Kotaku’s Weekend Guide: 6 Engrossing Games To Distract You From The World

Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Windows (Steam Deck OK)
Buy it from: Amazon | Best Buy | Humble Bundle
Current goal: Conceptualize what my build is going to look like

Back in May, I gave Elden Ring yet another shot. It didn’t work.

I purchased a copy of it when it launched in 2022, and sunk around 10 hours into it to mixed results. I definitely clicked with it here and there, but when it got tougher…I wasn’t here for it. Or, rather, other things in life grabbed my attention instead. Sure, I could see the appeal of mastering a tough challenge, but I already have my fair share of challenges in other hobbies and, well, life itself. So it drifted. I’d try it every now and then, including a few months ago, and just couldn’t get into it in a sustainable way.

Read More: Flintlock: The Siege Of Dawn: The Kotaku Review

And then I played, and reviewed, Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn. Like many soulslikes, it’s got its work cut out for it trying to make it in a genre with fans that have very discriminating, and often developer-specific, tastes. Flintlock is a much easier take on the Souls format though, and that really helped me cut to the chase a bit more, find the joy of more intentional combat and the dopamine drip that results from steadily moving through a world, one tough battle at a time. It was a nice set of training wheels for me and provided some joy on its own merits as well. And around halfway through that game, I felt a confident and excited urge to jump into one of FromSoftware’s masterpieces with the intention of finishing it.

That game turned out to be Elden Ring. I considered others, but the open, wandering spaces of Elden Ring feel a bit more inviting. I spun up a new character and have since sunk six hours into this fresh, new attempt. Having just gotten through a fight that literally took me around an hour and a half to complete, accompanied by a dear friend who’s willing to help me unpack the game’s cryptic systems and provide me with some encouragement, I think I’ve cracked it. I’ve got some good momentum. I understand this genre and this game better now.

Also, this playthrough of Elden Ring is coming at a time where I’m facing some steep personal challenges, unexpected failures, pains, and regrets. Yet, there’s opportunity and an uncertain future full of trials and struggles where I can easily see myself coming out intact and stronger. In getting sent to “You Died” screens constantly, with the courage to get up and do it again, I’m wondering if Elden Ring’s gonna have more to offer than just a fun, if not challenging, way to pass the time. — Claire Jackson

Play it on: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Switch, Windows (Steam Deck OK)
Buy it from: Amazon | Best Buy | Humble Bundle
Current goal: Touch some alien grass and maybe some water too

I won’t claim to be an OG, but I’ve been on No Man’s Sky’s side since the very beginning. I believed in it so much I picked up a steelbook on PS4, which I almost never do. Since then, No Man’s Sky and I have had a very on-and-off relationship, though we’re largely off. I played a lot at the outset, but the game quickly collapsed under the series of promises it failed to live up to at launch. It was still ambitious and I got some degree of joy out of it, but it wasn’t quite what I signed up for and so we parted ways.

I’ve taken, instead, to admiring it from afar and watching it grow and mature without me in the years since. I’ve cheered it on through numerous of its updates, and even flirted with the possibility of coming back numerous times. The “Atlas Rises” update in particular, which added a whole new story to No Man’s Sky, was very enticing, but I stayed away for a bit longer. It wasn’t till the “Next” update that I booted the game back up, since it finally introduced proper multiplayer and overhauled the game to be much closer to the vision of it I’d always had. Even then though, I played for a short while and fell off because time didn’t really allow for much else. Despite our distance, I’ve been happy for No Man’s Sky and all the steps it’s taken to better itself over the years.

Most recently, an update to No Man’s Sky refreshed the universe, and now it has cool water technology among a host of other advancements. Thanks to that update, as well as a general itch for a sci-fi multiplayer exploration game, I think we’ve been apart long enough, and I’m feeling the urge to come crawling back. — Moises Taveras

Play it on: Your imagination
Current goal: Keep my mouth shut

Look, yes, I’m being a dick. But sometimes in this gig you get games ahead of release that you’re not allowed to tell anyone else you’re playing. And this weekend, I’ve three of them. Wait, no, two of them. By the time this is posted Dungeons of Hinterberg is out, and you’ve hopefully found out what Moises thinks of it all. Another one of these anonymous titles is out a week later, and OH MY GOD IT’S SO GOOD. I cannot wait to think up excuses to keep writing about it on the site.

The third is a game I’ve been looking forward to for so long that I feel like I’m going to burst. I can’t even tell the others on Kotaku about this one. Nrrghghghghhhhhhh. I’ve only just started it, so don’t know yet if it will have been worth the wait, but you can bet your bottom I’ll be playing it every child-free opportunity over the weekend to find out.

