Here’s my recap of the most recent RPG and strategy releases, obviously with turn-based mechanics, with a few small exceptions that still strongly nod to the turn-based scene.

Over the past few days, there’ve been several noteworthy launches I need to flag for you, headlined by Square’s new JRPG, along with other intriguing bits, like the demo for the Battle Brothers–inspired sandbox RPG, which I also had a chance to try, and which really won me over.

You’ll find titles, release dates, and descriptions for all the projects I consider the most interesting that have debuted in any form, so long as they’re playable. With that said, let’s dive in.

Octopath Traveler 0

• Developers: Square Enix, DOKIDOKI GROOVE WORKS
• Platforms: PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch
• Release Date: December 4, 2025
• Steam Page

I usually like to open the article with what could be considered, on paper, the week’s flagship title. Sure, that’s mostly about broad, general interest, and players’ tastes can vary wildly, but today the spotlight goes to the debut of OCTOPATH TRAVELER 0.

New prequel in Square Enix’s HD-2D RPG series, developed with DokiDoki Groove Works and launching on December 4, 2025, for Nintendo Switch, Switch 2, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam and Windows.

Set in Orsterra before the original game, it tells a “restoration and retribution” tale centered on a custom-made protagonist whose hometown of Wishvale is destroyed, pushing players to rebuild the settlement through a town-building and farming system while pursuing the divine rings that drive the story.

Battles keep the series’ turn-based Break and Boost mechanics and expand party management with up to 30+ recruitable allies and 8-character formations split between frontline and backline roles, encouraging careful rotation and weakness exploitation in combat.

Alongside the familiar Path Actions and layered, pixel-meets-3D HD-2D presentation, the game leans heavily into long-form progression, with producer Hiroto Suzuki noting that the main story alone can run close to 100 hours, making this one of the most ambitious entries in the franchise so far.

Effulgence RPG (E.A.)

• Developers: Andrei Fomin
• Platforms: PC
• Release Date: December 2, 2025
• Steam Page

As you can see from the image I included above, we’re looking at a title that stands out for its uniquely distinctive visual style.

Effulgence RPG is a small-scale sci-fi party RPG where the entire world, from environments to enemies, is rendered as shimmering ASCII symbols arranged in 3D, giving it a distinctive visual identity on PC.

Built for short, replayable runs, the Early Access version offers a 1–1.5 hour campaign slice focused on a tight loop: explore an ASCII globe, engage in turn-based squad combat, shatter foes into particles, then feed those particles into a matter printer to craft new weapons, gadgets, and mechanisms, sometimes even mid-fight.

The game emphasizes readable, punchy encounters rather than long-form min-maxing, using “tactical cartridges” to add modifiers and area effects that shape each battle, while darkly comic dialogue and atmospheric locations give this text-driven world a strange, alien flavor.

As a solo-developed Early Access project, it launched on December 2, 2025, with controller support, Steam Deck-friendly readability, and a roadmap promising more locations, enemy types, and tactical options on the way, targeting a short but dense 3–5 hour full campaign.

Titans of the Past

• Developers: Devil’s Dozen Games
• Platforms: PC
• Release Date: December 3, 2025
• Steam Page

Another title I talked about a few days ago also launched this week. It’s called Titans of the Past and is a first-person, party-based dungeon-crawling RPG from Ukrainian studio Devil’s Dozen Games, openly inspired by classics like Wizardry, Might and Magic VI–VIII, The Bard’s Tale, Eye of the Beholder, and Legend of Grimrock.

Players guide a custom-built party through hand-crafted dungeons where monsters, secrets, and mutators are randomized, using a time-flows-as-you-move system that blends real-time movement with turn-like decision windows.

Character building is deliberately dense: there are lots of classes and races, four mastery tiers for both skills and spells, plus a Diablo-style item system with prefixes, suffixes, crafting, rerolls, and a long list of stats to juggle, from basic HP and Energy to crit multipliers, resistances, and cooldown modifiers.

Outside of the dungeons, an upgradeable town acts as a long-term progression hub, unlocking new races, classes, spells, crafting options, and shop inventory as you sink resources from your runs into buildings, while an adventure map with node-based routes, campfires, shops, events, and more, adds a light strategic layer for players who enjoy old-school blobber design.

Soulscape2 Fragments of The Present (Demo)

• Developers: Hexonine Games
• Platforms: PC
• Release Date: 2026
• Steam Page

TBL’s overview for this title dates back to July 2025, and it’s always great to see indie projects making steady progress, especially since I often have to deal with cases where a team can’t push a project forward.

Here we’ve got a genuine happy ending, because Soulscape2: Fragments of the Present has just released a demo that offers a free early look at Hexonine Games Inc.’s turn-based, story-driven CRPG set in a dystopian near future, where players follow Blake and his companions through isometric environments filled with eerie corporate offices, grungy bars, and sci-fi research facilities.

The demo focuses on old-school tactical combat against mechanized defense systems designed by the Cyberpulse corporation, combining party-based encounters, status effects, and positioning with choice-driven dialogue that can influence Blake’s relationships, mental state, and the direction of the branching narrative.

While the full game is planned for a 2026 release on PC, the demo acts as a vertical slice of Soulscape 2’s psychological tone, showing how external threats and inner demons are woven together through voiced conversations, multiple possible outcomes, and a heavy emphasis on story-rich exploration alongside the tactical battles.

