3 new turn-based games for October

Spooooky season is just around the corner

I can’t believe we’re already at the end of September. But that means another short list of turn-based games to get you through Halloween season!

Hello JOMT Reader!

Maybe it’s seasonal, but it was hard to find turn-based games with official release dates in October. Nonetheless, I think you’ll enjoy the line up for the upcoming month as some of the games are spot-on with the Halloween theme!

Dead Season

🔗 Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2666550/Dead_Season/
📅 Release date: October 8, 2024
🖥️ Developer: Snail Bite
📢 Publisher: Iceberg Interactive
🎮 Platform: Steam (PC)

One of my favourite things about XCOM 2 was the Lost. The Lost were originally humans, transformed into alien zombies after bathing too long (involuntarily, of course) in alien goo. In combat, they weren’t powerful (unless you used mods to make it a bit more challenging), but they were still a threat because of their sheer numbers. Staying alive while moving to an extraction point as the wall of zombies closes in made for some very fun and tense missions.

That feeling seems to be replicated in Dead Season, a turn-based tactics game that hones in on the battle with zombies. Some mechanics, like noise attracting zombies, will be familiar to anyone who’s played XCOM 2. Players will make their way through a series of hand-crafted missions, completing objectives and narrowly escaping the zombie apocalypse.

I’m hoping that in addition to a campaign, there will be a sandbox mode where you get to run around and survive in the world of Dead Season with custom characters. It would be so fun to read (as a Substack!) the emergent stories from sessions of Dead Season.

Flint: Treasure of Oblivion

🔗 Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2366130/Flint_Treasure_of_Oblivion/
📅 Release date: October 24, 2024
🖥️ Developer: Savage Level
📢 Publisher: Microids
🎮 Platform: Steam (PC), Epic, Playstation, Xbox

Pirates are another Halloween staple but there haven’t been too many turn-based games with this theme (at least in recent memory, but my memory is also not the greatest). Flint: Treasure of Oblivion seeks to change that by introducing us to Captain Flint and his crew.

As Captain Flint, you’ll get to explore a variety of locales in real time, taking in the sights and sounds of ships, port cities, and vast jungles. The story unfolds through comic book style illustrations, adding a different touch to stories told through cutscenes. Battles take place on hex grids and watching their dev log (available here), it sounds like they really wanted to make combat accessible and challenging but at the same time, throw in some new ways to manage combat.

I’m looking forward to assembling my crew and going after that treasure as Captain Flint. According to the devs, some of the tactical battles won’t be just squad against many but many vs. many, and I’m looking forward to the mayhem that will emerge with so many virtual pirates on the hex grid battlefield.

Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven

🔗 Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2455640/Romancing_SaGa_2_Revenge_of_the_Seven/
📅 Release date: October 24, 2024
🖥️ Developer: Square Enix, xeen Inc.
📢 Publisher: Square Enix
🎮 Platform: Steam (PC), Playstation, Nintendo Switch

At the risk of dating myself, I’ll admit I played Romancing SaGa 2 on the Super Nintendo, way back in the 90s. The game was an entirely different experience compared to its contemporaries, in that you could get different endings depending on who was in your party and the conversations you initiated with them.

It was also the first game (that I remember) that featured permadeath — characters in the game could die in battle and become unavailable for the player to use. No phoenix downs or revive spells to bring them back from the dead. There was gravity in death.

30 years later, the team is remastering the game, updating it with modernized graphics (it’s still cartoony), squashing bugs that plagued it, while keeping these aspects of the game intact. Keep in mind, it’s a JRPG so expect to spend quite a number of hours exploring this world. But I’m expecting a lot of replayable fun and stories from this game!

If you liked what you read, please consider giving this post a like! What games are you most looking forward to in October? Let me know below!