With Memorial Day having come and gone, the unofficial start of summer is once again upon us. And as “hardcore gamers” (cringe I know) we know that with the start of summer comes what was formerly known as “E3 season”, or what we now know as Geoff Keighley’s: “Summer Game Fest”! This upcoming month will be filled (hopefully) with amazing announcements from all the big publishers that will setup the rest of this year’s gaming schedule and probably much farther into 2025 and beyond. So far, we know of the following: Sony – State of Play (May 30th), Summer Game Fest 2024 (June 7th), the Devolver Direct (June 7th), the Wholesome Direct (June 8th), Microsoft’s Xbox Games Showcase (June 9th), PC Gaming Show (June 9th), & Ubisoft Forward (June 10th) among others.
But what does that mean for our Fantasy Critic? Right now, it means that there are only 2 games that will be releasing in the month of June towards the Deer Critic League. But, while that is currently true, I have a feeling that it won’t be true for very long. I would venture to guess that there might be more games to be released for the DCL in June even by the time the bids close this Saturday at 8pm – or definitely by next Saturday.
In the meantime, let’s go back and look at the month of May. As of May 30th, this is how the league is stacking up:
And here are the games that released this past month:
- Animal Well – 19.1 pts
- Cryptmaster – 8.3 pts
- Homeworld 3 – 9.7 pts
- Lorelei and the Laser Eyes – 17.6 pts
- Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 – 11.0 pts.
- Paper Trail – 12.1 pts
- Capes – 7.3 pts
- Nine Sols – (no score yet)
Ranch Walker Inc.’s Animal Well (19.1pts) and Homie Don’t Play Games’ Lorelei & the Laser Eyes (17.6pts.) were the big winners this month giving their publishers a nice boost to their overall scores. Lamba Strain Games also did quite well with his decision to publish Paper Trail (12.1pts).
The highest profile, and the only 1st party game of May was Wolfpack Games’ Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 (11pts.) and it was able to showcase its graphical technique & technical prowess enough for critics to garner a solid score on OpenCritic of 81.
With May being mostly a month of smaller game releases, I took notice of the fact that it wasn’t a month of poor game releases, but rather very good ones. Almost every game that was released for our Deer Critic League this month scored well – with all games scoring above 77, and at least half of the games scoring an 81 or above! Congrats to all publishers who were able to cash in on some valuable points from lesser-known titles this month!
Okay, now with there being only 2 games on our June radar right now, it seems only right that we look at both with this preview for June. Those two games are Vapor-Ware’s #BLUD, and Ranch Walker Inc.’s Still Wakes the Deep, and guess what, they release on the same day – June 18th!
#BLUD is a new one for me. I have not heard of this game at all, but it is coming from a developer called Exit 73 Studios. This game is listed as an indie, Action-RPG, dungeon crawler. In addition to that, this game’s hand-drawn art style is very much inspired by the Late 90’s / Early 00’s cartoons of Craig McCracken & Genndy Tartakovsky, (think: Dexter’s Lab & Powerpuff Girls), and the attitude of the game seems to be of that era as well. It’s definitely cute-meets-bloody in tone and I kind of like it for that. I know that Amanda is hoping that she picked up a good one so we’ll wait for June 18th to see how reviewers feel about #BLUD.
Still Wakes the Deep from developer, The Chinese Room (Dear Esther, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture) is a 1st person adventure game, in the “narrative horror genre” that takes place on a collapsing oil tanker in 1975 off the coast of Scotland. You are tasked with navigating the rig and its otherworldly horrors, to get the crew and yourself out of the situation you find yourself in and back to safety. It seems creepy (so I’m out) but maybe you are excited to experience this narrative “on the edge of logic and reality.” Find out on June 18th.
That’s all that I have for this month’s newsletter! I’m looking forward to next month as the end of June will also end the 1st half of this contest. Look forward to some more compiled statistics and probably a much better look at what the rest of our rosters will look like heading down the stretch of the summer months and into the fall! Until then…
Take care & God Bless,
Alex C.
Deer Critics League 