Welcome to September! It may not officially be fall yet, but temperatures are finally getting tolerable and soon enough there’ll be pumpkin spice everything (which I unironically love).
I also love video games (contrary to popular belief), and so my comrades and I here at Kotaku are once again poised to offer up some great suggestions if you’re on the lookout for something to play this weekend. Naturally, we’re gonna talk about Silksong, but there’s also some killer science fiction in this edition of the Weekend Guide. Let’s get to it.
Star Wars Outlaws
Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, Windows PCs (Steam Deck: “Unsupported”)
Current goal: Get Kay Vess to say “Dank farrik!” about 17 more times
I played Outlaws when it first launched a little over a year ago, and I liked it well enough even then. Sure, I sometimes got frustrated with its insta-fail stealth missions, but I also loved the chance to just soak up the vibes in a backwater cantina, or crush my opponents in a game of sabacc. In the time since, the gameplay has seen many refinements and the story has been expanded with a few new chapters, and I’ve been curious to see just how much of an impact these changes would have on my experience. But to get the full effect of these revisions, I decided it would be best to start the game over from the beginning, and if I was going to do that anyway, I figured I might as well wait for the Switch 2 version for maximum comfort and convenience.
You may have seen the reports that emerged last week from PAX West indicating that Outlaws on Switch 2 might be very compromised, but now it’s here and I’m happy to echo many others in saying that it actually runs totally fine and is, if anything, a technical marvel of a port! With this, Cyberpunk 2077, and Street Fighter 6 all wowing me on Nintendo’s handheld, I’m starting to wonder why we’re not seeing way more ports of big games from recent years make the leap. But I’m getting ahead of myself, since I still have plenty of Outlaws left to play before I have to worry about what to play next. I’m too early yet to really say just how much the changes to combat and other aspects of gameplay may have impacted the game overall, but I’m already enjoying nonchalantly leaning on walls in cantinas again and taking in all that grimy Star Wars atmosphere. – Carolyn Petit
Hollow Knight: Silksong
Play it on: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Switch 2, Switch, Windows PCs (Steam Deck: “Verified”)
Current goal: Beat Fourth Chorus
Stop me if you’ve already heard about this game before. It’s a Metroidvania Soulslike about constantly backtracking like you forgot to turn the stove off or lock the door, only the second you leave the house again you get killed and have to go back and collect all your shit a second time. Rinse and repeat for 30-40 hours, overcome some cool boss fights, get introspective about some random aside from a mysterious NPC, and you have the Hollow Knight experience in a nutshell. Based on my first few hours with Silksong, I expect it to be more of the same, but like you’re doing it all for the first time again.
And what could be better than that? How many amazing games are out there that we always wished could have gotten sequels that were the same but different? Chrono Trigger? Earthbound? Bloodborne? There’s something so satisfyingly straightforward about Silksong: here’s more of that thing you loved, without the tedium of replaying what you already know. How fitting for a Metroidvania. The very act of playing Silksong in the first place feels like backtracking! The biggest difference by far is that Hornet can only attack downwards while in the air at a 45 degree angle. I kind of hate it but that’s probably the point. The best games get us out of our comfort zones, even when a big part of their appeal is in returning to the familiar. – Ethan Gach
No Man’s Sky
Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, Windows PCs (Steam Deck: “Verified”)
Current goal: Get me one of those Corvettes
There’s an alternate reality where the only game I play is No Man’s Sky. But this realm of existence, sadly, saddles me with too many competing interests to dedicate all of my time to this wonderful space sim Hello Games has continued to expand over the years. Still, this weekend I will yet again reality-shift to that state of bliss NMS takes me too, as I’m really eager to see how much the recent Voyagers update changes the game.
Read More: No Man’s Sky Fans Are Doing Wild Stuff As The Game Hits A New Peak On Steam
Previous updates have certainly expanded NMS, but having your own ship from which you can skydive or teleport down to the surface changes a core mechanic that’s been at the heart of the game since 2016: managing fuel for your launch thrusters. Being able to just jump down to a planet to gather resources not only changes how you interact with these voxel-based worlds, but no doubt really impacts the entire resource economy in ways I’m eager to discover as well. And of course, I’m very into the ability to build some impressive and creative ships too, like this neat-looking thing that caught my eye on Reddit recently. The VR mode for the game has been tweaked a bit for the better it seems, too, and it’s been a bit too long since I’ve gamed with a headset on, so I’m likely to give that a spin as well. – Claire Jackson
Metal Eden
Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Windows PCs (Steam Deck: Unsupported)
Current goal: Escape the Sand Trap
You might remember Ruiner as the gory top-down cyberpunk shooter about blasting people in the head to bring down a corrupt system. Well, eight years later(!) Reikon Games is back with a first-person cyberpunk shooter about blasting people in the head to bring down a corrupt system. Metal Eden is Ghostrunner meets Doom; a fast-paced, style-over-substance FPS about using spatial reasoning to decode the most efficient way to traverse a level, kill everything in it, and survive a wave-based showdown in a locked arena at the end.
I played and enjoyed the demo earlier this year and recently dipped into the finished game. It’s gotten surprisingly decent reviews that left me excited to see what the back half of the exceedingly brief campaign has to offer. The first couple of chapters feel like waking up into a hyper-violent dream at the end of the universe, light on details but heavy on vibes, more Equilibrium than The Matrix. I hope it can stick the landing, though even if it doesn’t it’s one of 2025’s prettier and more tightly calibrated Doom clones. – Ethan Gach
And that wraps our picks for the weekend! What are you playing?
