When it comes to big-budget AAA games, October looks like it will be one of the most densely packed months of the year. We’re getting new entries in beloved series like Dragon Age, Super Mario Party, Call of Duty, and more as well as remakes of games like Silent Hill 2. In between those games, we also have experimental indies and bold new IPs from lauded game developers, including Metaphor: ReFantazio. Some of the most notable games of 2024 will be coming out this month, so there’s almost certainly going to be something that appeals to you out this October.
There’s actually so much coming out that you might have some trouble sifting through it all and determining what you want to pick up. To help, I’ve rounded up what I consider the eight biggest video game launches of the month, which everyone should have on their radar. On top of that, I have a comprehensive rundown of everything else to expect through this packed month of games.
Recommended if you like: Resident Evil 4 (2024)
Konami’s Silent Hill 2 is an all-time video game horror classic, setting a high bar for narrative, world-building, and mind-bending visuals that almost every horror game since has tried to live up to. After laying the series to rest for years following the cancellation of Hideo Kojima’s Silent Hills, Konami is making a concerted push to bring the series back. The linchpin in all of this is a Silent Hill 2 remake from Bloober Team, the developer behind horror games like The Medium. It follows in the footsteps of the remakes of horror classics like Alone in the Dark and Resident Evil 4, turning the eerie adventure into a contemporary third-person action-horror game while reimagining some narrative elements. It’s the horror game to play this October.
Silent Hill 2 will be released for PC and PS5 on October 8.
Recommended if you like: Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2
Back in the PS2 console generation, the Dragon Ball Budokai Tenkaichi series of 3D brawlers were some of the best anime games out there. These fighters captured the bombastic action of the popular shonen manga and anime and the utterly destructive powers of its characters. Bandai Namco Entertainment is finally bringing the series back with Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero. This fighter will feature a whopping 182 fighters to play as at release, a story mode that lets you reshape the tale of Dragon Ball Z, and a mode that lets players create their own battles and cutscenes. If you’re a Dragon Ball fan, this is looking like the ultimate game for the franchise.
Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero launches for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S on October 11.
Recommended if you like: Persona 5 Royal
After directing the last three Persona video games, Katsura Hashino wanted to create something new. Hashino formed the Studio Zero team under Atlas, and its first game is launching this month. The end result is Metaphor: ReFantazio, a turn-based RPG that swaps the high school drama and demons of Persona for more a traditional medieval fantasy. It’s far from typical in its presentation, though, as Metaphor: ReFantazio oozes with style. It’s always exciting when developers can branch out and try something new and not just work on the same franchise over and over again.
Metaphor: ReFantazio will be released for PC, PS4, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S on October 11.
Recommended if you like: Pummel Party
The Mario Party series has gotten a new game every few years since it began on the Nintendo 64 era. Super Mario Party Jamboree feels like a culmination of sorts for the franchise as it combines the more experimental nature of games like Super Mario Party and the throwback nature of Mario Party Superstars in one package. It features five new game boards that are wildly different from each other, a big cast of characters that includes newcomers like Pauline, and more wacky side modes to play with others. The Mario Party series is the king of party games, and I doubt Super Mario Party Jamboree will do anything disastrous enough to change that.
Super Mario Party Jamboree launches exclusively for Nintendo Switch on October 17.
Recommended if you like: Iron Man VR
Camouflaj proved it could translate the superhero experience to virtual reality with Iron Man VR, and now it’s giving Batman the same treatment. Better yet, it’s technically the next entry in the Batman: Arkham series, which was started by Rocksteady. While VR games aren’t for everyone, Batman: Arkham Shadow looks like it will be a very faithful and intricate conversion of the Arkham series’ gameplay to VR. I’ll also appreciate the more Batman-focused narrative in the wake of some of the wild swings Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League’s story took earlier this year. If you own a Meta Quest headset, it seems like Batman: Arkham Shadow will be a must-buy.
Batman: Arkham Shadow launches for Meta Quest 3 and 3S on October 22. If you buy one of those headsets between now and April 30, 2025, you can redeem a copy of Batman: Arkham Shadow for free.
Recommended if you like: Battlefield 2042
For 2024’s Call of Duty, Treyarch and Activision are returning the Black Ops series. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will continue the story set up in Black Ops Cold War, with a focus on spies and espionage in the 1990s. Of course, it will also feature the multiplayer and zombies modes that are standard with every new Call of Duty game. The biggest change is Omnimovement, which gives players more freedom to move and dive in any direction while they are shooting. While Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III felt underbaked, Black Ops 6 is shaping up to be a much more comprehensive package.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 launches for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on October 25. It will also be available through Xbox Game Pass on day one.
Recommend if you like: Tell Me Why
While Don’t Nod has moved on from the Life is Strange series and is now making Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, Deck Nine is working with Square Enix to continue the series with Life is Strange: Double Exposure. This game is a follow-up to the first Life is Strange as it follows Max Caufield years after the events of the game that kicked this series off. She now works at a college called Caledon University, but after one of her friends is murdered, she discovers that she now has the power to shift between parallel timelines. As she solves this mystery, players will have to make a lot of different choices that will have massive impacts on the narrative. Hopefully, Double Exposure lives up to the high bar previous Life is Strange games set.
Life is Strange: Double Exposure will come out for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S on October 29. It will also be ported to Nintendo Switch at a later date.
Recommended if you like: Baldur’s Gate 3
It has been nearly a decade since the last Dragon Age game, but BioWare and EA are finally reviving the series this October. Dragon Age: The Veilguard continues the story that began in Dragon Age: Inquisition, as players assemble the titular fighting force to take on Solas, a companion from Inquisition who has gone evil and is trying to tear open the Veil that protects Thedas. Expect a choice-heavy RPG with more fast-paced, real-time combat than previous games in the series. As this is following the rocky launches of Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem, BioWare really needs to redeem itself with The Veilguard if it wants to restore player faith in it as a premier RPG developer.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard launches for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S on October 31.
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.