What to play this weekend: a new adventure is in the cards

Congratulations on making it to another Friday, Watchers! Your rewards: a science fiction trilogy classic on deep discount, a whole sale full of RPGs as long as you don’t mind maybe glitching through the floor, a successor to the old Ultima games that’s completely free (but so good that people are upset in the reviews that they can’t give the developer money), and two card-driven adventures for my fellow card sharps. It’s a busy weekend of gaming possibilities, so let’s dive right into it.

Deep discount of the week: Mass Effect Legendary Edition

I mean, what is there to say about Mass Effect that hasn’t already been said? Whip up your own Commander Shepard and get ready for a trilogy of space-hopping sci-fi adventure, intrigue, action, and possibly romance. Mass Effect is iconic, and the Legendary Edition includes the three base games and over 40 DLCs, now for less than a tenner. Settle in for a good time spent fighting and/or smooching aliens. (But protip: leave Kaiden behind. Trust us.)

Get Mass Effect Legendary Edition for $8.99 on Steam.

Neon-soaked throwback of the week: Moonring

Moonring, which has actually been out since last fall, has been making some waves online as people uncover what is essentially a spiritual successor to the old Ultima RPGs, with all their depth and complexity. Moonring comes from Fluttermind, the studio of Dene Carter, a veteran developer who previously worked on the Fable series; their role-playing game chops and love of classic RPGs really shines through here. The inclusion of parser-based dialogue was such a fun throwback, too — gotta figure out the right words to make those NPCs talk to you. Plus, and this is subjective obviously, I love the look of Moonring — it’s really got a style all its own in a field full of pixel art games.

Get Moonring for the low, low cost of completely free on Steam. There’s also a Switch port in the works — keep an eye out for that!

Bethesda sale of the week: QuakeCon 2024

This one’s pretty straightforward: QuakeCon 2024 is a sale on all things Bethesda, the home of Elder Scrolls, Fallout, the modern Doom games, Arkane’s Dishonored series, and more. Bethesda has a lot of big beefy RPGs, although there are a few things I’m surprised not to see on here. Some standouts:

• The Elder Scrolls Online for $5.99, one of the best MMOs you probably haven’t played.
• Doom Eternal for $9.99, or the entire Doom franchise for $33.70 going all the way back to the original. Rip and tear, until it is done.
• Prey for $5.99. This game is spooky as heck and I love it.

Honestly if you only had to pick one, go with Doom Eternal. The recent Doom games have been such a love letter to what made the old games revolutionary, while also being fast and modern in an era of ploddingly slow cover shooters.

Bezos Bucks™ freebie of the week: Loop Hero

Loop Hero is a divisive game — either you love it, or you don’t. After the world ends at the hands of a reality-obliterating lich, you find yourself in the void, tasked with reassembling the world from scratch to gather resources and build up what might be the last village left in the world. The method of doing this: placing buildings, landscape elements, and more — from a card deck you build before each round — around a looped path that your hero constantly circles, picking up treasures and auto-battling enemies they encounter. How many loops can you make? Can you rebuild a shattered reality? Only one way to find out.

Get Loop Hero for completely free with an Amazon Prime account, now through November 6 on Prime Gaming.

Card-based adventure of the week: Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers

Card-based deckbuilding roguelikes are, against all odds, the hot new thing right now, and the newest one to hit the block seems like a real winner — Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers. Work your way through a seedy tavern where the game of the day is blackjack — but not just plain old blackjack. Build your deck, explore the tavern, play several minigames in addition to just the main game, and enjoy all the nods to other games — there’s lots of fun little tributes to other games in this genre like Balatro and Slay the Spire. There’s not a lot more to say here — it’s just a really good game, and it’s got cards and a spooky weird tavern in it.

Get Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers for $13.49 on Steam. I would be remiss in not mentioning that you can also pick it up along with Luck be a Landlord and the stellar Balatro in the “Not a Real Casino” Bundle, as well!

So, Watchers, what strikes your fancy (or fantasy) this week? Let us know what you’re playing in the comments!