All the new releases from the past few days, including demos and Early Access, are in my usual weekend recap. With only a few days left before Steam Next Fest opens the door to tons of new RPGs and strategy games to try, let’s see what is available right now.
In the last few days, though, there have been several interesting releases, and a few demos dropped ahead of the imminent festival’s kickoff, so I’ve got a bunch to show you, and since both your time and mine are valuable, let’s get started.
Let’s start with a roguelite that unquestionably oozes style. I’m talking about Battle Suit Aces, which debuted on PC, PS5, and Switch this week.
Aboard the USS Zephyr, a small crew chases ancient Relic Suits while juggling friendships and faction politics, and encounters unfold as streamlined 5-on-5 card battles along a single Battle Line where you deploy hand-picked pilots to smash incoming monsters, throw up shields for the ship, or tag in a fresh suit; synergies come from five specialist factions and card mods.
Downtime lets you craft drones, upgrade the Zephyr, and test builds in the Sim Chamber, all wrapped around a relationship-driven story with fully voiced characters, from space pirates to paranormal investigators and starball pros, delivered in bright, anime-styled art.
Leaving the colorful, anime world behind, let’s dive into what might be one of the most hyped titles overall: Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era. This week brought word that the release date has been pushed to 2026, but a playable demo also arrived to see whether this could truly be the series’ revival.
The build includes four playable factions and three modes, Classic, Single Hero, and Arena, and is single-player only for now; the full game is planned to add multiplayer, more modes, and additional factions, and the demo will also appear in Steam Next Fest starting Monday, October 13.
Another title that launched and sports a striking visual style is Dice Legends. Between d6, d8, and d12 builds, the three heroes push a dice-driven deckbuilder where you roll a pool each turn and feed results into cards to set blocks, stack debuffs, summon familiars, or line up big crits, then stitch everything together with items and power-ups until the run-breaking combo clicks.
Progression plays out across a high-fantasy map scarred by a cataclysm that turned humans into beasts, with hand-drawn cards, quippable items, lots of enemy types, and four distinct worlds to clear.
Behind this title is an impressive pedigree; in fact, it involves writing led by Rafał Jaki (Gwent, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners; Witcher: Ronin) and a score from Balatro’s composer, making this a single-player roguelike that rewards a cool head, a lucky roll, and your willingness to squeeze every synergy the dice will give you. On Steam
An interesting tactical RPG you should check out is NOMIA, which hit Early Access a few hours ago and is also part of October’s most notable lineup.
Two heroes move as one in a grid-based tactics roguelike where your hand splits between reliable Actions that persist with charges/cooldowns and one-use Gambits you draw each turn, so you set up steady combos with the Mighty while the Magical spikes damage or utility, then use positioning to bait intents, knock foes into pits, and even steal enemy cards. Here is the link to the store.
Each hero carries a 50-card deck and taps into 100+ shared and unique “Memories,” runs span five distinct realms with their own terrain and bosses.
An RPG I find very interesting for its setting, and especially for its kinship with Earthbound, is Cairn: Mathair’s Curse.
Set in Albaness and steeped in Celtic folklore, this Scottish JRPG follows Alex and his mother as an ancient curse spreads across their home.
You poke around hand-crafted seaside villages, ruined castles, and stranger places underground, solving light puzzles to open paths and snag goodies before slipping into turn-based fights.
It’s a single-player adventure billed at roughly 30 hours, and it launched on PC via Steam.
Another title that can easily deliver many hours of gameplay is Veil of the Witch, the roguelite spinoff to Lost Eidolons, which left Early Access this week and is available on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch.
Shipwrecked and without memories on a cursed island, players impersonate Ashe as he pulls a party together for compact, grid-based encounters where cooldown-driven skills, positioning, and loadouts decide turns.
It leans on a roguelite loop of branching paths and hazards that will kill you often but send you back to a town hub with skills and crafted gear intact so you can push farther and piece the story back together. Probably one of my top recommendations this week. Here is our preview of it.
Staying on the tactical theme, Rise Eterna 2 is worth noting. This new, Fire Emblem–inspired entry returns with the promise of a deeper, improved structure compared to its predecessor.
