It’s finally Friday, and in addition to rewatching old Alien movies, making horse memes, and explaining Dragon Age to our clueless friends, we’re of course getting into some video games! Some of us are playing new releases while others are catching up on titles our mutauls haven’t stopped jabbering about. We’ve got pigskins flying, mysteries that need solving, and games we simply adore that we’d like to return to. If you’re unsure what to play this weekend, fear not. We’re certain there’s something here for you.
The Crimson Diamond
Play it on: Steam
Current goal: Solve an old-fashioned mystery
A few weeks ago, I mentioned how I was captivated by Unavowed, a point-and-click adventure from the folks at Wadjet Eye. Well, I’ve finished that one (it was great) just in time for a brand-new entry in the genre to come along. And while Wadjet Eye’s output is most reminiscent of ‘90s adventure games that offered full voice acting and elegant drag-and-drop interfaces, this new game, The Crimson Diamond from designer Julia Minamata, is influenced by an earlier era of adventures, ones that ran in EGA and had you typing in what you wanted your character to do. I can’t wait to explore its mysteries.
The Crimson Diamond is perhaps most reminiscent of Sierra adventures, especially the Clara Bow games which saw their plucky heroine tossed into murder mysteries during the roaring ‘20s. It casts you as Nancy Maple, a young woman investigating the discovery of an unusually large and valuable diamond in a town in northern Ontario, Canada. It’s clear from the trailer that her investigations will find her encountering people with motives of their own, some of them sinister, and land her in no small amount of peril. Sign me up!
People often talk about the evolution of adventure games from text parsers to purely graphical interfaces as a net good, as if text parsers were just a crutch, a relic from the genre’s early days that we no longer needed, but I’ve always thought of them as two fundamentally different approaches, each with their own strengths. I think there are ways in which the presence of a text parser can encourage creative thinking that a purely graphics-based interface doesn’t always allow for, and in addition to digging into the plot of The Crimson Diamond, I’m eager to see how it uses this design element that so rarely gets employed in modern games. All in all, it sounds like a perfect fit for a cozy weekend. —Carolyn Petit
Fields of Mistria
Play it on: PC (early access)
Current goal: See if this Stardew Valley competitor has got chops
I keep hearing about this freaking game, so I think it’s time I just play it. I’m not really one to play a farming game—having bounced off of Stardew Valley a number of times despite enjoying myself—but maybe Fields of Mistria will be the one that makes me stick with the genre. I think if it manages that feat, it’ll be because of the strength of its gameplay and art style. I’ve grown a bit tired of the pixelated look of games like Stardew, which certainly hasn’t helped its case, but I also never really loved the loop of it either. It isn’t that it feels bad, but rather that it feels uneven. Farming appropriately feels like busywork, and I’ve been hooked by its fishing mini-game, but whenever I had to go into the mines to dig and get into some combat, it felt shallow.
That doesn’t appear to be the case for Fields of Mistria, which looks to boast more in the way of tailored dungeons and involved combat mechanics. Aesthetically and mechanically, it seems way closer to a classic Zelda title, and that’s doing a lot to muster excitement from me. Now, if I can just make it to the point where the daily rhythm of activities feels like second nature, I might just find the first cozy farming game outside of Animal Crossing to make a lasting impression. —Moises Taveras
Wildermyth
Play it on: Steam
Current goal: Write another story
When we put together these Kotaku Weekend Guides, typically I try to write something I’m currently playing or have at least played recently. This time, I went looking through my Steam library for a game to recommend, and Worldwalker Games’ Wildermyth caught my eye. The tactics RPG was one of the best games to come out in 2021. It lets you create a party of heroes and play through branching campaigns, all with excellent writing and interesting spins on fantasy combat mechanics. I only played through one campaign in 2021, but I have a lot of fond memories of playing as my mage Kenjamin Shepardson and using the magic system that’s more akin to an Avatar: The Last Airbender bending than your usual spellcasting system, requiring you to manipulate the elements in the environment. Those made each battle compelling, but the attachment I had to my custom party made the stakes feel incredibly high. Wildermyth’s storytelling is its greatest strength, and its ability to let you nudge the story in drastically different directions while building your party’s relationships is still head and shoulders above games with 10 times the budget. It’s finally coming to consoles on October 22, but the PC version is exceptional and well worth your time. —Kenneth Shepard
Persona 3 Reload
Play it on: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PC
Current goal: Make it to September
I like Atlus RPGs in general and enjoy the Persona games in particular. I began with Persona 4 Golden on Vita, played a bit of Persona 2: Innocent Sin on the PSP, and poured about 20 hours into Persona 5 on the PS4. They’re all great games and I liked them just fine, but none pulled me in like Persona 3 Reload has. I’d be lying if I said I knew exactly why that is.
Maybe it’s the modern graphics and old-school design sensibility hitting a sweet spot in my nostalgia, like I’m experiencing a lost game from the late aughts that I always wanted to play but never got to. Or it could be that the more melancholy, blue-tinted mashup of chill vibes and menacing macabre undertones is more my style than the other Persona games. I even find grinding the endless procedural dungeons oddly satisfying, giving me a modicum of exploration, progression, and jazzy combat without making me feel like a mouse being led through a laborious maze in search of an old bit of moldy cheese.
I can sit down at the end of a long day, turn the lights off, get in, vibe out, and then cut loose after just a few days have passed on the social calendar. It helps that the soundtrack is top notch. The epilogue DLC is out in just a month. I probably won’t be done in time, which is fine. I’m in no rush. Relishing the Persona 3 slowburn has been half the fun. —Ethan Gach
Madden NFL 25
Play it on: PS5, PS4, Xbox X/S, Xbox One, Windows
Current goal: Make Aaron Rodgers proud
Playing College Football 25 after having gone 11 long years since NCAA Football 14 was fun, but I’m ready for my annual trip to the big leagues. Madden 25 is here, and my plans for this weekend (and likely many others to come) are officially spoken for.
The school I graduated from doesn’t have a football team, so a lack of an emotional attachment to the incredibly detailed jerseys on my screen prevented me from sticking with CF25 once its novelty wore off. However, my long-suffering Jets fandom tends to keep me almost as loyal to Madden as I am to Gang Green itself. Within my first few days of playing last year’s Madden 24, I logged 29 hours almost exclusively in Franchise mode turning the Jets into Super Bowl champs, Robert Saleh into Coach of the Year, and running back Breece Hall into league MVP and the record-holder for most touchdowns in a single season—the latter of which was accomplished mostly because I suck at passing and can’t read defenses beyond the line of scrimmage.
In honor of my quarterback hopefully completing a full season IRL after suffering a catastrophic injury in Week 1 last year, I’ll be spending the next few days trying to improve my passing so Aaron Rodgers can retire an MVP and my Jets can be back-to-back Super Bowl champs. What are video games for if not opportunities to live out your wildest (and most improbable) fantasies? —Austin Williams
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