As the world painstakingly claws its way back to a state of normalcy amid the pandemic, there are a few constants involved with the month of August that’ll make things feel a little more normal: the beginning of school, the approach of football season, and of course the release of the latest Madden video game. For many years now regardless of the reputation of the previous year’s installment, it’s been one of the beacons for all gamers that transcends whatever other interests they may have, gaming or otherwise.

With funds being reserved for that title, sometimes the rest of the month of August can be underwhelming in terms of new games, yet there are some pretty exciting new ones this time around. From the joyous return to two of the biggest cult classics from several console generations back to the hotly anticipated console port of a popular, challenging action platformer, it’s a month to get fired up over with or without the big game. Let’s take a closer look at the titles.

Hades (PS4/5; Xbox O/S/X) — August 13

Plenty of heated discussions continue to go on about the differences between playing on PC and consoles, but there’s one position that tends to be more objective than the others when discussing the superiority of PCs: they usually get better dungeon crawlers, either permanently or as timed exclusives. For a while, the early access period of being able to play Hades offered such an experience, and for the better part of 2020 it became a wildly popular, addictive experience title that could only be taken on by the PC Master Race.  

With its reputation established, Hades eventually moved out of early release onto the Switch and now carries over to the PlayStation and Xbox consoles with rejuvenation anticipation behind it. It embraces the depth of Grecian mythology as it tells the story of Zagreus, the prince of the underworld who hopes to escape its clutches and reach Mount Olympus. Naturally, escaping hell isn’t an easy task, realized in this isometric hack-‘n-slash action puzzle game by adopting the roguelike mantra of randomizing the maze structure of Hades and the relentless enemies within.

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Madden NFL 22 (PS4,5; Xbox O/S/X; PC; Stadia) — August 20

Look, it would takes some pretty aggressive and continuous negative energy for EA’s tentpole annual football game to suffer much in terms of sales and yearly anticipation. That said, this latest installment of Madden is following one of the more aggressively bashed entries in its three-generation history, even spurring a high-profile Twitter hashtag — “#FixMaddenFranchise”— when it looked like little had been done to the previous year’s game aside from updating the players. Despite ratings bombs and calls for the NFL to ditch EA, sales turned out just fine – up, even — a testament to Madden’s enduring presence.

Madden NFL 22 could benefit from a year of satisfying players, though, especially with this arriving on the newest generation of consoles, and it looks as if EA has actively listened to feedback and will be improving on key areas for this year’s iteration. Notably, franchise mode has been overhauled to allow for more freedom through “detailed staff management and skill tree progression systems”, while they’ve also added new live adjustment to stats and capabilities through the “Dynamic Gameday” integration of real-world data and new tech. If those things are coupled with the gameplay tightness that critics celebrated from last year’s title, Madden NFL 22 could end up being a needed return to form.

Click Here to Order Madden NFL 2022 at Amazon

Aliens: Fireteam Elite (PS4,5; Xbox O/S/X; PC) — August 24

For the most part, you can split fans of the Alien franchise down the middle, with one half preferring Ridley Scott’s original horror-centric Alien film and the other feeling as if James Cameron’s action-oriented Aliens sequel improves upon the idea. It’s a lot easier to approach a video game adaptation of those concepts, but the horror side of Alien – and arguably the franchise itself – was properly done justice with the survival horror game Alien: Isolation. This, in essence, has become the proper “horror Alien game”, and it’s probably only a matter of time before it gets an Aliens-like action companion.

Aliens: Fireteam Elite hopes to at least get close to the bullseye there by delivering a multiplayer, third-person survivor shooter experience that both takes place some 20 years after the original Alien trilogy and borrows plot aspects from those films. Players gain control of a Colonial Marine that can belong to five different classes – from shooters and beaters to techies and healers – that can utilize a slew of weapons, mods and perks that take on aliens alongside a squad of either AI-assisted or online teammates. Positive comparisons to the zombie co-op shooter Left 4 Dead have already been drawn, and the promise of no loot boxes or non-cosmetic microtransaction certainly helps to get hyped.

Click Here to Order Aliens: Fireteam Elite at Amazon

Psychonauts 2 (PS4; Xbox O/S/X; PC; Mac; Lin) — August 25

Over the years, Double Fine Productions has built a reputation of joy and reliability with their efforts in the Costume Quest family-friendly RPGs, several novel action-puzzle games such as Brutal Legend and Stacking, and in remastering the games that founder Tim Schafer created over at LucasArts. However, even with a decade and a half of work under their belt, many if not most gamers will forever know them as the studio responsible for the quirky, energetic, meaningful and addictive action platformer Psychonauts. Because of its cult popularity, a sequel has remained high in demand yet seemingly out of reach.

