The controversial timed Xbox console exclusive Rise of the Tomb Raider is a year away from its holiday 2015 launch, but Miss Lara Croft is still primed to raid some tombs this holiday season.

Don’t forget about Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris, sequel to top-down puzzle adventure spin-off Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, which has gone gold and is officially locked in for a PC, PS4 and Xbox One digital download launch date of December 9th.

Hopefully this one doesn’t get lost in the holiday shuffle of so many AAA releases. The original was a fun surprise, so even if it turns out to be simply more of the same, Temple of Osiris should be a worthwhile experience for those of you who enjoy raiding tombs and solving puzzles.

Catch up on the latest developer diaries below for a preview of the game’s puzzle mechanics and four-player co-op action.

Styx: Master of Shadows is almost here. With the infiltration RPG based in the Of Orcs and Men universe set to sneak onto PC, PS4 and Xbox One on October 7th, the team at Cyanide Studio is ready to take players on a journey into the shadows to uncover more about the development process behind the game. To that end, a 4-part “Making of Styx: Master of Shadows” dev diary series has released walking through the design of the gameplay, music and sound. The video doc about the soundtrack is particularly worth your while. Just remember to hit the CC button on the YouTube player to turn on subtitles (unless you’re fluent in French).

Up to now we’ve seen Styx mock Assassin’s Creed and barf up goblin clones, but in the latest gameplay trailer, “Die Harder,” the green-skinned rogue does his best John McClane impression by showing off the many ways he can be battered, bruised and ultimately killed. Styx doesn’t have yippee ki-yay in his goblin vernacular, but he sure knows how to drop a funny f-bomb!

What’s this? A game actually coming out earlier than expected rather than being delayed? Well, kind of. Dying Light was previously delayed from this year to February 2015 after all. But even though the first-person parkour zombie survival shooter from the makers of Dead Island still won’t be out until next year, its launch has at least had its scheduled ship date moved up a month. In the Americas the game will now launch on January 27th, followed by releases in Australia and New Zealand on January 28th, and on January 30th in Europe and Asia.

Techland posted a fun little video on Facebook showing in-game footage of the player character opening a supply crate to reveal the image pictured above confirming the date. If the embedded Facebook video doesn’t appear for you below, you can click over to it here. Underneath that is the recently released video dev diary highlighting the game’s natural freedom of movement.

It’s not quite going to the shoot-and-loot extremes of the Borderlands games, but Destiny does appear to have a pretty sweet loot system to complement its shared-world shooter MMO-style gameplay, as seen in this new developer diary from Bungie. Completing missions and challenges — The Devil’s Lair Strike scenario for example — will come with rewards of new weapons and armor, including extra special gear for end-game content like raids. The game will also feature a private loot stream, meaning even basic drops like ammo will be private to each player rather than multiple players fighting over shared loot.

Even though I still don’t own a Kinect, like many titles before it, I’ve been looking forward to Fable: The Journey as one of the handful of games to finally sell me on the Xbox 360’s motion control camera. It looks to be a fun mix of traditional Fable storytelling with gameplay along the lines of Sorcery and Medieval Moves, two PlayStation Move titles I’ve thoroughly enjoyed. Suddenly, though, I have this sinking feeling in my gut that it’s going to be just another Kinect flop.

Why the sudden pessimism? Simple: because of this new video documentary. In it, gamers give their hands-on testimonials from the game’s Comic-Con booth. Problem is, their responses sound so scripted, like the nearest Microsoft rep fed them lines and marketing buzz words to spout off in front of the camera after playing the demo. I don’t care if the game ends up being “hardcore” or “casual” or whatever, but the way this video tries so hard to push Fable: The Journey as the game to buy a Kinect for honestly has the opposite effect on me. Hopefully I’m wrong, and this is just poor marketing. I really, really want this game to be great.

In the first episode of a pre-launch video developer diary series for LEGO The Lord of the Rings, TT Games talks about undertaking the arduous task of recreating the huge world of Middle-earth and telling its intricate stories within the iconic toy-brick universe while balancing drama with lighthearted humor. Middle-earth’s virtual LEGO replica is modeled after Tolkien’s original world map so all locations are exactly where they should be, and TT’s use of the movie dialogue and score should make this the most epic and cinematic LEGO adventure yet.

Fable: The Journey has been mired in skepticism about it being another crummy Kinect butchering of a well-known franchise property, but this developer video diary may just change some opinions around. For example, did you know that the game world is nearly three times larger than Fable 3‘s Albion? Pretty impressive for what many have dismissed as a throwaway spin-off.

Between the charming visual style, the thick British humor, and the strong narrative focus, The Journey is unmistakeably a Fable adventure. Lionhead still needs to clarify some things about gameplay, however; particularly as it pertains to exploration and how the player moves through the world–it appears to be on-rails, but Lionhead has insisted it’s not. We’ll find out either way come September 17th, when a playable demo for the game makes its digital download journey to the Xbox Live Marketplace.

Music has always been an emotional driving force in the Halo games, something 343 Industries has no intention of letting slide now that it has taken over development of the franchise from Bungie. For Halo 4, famed composer Neil Davidge has been enlisted to score the game, and his blend of familiar Halo themes with new and unexpected sounds come together to create an evolutionary musical journey. I’m ready to buy the soundtrack and rip it onto my MP3 player just from the samples heard in the “Making of” ViDoc. Check it out.

Here are some screenshots and artwork to flip through as well.

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Swedish developer Fatshark is playing to the old school crowd with its next PC title, Krater, a post-apocalyptic top down RPG combining elements of squad control and tactical combat. Old favorites like Syndicate and X-COM are given as sources of inspiration, but personally I’m most reminded of Black Isle and vintage BioWare classics like Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale–although Krater definitely appears to be heavier on action. Either way, it’s shaping up to be one wicked-awesome modernized throwback RPG.

Beginning this week, you can sign up to try out a pre-alpha build of Krater, a testing phase Fatshark is calling the Playable Vision:

“The concept of alpha and beta has been watered down over the last couple of years that is why we have chosen to name the current version Playable Vision, as it hasn’t reached what we consider alpha yet. We also want to stress that we listen to gamers and incorporate feedback that they give us.” says Martin Wahlund, CEO and Executive Producer at Fatshark. “We have a clear vision for the game, but the way to get there has already changed upon the feedback and suggestions we have received from our community on the initial game concept. The Playable Vision is the next step towards the final game.”

So go join up, give plenty of feedback, and help Fatshark realize their true vision for Krater. For an introduction to the world of Krater, watch the following developer diary video in which Game Designer Victor Magnuson discusses the basic concept behind the game. Underneath that you can find a new batch of pre-alpha screenshots.

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