Like I said, yeah, this is the worst humblebragging bullshit, and I get it. I’m the asshole. But also, if you knew what it was you’d be so jealous. — John Walker

(Dungeons of Hinterberg is available on Xbox Series X/S and Windows)

Play it on: PS2, Xbox 360, Windows (Steam Deck N/A)
Current goal: Take a break from the Final Fantasy XIV grind by enjoying a different, older, MMO grind

It shouldn’t be shocking to regular Kotaku Weekend Guide readers that I’m going to be playing a Final Fantasy MMO this weekend, but it might surprise you that this time it’s Final Fantasy 11. Sure, I’ve been running through Final Fantasy 14 for the past month-and-a-half at this point, slowly catching up to the recently released Dawntrail, but it’s time for something different. FF11 first released in 2002, and has been steadily getting updates ever since. At the start of this year, egged on by a great deal in the Steam winter sale, I purchased FF11 and dove in. My first foray into the dated MMO was spent struggling through the game’s frustrating set-up, but I did eventually figure it out and start exploring the world with a friend. I declared that 2024 would be the year of FF11, at least for me.

In the months since I created my character, the constant itch to play FF11 has remained. That has only been enhanced by my time with FF14, which is a sleeker and more approachable MMO, but one that lacks the particular old-school charm of its online predecessor. Final Fantasy 11’s world of Vana’diel has a unique friction to it, something rooted in a more adversarial relationship with the player. Die too much and you can lose levels; enemies often drop loot in password protected chests you need to solve or watch disappear; and NPC party members must be recruited one-by-one through special missions. It makes every step of progress feel hard-earned in a way that I find extremely satisfying. The experience has been made easier in the two decades since the game’s original release (like the addition of the NPC party members), and there are plenty of helpful beginner’s guides out there. It would be perfect timing for any FF14 players, since Dawntrail’s Alliance Raids will be an homage to Vana’diel. — Willa Rowe

Play it on: Switch
Buy it from: Best Buy | GameStop
Current goal: Prove I’m the best around, and nothing’s gonna ever keep me down

In my NES-playing youth, it was common for me to make up my own challenges to tackle after I’d mastered a game the “normal” way. Can I beat Mega Man 2 mostly just using the Buster? Can I beat Super Mario Bros. without relying on mushrooms or other power-ups? Things like that. And I know I’m not the only one. In talking to others over the years, I’ve learned it was quite common for kids to devise challenges that gave us new goals to shoot for and lent new replay value to NES games we’d otherwise mastered. Now, Nintendo has put out its own collection of time-based challenges for its own first-party NES games (sorry, Mega Man 2), and I’ll be spending a fair chunk of this weekend seeing if I’ve still got the stuff.

Weirdly, despite being called Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition (emphasis on “World Championships”), apparently there aren’t leaderboards for its many challenges, so you can’t actually compete directly with your friends or the wider world. (There is one weekly challenge everyone can participate in which is ranked, but, for now at least, that’s it.) This is an absolutely puzzling decision to me, albeit one that seems par for the course for Nintendo, which historically seems to struggle with implementing online features in a smart, player-friendly way. All week, as I’ve been anticipating this game, I’ve been thinking back on how the Xbox 360 era of Xbox Live was a golden age for leaderboard competition and online activity. It was a time when I gleefully invested hours in playing Pac-Man CE or Geometry Wars in an effort to surpass my friends on the high score charts, and I’d hoped this game might rekindle some of that competitive enthusiasm in me, but for NES games. It seems that’s not to be.

Still, I’m keeping an open mind. I love many of the games featured here—Metroid, Zelda II, Donkey Kong—and even those I don’t love (like Ice Climber) I think could be the stuff of entertaining one-off challenges, so I’m eager to jump in and see just what sorts of tests of skill Nintendo has devised. Perhaps my friends and I will just have to resort to sharing our best times in a group chat or something, which won’t be nearly as cool or seamless as doing so via an in-game leaderboard, but I’ll take what I can get. And I’m already thinking about how that NES Edition in the name implies that this may be the first of many. Nintendo, please, for the sake of all that is good and holy in this world, add proper leaderboards by the time you get around to making the SNES edition. Please! — Carolyn Petit

Play it on: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Windows (Steam Deck OK)
Buy it from: Best Buy | Humble Bundle
Current goal: Get the Platinum trophy

If this were the PS2-era, Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess would be one of those games that would have come out, been mostly ignored, and then disappeared only to live on in the memories of people who raved about it to anyone who would listen. Hell, it might never have gotten localized at all. But it’s 2024, and everyone will get a chance to give Path of the Goddess a try, and they should. Capcom’s mashup of tower defense and old-school arcade action games is dressed up in Japanese folklore with a vibrant art style and incredible soundtrack. It’s fun, meaty, and doesn’t try to do more than it can. It’s a refreshing departure from games that put big-budget presentation over compelling gameplay and pile on needless systems to pad out play time.

You play as a warrior named Soh, tasked with escorting a maiden down a mountain so she can purge the evil spirits that have infested it. You train villagers to take on specific roles, and then order them around the battlefield to fight off hordes of demons until the sun comes up. Between missions, you rebuild the villages you encounter to unlock new abilities, classes, and equipment. It’s a solid formula that sings thanks to crisp combat and attention to every little detail from the development team. You can feel the love, care, and creativity in even the smallest elements, especially the UI which is masterfully incorporated into the overall presentation. There are flaws and tedious parts to be sure, but for a $50 game (it’s also on Game Pass), Path of the Goddess nails everything it needs to do and more. — Ethan Gach

And that wraps our picks for the weekend. Stay safe out there, friends!