"What truly sets DarkSwitch apart is how it rethinks the core act of planning and building your city."

At first glance, DarkSwitch invites obvious comparisons with another narrative-centric city builder, Frostpunk. You have to plan your city’s build around a large, circular structure, make tough decisions across various aspects like research and resource priorities, and there’s even a hostile, seemingly natural phenomenon that contributes to an ever-growing “fear” meter that, when maxed out, essentially means game over.

What truly sets DarkSwitch apart is how it rethinks the core act of planning and building your city. The entire game revolves around building a settlement on and around the trunk of a massive tree. This means that, along with the 2D layout of the ground, you also get to play around with the Z-axis when figuring out where to put important buildings or how to plan your citizens’ daily commutes.

While it may sound like little more than a gimmick at first, just about every aspect of not only the core gameplay, but also the visuals and narrative of DarkSwitch revolve around this simple fact.

"The entire game revolves around building a settlement on and around the trunk of a massive tree."

When it comes to the second-to-second gameplay, things start off quite hectic. You begin with several homeless citizens in your settlement, and you need to figure out how you can feed them, house them, and put them to work. While the first two are simple enough, send them to forage for some raw food and set up a cooking house to turn it into more nutritious rations, that third one is where things get more complicated.

You have three types of citizens: laborers, scouts, and artisans. While seemingly interchangeable, just about every task benefits from careful micromanagement over who is assigned where. A fishing hut, for example, gets a productivity boost from laborers, and a penalty from artisans. Guard towers, on the other hand, benefit more from scouts than laborers. Just about every building and task has nuances like this that you’ll need to keep an eye on, especially since the harsh world of DarkSwitch also causes your available worker pool to fluctuate regularly.

After you’ve set up your core settlements, however, the general pace of DarkSwitch slows down quite a bit. You’re going to spend a lot more time waiting for resources to be gathered and processed or buildings to be built at this stage, and while this might sound like a drag to some players, I found it to be a fun break from a pace that would otherwise be too manic.

You finally get a chance to admire your planning along the tree trunk, after all. And make no mistake; while you won’t be doing too much in the mid-game, the tension never eases. Just as you start feeling a bit comfortable about your city, the game will start throwing new obstacles your way, be it the ever-encroaching magical fog, or a group of zealous templars looking to stamp out any form of resistance that might be hiding in your city.

DarkSwitch’s story has quite a bit going on. The world has been enshrouded by a fog that seems to have the magical ability to turn those caught in it insane. While the daytime seems to be quite safe, during the night, the fog tends to creep ever closer to human settlements.

If that weren’t problematic enough, there’s also a group of templars that seems to derive quite a bit of pleasure in “interrogating” regular citizens under the guise of investigating potential resistance. In the midst of all of this, you are tasked by the Archon to conduct some very important research, largely about the nature of the fog, in secret.

"After you’ve set up your core settlements, however, the general pace of DarkSwitch slows down quite a bit."

The first few hours of the story largely revolve around teaching you how to play DarkSwitch. Unfortunately, this tutorialization is also where the game’s flaws start becoming evident.

Rather than presenting players with objectives and gently guiding them by highlighting key UI elements, DarkSwitch instead stops you from doing anything and forces you to read a few back-to-back walls of text that will “helpfully” explain why you should, say, build housing to cure the homelessness crisis, or the importance of medical care centers around your city. While I have no problems with a game that wants to teach me how to play it, there has to be a better way to handle this than outright interrupting the player.

This issue persists for much of the game, since you’re also gradually unlocking brand new mechanics as you get deeper into the story. It gets especially frustrating when you start getting multiple quests to complete. For example, I was once planning out a lineup of Flameguard towers to make sure that the citizens I have working on the ground level don’t get engulfed by the fog during the dead of night. Right as I was about to put some of the buildings down, the game was interrupted by a tutorial message explaining how to scavenge discarded metal.

The building systems aren’t flawless either, but their issues are a bit more understandable. Since you are building your city around a massive tree and its surrounding areas, you often have to make decisions about whether the buildings you’re putting down should be on the ground, directly on the trunk, or on platforms built across the trunk.

Some buildings can only be built in one or two of these spots. While the choice is often easy, and you’ve likely decided on the ideal spot for, say, a new kitchen, well before actually clicking on the button, there’s extra friction because the game keeps trying to ‘intelligently’ guess where I want to place a building. A simple toggle for buildings that can be placed on multiple spots would have helped in this regard.

