Summer doesn’t have to be about spending the day in a badly air conditioned office, then longing the evening and weekend away erring shirtless on a porch cursing the stagnant hot air. Head inside, grab a cold drink, and settle into these five games perfect for fighting the summer heat.
Steep
Nothing quite says winter like a snow sports simulator and Steep is among the best ever developed due to unmatched attention to detail, realistic game play, and rich open-world to explore. It also looks incredible; the stunning vistas of the French Alps and Denali are enough to trigger us into booking advance holidays for next winter. Being a predominantly online experience, you’ll be sure to encounter other like-minded cool weather hunters so you can moan together about the scorching heat outside as you paraglide through ornate valleys and wind swept peaks.
Frostpunk
Frostpunk is about keeping the survivors of a cataclysmic descent into a frozen hell from dying of cold. If the heat is bothering you, this one will flip the dynamic on its head and make you fear the cold, hopefully tricking your mind into ignoring the blazing sun. Hot and cold aside, the game is a brilliant strategy city builder with novel mechanics including the ability to enact laws to sway inhabitants of your colony towards working harder or hardly working, depending on your need and/or benevolence. The thrilling snowy visuals should also remind you of the height of winter in say, Siberia. Nice, cool, Siberia.
Horizon Zero Dawn – The Frozen Wilds
The clue is in the name with this one. Horizon Zero Dawn’s DLC puts Aloy in the depths of a snowy wonderland, if you can consider daemonic robotic creatures intent on bludgeoning to death anything moving in any way wondrous. The Frozen Wilds
The Long Dark
Set in the blisteringly cold wilds of northern Canada, The Long Dark takes players on a thoughtful experience through the trials of staying alive when all mother nature wants is your frozen carcass lying on a thick blanket of snow that seems to stretch on for hundreds of miles. The story is great too and the game play is challenging, yet gratifying. As with Frostpunk, the cold is your enemy here and this should do wonders to help you appreciate the heat a little more. You’ll be complaining it’s too cold in a few months time. Make the most of it.
The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt
Fast travel to the Viking-inspired isles of Skellige and bask in the cooling glory of the snow capped peaks on offer there. Not only are they believably realistic, you can nearly sense the shivers running down Geralt’s back as he trudges up inclines plastered with loose snow. Just remember not to eat the yellow snow as the game’s loading screen often reminds players. Have a relaxing game of Gwent while you’re there and maybe pick off one of those Witcher contracts you’ve been putting off for so long.
