The whip is cracking again! Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse leads a jam-packed release week featuring a zoo-building game, a survival game, and a boomer shooter.
If you’d planned a few quiet evenings for the second half of October, you might want to rethink that plan. Because this Steam week is so packed that you’d practically have to call in sick starting Tuesday. Big names, long-awaited sequels, a survival hit, and in between, plenty of indie games you won’t want to miss.
As we do every Monday, we’ve rounded up all the major releases for you.
Table of Contents
The Highlight of the Week: Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse
Genre: Metroidvania –Developers: Konami, Evil Empire, Motion Twin –Release: October 15, 2026 (Steam)
Aside from Collections, a Netflix series, and guest appearances, things have been quiet for a long time around Konami’s vampire-hunting saga. This Thursday, the first completely new Castlevania game for PC since 2014’s Lords of Shadow 2 will be released.
The story of Belmont’s Curse is set in Paris in 1499, 23 years after the events of Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse. The city is ablaze, monsters are creeping out of the shadows, and Trevor Belmont is making his way through the streets with his daughter, Rose. You play as Rose, who fights her way through catacombs, alleys, and Dracula’s castle using the holy Vampire Killer whip and other weapons and abilities.
Co-developed by none other than Evil Empire and Motion Twin, the creators of Dead Cells. Only testing will reveal just how much “Dead Cells DNA” is actually in the game—that is, whether you’ll be thinking in terms of runs or exploring a cohesive castle piece by piece.
More Exciting Steam Releases of the Week
Monday, October 12, 2026
- Moonfrost (Early Access): As a Frost Hunter in this cozy life simulation, you transform frozen meteorites into buildings and rebuild a destroyed village, complete with its residents and their stories. Farming, fishing, and cooking are, of course, part of the experience. At launch, about half of the main story is included,
Tuesday, October 13, 2026
- Planet Zoo 2: The zoo-building simulation enters its second round, and this time it’s getting wet and airy: New features include fully aquatic species with freshwater and saltwater aquariums, as well as flying birds in customizable aviaries. You’ll also be hunting your animals in your own wildlife reserves around the globe.
- Deep Dish Dungeon: Alone or in a group of three, you’ll explore a handcrafted dungeon full of puzzles and secrets and cook meals over a campfire for restorative buffs.
- Total War: SHOGUN 2 – Complete Edition: A remastered strategy game based on the 2011 classic, featuring all DLCs, including Rise of the Samurai and Fall of the Samurai. New features include revamped lighting and textures, 64-bit support, 4K scaling, Japanese voice acting, and over 50 new playable factions. Owners of the original game receive a 75 percent discount through November 12; however, older Workshop mods no longer work due to the new Mod.io integration.
- Trash Day: As raccoons, you break out of the animal shelter, steal a handcart, and haul the finest trash across six areas to Raccoon Paradise.
- No Such Place (Early Access): Alone or in a group of four, you’ll loot anomalous zones in this top-down extraction game, craft sometimes absurd weapons using the Gunsmith system, and race to reach the extraction point in time. The first three maps are included at launch.
- Valor Mortis: A first-person soulslike from the creators of Ghostrunner. As a soldier from Napoleon’s army who has returned from the dead, you fight monsters with a blade, a flintlock pistol, and supernatural powers in an alternate 19th-century Europe.
Wednesday, October 14, 2026
- Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2: A retro-style shooter set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, where you take down hordes of Chaos in the style of ’90s shooters and chase the demigod Vashtorr the Arkifane across an entire star system. New features include a second playable character, Sororitas Nyra Veyrath, four Chaos factions, and music by Doom composer Mick Gordon.
- Over the Hill: In classic off-road vehicles from the ’60s to the ’80s, you’ll chug through forests and mountains—alone or with up to three others—and use winches and planks to overcome obstacles. This off-road exploration game from the creators of Art of Rally focuses on discovery rather than setting the fastest times and, according to the developer, is on over 1.2 million wish lists.
- Among the Trolls: As Anna, you search for your missing grandfather in the Finnish forests in this narrative first-person adventure. Along the way, you’ll brave the weather, wild animals, and creatures from Finnish mythology—survival elements included.
Thursday, October 15, 2026
- Enshrouded (1.0): After nearly three years and over five million players, the German survival hit with a voxel-based building system is leaving Early Access. The full version of the co-op action RPG for up to 16 players introduces, among other things, a new biome, new spells, and numerous quality-of-life improvements.
- DayZ Badlands (Expansion): The new expansion for the survival classic sends you to Nasdara, the largest official DayZ map ever: 267 square kilometers of desert with intense heat, water scarcity, and few intact wells. Another new feature is a reconstruction system that lets you repair destroyed buildings.
- Arknights: Endfield: The free-to-play strategy RPG featuring base building and factory automation has been available since January via its own launcher and the Epic Games Store; now it’s finally coming to Steam, coinciding with the new “Sanctuary of Ink” update. Your progress carries over across platforms.
- Chained Beasts: Literally chained together, four of you battle your way through the arena in this co-op gladiator roguelike, hurling opponents into spiked walls and racking up permanent injuries for the next fight.
- Disney/Pixar Toy Story 3 Complete Edition: The 2010 licensed action-adventure game returns as a remaster in 4K and 60 fps, featuring the once-PS3-exclusive content for the first time. The popular Toy Box mode remains at the heart of the game. The retro collection *Toy Story: Retro Roundup!* is also being released on the same day.
- Harvest Moon: Echoes of Teradea: You manage your farm, befriend villagers, and explore a land threatened by fog with your animals, as the Farming series now features an open world. Compared to Winds of Anthos, this installment adds jumping, climbing, sea voyages to remote islands, and ten potential marriage partners.
- The Jackbox Party Pack 12: A party game collection where your phones serve as controllers. This time featuring five new games, including the photo-distortion game Hyperface, the word-association game MegaPals, and the team quiz Idol Factions. As usual, only one person needs to own the game.
Friday, October 16, 2026
- Beyond These Stars: In this sci-fi building strategy game, you build your city on the back of Kewa, an intelligent space whale, manage production chains and planetary outposts, and must protect your whale’s delicate ecosystem.
- Online: 404 (Early Access): In a quarantined neighborhood full of infected people, your most important survival tool is your smartphone, complete with in-game internet, a map, and annoying ads. This open-world survival game can also be played in co-op.
- Tenebris Somnia: You’ll solve puzzles and battle creatures in this 2D survival horror game with a retro pixel art style, inspired by Silent Hill and Resident Evil. At key moments, the game transitions into live-action cutscenes featuring real actors, filmed by an award-winning film crew from Argentina.
- Tales of Eternia Remastered: In this action-JRPG remaster, Reid and his friends once again travel between the worlds of Inferia and Celestia, battling in the fast-paced real-time combat system of the Tales series. A new feature lets you switch between remastered and original graphics at any time. The game will be released on Steam at midnight German time on Thursday night.
Which game will be the first to land in your library this week? And do you think the creators of Dead Cells can deliver a really good Castlevania? Let us know in the comments!
And if there wasn’t anything for you this time: In the video above, we show you all the major releases for the entire month of October, so you’ll already know what to save the rest of your budget for.
