Everybody I know is born in May. It will be hard to play any videogames this month because of all of the birthday parties. It is a month of constant cake and party favors, backyard burgers and late night karaoke, and I will have to pry myself from the good times to carve out any minutes to play any videogames at all. I will have to do that because playing videogames is part of my job, and when it comes to doing my job responsibly the five games below are the ones I’ll be prioritizing. Let’s take a quick look at what we here at Paste are looking forward to the most this month.
1. Sunset
Release Date: 5/21
Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux
Sunset, the upcoming narrative game from Belgium-based developer Tale of Tales, is full of things you don’t often see in games, like ‘70’s décor, a South American setting and revolutionary politics with real-world relevance. Most daringly you play as a working class woman, and a woman of color, at that. Groundbreaking stuff for a videogame. Angela Burnes is a housekeeper for a rich South American and the story evolves as you guide her through her weekly work. There are dictators and rebels and it all happens on earth, in a world essentially our own, but in a place and situation that few of us in America today could relate to. Sunset aims to make us feel and think, two things you can expect to do while playing any Tale of Tales game.—Garrett Martin
2. Splatoon
Release Date: 5/29
Platform: Wii U
Splatoon, the team-based ink-shooter for Wii U, is also good… In games, guns are the simplest, and I admit, often most glamorous and instant way to interact with your environment. Making it feel good to shoot things has been iterated on so many times since games began that there is no way to shrug off the power of it. Splatoon recognizes the shooting mechanic as something that is pleasurable, but admits that the skin, the ultra-realistic, bloody, murdering part of the shooter is something that might be too tied up in masculinity, and washes it away with little squidgirls and paint and a Saturday morning children’s television attitude. It is in fact possible to decouple the fun of shooting from the suffocating hold of How To Be A Man.—Cara Ellison
3. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Release Date: 5/19
Platforms: PC, Playstation 4, Xbox One
Some argue whether the word “fun” deserves a place in serious game criticism. It might be subjective, but the word fits The Witcher 3, in that it’s fun to play. Combat is fast and brutal, and figuring out all the different uses your spells, bombs and traps have is both intellectually and tactually stimulating.—Bryce Duzan
4. Not a Hero
Release Date: 5/14
Platforms: Playstation 4, PS Vita, PC
Roll7 made the arty little skateboarding nuggets OlliOlli and OlliOlli 2, two of my favorite games of the last few years. They dive into blood and guts with the gun-based Not a Hero, where you hang out in a building and shot a lot of people. Like OlliOlli, Not a Hero promises quick bursts of mobile-style play on consoles and the PS Vita. Imagine Elevator Action or Rolling Thunder where you have to jump behind cover constantly to stay alive. It’s definitely bloody and violent, and approaches that violence almost like it’s a puzzle, and although that makes it sound a bit like Hotline Miami it doesn’t seem to have the obnoxious attitude of that game. Between the cool aesthetic and Roll7’s knack for deep, smoothly implemented mechanics, we’re excited for Not a Hero.—GM
5. Wolfenstein: The Old Blood
Release Date: 5/5
Platforms: Playstation 4, Xbox One, PC
I didn’t love Wolfenstein: The New Order as much as some did. Part of the problem was expectations: it was made by some of the same people who worked on The Darkness, a shooter with surprising narrative restraint and emotional depth. The New Order was good as a pulpy, B-movie shooter, though, and that’s why I’m excited to play the new DLC The Old Blood. Perhaps the two new stories included with The Old Blood will flesh out the game’s alternate history, retroactively adding greater context to the original game? Maybe it’ll just be another fun excursion in Nazi killing? Either way The Old Blood could offer up a few hours of sufficient videogame tomfoolery.—GM