It's October, and you know what that means: spooky things, lots of tasty treats, and excuses to stay indoors and play video games. It's getting cold outside, so staying indoors is better for your health. Plus, after long enough, your skin will acquire a kind of pallid tone that will help you blend in with the ghoulish festivities when you leave your abode to stock up on Totino's or whatever. Anyway, this week in video games we're journeying to a post-apocalyptic wasteland of anime haircuts, then taking a pit stop in Ancient Greece before heading around to even more varied locales.

Okay, so did you know that Costas Mandylor was in a live-action adaptation of Fist of the North Star? Yeah, the Greek guy from the Saw movies. Omae wa mou shindeiru, indeed. Sorry, I had to get that off my chest: I don't have any real frame of reference for the seminal anime series Fist of the North Star other than that terrible, terrible movie. However, I do admire the series' martial-arts-meets-Mad-Max aesthetic, and the fact that Lost Paradise is being developed by the Yakuza team sounds downright perfect. Those guys know their stuff. You can check out a preview by Mike Sollosi if you'd like to know more.

Now, here's a game to get you in the holiday spirit. The Midnight Sanctuary is described as an "occult horror visual novel" by its developers, CAVYHOUSE. The game has a really neat paper cutout art style that gives it a unique vibe, and it is sure to be of interest for fans of the genre. After all, who doesn't like a good occult story around Halloween? The game releases for PS4, Switch, and PC on October 4th.

A "dark" and "unforgiving" top-down roguelike, Soulblight is making its way to the Nintendo Switch this October. What makes this game unique is its Tainting mechanic. Players start the game with a specific Taint that affects how they interact with the world, such as alcoholism, which grants various character advantages/disadvantages and encourages players to actually roleplay a bit. It sounds like pretty interesting stuff; the Nintendo Switch is already a haven for these kinds of off the wall experiences, so what the heck, throw it on the pile. Next!

So, I don't know if you had heard or not, but Assassin's Creed wants to be an RPG really bad nowadays. It's got a big(ger) open sandbox world, level-ups and experience points, gear with different stats, and now dialogue choices and branching paths! It may sound like I'm being flippant, but honestly, I'm really excited to see Ubisoft taking this flagship series in a bold and exciting direction, trying something new, and putting in the time and effort to deliver a quality product. Admittedly, "deliver a quality product" is setting the bar kind of low, but y'all remember when these things were coming out annually? That's what I thought. Assassin's Creed Odyssey (not to be confused with Super Mario Odyssey or Homer's The Odyssey) will sweep gamers away to Ancient Greece on October 5th.

And that's a wrap for this week, folks! Exciting times ahead, so go back to your apple cider and your video games, and we'll continue to deliver the best RPG news on the planet. Until next time, dear reader.