Assassin’s Creed Shadows and the other new games out this week

The new game releases this week may look a little familiar, but all of them attempt to push their genres or series in new directions. We’ve got a dark game about a plague outbreak where you’re finally a certified doctor instead of someone taking up the job out of necessity; a 33-player action game with large-scale battles that resemble raid fights in an MMO; and a baseball game with — wait for it — a roguelike board game mode.

Oh, and there’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows at the end of the week, with a story set in feudal Japan and a whole base-building system. But that will come after Pathologic 3, which starts the week off with another macabre story of death and decay. Then there’s 33 Immortals, a game where you join up with a whole legion of players trying to survive against hordes of monsters. MLB The Show 25 promises a bunch of new additions to the series, including that roguelike board game mode. And if sports aren’t for you, Reignbreaker is a game that mixes medieval weaponry with a bit of cyberpunk. It argues that your everyday javelins haven’t gone far enough and introduces “motorized” javelins that explode and launch across the screen like a bullet.

Here are our most anticipated game releases for the week of March 17.