This Week’s New Games

This week’s new games include a brand new Nintendo game with a fresh concept, an action-based riff on the rhythm game, and an updated rerelease of a cult RPG from almost 20 years ago. HEre’s what Endless Mode will be playing this week.

Fresh Tracks

Platforms: PC
Release Date: August 12

Buffalo Buffalo’s Fresh Tracks takes the rhythm game all the way back to the lane-hopping of Harmonix’s 2001 debut Frequency, and then builds it back up as some kind of story-focused roguelike action game. In other words, it looks like it was made specifically with us in mind. (Well, except for that skiing part—Endless Mode don’t ski.) You won’t just be speeding through a tunnel with some dance music thumping, tapping buttons along to the beat; you’ll be speeding down a mountain with some dance (and metal, and orchestral) music thumping, slashing your sword along to the beat to take out some monsters—all while hopping from rail to rail to avoid walls and other such obstacles. Fresh Tracks looks like a cool, smart update on the rhythm game, and an adventure we can’t wait to go on.

Drag x Drive

Platforms: Switch 2
Release Date: August 14

Nintendo’s wheelchair basketball game was an unexpected entry at Nintendo’s Switch 2 reveal event, but everything else about it is textbook Nintendo—a game built to make use of one specific feature of Nintendo hardware. It was seemingly built around the Switch 2’s mouse feature, where you place the Joy Con 2s side down on a table (or other flat surface) and scoot them around like a computer mouse. (A computer mouse is called that because, like real mice, they scoot.) The pair of Joy Cons stand in for the wheels of your chair, and you have to vigorously slide them back and forth if you want to roll forward or backward, stop, or turn. And then, when it’s time to pass or attempt a shot—this is basketball, after all—you pick the Joy Cons off the table and move your hands as if you’re actually performing the real action in a real game. I played a couple of games at that Switch 2 event, and it’s definitely not a game you’ll immediately excel at. It’ll take time to get these unique controls down, and then it’ll take some actual endurance to not get worn out while playing it. There’s really nothing else like Drag x Drive, and it’ll be fascinating to see how people react to it.

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Platforms: Switch, PC
Release Date: August 15