderboard glory.
It’s easy to lose hours just tinkering with builds, hunting rare dice sets, or squeezing in one more round with friends before the real world calls.
Journey of Realm
- Developer: CongSe Studio
- Release date: 14 August
- Platforms: PC
- Steam Page
Journey of Realm: Dawn Dew invites you into a more painterly, introspective realm where your journey unfolds on quaint, box-like maps, almost like stepping through framed scenes in a storybook.
The game centers on Dew, a fluffy white-haired protagonist with no memory but boundless hope, trekking through the realm to soothe a rising tide of black beasts.
Potentially, you are free to create your combat style, with nearly a hundred skills, postures, props, experiences, and support units at your disposal, and shift forms mid-battle to counter threats in creative ways.
The art is hand-drawn down to the last detail, giving the atmosphere a lovingly crafted warmth that flows through exploration gameplay. Combat is turn-based but layered with real-time parry mechanics.
Fractured Core
- Developer: Engram Interactive
- Release date: 13 August
- Platforms: PC
- Steam Page
Fractured Core drops you straight into neon-drenched alleys and high-stakes corporate intrigue; it’s where JRPG traditions meet cyberpunk grit in an unexpectedly heartfelt way.
You step into the boots of Michael Jones, a freshly minted squad leader for the Athena private military company, navigating a future Germany and Italy that crackle with biotech, AI manipulation, and psionic warfare.
The game twists classic turn-based combat into something modern and breathable: your three-man squad can mix and match elemental psionics, like Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Light, and Dark, with gear mods and accessories, letting you craft operatives the way you want.
Beyond firefights, Fractured Core gives you the chance to explore richly detailed locales, sunlit plazas suddenly betray hidden corruption, while neon-lit shops sell wonder and danger in equal measure.
Shrouded Aspect
- Developer: Gilligames
- Release date: 12 August
- Platforms: PC
- Steam Page
Shrouded Aspect drapes you in something more ancient and fateful, a turn‑based tactical RPG steeped in Celtic myth and medieval dread. A plague unleashed by the resurrected God of Death, Despater, and hands you the fate of the world to steer through perilous decisions and dark folklore.
In this isometric world, you follow the enigmatic Betha, a girl bearing a harrowing secret, rallying survivors and forging a band of warriors, mystics, and vagabonds to fight back the plague-wrought horrors.
Every encounter needs thoughtful positioning and terrain use, the kind of combat where a well‑timed flank or height advantage can save your best fighter from a cruel fate.
With permadeath and branching paths across 32 different scenarios, you’re constantly torn between saving a village and saving your champions. Who you’ll recruit, who you’ll have to leave behind. Plus, there’s a multiplayer twist: you can bring your custom party into skirmishes with friends, turning your crafted stories into shared legends or shared tragedies.
Shields of Loyalty
- Developer: Mosaic Mask Studio
- Release date: 15 August
- Platforms: PC
- Steam Page
Shields of Loyalty brings us to the bleak, hex-gridded battleground of Mantaria, where hexes brim with ancient magic, siege engines, and undead dread. Developed by Germany’s Mosaic Mask Studio and finally launching in its full 1.0 glory, this dark‑fantasy strategy game wears its wargame inspirations proudly while adding modern polish and depth.
Every tactical layer has been refined, from shifting weather that fries or freezes troops, to terrain advantages that reward careful placement, to the satisfying diversity of factions. You’ve got the disciplined, swift-moving Empire knights; the brutal, beast-wielding Warlords; and now, with the full release, the mystical High Priests who can shape the field with elemental magic and healing.
The full release doesn’t just add a faction, it opens up three handcrafted islands, new campaign paths driven by faction leaders (like the cavalry-swaying Aglovan or arcane commander Sargon I), mercenary reinforcements, deadly mini-bosses like the notorious Goatking, and enhanced UI and audio to elevate every skirmish into an event.
After years in Early Access, the studio poured passion into crafting this launch, and it shows in the “Very Positive” Steam reception with comparisons to classics like Fantasy General and Heroes of Might and Magic II.
Age of Wonders 4: Archon Prophecy
- Developer: Triumph Studios
- Release date: 12 August
- Platforms: PC – PlayStation – Xbox
- Steam Page
Archon Prophecy injects a sweeping new layer of celestial destiny into the rich tapestry of Age of Wonders 4. This fourth expansion invites you to rally divine power and rewrite fate itself.
As you guide your empire, you’ll harness the unique Architect culture, erecting magical monuments in your cities that harness elemental affinities and breathe new life into your economy. Early on, you’re faced with prophetic visions that shape your ruler’s legacy: choose wisely, and powerful rewards await.
New, freshly forged paths your empire can walk. Two new forms, Elysian and Ancient, bring contrasting power, one celestial and radiant, the other warped by deep, arcane antiquity. You’ll also explore two evocative new realms, Rings of Emnora and Cliffs of Sordünn, each steeped in Archon lore and fraught with peril and prophecy.
New tomes and also a new hero class, the Battlesaint, who channels devotion into battlefield might, whether guarding the vanguard or casting hope as armor.
Orium (Demo)
- Developer: oStairs
- Release date: Coming Soon
- Platforms: PC
- Steam Page
Now for something purely strategic that I discovered a few days ago, and coincidentally, it just debuted this week with a playable demo, there’s Orium. It flips us into the vast void, where the dying stars are only the beginning, and capitalism is the real cosmic force at play.
It’s a space-borne roguelite with light 4X elements, currently marked as coming soon on Steam. The premise is deliciously ambitious: you pilot a starship contracted by the relentlessly greedy S‑Corp to ravage declining galaxies, colonizing, mining, automating production, and blasting cosmic threats, all under tight deadlines and intense narrative events.
Each trip is short, roughly an hour through a procedurally generated system, but filled with choices that echo long after the timer hits zero. You’re not just collecting resources, you’re repeatedly optimizing your ship, juggling upgrades, and deciding which stars get exploited and which battles are worth the risk.
A free demo dropped on Steam offering an early taste of the loop, and you can already sense the grind-your-empire approach that will define its rhythm.
Endless Legend 2 (Demo)
- Developer: AMPLITUDE Studios
- Release date: 22 September
- Platforms: PC
- Steam Page
Let’s close with another strategy game, one of the most promising on the scene. Endless Legend 2, which is set to arrive in September, is now available in demo form till the 18th of August.
Endless Legend 2 broadens the canvas to an entirely new, ocean‑scarred world that seems to live and breathe beneath your empire’s feet. Set on Saiadha, a planet where receding tides, thanks to the game’s inventive Tidefall system, constantly reshape the map and force you to adapt or be left behind.
The game is launching into Steam Early Access on September 22, 2025. It stands as one of the year’s most anticipated 4X experiences.
At launch, you’ll play through at least five major factions, each asymmetrical, each with its own story and mechanics, like the iron‑giant‑backed Kin of Sheredyn, the eerie cyborg‑coral Aspects, and the ever‑hungry Necrophages.
As you can expect from the type of game, victory isn’t just military or economic either; the game expands on narrative‑victory paths, seven of them, promising varied and story‑rich routes for players who love their strategy with a dash of lore and character.
If you’re itching to try before the fall, there’s a week‑long demo live until August 18, a neat, limited introduction that bursts with tide‑fall drama and faction clashes.
That’s everything I had to share with you this week. While I wait for your thoughts, I’ll enjoy these last two days of vacation and be back at full speed on Monday. Ciao