A few years after the first game’s events, you step into Jacht’s boots, an Athracian soldier caught in a throne war between two families while a third faction plots revenge, and march through 24 missions that mix strategic planning with tactical, turn-based fights where tile terrain affects movement and attacks, so positioning for disadvantage really pays off.
Party building leans on open recruitment and squad organization that lets you test lineups, growth comes from character-specific skill trees informed by backstories, and a gem system with 20+ types slots into abilities and weapons for targeted buffs, all landing on PC via Steam.
The world of roguelite RPGs is truly crowded; so many come out that it’s hard to keep up, in fact, I had almost forgotten Paraside: Duality Unbound, which, in my view, has one of the most interesting gameplay premises around and has released a substantial playable demo.
Two interwoven battlefields make every turn a little mind-bender: you command a squad across two mirrored planes, watching characters act on both sides while using Duality Swap to shift units and objects between realities, then cash in positioning with tools like Surround Consume to crush encircled foes.
Outside combat, the demo opens a large region to explore with RPG progression and collectibles, lets you steal enemy abilities as equippable Echoes, and teases tougher Legacy Zones gated by powerful Relics, with base management slated to arrive later. You can try the demo here.
Built as a story-driven, open-world RPG, Erannorth Renaissance lets you roll your own hero, recruit a party, and steer the story with choices that actually branch, whether you’re hunting vampires, picking pockets, or playing the champion, then flips to hex-based, tactical battles that stay approachable but allow difficulty tweaks on the fly.
You’ll roam a dynamic world, chat up hundreds of NPCs with optional romance you can dial from off to more explicit text, take endlessly generated side contracts, and tinker with gear, perks, an expansive crafting system, and built-in tools that invite you to mod everything from adventures to species and combat actions. The game debuted this week on PC via Steam.
Now I’d like to bring you House of Necrosis, a title I’ve also tried and that I’m really enjoying. It’s essentially a traditional roguelike done Resident Evil–style, both in terms of the story setup and, above all, the visuals.
At times, it’ll feel like you’re steering Chris Redfield in the first entry of the famous horror series.
Expect turn-based crawl in a shifting mansion where each dive remixes rooms, traps, and zombie encounters, then sends you back to a tank-controlled hub with pre-rendered backdrops to level up and upgrade weapons before the next run.
It’s really impressive how many items I was able to find in the demo, and the handling of melee and firearm attacks is very interesting as well; it’s a must-try, there’s nothing else to say except that it launched on PC via Steam with a free demo and a limited 10% debut discount.
And then I’ll wrap up with two more interesting demos to try. One is for Legends of Amberland III.
Old-school blobber energy returns in a first-person, grid-based crawl where a seven-strong party pivots in 90-degree steps, explores a big open world, and flips seamlessly between turn-based movement and combat.
You can assemble your own crew or pick a pre-made lineup, rip through weaker encounters with quick battles, and cut down backtracking with fast travel, while an easy inventory setup splits personal gear from an infinite “magic bag” for everything else.
It’s pitched as light, heroic, and slightly humorous rather than grindy, designed to run on modest PCs. Try the demo on Steam now and wait for the planned release in December 2025.
And I’ll wrap up with the updated demo for Bloodgrounds, a strategy RPG set in the Roman era of brutal arena fights.
Rising from slave to patron, you build a gladiator stable and a city to match, then take those recruits into grid-based bouts where initiative order and action points drive every move, setting traps, firing off class or weapon abilities, and even calling on Deity powers or pre-fight sabotage from a local crime lord if you want an edge.
The stakes stay high with permadeath wiping fallen fighters and their gear, while the crowd’s bloodthirsty requests feed you extra rewards, and the long game unfolds across five Ages (each a distinct biome with four challenges). The free demo covers the early content, and Early Access is planned for November 2025 on Steam.
That’s everything new I needed to show you this week in terms of RPGs, Strategy Games, and everything in between. All that’s left is to wish you a good weekend and, of course, happy turn-based gaming. Ciao
