Brain Mold Horror and Card Shop Sims: GameSpot's September Hidden Gems

Summer 2026 was crowded with big releases, from the gore of The Blood of Dawnwalker and Marvel's Wolverine to the tactics of Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave. But GameSpot's staff say the games they kept coming back to this September were often the smaller, stranger ones.

The standout surprise is Dressmaker, a narrative-light job sim where you play an advice-giving modiste. Jessica Cogswell expected a few cozy hours and ended up opening it more than anything else, praising how tactile the design process feels and noting that its big Steam success is well deserved. On the horror side, Phil Hornshaw picked Moldrise, a roughly 90-minute body horror game in which a fungus has reached your brain and is compelling you to climb to your apartment building's roof. Stopping for vending machine snacks, hunting anti-fungal cream and dealing with your unsavory neighbors makes for multiple endings and plenty of panic.

Action fans get two very different options. Onimusha: Way of the Sword earns praise from Darryn Bonthuys for its kinetic, steel-on-steel swordplay and accessibility options that make soulslike-style combat friendlier. Duskfade, meanwhile, slipped under the radar partly because of its Kingdom Hearts lookalike hero and oversized, Keyblade-style sword. Steve Watts says it is really a heartfelt platformer about grief, and the weapon actually represents a clock hand, tying into its theme of cherishing the time you have.

Strategy and franchise picks include Star Wars Zero Company, an XCOM-style tactics game where a Jedi padawan can force-pull enemies out of cover or fling them off the map. Gabe Gurwin, a self-described casual Star Wars fan, could not stop until the credits. Aniimo gets a nod from Cheri Faulkner as a gacha game where optional microtransactions genuinely feel optional, wrapped in a storybook-pretty world.

The rest of the list leans relaxed. Graveyard Keeper 2 blends farming sim, factory automation and tower defense, with undead workers automating your village, and Mark Delaney finds it a great fit for the Steam Deck. Truck-kun Is Supporting Me From Another World mixes a Crazy Taxi-style driving game with an idle RPG, which Chris Pereira found a cathartic break from brain-burning tactics games. Finally, TCG Card Shop Simulator left early access on September 14. Jean-Luc Seipke highlights its human-drawn Tetramon cards and the pack-opening thrill it delivers without the real-world cost.