20 Video Games We Can’t Wait To Play This Spring

Here’s a look at some of the biggest games for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, the Nintendo Switch and 3DS due out this spring.

MLB The Show 17

Sony has this centuries-old sport pretty much locked up with its annual The Show installments. This year’s upgrade sheet includes improved ball physics: the ball now caroms off accurately modeled (and curving) bats, as opposed to prior versions, in which the bat was essentially a “wall.”

Buy now: PlayStation 4

March 28

Thimbleweed Park

Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick return to the genre they helped pioneer with a crowdfunded point-and-click adventure, this time staged in the weird and wooly town of Thimbleweed Park on the heels of a murder.

PC, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

March 30

Drawn to Death

Drawn to Death is what you might get if a visually sophisticated high schooler doodler’s notebook scribblings fell into a 3D modeling tool, then popped out as a carnage-filled, arena-style, four-player shooter.

PlayStation 4

April 4

Persona 5

Studio/publisher Atlus’ dark surrealist social sim turns six (Persona 2 was a duology), once more serving up a troupe of conflicted high schoolers who can project Jungian “personas” to do battle with everything from supernatural villains to their own insecurities and foibles.

Buy now: PlayStation 4

April 4

Yooka-Laylee

Rare’s colorful Super Mario 64 ante-up Banjo-Kazooie gets a spiritual sequel by way of several former Rare employees, here starring a chameleon named Yooka with a bat named Layle for its buddy 3D platforming hijinks.

Buy now: PlayStation 4, Xbox One Linux, PC, Mac

April 11

The Sexy Brutale

A priest in an English mansion that’s been turned into a surreal casino must live the same day repeatedly to solve a series of murder mysteries—and perhaps unearth what’s really going on in the process.

Pre-order now: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

April 12

Pinstripe

The studio’s name dropping—influences from The Nightmare Before Christmas to Neil Gaiman and Lewis Carroll—should be enough to draw anyone’s attention to this side-scrolling adventure that transpires in the netherworld.

PC

April 25

Syberia 3

It’s been 13 years since designer Benoît Sokal’s steampunk adventure-puzzler graced PCs, the PlayStation 2 and Microsoft’s original Xbox. This crowdfunded three-quel, still led by Sokal, continues protagonist Kate Walker’s saga as she encounters a nomadic group of people after leaving the game’s eponymous Russian island in the last game.

Pre-order now: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, Mac, iOS, Android

April 25

What Remains of Edith Finch

Players explore a house in Washington State as Edith Finch, encountering the stories of her cursed family across the span of a century. Each tale ends with a family member’s death, posing the implicit question: Why is Edith the last Finch standing?

PC, PlayStation 4

April 25

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III

Relic’s Dawn of War II was an exemplar approach to Games Workshop’s science fantasy dystopia in 2009, and so anticipation is doubtless sky-high for the studio’s circling back to the series (after dallying with a Warhammer 40,000 shooter and Company of Heroes 2), as well as Dawn of War III‘s reintroduction of base building.

Pre-order now: PC

April 27

Little Nightmares

A 9-year-old girl winds up enslaved in a BioShock-like underwater-verse. It’s a puzzle-platformer by Tarsier Studios, the Swedish indie that partnered with studio Media Molecule on various LittleBigPlanet spinoffs, as well as Tearaway and Tearaway Unfolded.

Pre-order now: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

April 28

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

Nintendo’s magisterial Wii U kart-racer comes to the Switch with a visual polish that has it running at 1080p and 60 frames per second. The Deluxe version incorporates everything the original had, including all the downloadable stuff as well as five new characters, new karts inspired by Nintendo’s Splatoon, the option to hold two items simultaneously, a smart-steering driving option designed to ease in newcomers and a revamped Battle Mode that’s playable both local or online.

Pre-order now: Nintendo Switch

April 28

Prey

Dishonored developer Arkane Studios takes the 2006 original portal-hopping shooter’s name, but apparently nothing else in this full revamp’s seemingly survival horror-themed exploration of a Moon orbital space station overrun with hostile aliens.

Pre-order now: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC

May 5

Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia

The newest entry in Nintendo’s longstanding tactical roleplaying series is a fully reimagined version of the 1992 Japan-only Famicom title Fire Emblem: Gaiden, including full voice acting and animated cutscenes.

Pre-order: Nintendo 3DS

May 19

Disgaea 5 Complete

Yes, it’s just a Switch port of the 2015 game with all the downloadable content baked in, but I can think of few games more finely suited to Nintendo’s totable game system than studio Nippon Ichi Software’s acclaimed tactical roleplaying opus.

Pre-order now: Nintendo Switch

May 23

Impact Winter

Studio Mojo Bones tries its hand at a survival-angled roleplaying game in which you play as the leader of team making do after an asteroid strike conjures an everlasting winter, with one twist: you’ve just received a radio transmission: “In 30 days… Help is coming.”

PC

May 23

Rime

An open world game about a boy trying to escape an island by solving environmental puzzles, Rime may have been overhyped by some in the press as the next Ico or Journey, when in fact it may turn out to be a perfectly solid, beautifully illustrated, straightforward adventure.

Pre-order now: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC

May 26

Star Trek: Bridge Crew

We’ve seen little of this game since its reveal last June, but the idea is that up to four players can clap on virtual reality headsets, then play as captain, tactical officer, engineer or helm officer in the alt-Trek reality J.J. Abrams spawned (circa the 2009 reboot film).

Pre-order: PC, PlayStation 4

May 30

Tekken 7

The Japanese arcade version of Bandai Namco’s Tekken 7 (and ninth installment in the publisher’s iconic fighting series) is approaching two years old, recalling coin-op’s halcyon days, when the arcade versions of a hit game preceded console ports by considerable periods of time.

Pre-order now: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC

June 2

Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood

The second expansion for Square Enix’s revamped online fantasy roleplaying extravaganza (which last year topped six million players) raises the level cap to 70, adds new dungeons, raids, zones, two new jobs (red mage and samurai), and an entire continent devoted to flying mounts, swimming and diving.

Pre-order now: PlayStation 4

June 20