New Video Games Out This Week: Rise of the Phoenix, Sacred Stones, and More

It’s the week of Christmas, which means new notable game releases are hard to come by. In fact, unless you’re on Nintendo Switch, there’s hardly anything to look forward to this week. In other words, it’s a great time to take a stab at that backlog.

As always, if you’re looking for what games are releasing this week that are worth taking a quick gander at, well you’ve come to the right saloon partner, because that’s exactly what we have on tap: a quick rundown of each and every salient new game dropping this week. That said, it’s important to keep in mind this is not an exhaustive list of every new game releasing this week. Just the notable ones. In addition to the prominent new games, there’s a round-up of ports included at the bottom. Meanwhile, remakes, remasters, and expansions are included, but minor DLC releases are not nor are games releasing into any form of early access. However, for this week, we made an exception, because the most notable new release is in fact a minor piece of DLC. Lastly, while mobile games occasionally crack the rundown, this is mostly for console, PC, and Google Stadia games.

PICK OF THE WEEK: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order

Pitch: “Dark Phoenix, the infinitely powerful cosmic entity from one of the X-Men’s greatest sagas, unleashes an era of fiery destruction! Four more X-Men join the alliance with this downloadable content pack: Phoenix, Gambit, Iceman, and Cable. Plus, face-off against friends in the newly added Danger Room mode! Up to four players will compete to see who can take down enemies while being barraged by buffs and debuffs.”

Developer and Publisher: Team Ninja and Nintendo

Platforms: Nintendo Switch

Release Date: December 23

THE MOST NOTABLE OF THE NOTABLE PORTS: SACRED STONES

Pitch: “Sacred Stones is a game about a fight in a virtual background sky island. For some reason, the sacred stones that keep the sky island afloat were scattered. So the main character leaves to find the sacred stones on the sky island that began to fall to the ground. Sacred Stones is an action game that depicts a struggle with the weird creatures he encounters.”

Developer and Publisher: CFK

Platforms: Nintendo Switch (already available on PC)

Release Date: December 23

ALL OTHER NOTABLE PORTS

BALLOON FIGHT: 

Pitch: “Balloon Fight is an action game released by Nintendo in 1984.  This game features uniquely floaty controls. Two players can play thrilling balloon popping battles simultaneously. Will you help out or butt in? You’ll have fun doing either! The ‘Arcade Archives’ series has faithfully reproduced many classic Arcade masterpieces. Players can change various game settings such as game difficulty, and also reproduce the atmosphere of arcade display settings at that time. Players can also compete against each other from all over the world with their high scores.”

Developer and Publisher: Hamster

Platforms: Nintendo Switch

Release Date: December 27

*****

REGIONS OF RUIN: 

Pitch: “Ever wonder what would happen if Kingdom met a broad, skill based open world RPG? Welcome to Regions of Ruin. Regions of Ruin is a 2D side-scrolling RPG with town-building in an open world that progressively challenges your hero and settlement the further you delve into the vast continent.”

Developer and Publisher: Vox Games and Poysky Productions

Platforms: Nintendo Switch (already available on PC and PS4)

Release Date: December 19

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