Here we are again with another round-up of all the new RPGs, turn-based strategy games and everything in between that have launched over the past few days. It’s been a fairly busy week, though the balance seems to be tipping more towards roguelites this time. Still, I think I’ve got a fair few interesting little gems to share with you.
Before we get into the games, though, I just wanted to give you a quick update on the TBL database project. A few of you (or at least the more attentive of you) may recall me talking about my rather ambitious plan to build a database of every turn-based game in existence. That project is definitely moving forward. It’s very much a case of slowly and steadily as you can imagine with the sheer number of games that we’re talking about. I think I am almost now at the point where I can actually open the database up with a proper section for it that you can then browse and filter on various criteria to find precisely the kind of game you’re after.
Anyway, enough on that for now. On to the mid-November 2026 roundup: 13 new RPGs and turn-based strategy games that I think are all worth a look at. Let’s get on with it.
Blood Sword
- Developer: Prime Games
- Release date: November 12, 2026 – Early Access
- Platforms: PC
- Steam: Blood Sword
I absolutely loved Fabled Lands, the first game from Prime Games, and this week the studio is back with the debut in E.A. of Blood Sword, which is another adaptation of the Dave Morris/Oliver Johnson gamebooks, with the branching narrative and the battles taking place on a hex grid. You have your four adventurers as Warrior, Trickster, Sage, and Enchanter, with a range of abilities and magic that can go horribly wrong. The main quest is to recover the legendary sword before the True Magi return.
For now Early Access has The Kingdom of Wyrd and The Battlepits of Krarth which are two complete acts and Prime Games reckon that will take you somewhere between 8 and 10 hours to complete. There are, of course, other routes to take on subsequent playthroughs, so I suggest considering this one.
After the Wane
- Developer: Nova-box
- Release date: November 10, 2026
- Platforms: PC
- Steam: After the Wane
If you’re looking for an engaging story without having to worry about combat, After the Wane is definitely a game I’d highly recommend. A narrative RPG that follows Lena as she comes to the capital in the hope of building a career in dance and figuring out why her mum left. Rival dance scenes, various potential relationships and an occult mystery which is further complicated by a voice in her head.
Nova-box‘s latest interactive graphic novel puts a lot of emphasis on your decisions having a direct effect on Lena’s relationships, her character and her eventual trajectory. You can go down the route of the established company, go for the independent collective or take the supernatural path. The story is brought to life through painted scenes, rotoscoped dance animation and an orchestral score which reacts to your choices. How much Lena will go along with that voice in her head is another of the decisions you can make. The game is now available on Steam.
ONE FENIX DOWN
- Developer: Regalcraft Games
- Release date: November 9, 2026
- Platforms: PC
- Steam: ONE FENIX DOWN
Earlier this week, I covered some of the most promising upcoming old-school RPGs, and until just a few days ago, One Fenix Down would have been a perfect fit for that list. This JRPG-inspired game has a rotating roster of over a dozen playable characters, which makes party composition a constant consideration. It’s a turn-based fantasy RPG in the style of the SNES with a very wide array of skills available to you (elemental magic, traps, martial arts, monster abilities etc).
Each character has an Excedo technique which is tied to a filling combat meter. The story follows a young miner who gets pulled into the conflict between Torloria and the Goa Empire through his encounter with returning monsters, and the whole thing raises questions about his own past and his father’s history. Over 40 hours of gameplay with 3 difficulty levels and a soundtrack featuring guest vocalist Emi Evans (NieR: Automata).
Annihilated
- Developer: Death Kumiai
- Release date: November 10, 2026
- Platforms: PC
- Steam: Annihilated
You get to the missing heroes but you can only take one of them out with you. That choice is what drives the narrative of Annihilated, with four different companions, separate storylines and multiple endings. The escape itself is a series of turn-based card battles in which your equipment becomes a set of actions with a limited number of uses.
