The Week In Games: Pixel-Art Dwarves And The Ghost Of Skull & Bones

The game release headliners this week are Nintendo’s Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream and Capcom’s Pragmata, but you’ve probably already heard plenty about them. Two lesser-known releases are Regions of Ruin: Runegate and Windrose.

The first of those is a pixel-art fantasy-RPG dungeon-crawler about dwarves trying to rebuild their civilization. It’s a sequel to a 2018 game that gained a decent fan following thanks to its breezy hack-and-slash combat and light, 2D Minecraft vibes. Runegate is a way better-looking game than the original, but the early reaction on Steam is mixed (I’ll be giving it a try later tonight).

The other is Windrose, which blew up after the last Steam Next Fest demo and quietly climbed to the top of the wishlist charts. It’s essentially Valheim for pirates instead of Vikings. Sound fun? Lots of people seem to think so thus far. In some ways it’s the pirate fantasy those who waited years for Skull and Bones were at one point hoping to get. But Ubisoft’s ambitious multiplayer game never managed to make the jump from ship management sim to tree-punching adventure.

Here’s everything else coming out this week:

Monday, April 13

Loot Loop | PC

Seeds of Calamity | PC

Gunboat God | PC

Tuesday, April 14

Replaced | Xbox Series X/S, PC

Hades 2 | PS5, Xbox Series X/S

Dosa Divas | PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, Switch 2, PC

Regions of Ruin: Runegate | PC

Moses & Plato: Last Train to Clawville | PC

Windrose (early access) | PC

Last Flag | PC

Alaska Gold Fever | PC

Overwatch | Switch 2

Wednesday, April 15

Industria II | PC

Valorborn | PC

Blood Reaver | PC

Don’t Lose Aggro | PC

Calamity Angels: Special Delivery | PC

Thursday, April 16

Mouse: P.I. For Hire | PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, Switch 2, PC

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream | Switch

Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss | PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC

Opus: Prism Peak | Switch, Switch 2, PC

Sintopia | PC

Gecko Gods | PS5, Switch, PC

Ground Zero | PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC

Friday, April 17

Pragmata | PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, PC

The Ember Guardian | PC

The Week In Games is Kotaku’s weekly roundup of notable, interesting, and/or big video game launches that are happening over the next seven days. Feel free to share other game release dates that might not be included above in the comments below.