The most relevant releases of the month on pc and consoles
We’re almost halfway through the month, and I think it’s time to look at the most interesting RPGs, strategy titles, and hybrids worth keeping an eye on, obviously, all with turn-based mechanics.
This month kicked off with the usual chaos of work and family, but also a new addition: a beast of a gaming laptop. I grabbed it, hoping I’ll have more chances to boot it up and try some games, since the room where my desktop lives is right next to where the little twin girls sleep, and it’s almost never accessible.
Thanks to the flexibility of the new laptop, I’m planning to start posting some video overviews on the YouTube channel and share impressions of new games, especially with Steam Next Fest around the corner and tons of demos to check out.
That said, here’s a recap of the month’s main releases, the ones I consider the most important. Other titles that didn’t make the cut will be mentioned in the weekly recaps, so don’t worry, nothing will slip past us.
Digimon Story: Time Stranger
- Developer: Media.Vision Inc.
- Release Date: October 3, 2025
- Platforms: PC, PlayStation, Xbox
- Steam Page
Digimon Story: Time Stranger opens the month with a classic party-based structure and turn order you can plan around.
Media. Vision’s new entry introduces quality-of-life tweaks like visible encounters, battle speed-up options, and a very large roster of recruitable Digimon to evolve and fuse, layered over a time-hopping story about anomalies rippling across the human and digital worlds.
It’s out on October 3 for PC and current consoles. Once you’re in, expect the usual elemental affinities, skill synergies, and team-building loops, only streamlined.
Cairn: Mathair’s Curse
- Developer: Ross McRitchie
- Release Date: October 9, 2025
- Platforms: PC
- Steam Page
Cairn: Mathair’s Curse is not the survival-climber with the same name; it’s a solo-dev Scottish JRPG with a lighthearted cast that fights cultists, haggis, and even belligerent stop signs.
It launches October 9 on PC and leans into Celtic folklore, with around 25 hours of story and a SNES-style soundtrack.
It follows Alex as a mysterious cult unleashes an ancient curse that forces him to leave home, make unlikely allies, and literally harness the power of his dreams.
On the ground, it’s a 30-hour single-player adventure built around turn-based combat and gentle puzzling. You’ll explore hand-crafted locations from seaside villages and ruined castles to underground caverns and secret high-tech lairs, fight oddball enemies like roaming haggis, stop signs, and cultists, and lean on character-specific skills that can be combined for tactical swings in battle.
The soundtrack leans into both traditional Scottish music and SNES-era JRPG vibes, with 100-plus tracks ranging from bagpipe-rock battle themes to character motifs and sweeping pieces for story beats.
Rise Eterna 2
- Developer: Forever Entertainment, Makee Games, Ricci Cedric Design
- Release Date: October 9, 2025
- Platforms: PC, PlayStation, Switch, Xbox
- Steam Page
Fire Emblem-Inspired SRPG Rise Eterna 2 follows in October, too, bringing back its pixel-art tactics with a new war over the kingdom’s throne. You play Jacht, an Athracian soldier, across grid maps that build on the first game’s foundation, with a demo already outlining the systems and story setup.
The sequel launched on October 9, 2025 and is available on PC via Steam and GOG as well as PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One/Series, and Nintendo Switch, keeping the story’s focus on reclaiming the empire’s lost glory and hunting the Destroyer while broadening where and how those battles play out.
If you followed the first game, this one leans harder into political scheming and legacy, familiar names return, but the stakes are larger and the fronts more varied.
On the tactical side, it’s a tile-based SRPG that hangs its depth on terrain and team building. Campaign structure runs across 24 missions in different biomes, with elevation and tile types influencing movement and attack outcomes; you recruit and reorganize your party between sorties, invest in character-specific skill trees, and socket more than 20 gem types to tweak abilities and weapons, nudging your formation toward bruiser lines, evasive skirmishers, or mixed cores as needed.
If you bounced off the first game’s limitations, the sequel’s feature list points to a broader, more flexible tactics layer from the jump.
Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch (Out of Early Access)
- Developer: Ocean Drive Studio
- Release Date: October 9, 2025
- Platforms: PC, PlayStation, Switch, Xbox
- Steam Page
The spin-off that takes Ocean Drive’s tactics into roguelite territory, opening with a stranded soldier who bargains with a witch and wakes up on a cursed island crawling with the dead.
Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch left Early Access and hit 1.0 on October 9, 2025, landing on PC via Steam and on consoles with Steam Deck verification and Xbox Play Anywhere in the mix.