"The building systems aren’t flawless either, but their issues are a bit more understandable"

Interestingly, despite the complexity added to typical city-building gameplay by the existence of a vertical axis, the camera never really gave me too much trouble. You get two distinct camera modes that you can switch between at will, one that keeps the tree in the center and lets you navigate around it, and another that will feel more familiar to genre veterans, which lets you navigate in a more freeform way by using the WASD key cluster along with Q and E for rotation.

The visuals in DarkSwitch are also quite incredible, with its stylized take on the fantasy genre being a pleasure to look at. Seeing your citizens running around while they try to complete their tasks can often feel downright joyful despite the game’s generally dark fantasy setting. Of course, the fact that performance was stable certainly helped matters.

On a PC running on an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU, a Radeon RX 7800 XT GPU, and 32 GB of RAM, I experienced essentially no slowdowns or hitches, with the frame rate holding steady at 60 FPS. Similarly, the moody audio soundscapes and music are also phenomenal, which should come as no surprise since it was handled by legendary Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka.

Thanks to its narrative focus and strong mission pacing, DarkSwitch does an excellent job of alternating between tense survival-driven stretches and quieter moments where you can appreciate the city you’ve built. Its tutorial interruptions and occasional building friction hold it back, but this is still an easy recommendation for city-builder fans and a strong one for newcomers willing to learn its systems.

This game was reviewed on PC.

Samson: A Tyndalston Story

Growing up is never easy, yet there’s a bittersweet feeling in returning to your childhood town, older and wiser. Not for Samson, though. His goal in Tyndalston is to pay off a debt that increases each day. Time is money, literally – you have limited hours to choose different jobs, whether it’s a getaway driver for a bank job or tuning up some local thugs. With a combat system that’s more about fighting dirty and vehicular mayhem that would make Mad Max proud, Samson promises a lot for its $25 price when it launches on April 8th.

DarkSwitch

Think Against the Storm, but expanding vertically – that somewhat explains Cyber Temple’s DarkSwitch. With a giant tree as your base and a malevolent fog slowly creeping in, you need to build, construct defenses and sometimes venture into the unknown to survive. It probably isn’t a coincidence that Akira Yamaoka is composing the soundtrack, probably hearing the word “fog” and asking nothing more. But with a full-fledged story mode that promises over 20 hours of thrills, DarkSwitch could end up a dark horse when it launches on April 9th.

Replaced

AI trapped in a human’s body, an alternative United States under the thrall of megacorporations, post-nuclear panic – all of this and more await in Replaced, Sad Cat Studios’ long-in-development cinematic platformer, which launches on April 14th. It also features stunning 2.5D graphics and a Free Flow combat system akin to Rocksteady’s Batman: Arkham franchise. Over its eight-hour runtime (11 to 12 if you stay and smell what’s left of the roses), there’s a harrowing, unpredictable experience with more than its fair share of bleak commentary on the world as we know it.

Starfield (PS5) and Terran Armada

Bethesda’s new – and not at all controversial – IP is finally coming to PS5 on April 7th alongside the latest story DLC, Terran Armada. At $49.99 for the base game ($10 for the new DLC), it’s the best time for PlayStation players to explore the Settled Systems, especially with the Free Lanes update. Besides expanding on space travel, it introduces new companions, outpost improvements, new points of interest, more upgrade systems, and more. Meanwhile, Terran Armada promises a more interesting story, its own exclusive Incursions, new ships, and even an HK-47-style companion in Delta.

Regions of Ruin: Runegate

As intriguing as the pixel art style and sheer number of systems could be, I never expected 2018’s Regions of Ruin to get a sequel. Runegate is out on April 14th and follows pretty much the same premise – venturing out into a ruined world, helping your Dwarven brethren, obtaining resources, and ultimately, establishing a place to call home. With more varied locations, sleeker visuals and much more to do, it promises to be the definitive Regions of Ruin experience.

Road to Vostok (Early Access)

If you can’t wait for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2’s first story DLC to hit this Summer, Road to Vostok may tide you over. Entering early access on April 7th, it tasks players with exploring the post-apocalyptic areas between Finland and Russia, ultimately culminating in Vostok. You’ll need to loot supplies and build a formidable arsenal, dealing with changing seasons, rough weather, bandits, and even the military, with death in Vostok causing you to lose everything. It’s a ways off from full release, but those looking for another challenging survival FPS may find it worthwhile.

Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred

Vessel of Hatred was a steaming hot pile of whatever, but Lord of Hatred, Diablo 4’s next expansion, looks more promising. Available on April 28th, it sees the world in peril once more because Mephisto. You’ll likely be the one to lay the smackdown on him after venturing to Skovos, a scintillating new region full of new points of interest and plenty of demons to scour. Two new classes, the Paladin and Warlock, bring even more unique playstyles and build variety than before, while Blizzard is reworking the Skill Tree, bringing back the Horadric Cube, and more. Maybe this will be the release that finally elevates Diablo 4 to the next level. We can only hope.

MOUSE: P.I. For Hire

What if you combine the rubber-hose animation of Cuphead with boomer-shooter-like gameplay? You get MOUSE: P.I. For Hire, a hard-boiled noir adventure focused on Jack Prepper, as he investigates a missing persons case and ends up discovering more than he bargained for. The slick hand-drawn animation is undoubtedly the appeal, as it brings Mouseburg to life in astonishing detail. Of course, this is a shooter as well, with weapons ranging from the grounded – pistols, shotguns, machine guns – to the wacky like freeze rays, corrosive turpentine and more. It’s out on April 16th and promises 12 to 20 hours of gameplay for $30.

Pragmata

Moon’s haunted, but instead of ghosts, there are homicidal robots out to get you. Launching on April 17th, Pragmata isn’t a Resident Evil-style survival horror – it’s the journey of Hugh, investigating a lunar base after lost contact and becoming swept up in the robot uprising. Together with the android Diana, he seeks a way out, providing the firepower while she hacks through an enemy’s defenses. The twist is that you have to do both simultaneously, creating a mix of puzzle-solving and tense shooting. It’s unlike anything we’ve seen before, and after the demo, we only want more.

Saros

Death is only the first step in Housemarque’s latest, and protagonist Arjun Devraj has miles to go before he can sleep. Investigating Carcosa for any sign of previous Soltari expeditions, he and his crew are caught up in the Eclipse, which twists the planet’s surface, culminating in the sun’s death. And yet, death won’t let them escape. Cue close encounters with tentacled monstrosities, discovering new weapons and clues that could help. And while Saros leans much further into rogue-lite progression than Returnal, it’s also expanded on the bullet dodging with a new shield that lets you absorb some damage and send it back with a vengeance. Saros arrives on April 30th, and even if you haven’t played its predecessor, it’s looking like another killer PS5 exclusive.

Invincible VS

Seemingly addressing the lack of 3v3 fighters, Quarter Up’s take on the brutal superhero epic packs 18 playable characters – including favorites such as Invincible, Omni-Man, BattleBeast, and of course, Conquest. And if the prospect of different classes, active and counter tags, and rollback netcode for online play doesn’t interest you, there’s a story mode to experience every bloody skirmish. It’s available on April 30th for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC.

Spark in the Dark (Early Access)

As typical of a dungeon crawler as Stellar Fish’s latest title appears, there’s an inherent charm and grittiness to Spark in the Dark. Maybe it’s the isometric perspective or more methodical pacing, coupled with how inherently dark the endless Dungeon appears (which makes it all the more scary when monsters show up). It’s available on April 7th via early access and only includes the initial tiers of the Dungeon, but we’re keen on plundering its depths.

MotoGP 26

Credit where it’s due to Milestone, as this will be its third consecutive racing game in three months. MotoGP 26 is all about the thrill of competitive bike racing at the highest level, although you can opt between Arcade and Pro Experiences to determine the difficulty. With an in-depth career mode, cross-play between all platforms (Nintendo not included, sadly), and new disciplines like Minibikes, Flat Tracks, Production Bikes, and more, this could be the series’ most feature-packed entry yet.

WILL: Follow the Light

Cropping up more than once during Steam Next Fest and impressing with its visuals, WILL: Follow the Light is a hard-hitting adventure focused on a seemingly simple goal: Returning home. It’s far from easy, however, as Will must brave islands, mountains and even the sea to reach his hometown and save his son. Puzzles and environmental storytelling abound, but it’s all about the atmosphere and how deep you’ll go to learn the truth. WILL: Follow the Light launches on April 28th for PC.

Kiln

Listen, I’m not saying this is exactly what I expected from Double Fine, which has delivered some of the finest platforms to date. But Kiln is…curious in a way that fits the developer’s profile. After all, what other multiplayer title invites you to become a pot, finely sculpted by your hands and scuttling off into an arena for some ceramic destruction? The fact that a pot’s design influences its playstyle is even more intriguing. Whether it figuratively blows up or not, Kiln is out on April 23rd for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC.