Play This Weekend: Castlevania Returns, It Takes Two Hits Switch 2, More

There’s a fresh Castlevania, a huge new survival sandbox on PS5, a long-awaited co-op port to Switch 2, and one of the deepest Cyberpunk sales in months. Here are seven games worth your weekend.

Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse (PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch, PC, $39.99)

The big one. Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse is the first mainline 2D Castlevania since Order of Ecclesia on the Nintendo DS in 2008, and the first developed outside Konami. Evil Empire (the studio behind Dead Cells and the Return to Castlevania DLC) built it, and Konami is publishing. Set 23 years after Castlevania III, it stars Rose Belmont cutting through burning 1499 Paris.

A metroidvania is a side-scrolling action game where a connected map opens up as you gain new movement abilities, in the style of Super Metroid or Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Belmont’s Curse leans into that lineage. Critics came in mixed-positive before launch. Game Informer called the 16-hour campaign “Worthy of the Whip” and finished at 92 percent completion. IGN praised the action as “magnificent,” with caveats. Push Square called it a “perfectly fine Metroidvania.” VGC landed at three out of five. On Steam alone, it pulled a launch peak of 18,236 concurrent players on day one. Longtime Castlevania fans, Metroidvania newbies, and anyone who likes a tight 16-hour action game all have something here. We’ve already covered the release time and editions for launch day.

Enshrouded (PS5, PC, €39.99, 10% off through Oct 29)

For something bigger and more open-ended, Enshrouded left Early Access on Thursday and simultaneously launched on PS5. Keen Games opened the new high-level region Cinder’s Cradle, a lava-lake area ringed by floating Ancients architecture above the Embervale ruins. They raised the level cap to 45, and reworked combat with mana drain, entangle, Blizzard, Ball Lightning, four summon totems, and a Hollow Skeleton summon. Steam recorded a 65,193 concurrent peak in the first 24 hours, a new tracked high for the game in our data. Crossplay with PC isn’t on at launch. Keen says it’s in development but gave no timeline, so PS5 and PC players are in separate worlds for now. See our earlier Enshrouded release time post for the worldwide clock and the full 1.0 patch notes.

It Takes Two (Switch 2, $39.99)

Hazelight’s 2021 Game of the Year winner got its native Switch 2 edition on October 15, with higher resolution, better frame rates, and richer effects than the 2022 Switch version. Existing Nintendo Switch owners get the upgrade free through the eShop or in-game offer. There’s a Friend’s Pass on Switch 2. This is a co-op system where only one person in a pair needs to own a copy; the second player downloads a free client and joins the session.

The big new feature is crossplay with PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S. A Switch 2 player can now team up online with friends on any other platform. They can play with an original Switch owner through GameShare, which is Nintendo’s system that lets one Switch console share a digital game with a second console over local wireless. It’s the easiest 8 to 10 hours of co-op platforming you’ll find all year. It’s the perfect weekend with someone you’ve been arguing about nothing in particular. See our release time post for the per-region unlock.

The Jackbox Party Pack 12 (PS5, Xbox, Switch, PC, Apple TV, $29.99)

The Jackbox Party Pack 12 launched October 15 with five new games at $29.99 on every platform, including Apple TV for the first time in years. It’s the cheapest, easiest party night you can put together: only the host needs the game, everyone joins from a phone, and the prompts do the heavy lifting. If you’ve been hosting (or attending) a Friday-night game session for any length of time, you already know the drill. Pitch in if you want 2026’s new prompts. Pass if you’ve had your fill.

Bad Cheese + Agent A: A Puzzle in Disguise (Epic Games Store, free through Oct 22)

Epic is giving away two games this week. Bad Cheese is a short horror adventure about a kid exploring an abandoned building, switching between the real world and a nightmare version where his toys and furniture come to life. Agent A: A Puzzle in Disguise is a stylish 1960s spy-fi point-and-click with about six hours of slick puzzles. Both claim windows close at 3 PM ET on October 22, so grab them before Thursday’s free drop of Sker Ritual and Home opens. If you’ve been building an Epic library on the slow, this is a pair worth claiming. We’ve been tracking this week’s free games all week.

Cyberpunk 2077 + Phantom Liberty (Steam, $17.99 each through Oct 26)

CD Projekt Red cut Cyberpunk 2077 to $17.99 on Steam (70% off). They also cut the Phantom Liberty expansion to $17.99 (40% off). The sale runs through October 26. Phantom Liberty alone was $29.99 at launch. This is a deep discount on the only expansion CDPR has shipped for the game.

With Cyberpunk 2 (we covered its status update this week) and a movie in development, there’s no better moment to revisit Night City, run the spy-thriller Dogtown arc, or play it for the first time on the platform it was always meant for. Save travel through.

Ratatan (PS5, Xbox, Switch, PC, $29.99)

For a hidden-gem weekend, Ratatan comes from creators who worked on Patapon (the 2007 PSP rhythm-action game where drum commands move a parade of warriors). It’s a rhythm roguelike: a roguelike is a randomly-generated dungeon game you restart on death, and rhythm means your inputs are timed to a beat. 100+ characters queue behind your beat commands, every drum hit lines up a global attack, and the parade grows as you loot through dungeons. The Patapon DNA shows. Rhythm is the verb, swarms of units are the spectacle. Critics on Switch called it one of the most distinctive indies of the year. If you’re looking for a single-player pick that doesn’t need a weekend commitment to finish, this is the most unusual thing launching today.

Our read: of the seven, Castlevania is the headline for one weekend only. Everything else here is also there on Monday. If you only pick one, pick what you’ll actually finish or share. Cyberpunk at $17.99 with Phantom Liberty also at $17.99 is the standout deal of the month. It’s also the only pick here tied to breaking news (the Cyberpunk 2 and movie updates this week). Players on PC and PS5 looking for an open-world weekend should grab Enshrouded before the Cinder’s Cradle crowds cool down.

Steam player data tracked by Pixel Herald (live player counts) shows Enshrouded’s launch day posted a 65,193 concurrent peak. That’s the highest we’ve tracked. Castlevania’s 18,236 day-one concurrent peak is the largest 2D Castlevania launch we’ve measured in our data. The Castlevania choice also has the most live qualifier: critics are split, so read our review-roundup post before downloading. VGC’s three out of five and IGN’s caveats are the calls to weigh.

By the numbers (Pixel Herald player data):

Quick reference:

Match the pick to the player: if you’ve got one weekend and one friend, It Takes Two on Switch 2 is the best two-player use of time. If you’ve got a group chat, Jackbox is the buy. If you’re solo with 30 hours to spare, Cyberpunk + Phantom Liberty at $35.98 total is the most cost-effective deep game of the week. Solo survival appetite? Enshrouded, for the size. 16 hours and tight, classic-feeling? Castlevania. Late nights alone? Ratatan, short rhythm runs.

That’s the weekend. Castlevania for the headline, Enshrouded for the survival appetite, It Takes Two for the couch, Jackbox for the group chat, the Epic pair to claim before Thursday, Cyberpunk for the sale, and Ratatan for something different. Have a good one.

Edited by Kerwin Stewart, Editor-in-Chief · How we report