Your weapon is at its most powerful on its final use; break it against a staggered foe and you can kill them with a Fatal Strike and take their gear. Destroyed items also yield Curses which can be used to undo a bad result or to bolster a future attempt. The full release has also received an Overwhelmingly Positive rating on Steam as of the time of writing and honestly is my next game to try for the weekend.
Catalyst Core
- Developer: Satk
- Release date: November 11, 2026
- Platforms: PC
- Steam: Catalyst Core
In Catalyst Core the enemy’s position and the element attached to your next card are part of the same problem. It’s a tactical roguelite that puts deck building on a grid, with cards being able to be imbued with Pyro, Hydro or Dendro and used to trigger elemental reactions. Elemental Cores further alter those reactions and give your run’s build a direction.
You’re drafting new cards as you go, responding to the random encounters and rewards. Movement is key in terms of attack angles and enemy control, so the payoff from a well-put-together deck is also very much dependent on where you are when you use it.
Handmancers
- Developer: 58BLADES
- Release date: November 12, 2026 – Version 1.0
- Platforms: PC
- Steam: Handmancers
Version 1.0 brings Handmancers a new playable class, revised long-term progression, and a reworked Corruption Delving endgame, giving returning players a very tangible reason to go back and have another go at its rather odd duels.
For the new player, the base game is still the classic rock-paper-scissors, just viewed from a first-person perspective. The way the cards, Gems and Artifacts work will alter the behavior of each hand sign. There’s a physical constraint on the power of the combinations you can achieve: heavy moves build up Cramps, which in turn restrict your options until you’re able to recover.
Corruption is another path to stronger effects, with its own inherent dangers. It’s all about the choice of counter and the choice of when to push your hand too far. What you end up with is a very different game to the old playground game of rock-paper-scissors. It turns out that rock-paper-scissors needed some kind of build planning and an occupational health policy.
Mystic Land: The Search for Maphaldo
- Developer: MegaVision Software
- Release date: November 3, 2026 – Beta demo
- Platforms: PC
- Steam: Mystic Land: The Search for Maphaldo
Speaking of old-school RPGs, another title that’s been getting a lot of attention this week (for all the right reasons, of course) is Mystic Land: The Search for Maphaldo, which has just released a beta demo. The free beta opens the Dungeon of Pity (will take you 1-2 hours) of this first-person party RPG in the classic 1990s vein with a 6-character party, grid-based exploration, turn-based combat, and dungeon puzzles.
The main story is the disappearance of the scholar Maphaldo and the strange things that are happening all over the land. The presentation is very flexible in that you can toggle between pixel-perfect 2D, smoother 2D, and a 3D mode. The influences are very much Wizardry, Might & Magic and Eye of the Beholder with party building and exploration at the heart of it. That’s the big demo highlight at the moment with the full game due in June 2027. I can’t suggest you enough to go give the game a try and wishlist it, of course.
Crownfront
- Developer: KolaCape
- Release date: November 10, 2026
- Platforms: PC
- Steam: Crownfront
Crownfront is a free turn-based strategy game where you essentially build a small medieval economy on a chessboard. You have workers that collect wood, barracks that produce troops and farms that determine how many soldiers and archers you can feed. The feeding of your army is a critical factor, as your units will eat every turn, and an army that exceeds its food supply will starve.
There’s a fog of war so you don’t know what’s going on around your opponent, one on one and four sided maps are available with up to three AI opponents. There’s no turn timer so you can take as long as you like to consider your expansion, scouting and recruitment. It’s all about single-player, with the food supply and the visibility being the two main logistical costs of any advance.
Novus Orbis
- Developer: Seizo Games
- Release date: November 13, 2026 – Version 1.0
- Platforms: PC
- Steam: Novus Orbis
I’ve been tracking Novus Orbis since it first came out in Early Access and now, it’s finally reached full release. It has a number of interesting ideas in it which I think go some way to refreshing the standard deckbuilder formula.
