This Week's PlayStation Games Include ‘Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China,’ ‘Shovel Knight’ And More

Sony Playstation — A person plays a video game at a Sony PlayStation in the Sony's flagship store in Berlin, April 27, 2011. Reuters/Thomas Peter

Another week brings a bumper release of franchise spin-offs, gorgeous remasters and quirky indies to PlayStation platforms. This week’s new releases include the 2.5D “Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China,” action adventure game “Shovel Knight,” the PS3 remaster of “Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee — New ‘N’ Tasty” and much more.

As noted by the PlayStation Blog, PS4 owners will get to indulge their sidescrolling parkour fantasies in “Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China,” the first in a trilogy of 2.5D entries in the long-running “Assassin’s Creed” series. “China” was created by “Silent Hill: Origins” developer Climax Studios and is set in 1526, during the fall of the Ming Dynasty. As noted by PC Gamer, “Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China” was originally intended to form part of the discarded season pass for 2014’s “Assassin’s Creed Unity.” “Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: India” and “Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: Russia” are set to follow.

Next up is “Shovel Knight,” a sidescrolling action adventure title with a retro 8-bit look, developed by first-time developer, Yacht Club Games. “Shovel Knight” tasks players with defeating an evil Enchantress and saving their beloved. The game features three-way cross buy support and focuses on layering difficulty on top of simple mechanics.

“Back in 2013, we were looking at the games coming out and it was very complicated experiences. We wanted to make something simple and refreshing; here’s a run and jump game with one mechanic - the shovel, we would build all the complexity out of that,” said “Shovel Knight” programmer David D’Angelo in an interview with IGN.

Set for release on PS3 this week is a remaster of the classic PSOne era platformer,“Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee — New ‘N’ Tasty,” which has already debuted on PS4 and PS Vita. PS4 fans looking for a bit more action can try out "Ziggurat," a gorgeous, dungeon-crawling first-person shooter in the vein of old-school classics like “Hexen,” with a next-gen makeover.

The full list of new releases includes:

“Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China” PS4 — Digital

“Infinity Runner” PS4 — Digital

“LA Cops” PS4 — Digital

“Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee — New ‘N’ Tasty” PS3 — Digital (Three Way Cross Buy)

“Sayonara UmiharaKawase +” PS Vita — Digital

“Shovel Knight” PS4, PS3, PS Vita — Digital (Three Way Cross Buy)

“Ziggurat” PS4 — Digital