Your Guide to November’s Family Friendly Video Games
Another Zelda beat 'em up spin-off, a slew of Apple Arcade highlights, and more.
The kind of month with a little bit of everything, to be honest.
This has little to do with the games specifically coming out this month, but I do wonder if my oldest will simply look past the idea of playing a new game in favor of playing an old game. Yes, we’re still enjoying nightly Fortnite rituals before bed, which also means she’s seeing ads for upcoming events and costumes, which has resulted in conversations about getting V-Bucks.
We’ll see.
What are you looking forward to playing with your family this month?
As a reminder, there are now Amazon referral links below the price of (some) games. Buy the game where you like. No pressure. But if you’re going to buy it through Amazon anyway, consider using the links below. A referral link means a tiny amount goes towards Crossplay, which means I can pay more writers to be part of this project.
If you represent these games and have a potentially interesting story to share about how these games consider kids as part of their audience, do get in touch with me!
Let’s Sing 2026 (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch) — November 4
Description: Whether you’re warming up your vocal cords solo, teaming up in duets, or competing with friends, Let’s Sing 2026 delivers an unbeatable playlist, and endless entertainment!Featuring 35 chart-topping songs there’s something for everyone—from modern hits to timeless classics. - Billie Eilish – BIRDS OF A FEATHER- Chappell Roan – HOT TO GO!- Lewis Capaldi – Wish You The Best- Gracie Abrams – I Love You, I’m Sorry- Coldplay – ALL MY LOVE- Noah Kahan – Stick Season- Benson Boone – Slow It Down...And many more!
Rating: T
Price: $39.99
Buy And Support Crossplay: Click here
Please, for the love of god, will someone put the Wicked soundtrack in one of these. Also, it’s gotta be hard to pick the track lists for games like this these days; the way songs take off and in what form is not always linear or predictable. I mean, can you imagine shipping a karaoke game without something from Kpop Demon Hunters?
Football Manager 26 (Apple Arcade) — November 4
Description: Football Manager 26 Touch is about living the life of a manager. Every transfer window is a test of nerve, every tactical tweak a shot at glory, and every match day a roller coaster of emotion. From discovering the next breakout star to celebrating a last-minute winner, this is football at its most gripping — and it’s all in players’ hands.
Rating: 4+
Price: $6.99/month
I didn’t realize the last Football Manager game was cancelled. The reactions were emotional, like The Outerhaven: “When I first heard the news of FM25’s cancellation, it felt like a betrayal. The feeling was similar to when a favourite TV show is cancelled unexpectedly. You have invested so much time into the series, building your dream team, guiding your club to glory, managing your tactics to perfection, and the thought of no longer having that outlet to fuel my love for football and strategy was truly upsetting. The passion I have for the simulation genre made it even harder to accept.”
Biped 2 (PlayStation 4/5, Xbox Series X/S/One, Switch, PC) — November 5
Description: Biped 2 is the sequel to the exciting game about two charming bipedal robots, Aku and Sila, who have each other’s backs and embark on incredible adventures side by side. Dive into this groovy co-op action-adventure game, full of puzzles, friendship, support, and fun!
Rating: E
Price: TBA
This one sounds like tremendously goofy fun. You control each leg with one analog stick. Per VICE: “We died. A lot. 139 times, to be exact. But did we stop having fun while we were playing? Absolutely not. Biped 2 is one of the most hilariously frustrating experiences of our lives, but we couldn’t stop laughing while we were playing. I can wholeheartedly admit, most of those deaths were because we were too busy goofing around, making our Bipeds tap-dance or do other sorts of silly dances.”
Dinkum (Switch, PC) — November 5
Description: Dinkum is a survival life simulation game set on an island inspired by the rugged Australian outback. Farm, hunt, mine, fish, and forage to gather resources, expand your town, and discover what makes Dinkum so special—either solo or with friends.
Rating: E10+
Price: $19.99
Another day, another life simulator. But it’s for a reason. Player2 was high on this one, saying: “This game is really good, and that means more people are going to play it. Dinkum is clearly a love letter to so many things that are uniquely Australian—our native animals, peculiar biomes, saturated sunsets, and weird vernacular—and I am excited to share these things I also love about my home with a wider audience.”
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment (Switch 2) — November 6
Description: Fight the war for Ancient Hyrule! Step on to the battlefield as Princess Zelda, King Rauru, and other legendary heroes as you fight to reclaim your homeland—and live the story of Demon King Ganondorf’s invasion that was only briefly alluded to in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom game.
