This Week in RPGs: Tales of Eternia Returns, Plus Dungeon Crawls and a Witch’s Bakery

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October is doing that thing again where every single week tries to be the biggest week of the year. This one belongs to the RPG shelf: October 11–17 delivers a remastered JRPG classic twenty-six years in the making, a co-op dungeon crawler where dinner is basically a boss fight, a witch running a Parisian bakery, and a vampire-hunting dynasty celebrating its 40th anniversary. Honestly? This might be the most fun lineup of the fall. Let’s dig in.

The headliner: Tales of Eternia Remastered

October 16 worldwide (October 15 in Japan) · PS5, PS4, Nintendo Switch 2, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X|S, PC via Steam

The big one. Bandai Namco’s Tales Remastered Project rolls on — TOSE, the studio that handled Tales of Graces f Remastered, is on this one too — and the pick is a stone-cold classic. Tales of Eternia debuted on the original PlayStation in Japan in November 2000, reached North America in 2001 under the name Tales of Destiny II, and even got a PSP port in Japan in 2005. Now it’s finally on modern platforms, everywhere, all at once.

The story is pure classic Tales: villagers Reid Hershel and Farah Oersted encounter Meredy, a mysterious girl who fell out of the sky, and are joined by their scholarly childhood friend Keele Zeibel. Together they race to stop the Great Fall — a catastrophic collision between the worlds of Inferia and Celestia — armed with elemental spirits called the Greater Craymels. Combat is the Aggressive Linear Motion Battle System: real-time 2D action combat with Arte usage and combo chains, the kind of snappy fighting that made the series a dorm-room legend.

And the remaster checklist is proper, not a fresh coat of paint: graphics mode and SFX mode switching so you can flip between remastered and original visuals and sound, visible map markers, combat speed-up, a Japanese/English voice option, and the opening movie song “Flying” by Garnet Crow. The purist toggle alone tells you this one was made by people who get it.

Deep Dish Dungeon: bring snacks, bring friends

October 13 · Xbox Series X|S, Windows, macOS

RPGFan’s Ben Love described this one as “friendslop” in the vein of Big Walk, and honestly? The shoe fits. Deep Dish Dungeon is a multiplayer-focused dungeon crawler mixed with survival and crafting — and here’s the twist that makes it: gathering ingredients and making food are paramount. The dungeon is hand-crafted, packed with puzzles and secrets, and the combat is deliberately simple and rudimentary; the real game is puzzle-solving and vertical level design.

The interiors are dark, so somebody had better bring a light source, and proximity chat means good communication is the difference between a feast and a funeral. It’s not a traditional RPG — it just borrows the genre’s trappings and its loot-hunting soul. Sometimes that’s exactly what game night needs.

The Witch’s Bakery: the cozy one

October 14 · PS5, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox, Windows via Steam

File this under: instant day-one for the cozy crowd. The Witch’s Bakery is a narrative adventure RPG with visual novel elements — and developer Sunny Lab is upfront that the story and characters take center stage, with shop management playing second fiddle. You play Lunne, a witch who can see into people’s hearts and help them heal through magic — and who also happens to run a Parisian magical bakery.

The hand-drawn art is inspired by (not derivative of) Studio Ghibli, and the opening theme comes from Cécile Corbel, best known for The Secret World of Arrietty soundtrack. Yes, really. It’s also headed to iOS and Android later in October as part of the Crunchyroll Game Vault, so the cozy travels with you.

Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse: the whip passes on

October 15 · PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, Windows

Forty years of Castlevania, and the timing could not be more perfect. Belmont’s Curse is the series’ first 2D metroidvania since 2008’s Order of Ecclesia — eighteen years — and it lands right in the Halloween sweet spot. This time, Trevor Belmont hands the whip to his daughter, Rose Belmont, and development is in the hands of Evil Empire, the Dead Cells studio that already proved its Castlevania bona fides with the Return to Castlevania DLC. We covered the demo when it dropped — this is launch week.

Bonus shelf: Valor Mortis and Enshrouded 1.0

Two quick ones. Valor Mortis (October 13, PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S) is a first-person soulslike from One More Level, the Ghostrunner studio — you play William, a Napoleonic soldier raised from the dead in a plague-ravaged Europe. It’s $39.99 with no pre-orders, which is a refreshingly straightforward way to sell a game. And Enshrouded hits 1.0 on October 15 (PC, PlayStation, Xbox), the survival action RPG graduating from early access. Keep an eye on both.

So what are you playing?

That’s the week: a remastered classic, a co-op kitchen crawl, a witch’s bakery, a Belmont homecoming, and two bonus heavy hitters. Me? I’m starting with Eternia — some of us have been waiting since the PlayStation era to replay it on a modern screen — with The Witch’s Bakery as the palate cleanser between dungeon runs.

If you need more to fill the backlog, last week’s MMO behemoth is still fresh — our Aion 2 launch coverage is here — and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 leaves Game Pass on October 15, so finish that masterpiece before it goes. October’s Game Pass additions have the rest covered — and with the GTA VI countdown officially on, pace yourself.

More from the newsroom: our Belmont’s Curse demo impressions · Aion 2 launch coverage · the GTA VI countdown