The enemies in Novus Orbis aren’t really interested in just sitting back and waiting for you to finish your turn. Their countdown advances every time you play a card, so you could be in the middle of a carefully constructed sequence and suddenly an enemy is able to attack. Finishing your turn advances that countdown by two. There’s also a combo system where the order of your cards makes a difference to their power.
Novus Orbis features a pixel art graphic that I adore and offers various classes to play with, like Warrior, Mage, and Mechanic classes. Your build is defined by cards, passive Blessings, Marks that modify your cards, and combat pets. There are branching paths and levels that get progressively harder after you’ve cleared them.
Vena: Hex Automation Roguelike
- Developer: loerting
- Release date: November 9, 2026
- Platforms: PC
- Steam: Vena: Hex Automation Roguelike
The Nexus consumes six different types of resources, and its appetite grows with every phase. Keeping it fed is the fundamental job in Vena: Hex Automation Roguelike. You build a production network around it by placing and rotating hex tiles. You have converters, you have duplicated production, you have some riskier tiles to play with and shops will use dice to work out what you can buy.
Perks can change the rules and open up all sorts of new possibilities. A standard win is to make it through nine phases. The runs are designed to be somewhere between 15 and 50 minutes long and there’s an Endless mode for those who enjoy the escalating pressure. There are seven modes and a number of difficulty levels to give you different layouts and constraints. I think it’s the perfect game for those of us who are always on the run.
Edge of the Blade
- Developer: NINEHECTARE
- Release date: November 10, 2026 – Early Access
- Platforms: PC
- Steam: Edge of the Blade
Set in a fictional version of 14th-century East Asia, Edge of the Blade sees you in command of a legion as it campaigns across the kingdom of Cheonggu. The campaign itself is a series of weekly decisions on where to go, who to recruit, and how to develop your army, with the actual battles being real-time auto-battles.
Your influence is in building a good army, knowing when and where to deploy your units, and what to do on the battlefield. Roguelite systems and deck building allow for a variety of army compositions and Story Mode will have your decisions impact the fate of the characters. Early Access is launching with 3 playable factions and the first story act, with more campaign content to come as we develop.
9 Kings
- Developer: Sad Socket
- Release date: November 12, 2026 – Version 1.0
- Platforms: PC
- Steam: 9 Kings
Another very, very interesting game making its full 1.0 debut this week I think it’s 9 Kings. Stealing the best ideas of your rival is absolutely a legitimate form of statecraft in this game. You start each playthrough with your own unique deck of buildings, troops, and spells, which you can then expand upon by looting cards from the other kings. Sad Socket’s roguelike kingdom builder sees you making decisions about the layout of your city and the combination of your cards, all whilst your army is automatically fighting in the background.
You’re encouraged to stack bonuses across your buildings and units as you go in the hope of being better prepared for the next invasion. The 1.0 release includes the Joker, which is an unlockable custom mode where you can choose your deck and tweak the rules (e.g., starting gold, number of lives). There are also quest challenges and asynchronous multiplayer to try out your builds in. The latter allows you to go head-to-head with a kingdom that has been built by another player.
Synchro
- Developer: Komisoft
- Release date: November 9, 2026 – Open playtest
- Platforms: PC
- Steam: Synchro
Planning a move is only half the problem in Synchro, as the other side will be executing their own orders at the same time. Komisoft’s tactical RPG utilizes a system of coordinated turns to send a resistance squad through Solar-30, a bleak and oppressive metropolis where corporate experiments, mutants, and disguised threats are all part of the mix.
You go through your plan in advance, combine abilities and use a reality scanner to find out what’s lurking. Beyond the combat, there’s recruitment, HQ building, and a whole host of stuff relating to the physical and mental state of your fighters. The open playtest is available via the Steam page and it contains several hours of gameplay.
Let me know what you’re playing this weekend and which of those games you’d like to see me go into a bit more detail on over at TBL. Wish you the best. Ciao
