The 25 Biggest Video Games Coming in Fall 2015

You may want to safeguard your bank accounts. Fall 2015 is shaping up to be a blockbuster season, even if the lion’s share of this year’s most intriguing releases are sequels. Here are the biggest games coming for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Wii U and Nintendo 3DS this fall.

SOMA

You’re inside an underwater research facility, overrun by you’ll-just-have-to-see-for-yourself, spawned from the minds of the studio that gave us one of the scariest games about not confronting monsters in the history of our medium.

PC, Linux, Mac, PlayStation 4

September 22

Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer

Take the manage-a-town vibe of the Animal Crossing series and dial it back to architecting just the homes, and you get Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer, like a cutesier version of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.

September 25

3DS

LEGO Dimensions

Batman meets Scooby-Doo meets Gandalf meets The Simpsons times at least 10 other franchises (including Doctor Who, Back to the Future and Ghostbusters) in this madcap Lego-verse mashup.

PlayStation 3 and 4, Wii U, Xbox 360 and One

September 27

Rock Band 4

The pretend-you’re-in-a-band party game returns, this time spotlighting a freestyle mode that lets guitarists (though alas, only guitarists) jam on their plastic axe’s stringless fretboard, scoring higher if their improvised licks dovetails with harmonic and rhythmic cues.

Playstation 4, Xbox One

October 6

Transformers: Devastation

After decades of other studios squandering opportunities to make a great Transformers game, Platinum Games (MadWorld, Bayonetta, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance) may finally be onto something with this beat-em-up take on Hasbro’s revered franchise.

PC, PlayStation 3 and 4, Xbox 360 and One

October 6

Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree’s Woe and the Blight Below

Square Enix’s Dragon Quest roleplaying series gets a hack-and-slash makeover (and tongue-twisting moniker) courtesy the studio behind Koei Tecmo’s Dynasty Warriors.

PlayStation 3 and 4

October 13

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Hearts of Stone

10 gazillion hours wasn’t enough to spend in CD Projekt Red’s colossal tromp through an otherworldly realm plucked from Polish folklore? Hearts of Stone should add another dozen to the mix.

PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

October 13

Yoshi’s Woolly World

Isn’t yarn-Yoshi just the cutest thing since Pikachu? Nintendo certainly hopes you agree, allowing a string-ified version of Mario’s enemy swallowing dino buddy to flutter-jump through a side-scrolling world designed by the studio that brought us Kirby’s Epic Yarn.

Wii U

October 16

Guitar Hero Live

The fall’s other be-a-rock-star shoe drops mid-October, in this case rethinking the medium’s control scheme by introducing a 6-button plastic guitar alongside full-motion video of filmed concertgoers whose reactions change in response to your performance.

iOS, PlayStation 3 and 4, Wii U, Xbox 360 and One

October 20

Tales of Zestiria

The 15th installment in the popular roleplaying Tales series cranks out another grand fantasy yarn, shifts to an open world format and adds a few new wrinkles to the longstanding realtime combat system, including topography that impacts your battle tactics.

PC, PlayStation 3 and 4

October 20

Assassin’s Creed Syndicate

After the mess Unity made of Ubisoft’s annualized franchise last year, Syndicate has some serious bridge-rebuilding to do with fans hoping its romp through Victorian London playing as either Jacob or Evie Frye won’t disappoint.

Playstation 4, Xbox One

October 23

The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes

Nintendo’s newest Legend of Zelda game is a handheld dungeon-delver focused on cooperative play, so while solo play’s supported with a robo-companion, the game’s primary mode requires three discrete 3DS gamers to explore.

3DS

October 23

Halo 5: Guardians

We know surprisingly little about Halo 5: Guardians‘ carefully concealed campaign, which pits series paragon Master Chief against edgy newcomer Spartan Lock (with support for four-player online co-op) in a perspective rethink that could upend the Halo-verse mythology.

Xbox One

October 27

Need for Speed

Sleek cars and self-absorption go hand-in-glove in EA’s stab at a Need for Speed franchise reboot, plugging wannabe gangsta-Andrettis into a massive open world playground with event-focused roleplaying elements.

PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

November 3

Call of Duty: Black Ops III

Continuing its sci-fi march forward, Call of Duty: Black Ops III transpires in 2065, 40 years after Black Ops II and 11 after last year’s Advanced Warfare, this time playing off the idea of battle zones teeming with cybernetic super-soldiers.

PC, PlayStation 3 and 4, Xbox 360 and One

November 6

Yo-Kai Watch

If Yo-Kai Watch looks like a Pokémon clone, with its collectible critter-concealing spheres and player-partnered skirmishes, that’s because it is, though it inverts some of Pokémon’s tropes, like presenting the Japanese folklore-inspired Yo-Kai as gremlins, and making battles realtime instead of turn-based.

3DS

November 6

Fallout 4

In the war to eliminate our ability to play more than just one game a year, post-apocalyptic roleplaying free time vortex Fallout 4 has several legs up, including over 700 weapon mods and the option to build (and tear down) entire settlements from scratch.

PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

November 10

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Original franchise developer Crystal Dynamics’ 2013 Lara Croft rethink was both improbably and incredibly well-executed, and the sequel looks to continue that course correction, this time letting players explore the mythic Siberian city of Kitezh.

Xbox One

November 10

StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void

Blizzard’s strung out StarCraft II trilogy–it launched half a decade ago!–finally concludes this fall, shifting the focus to the alien Protoss in a real-time strategy battle to thwart another wickedest-thing-you’ve-seen-yet Blizzard villain.

PC

November 10

Star Wars Battlefront

It may not be open world, story-driven Star Wars game fans wanted, but Star Wars Battlefront has plenty going for it, including Endor, Hoth, Tatooine, Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, Boba Fett and cooperative battles you can play either offline (with bots) or online with friends.

PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

November 17

Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon

Play as a Pokémon (as opposed to a Pokémon’s human trainer) in the second 3DS installment of the Super Mystery Dungeon series, exploring randomly generated levels to–what else?–save the world.

3DS

November 20

Bloodborne: The Old Hunters

The Old Hunters will be hack-and-slash Bloodborne‘s only expansion, replete with new areas, outfits, enemies, weapons and magical abilities–and that’s frankly just fine, given how adroitly demanding From Software’s masterpiece is already.

PlayStation 4

November 24

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege

Rainbow Six Siege has seven years of anticipation to indulge, but early reception’s been positive, so if you’re looking for a first-person, team-driven tactical shooter, keep an eye on this one.

PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

December 1

Just Cause 3

Everything developer Avalanche Studios touches scales ridiculously big, and Just Cause 3 looks like the grandest yet, with over 400 square miles of dictator-ruled turf it’s your job to liberate, one gonzo-destructive stunt after another.

PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

December 1

Xenoblade Chronicles X

Xenoblade Chronicles X marks studio Monolith’s sixth Xeno-series roleplaying game, here a standalone science fantasy open-world framed by a refined version of the superb roleplaying system introduced in 2012’s superlative Xenoblade Chronicles for the Wii.

Wii U

December 4