Runs are framed as expeditions across branching routes and random events, so each push toward the island’s heart plays out a little differently as you recruit allies, piece together lost memories, and try to outlast whatever the island throws at you.
Combat sticks to grid-based, turn-by-turn fundamentals but pushes you to think about interactions: douse, then electrify; spark flammable terrain; match weapons to armor types to crack defenses.
You field five characters from a pool of nine and grow them across runs with more than 200 skills, leaning into synergies that let you control turn order, set up combos, or turtle until the right opening.
You spend earnings at base camp for permanent boosts, promote units to unlock new options, and build bonds that add tactical perks, with a Trials Mode waiting once you’ve cleared a full expedition to layer on difficulty modifiers and bigger rewards.
It’s brisk, punishing, and readable, the kind of loop where small improvements in squad building show up immediately on the board. Here is my preview of the game.
NOMIA (E.A.)
- Developer: Magnesium Ninja
- Release Date: October 10, 2025
- Platforms: PC
- Steam Page
A story-rich tactics roguelite RPG built around controlling two heroes at once and chaining card-driven combos on a grid. This is NOMIA.
Two heroes, one turn: a warrior and a wizard share the board while a twin-deck system lets you weave reliable Actions with swingier, discard-on-play Gambits. The tactics roguelite NOMIA launches into Early Access on PC with a free demo to try.
Enemy intent is previewed before you commit, making knockbacks, taunts, and blocks easy to plan, and asymmetry between the protagonists nudges different builds, more Actions for the Mighty, more Gambits for the Magical.
The EA build features four playable characters and five zones (about the first third up to the first boss), the opening chapters of the story, and all character vignettes, with the developer targeting under a year in Early Access.
Lords of Ravage
- Developer: Synthetic Domain
- Release Date: October 15, 2025
- Platforms: PC
- Steam Page
Instead of saving the realm, you’re the one burning it down. This dark fantasy tactics roguelite RPG casts you as the final boss, one of three distinct Lords with their own campaigns and playstyles: Berold, the ruthless commander of the Dread Knights; Zavris, a prodigy of forbidden magic; and Azneya, a demoness from the Abyss.
In Lords of Ravage, you raise and mix followers from different factions, storm provinces, and pick fights with hero parties in readable, turn-based battles.
Between clashes, you pillage lands for gold, absorb power from magical sources, and lean on Orders and curses to tip encounters, choices that ripple through a non-linear story where you can raze kingdoms outright or quietly fracture alliances. The full release is set for October 15, 2025 on PC via Steam.
New minions and upgrades unlock across runs, widening your squad-building options and letting you push toward nastier synergies, endless hordes, elite hit squads, or a hands-on tyrant who wades in personally.
If you want a free taste first, there’s a standalone slice focused on the Dread Knights available on Steam; it’s a smaller build but communicates the loop of conquest, resource theft, and boss-style showdowns well. For anyone who likes the idea of flipping the usual hero fantasy and winning on positioning, economy, and attrition, this sits right in that lane.
Vagrus – At The Heart of the Ruin
- Developer: Lost Pilgrims Studio
- Release Date: October 22, 2025
- Platforms: PC, PlayStation, Xbox
- Steam Page
High passes, thin air, and old Dwarven ruins set the tone for Vagrus’s next detour into the Riven Realms. The At the Heart of Ruin expansion carves out a dense new region in the Mountains of Fire, outside Imperial control, where traversal itself is part of the challenge.
Expect smaller party sizes, foot-only routes, and a new mountaineering layer that demands prep and gear, while Exploration Encounters add procedural obstacles and loot opportunities between the big narrative beats.
It launches on October 22, on PC (Steam, GOG, Epic) and PlayStation/Xbox, with Nintendo Switch to follow later.
On the story and systems side, it leans into what the base game does best: branching quests, faction pressure, and survival math tied to trading, scouting, and turn-based fights.
There are more locations and enemies than any previous DLC, a large cast that mixes new faces with returning characters, plus three rival scavenger groups and two new minor factions with their own questlines and rewards.
If you care about cosmetics, the Ruinous Supporter Pack lands the same day and adds full companion outfits without gameplay effects.
Persona 3 Reload (Switch Release)
- Developer: Atlus
- Release Date: October 23, 2025
- Platforms: Switch
- Steam Page
A year after its 2024 debut on other platforms, the modern remake arrives on Nintendo’s new hardware on October 23, with a free eShop demo already live.
It keeps the series’ day-by-day calendar loop and social bonds on one side, and Tartarus’ shifting floors and turn-based party combat on the other, rebuilt in Unreal with the slick UI and quality-of-life updates introduced by Persona 5.