Unlike other similar titles that get swept up in development hell – looking at you, Beyond Good and Evil 2 – it’s certainly looking like Double Fine will finally be delivering Psychonauts 2 to its fanbase at the end of August. Based on preview footage, the powers of Raz the Psychonaut seems to share things in common with other psionic object-movement action games currently available, only with Tim Schafer’s delightful sense of humor and an outlandish, surreal atmosphere in the vein of Tim Burton’s animated films. With an undercurrent of symbolism about mental health, supported by an expert in the field hired by Double Fine, it’s looking like Psychonauts might be showing up at the right time for everyone.

Click Here to Order Psychonauts 2 on Amazon

No More Heroes III (Switch) — August 27

While many players likely have their strongest original Nintendo Wii memories stemming from Twilight Princess, Smash Bros. Brawl, Mario Kart or, heck, even Wii Bowling, others will fondly recall when they were introduced to the bizarre world of No More Heroes. Against cel-shade landscapes with 8-bit details, the game envelops its players in a streak of geekery that merely begins with the “otaku” lead character wielding a practical laser sword that occasionally needs a little jerking to power it back up. Generous portions of Grand Theft Auto gameplay philosophies are seasoned with anime and sci-fi culture in creating the exploits of Travis Touchdown and his climb up the ranks of an assassin guild.

Travis returns once again on the Switch in No More Heroes III, and this time he’s climbing the ranks of superheroism so that he may prove himself worthy enough to defeat an invading alien overlord. Players can traverse a series of five open-world zones with help of the hero’s new motorcycle, while the combat once again employs a mixture of hack-‘n-slashing with his beam katana and a hybrid of martial arts and professional wrestling maneuvers. Original series designer and writer Goichi Suda returns for this third entry in the No More Heroes saga, which should result in a raucous experience not unlike that first one on the OG Nintendo Wii.

Click Here to Order No More Heroes III on Amazon

The rest of the releases for August are generally pretty lowkey, with Ghost of Tsushima: Director Cut (August 20) and The Falconeer: Warrior Edition (August 5) offering some higher-profile PS5 ports throughout the month. The arthouse gaming wing of Annapurna Interactive will also be releasing a duo of indie titles this month, a survival mystery game called I Am Dead coming on August 9 and a time-constraint mystery experience entitled 12 Minutes coming on August 19. There’s also a pretty sweet looking Metroidvania platform action game entitled Recompile coming on August 19, and  a potentially interesting action-adventure experience called Foreclosed – which seems like a hybrid of Blade Runner and Cyberpunk – worth keeping an eye on when it comes out of the shadows on August 12.

August’s Video Games: Madden, Sure, But Also Psychonauts!

A few months back in one of our monthly subscription free game articles, we discussed a little bit whether video game players would be more or less drawn to hardcore “everyday life” simulation games right now, such as farming or city building. Is that too much “realness” for them to be enjoyable in a difficult time like this, reminding them of regular life aspects amid a pandemic, or do they offer a unique type of everyday routine and digital productivity that make it satisfying?

A similar, but less difficult to answer thought exercise can be had with August’s big release: IT’S MADDEN TIME. One might wonder whether going through new seasons on the yearly football game juggernaut might be bittersweet due to the complications with sports right now … but yeah, being honest, it’s going to be nothing but a big hit elevated by socially-distanced fans looking to vicariously play and enjoy the game. Yeah, there are other titles in August, but anticipation for Madden always dominates this first sleepy back-to-school month.

Fast & Furious: Crossroads — August 7

It’s getting close to the 20-year mark where the original Fast and the Furious film accelerated onto the scene … and, boy, has it evolved since then.  What was once a smaller-scale tale of custom cars, drag races, undercover cops and moderate high-speed heists has evolved into a mammoth blockbuster movie franchise involving explosive antiheroic missions, wrapped up in espionage and laced with advance technology befitting a sci-fi property.

Therefore, whatever though that comes to mind about a Fast and Furious video game will be quite different for those with memories of the original, and those who’ve followed the franchise to its recent installments.  Fast & Furious: Crossroads is born of the latter half of the franchise’s history, with Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez – among others – voicing their characters in an action-adventure racing hybrid experience from Slightly Mad Studios, a development crew under the umbrella of renowned racing game producer Codemasters.

Get Fast & Furious: Crossroads on Xbox One

Microsoft Flight Simulator — August 18

Asobo Studio has a tough journey ahead of them: they’re about to revive the Flight Simulator franchise after being grounded for nearly a decade and a half, excluding a “complete edition” style release in 2014 of the most recent installment, Flight Simulator X.  Considering there hasn’t been a full new release in 15 years, there’s a bit of technical ground to cover, both in the video game stratosphere and in the aviation world itself.