Rating: T
Price: $69.99
Buy And Support Crossplay: Click here
These types of beat ‘em up games have rarely resonated with me, and mostly reminds me that I haven’t revisited Tears of the Kingdom on Switch 2. Alas. TheGamer’s preview suggests if you liked the last game, Age of Calamity, you’re likely to enjoy this, game too: “Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment doesn’t really reinvent the wheel mechanically. There are some clever implementations of Tears of the Kingdom’s core systems, but fundamentally, it’s another hack-and-slash fest set throughout Hyrule.”
Tiny Lands 2 (Switch, PC) — November 6
Description: Take your perception into a new dimension with the relaxing sense of photorealistic miniature scenes in Tiny Lands 2. Find the differences and stories by exploring handcrafted 3D dioramas. Can you find them all?
Rating: TBA
Price: TBA
Well, this looks absolutely adorable. Some of the most fun we had as a family on the couch last year was playing a hidden object game on the TV. We should do that again.
MySims (Apple Arcade) — November 6
Description: Explore a new world with MySims-it’s your world to transform in this retro re-release with updated graphics! Move to a town that has been struggling lately. With a little creativity and some help from the locals, you can make this place thrive.
Rating: $6.99/month
Price: 9+
These games were packaged together for Switch recently, and some folks found revisiting their Wii-era nostalgia did not hold up. Like the folks at Gaming Trend: “I played MySims as a kid, being one of the first games I ever pre-ordered, so I thought revisiting the game through the Cozy Bundle would be a fun, nostalgic experience. As I started playing, however, I started to remember finding the game pretty boring and tedious over the 13 or so hours it takes to finish. Maybe I’m just the kind of person who needs something more goal oriented rather than a make your own fun type of game, but even then I feel like there were and are much better options out there.”
MySims Kingdom (Apple Arcade) — November 6
Description: Embark on a journey of discovery to explore and customize the MySims Kingdom in this retro re-release with updated graphics! MySims Kingdom sets you on an adventure to help King Roland and his subjects revitalize the Kingdom. Throughout this epic quest, you will join-up with friends, discover fascinating lands, take on challenges, and build amazing contraptions.
Rating: $6.99/month
Price: 9+
On the flip side, that very same critic at Gaming Trend was very high on the MySims sequel: “MySims Kingdom, as a successor to MySims, makes leaps and bounds in what it’s going for. For me, MySims was lacking in concept, and I got bored fairly quickly. This was primarily due to being contained in one town and the repetitive furniture building system. There was only so much you could do before it became a slog. In response to this, they ramped up the fun up to 100 in the variety Kingdom has to offer.”
Toca Boca Jr Classics (Apple Arcade) — November 6
Description: Get ready to play your way with a collection of Toca Boca Jr’s most-loved games! Perfect for ages 4-10, you’re free to play, create, and explore at your own pace. Build a world to explore in Blocks, take care of animals in Pet Doctor, or find your style in Hair Salon. There’s so much to do in Toca Boca Jr. Classics!
Rating: 4+
Price: $6.99/month
I heartily endorse basically everything Toca touches. My kids are not nearly into Toca Life: World as much as they once were, but I never had a problem giving them money.
Goodnight Universe (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch/Switch 2, PC) — November 11
Description: From the creators of Before Your Eyes. You are Isaac, a 6-month-old baby, developing mysterious psychic powers. What you want most is to be loved and accepted by your family, but a secretive tech corporation wants you for their own. The game features an immersive “camera as controller” mode, expanding on the innovative use of camera-based technology that the development team is known for.
Rating: T
Price: $19.99
Before Your Eyes made me fucking sob. That game ruined me. I don’t think their follow-up, Goodnight Universe, is supposed to be so emotional intense, but we’ll see. My kids are always tickled by stories about babies and my youngest has watched this trailer a few times, asking when it’s coming out. I’ll have to see what the deal is before trying it.
Lumines Arise (PlayStation 5, PC) — November 11
Description: A mind-blowing, fiendishly addictive reinvention of the puzzle classic Lumines from the creators of Tetris Effect: Connected, where sound pulses through your body, mind, and every block you place, triggering dazzling visuals synched to the driving beat of an infectious, eclectic soundtrack.
Rating: E
Price: $39.99
Lumines is one of my all-time favorite experiences. It was absolutely magical digging into this one when the original PSP came out; even my girlfriend at the time was obsessed with it. Not exactly a puzzle person these days, but glad Lumines is back.
Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor (iOS, Android) — November 12
Description: Set in the wider world of Deep Rock Galactic, Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor sees players take on solo deep dives in search of riches and powerful upgrades as they take on hordes of lethal aliens, equipped with the most lethal arsenal R&D could cook up.