If you’ve been waiting for a portable run, this version brings the full campaign with dungeon crawling, Persona fusion, and the usual team setups that reward planning and exploiting weaknesses.
On content and packaging, expect standard, Digital Deluxe, and Digital Premium editions; the Premium bundles cosmetics, Persona sets, and music with the digital artbook and soundtrack, while the epilogue add-on Episode Aigis is a separate DLC pack.
Physical owners should note Sega lists “game-key cards” rather than a traditional cartridge for this release. Nintendo’s page also flags a 21.7 GB download and confirms the demo, so you can test drive it before launch.
Fantasy Maiden Wars – Dream of the Stray Dreamer
- Developer: さんぼん堂
- Release Date: October 21, 2025
- Platforms:
- Steam Page
Touhou’s Gensokyo gets the full SRPG treatment here, with stage-based, grid tactics and a cast that tops 70 playable allies.
Battles cut to flashy cut-ins and Spell Card finishers, while your choice of protagonist, Reimu Hakurei or Marisa Kirisame, nudges parts of the story. The global PC launch is set for October 20, 2025, on Steam, and there’s a free demo if you want to test the feel first.
Published by Phoenixx and developed by Sanbondo, it’s the kind of readable, turn-based setup where positioning and team comps carry the day.
Between sorties, you kit out your squad in an Intermission screen, equipping gear, assigning skills, and experimenting with builds across multiple difficulty options and a full tutorial.
The narrative threads together reinterpretations of Touhou arcs into one campaign, and the package leans into extras: an in-game encyclopedia for terms and characters, plus a music room with 200-plus tracks.
If you’re coming from Super Robot Wars-style tactics or just curious about Touhou through a strategy lens, the feature set is documented and robust.
Dreamed Away
- Developer: Nicolas Petton
- Release Date: October 23, 2025
- Platforms: PC
- Steam Page
A rain-soaked night in 1990s France, a missing family, and a boy named Théo stumbling into a world of ghosts and catacombs set the tone here.
The pixel-art adventure Dreamed Away leans into psychological horror and choice-driven story beats, and it’s dated for October 23, 2025 on PC via Steam, with a free demo already available if you want to try it first.
Publisher Pineapple Works also lists day-and-date releases for Nintendo Switch (both models) and Xbox, widening the audience beyond PC.
Instead of menu-driven RPG battles, encounters play out as quick, skill-based mini-games that mix dodging and timed inputs. Progress comes from scouting moody spaces, equipping abilities and gear, and making choices that color Théo’s path as he chases his sister through the dark.
The Crazy Hyper-Dungeon Chronicles
- Developer: Fix-a-Bug
- Release Date: October 23, 2025
- Platforms: PC
- Steam Page
An ever-shifting labyrinth sets the pace here, where classic dungeon crawling bumps against turn-based combat with an arcade-style twist, and weapons behave like character-specific tools.
You explore in top-down pixel art, meet a strange, chatty crowd of dungeon dwellers, and chase the legendary Sacred Groowl while choices nudge how runs unfold.
A free Steam demo is available now, and the full release lands on October 23, 2025, from Italian developer Fix-a-Bug.
Roguelite structure means the Hyper-Dungeon keeps remixing itself, so you’re planning routes, poking into side rooms for loot and events, and timing inputs in battles to squeeze extra impact from your kit.
The tone skews playful rather than grim, with a “story-rich” push and plenty of little asides to break up the fights, and the current demo reflects recent updates the studio has been rolling out ahead of launch.
DRAGON QUEST I & II HD-2D Remake
- Developer: Square Enix
- Release Date: October 30, 2025
- Platforms: PC, PlayStation, Switch
- Steam Page
Two foundational JRPGs return in one package on October 30, 2025, with Square Enix’s HD-2D remake of the first two entries in the Erdrick saga landing on Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam.
Players can choose either adventure from the start screen, with Dragon Quest I retelling the trek across Alefgard to face the Dragonlord and Dragon Quest II expanding the scope to three kingdoms and a party of royal heirs.
The visuals use the same 2D-sprites-on-3D-lighting look seen in last year’s Dragon Quest III remake while content mix is broader in II: you’ll recruit the Prince of Midenhall, the Prince of Cannock, the Princess of Moonbrooke, and, new to this version, the Princess of Cannock, and you’ll gain a ship to open up sea routes as the story progresses.
Digital pre-orders include a “trouble-free travel kit” of stat-boosting seeds and gear, while having save data from Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake grants a cosmetic dog suit (DQ I) and cat suit (DQ II).
