The Most Anticipated Games Set To Release In The New Year Period

The Christmas period is one of the most important times of the year for video games, but after the dust has settled and the new year rolls round, what have you got to look forward to in the New Year Period?

Here are five intriguing titles deserving of your attention releasing in January and early February!

 

Hitman 3
Xbox Series X | Xbox One | PS4 | PS5 | PC | Switch | Stadia
Release date: 20/01/2021

IO Interactive revitalised the Hitman series in 2016’s Hitman, following up with a sequel in 2018. Both games received praise for providing the player with some of the most varied, detailed and open ended stealth gameplay to date and an impressive new game engine.
As such, hopes are high for the third game to live up to its predecessors.

The game will serve as the conclusion to the World of Assassinations trilogy, wrapping up the story in what IO claims to be the grandest Hitman experience to date.
Fans and critics have been perhaps most impressed by the trilogy’s depiction of real-world locals. Two locations have been disclosed so far, with the first being the illustrious Middle Eastern city of Dubai - the level taking place within the Burj Khalifa (the world's tallest skyscraper).
About as diametrically opposite as you can get from Dubai is the second location revealed - the English national park of Dartmoor, wherein Agent 47 features in a murder mystery surrounding a death at a country manor.

All locations will be available from launch and from what we’ve seen so far, it seems IO is going to offer players some of the most interesting and detailed game world settings we’ve ever seen.
 

The Medium
Xbox Series X | PC
Release date: 28/01/2021

Blooper Team cemented themselves as pioneers of interactive storytelling with the chilling Observer in 2017, and as graphical innovators with the visual feast that was the remaster, Observer: System Redux.

Following their success hopes are very high for their next title, The Medium.
Stepping away from the first person camera of Observer, The Medium features third person gameplay evoking a similar feel to the classic psychological horror series Silent Hill.
The Medium will be a narrative focussed, suspenseful psychological horror with a heavy focus on puzzle solving and exploration.
Following the story of a medium named Marianne, the player will traverse a surrealist environment inspired by the artwork of late Polish artist Zdzis?aw Beksi?ski. Marianne will be able to traverse both the real and spirit world simultaneously, making for what should be another truly novel experience.
 

 

Outriders
Xbox Series X | Xbox One | PS5 | PS4 | PC | Stadia
Release date: 02/02/2021

Outriders is a hotly anticipated third-person, RPG style shooter coming from Final Fantasy developers Square Enix, but you won’t see any overtly spikey hairstyles or giant mountable avian animals here.

Set on the alien planet of Enoch following a disastrous human attempt to colonise it, the game will reportedly provide the player with a huge but treacherous open world to explore with multiple different biomes and a web of interconnected, content rich hub areas.
The game will feature customisable characters and weapons, four in-depth classes and extensive skill trees, and from what we’ve seen so far; the game is narrative heavy, with an in depth main story and a wide variety of side quests.

The player will also have their own ‘truck and crew’, serving as both a vehicle to traverse the game world and a vessel for the functionality of the game’s hub worlds in the form of weapon vendors, crafting and armed support.
More information about Outriders is set to be unveiled in the coming weeks, so it’ll be interesting to learn more about the studio’s latest big project and exactly what to expect from this title.
 

 

Prince Of Persia: The Sands of Time remake
Xbox Series X | Xbox One | PS5 | PS4 | PC
Release date: 21/01/2021

Prince Of Persia: Sands of Time is regarded as being one of the best action adventure games of all time, and to the delight of fans all over, Ubisoft announced in September that a fully-fledged remake was in the works. 

Ubisoft are rebuilding the game from the ground up, meaning brand new graphics, music, voice overs, character models and sound effects. The game will also feature brand new, fully rendered cinematics, and the gameplay mechanics and controls will reportedly be updated to modern standards, too, offering the ability to flip between the new controls and the old ones.
Considering it was over ten years ago that Ubisoft gave Prince Of Persia any attention, there couldn’t be a better time to revisit the greatest iteration in the series, and who knows; maybe the remake means the studio are looking to revitalise the series in the near future!
 

Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthbound
Xbox Series X | Xbox One | PS4 | PS5 | PC
Release date: 04/02/2021

Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthbound is an action RPG currently in development by Cyanide and is based in the world of the tabletop RPG of the same name.
Set in the American North west across a variety of expansive hub worlds, the player takes the form of a Werewolf named Cahal.

Being able to take the form of both a human and Werewolf, the game will offer a variety of gameplay mechanics unique to each form. The Werewolf form utilises more animalistic mechanics such as hunting, stealth and exploration which will be underpinned by a skill tree, where while in the human form you can have conversations with other people and gather intel. 

The story certainly sounds unique. The narrative follows Cahal’s fight against the mega corporation Pentex who are destroying the environment and polluting the landscape, as he struggles to protect the Fianna Tribe of Irish Werewolves from which he himself has been estranged. The game is set within the World Of Darkness universe written for the aforementioned board game series, and will attempt to tackle the moral implications of violence.
 

There are a ton of other games releasing within the New Year, of course, so what have you spotted that takes your fancy? 

Let us know in the comments!

 

Linden Garcia,
Editor, NoobFeed