Rating: TBA
Price: TBA
I’m in the Ball x Pit mines, so no room in my life for another game where bullets are fired automatically. But I’m not shocked this has been popular; the reviews have been stellar since its Early Access period, with PC Gamer saying: “To me, DRG:S is the survivors-like genre at its most engaging and tactical—not just an exercise in picking the right level-ups, but a proper sprawling challenge with new surprises every time.”
Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road (PlayStation 4/5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch/Switch 2, PC) — November 13
Description: The latest entry in the character collection and football simulation RPG series, “Inazuma Eleven!” With an original story featuring new main characters, over 4,500 players from across the series’ history to collect and train, as well as exciting online tournaments, you can play the game your way!
Rating: T
Price: $69.99
Did you know this game was announced in 2016? Yes, 2016. It was supposed to come out two years later and instead it’s actually coming out much closer to 10 years later.
Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero (Switch/Switch 2) — November 14
Description: DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO takes the legendary gameplay of the Budokai Tenkaichi series and raises it to whole new levels. Become a super warrior and experience the earth-shaking, limit-breaking power of Dragon Ball battles!
Rating: T
Price: $59.99
Buy And Support Crossplay: Click here
Never been a Dragon Ball Z person, either, but I cannot help but respect by how hype people get for this series and characters. Sparkling! Zero, besides having a very funny name, was generally well received elsewhere as a way to revisit nostalgia. Per IGN: “Reliving a story that was foundational to my youth, looking and sounding as great as I remember it, with the opportunity to alter it in sometimes dramatic new ways is clever, and the addition of tools to attempt to create our own stories could elevate the experiment even further if a community can figure out how to make the most of them.”
Monster Hunter Stories + Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings Of Ruin (Xbox One) — November 14
Description: Xbox players, it’s time to become a rider and discover the origins of this turn-based RPG twist on Monster Hunter, where you hatch, raise and battle alongside your monstie companions!
Rating: E10+
Price: $59.99
Both of these garnered mixed but mostly positive reviews, even if the combat is nothing akin to what you actually do in proper Monster Hunter. Still, I can imagine it being a fun thing to play alongside your kid. Nintendo World Report said as much in their review of the original: “Monster Hunter Stories was a very enjoyable adventure, but the battle system let it down. With all the improvements made to make the game pop, the battles feel shallow during the campaign. You are asked to make a boring leap of faith in the hopes of finding rewards. Everything else about the game works.”
Kirby Air Riders (Switch 2) — November 20
Description: Pick your rider, pick your machine, and mount up for competition! Take on your rivals in frantic arena battles or fast-paced races on the ground and in the air. Use the Boost Charge button to brake and control your turns as your machine automatically fights for top speed. Fill your Boost Charge Gauge as you drift around the bend and release it to trigger an explosive dash!
Rating: E10+
Price: $69.99
Buy And Support Crossplay: Click here
When this was announced, one of my pet theories was that it would be something different than what people were expecting, because it didn’t make a ton of sense that Nintendo would release two high-profile racing games in the same year. And yet that seems to be exactly what’s happening, even though Kirby Air Riders probably has a really high skill ceiling, thus appealing to different (if overlapping) crowd with Mario Kart. Not really expecting this one to be a hit in the house, though Mario Kart World never truly landed, either. Once the co-op stuff sizzled over them, they got over it.
Samurai Academy: Paws of Fury (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, PC) —November 20
Description: The village of Kakamucho is under attack by the Shogun’s cat armies! Join Hank, a dog samurai in a world of cats, and his friends as they reveal a sinister plot and save the day, samurai-style. Slash, dash, and laugh through this wacky third-person action adventure.
Rating: E10+
Price: $24.99
That name does sound made up, yes. But it’s based on a 2022 movie starring, of all people, Mel Brooks. And somehow has writing contributions from the folks behind the film Blazing Saddles. Amazing things are happening in this timeline that we’re in.
Bubble Bobble: Sugar Dungeons (PlayStation 5, Switch, PC) — November 27
Description: Adventure again and again! Get stronger! The first step-up Bubble Bobble in the series! Go on an adventure through strange dungeons that change every time you step inside!
Rating: TBA
Price: TBA
Sure, why not make Bubble Bobble into a rogue like? They tried VR. The Outerhaven was not super impressed by it, however: “Bubble Bobble Sugar Dungeons is a very odd spin-off game that delves into the roguelite genre with its randomized dungeons and simple progression system with items. There is some enjoyment to be had with the heavy emphasis on puzzles and platforming, but I’m not sure it will be deep enough to warrant play long-term, given its timed dungeon runs and lack of multiplayer.”