The stats for this one are pretty incredible: over 35,000 airports based on satellite imagery will be included; between 20 and 30 different planes will be available to be piloted, depending on the selected edition; and billions of buildings and trillions of trees will be rendered in the game’s brand-new engine. Naturally, the objective is to make this latest Flight Simulator the most accurate and photorealistic version of the concept to-date, complimented by the developer’s own physics and weather engines. It’ll arrive on PC first, but will come to the Xbox after a short delay.

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Battletoads — August 20

Amazing, isn’t it? That something named “Battletoads” remains in the list of top 10 most difficult video games of all time, with some claiming that it’s the absolute most difficult they’ve ever played. In this day and age of thriving niche markets, especially those of gamers hungry for the frustrations of a good challenge, continuing that legacy could be seen as a positive thing; it doesn’t hurt that the Ninja Turtles, who originally inspired their creation to be “competitors”, are also gaining in popularity again.

Whether the reboot of Battletoads will be able to tap into the same caliber of difficulty or the same nostalgic ‘80s appeal remains to be seen, but it’s evident that Dlala Studios – with the help of original developers Rare – are aiming to go in a very different direction with the visuals, combat, platforming, and even racing aspects of the property. Far more cartoonishly drawn character, slower battles, and racing from behind instead of side-to-side, this isn’t the Battletoads one might remember from their youth.

Get Battletoads 2020 at Microsoft

PGA Tour 2K21 — August 21

Remember The Golf Club, HB Studios competitor to the dominant PGA Tour franchise from EA? Yeah, 2K Sports probably doesn’t want you to remember too much about it either, as they’ve carefully restructured, merged, and retitled the golf game into something both familiar yet quite new: PGA Tour 2K21.  Since EA’s rights for the branding lapsed, 2K Sports have taken over publishing duties of the officially licensed PGA video games, and with that of course comes authorized use of courses and about a dozen of the athletes against whom the player can compete.

One aspect that The Golf Club that’ll hopefully be further changed in PGA Tour 2K21, however, is the reputation the games have built for growing tedious and repetitive due to a lack of variety and visual panache. With this big of an overhaul, it’s hard to know what exactly to expect from HB Studios and 2K, outside of looking at the advancements made in last year’s title and hoping for the best in terms of dedicated aesthetic polish. There’s a long stretch still to go before they get to the hole.

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Wasteland 3 — August 28

You don’t often see sequels released a quarter-century after the original came out, yet that’s exactly what Wasteland 2 aimed to do with its Kickstarter campaign, and it succeeded in doing so. In 2014, right at the beginning point of when isometric role-playing games were experiencing a revival of excitement for that particular format, the sequel endured the rigors of indie development at InXile Entertainment and delivered on their promise: to essentially make the Fallout game that’s been missing for years.

Some couldn’t get their grip around the combat and the role-playing grinding aspects of Wasteland 2, but others have been able to wrap themselves in the atmosphere, RP variation, and party-based customization of its adventuring. Wasteland 3, once again crowd-funded and constructed by the team members behind the recent Torment: Tides of Numenera, aims for a continuation of the same choice-and-consequence, turn-based and tactical role-playing environment.

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Madden NFL 21 — August 28

Sometimes, it can be a struggle to talk at length about Madden. From year to year, the franchise has become so refined and focused on what it does well – and avoiding what it doesn’t – that the annual releases have become clones of each other, updated only by its rosters. Oddly enough, this year marks two significant developments that could makes the release of Madden 2021 fairly interesting.

First, in response to the political energy around the ballclub’s name, the game will require a significant update at release to change the branding of the Washington Redskins to the … uh, something else that hasn’t been determined as of this writing.  Watching how this will be handled will be an adventure itself. On top of that, EA has received a wealth of negative feedback for early impressions of the game powered by concerns that it’s a marginal update from previous titles, so much so that a call to “Fix Madden Franchise” trended on social media.  Have they done so? Who knows.  Will it hurt sales? Probably not!

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Some other goodness can be found sprinkled throughout the month of August. The latest creation from Dontnod Entertainment, Tell Me Why, begins its three-episode arc on August 27, while the decidedly Zelda-like action-RPG Windbound – a combination of Breath of the Wild and The Wind Waker – shores up the next day on August 28. Horizon: Zero Dawn will be getting a Windows port on August 7, while EA Sports UFC 4 keeps the sports train rolling on August 14 and into Project Cars 3 on August 28.

August’s Video Games Run Same Old Pattern With Madden 21