Earl Grey on max warp: September 2025’s genre-gaming shenanigans (games news roundup).
Put the kettle on and set phasers to “mischievous”—September 2025’s brought a pleasingly bonkers spread of science-fiction, fantasy and horror game news, the sort that makes you wonder if Douglas Adams ever moonlighted in computer game marketing.
First up, Blizzard Entertainment’s Story & Franchise Development lot have done something braver than face-checking a Zerg: they’ve unionised. Reports over at Massively Overpowered and Eurogamer paint a picture of creatives who’d like pay that isn’t allergic to inflation, a peek at business decisions before they land like orbital debris, and sensible guardrails on AI so your cut-scenes don’t read like they were drafted by a caffeinated calculator. One staffer quipped that after the biggest tech acquisition in history, it’d be grand if leadership remembered who actually builds the worlds we binge. Here at SFcrowsnest magazine, we do enjoy a good “Workers of the World of Warcraft, unite” moment—badges available at the guild hall, presumably.
Meanwhile, Amazon’s New World is leaning full Hammer Horror with Season 10, “Nighthaven”—a name that practically arrives in a fog machine. Picture bleak forests, castle ramparts, and something unspeakable rummaging about in the catacombs while you decide whether to leg it with the loot or be noble and get eaten. There’s an Isle of Night raid, a vertical OPR map called The Tower (because stairs are scary now), a roguelite-y Catacombs mode for three brave fools, and the whole cap bumps to 70 with charms and set bonuses to make your build spreadsheet look like an occult grimoire. Doors creak open 13th October; Halloween turns up early wearing a cape and meaningful jewellery.
If you prefer your supernatural with a dab of solder, tinyBuild’s The Lift is a “supernatural handyman simulator”—words we didn’t expect to type this decade. You’ll coax eldritch machinery back to life using actual electrical principles, all while poking around a facility that feels part Soviet sci-fi, part SCP file someone spilt tea on. The team’s promising lush world-building and systems-driven tinkering; Bob the Builder meets The Backrooms. It’s due in 2026, but there’s a Steam playtest now if you fancy revising your A-level physics under duress.
Over in Tokyo, Konami’s Game Show line-up has donned its best trench-coat. Expect Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater, Suikoden Star Leap, and Silent Hill f, plus—whisper it—a “new game project” reveal on 26th September. Internet sleuths are already playing Castlevania or pachinko roulette; we’re clinging to the hope of something with fangs that isn’t attached to a slot machine.
September’s release slate, then, is as crowded as Picard’s replicator menu on a night shift. Bloober Team’s Cronos: The New Dawn promises a ruin-haunted sci-fi trek through whatever capital-C “Change” broke the future (5th Sept). The moody slice-and-ponder adventure Hell is Us swings in 4th Sept with a free demo for anyone who likes their exploration framed by ominous architecture. Yes, somehow, miraculously, Hollow Knight: Silksong is on the calendar for 4th Sept—new powers, new lands, fresh chances to swear at your own thumbs. Wales Interactive returns to FMV with Dead Reset on 11th Sept, a time-tangled lab thriller done with practical sets and that deliciously camp earnestness the genre wears so well.
If you’d rather possess a kettle than flee one, Henry Halfhead invites you to haunt the household item aisle with physics-based puzzling and a free Steam demo to prove enlightenment may indeed be dishwasher safe. Strange Antiquities, the sequel to Strange Horticulture from Bad Viking, moves the Undermere witchery into an antique shop on 17th Sept; expect customers who make the Addams Family look mainstream. Dying Light: The Beast (19th Sept) lets Kyle Crane go full “please don’t feed the parkour monster,” while Silent Hill f decamps to 1960s Japan on 25th Sept, swaddled in fog and finely tailored dread.
For lighter fare, LEGO Voyagers offers two-player brick-built roaming; Atelier Resleriana is on hand with alchemy, brawls and item crafting aplenty; and Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds promises to race across land, sea, air, space and, by the sound of it, your calendar—try not to create a paradox queuing for matchmaking.
So there we are: workers organising in Azeroth, haunted battlements in Aeternum, an elevator that takes you straight to “Eldritch, Please Hold,” and Konami teasing like a cat with a laser pointer. Whether your September joy is castle raiding, circuit-prodding, or sprinting a blue hedgehog through a wormhole, there’s something here to ruin your sleep schedule. Top up the tea, mind the fog, and don’t—under any circumstances—accept candy from a man called “Quest Giver” lurking by a cemetery gate.