Meg’s Monster – Lost Memories DLC

• Developers: Odencat
• Platforms: PC
• Release Date: December 4, 2025
• Steam Page

One of the most distinctive and emotionally charged RPGs has just released an intriguing new DLC. Meg’s Monster – Lost Memories is a short prequel DLC for Odencat’s 2023 indie JRPG, adding around two hours of new content on PC via Steam and Mac from December 4, 2025, with other platforms to be announced later.

Built as an anthology of five vignette-style chapters, it lets players experience the pasts of several side characters whose lives brush against the Underworld, including an MMA fighter trying to pay for his brother’s medical treatment, a girl living under tense parents ahead of her fifth birthday, a creature engineered to kill, a man reborn as a monster who works to improve underworld society, and a lab-raised monster child.

The DLC focuses on grounded, emotional storytelling rather than new battle systems, using familiar locations and a darker tone to expand the lore and themes of Meg’s Monster, especially the blurred line between human and monster, while rewarding players who were attached to its cast the first time around.

Forsworn (Demo)

• Developers: Resummon Studios
• Platforms: PC
• Release Date: Q3 2026
• Steam Page

Another tactical RPG that dropped a playable demo in the past few days is Forsworn. The Resummon Studios’ roguelite, turn-based tactics RPG, drops players into the first act of a world torn apart by divine war and built around repeated resurrections and hard fights.

Available on Steam, it lets you experiment with over 20 possible encounters while assembling a party that leans on powerful synergies, ultimate abilities, and Blessings that fundamentally change how heroes play.

Across runs, you unlock items and unique hero abilities, chase artifacts tied to in-game achievements, and test builds on Normal and Hard difficulties with optional hero leveling, either solo or in online co-op for up to three players using simultaneous turns to keep battles quick but tactical.

Pirates Outlaws 2: Heritage (E.A.)

• Developers: Fabled Game
• Platforms: PC
• Release Date: December 4, 2025
• Steam Page

I’ll admit I never played the first entry in the series, but Pirates Outlaws 2: Heritage looks poised to fully broaden and evolve the core formula of its roguelite deck-building card game. Now in Early Access on PC via Steam, it continues Fabled Game’s swashbuckling series with a new era of piracy in New Elysia.

Each run starts in a family mansion hub where you choose a hero, class, and companion, all with their own starter decks and ability cards unlocked through alchemy, before sailing an open map from island to island, tavern, and market while planning routes and rations.

The current EA build offers three heroes with seven classes, four companions, a first region split into five areas, nine Sea Master bosses plus legendary creatures, and an Arena mode, backed by more than 250 cards and 80+ relics, multi-class characters, a Heritage talent tree, and systems like golden card crafting in the Workshop and card removal at the Black Market.

Combat adds a new Countdown mechanic that ties enemy triggers and turn flow to how you redraw and play cards, while the roadmap aims for about a year of development leading to three full chapters, at least six heroes, more cards and relics, and expanded classes, companions, and races for players who enjoy long-term deck and build progression.

The Tower of Shadows (Demo)

• Developers: Alien Création
• Platforms: PC
• Release Date: Jun 20, 2025
• Steam Page

The Tower of Shadows is a solo-developed top-down turn-based strategy RPG in Early Access on PC, and this week the developer has also released a demo version. In the game, you command a medieval fantasy squad climbing a mysterious tower floor by floor to eventually face the Master of Shadows.

Each level introduces new dangers and enemy types, so you recruit warriors, mages, and archers, juggle magic and rare equipment, and make careful tactical decisions to keep your team alive as the difficulty ramps up.

The current build, released on June 19, 2025, includes 14 recruitable troop types, 20 levels with two boss floors, fully implemented combat mechanics, status and effect types, gear pieces, and a merchant system for buying and selling equipment and units, all supported by a built-in game wiki.

Developed by Alien Création as a personal challenge project, it is planned to expand through Early Access with additional troops, more levels and bosses, and hero equipment progression on the way to a targeted 1.0 launch in early 2026.

Band of Crusaders (Demo)

• Developers: Virtual Alchemy, Ironward
• Platforms: PC
• Release Date: TBA
• Steam Page

And I’ll wrap things up with the project that intrigues me the most for 2026, partly because I’m a huge fan of Battle Brothers and, more generally, of that well-tested formula where you manage a company of soldiers and freely roam the game world.

The game in question is Band of Crusaders, which finally releases a demo that gives an early slice of Virtual Alchemy and Ironward’s dark medieval strategy RPG, letting players step into the role of a Grandmaster leading a knightly order against a demonic invasion of Europe.

This demo covers the prologue, mixing story scenes with tutorials and an introduction to the game’s sandbox layer, where you manage a camp, recruit and heal crusaders, and juggle scarce resources in a ruined land.

Battles use a real-time-with-pause system enhanced by slow motion, emphasizing positioning, ability synergies, and equipment choice, with the added pressure of potential permanent death for your crusaders and a roster that can grow to around 20 individually developed knights.

All of this unfolds in a simulated world where demonic saturation, human factions, seasons, and a day–night cycle influence encounters and large-scale invasions, giving this short demo run a strong sense of wider campaign stakes.

That’s everything interesting I felt I absolutely had to share with you. I’m looking forward to your feedback and to whatever you decide to highlight on the new Reddit channel, which is slowly but steadily growing more active. Have a great weekend. Ciao