Remember when Madden ruled the world? The only football game on the market used to be the vanguard of gaming, ushering in the final few months of the year, when AAA blockbusters dominated store shelves, Black Friday flyers were everywhere, and most of the industry’s money was made.

But Madden is no longer the behemoth it used to be, taken over by first-person shooters and the overall diversity of the gaming landscape, making August a prime release month for smaller titles that don’t want to be caught under the title wave of holiday shopping. With that in mind, we’ve come up with the best five games to try out while waiting for the summer sun to go away!

Batman: The Telltale Series Episode 1 — Realm of Shadows

Is there a franchise that Telltale isn’t currently working on? Minecraft, Borderlands, The Walking Dead, and many more have been given the “choose your own adventure” treatment over the years, but Batman fans have a reason to get excited in August.

The Caped Crusader is the star of the first game from the team to use their new and improved engine, which should lead to fewer glitches and crashes, while creating a more immersive world without the seams that distract from the action. Also, no need to upgrade to a fancy new machine, as the episodic adventure is coming to every device under the sun, just like all of their other games. The voice talent is stacked; the pedigree is solid and the subject matter is wonderful, so swoop up the first episode on August 2.

No Man’s Sky

Finally, No Man’s Sky will be playable! The game has gone gold; it is coming out on August 9 and we still don’t know anything about it. What we’ve learned over the years is how the universe is filled with 99 kajillion planets, all unique and randomly generated and ripe with flora and fauna waiting to be discovered, researched, and, well, probably murdered.

You get a spaceship and can fly around to these various lands, gathering resources and naming things along the way. There is a bit of a race to the center of the universe, but the developers have been mum on what you might find there or how long it might take. Still, No Man’s Sky is the game of 2016 with the most potential, and if it lives up to the hype it might change how we think about open-world games and establish a truly accessible open universe genre.

Bound

While Bound is another PS4-exclusive, all eyes should be on this esoteric and gorgeous game. We spent some time at E3 playing through one of the game’s early levels and it left quite an impression, as nearly nothing about it screams “video game.” You play as the princess of a fantasyland, decreed by your mother, the queen, to handle an evil force that is invading the kingdom. From there, you literally dance, pirouette and gymnastics your way through the environment, ribbon dancing and scaling the various platforming obstacles in your way.

There isn’t any UI elements, no HUD to speak of, and the world just sort of presents itself without explanation. We definitely got major Ico vibes from this one and desperately need to know what is going on in this allegorical world built by the small Polish team over at Plastic Studios.

Grow Up

It has only been a year, but a follow-up to the delightful Grow Home is already here in the form of Grow Up. Ubisoft saw the incredible reaction their short but sweet robotic climber received and decided to expand on what made it so much fun.

The trailers show off some new moves for our hero BUD and the ability to grow plants for further exploration. Grow Home could be completed in a single sitting, so we’re hoping this one is a bit more fleshed out, and not just with more collectibles and check-boxy tasks. The act of climbing and the mechanics around adventuring around space were already dialed in, which gives us tons of hope for this sequel.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Freedom of choice, expansive environments, and robot racism can only coexist in the world of Deus Ex. Eidos is back with another dystopian look at the world of Adam Jensen, the mechanical man at the center of totalitarian plots and other world-ending scenarios. This time, the game looks as gorgeous as ever and Jensen has ditched private security for Interpol, working with hackers to tackle the Illuminati. It’s insane as ever, but the freedom of choice is important in a post-Metal Gear Solid world.

Once again, you can complete the entire game without killing a single person, using a combination of hacking, stealth and non-lethal combat to get yourself in front of a boss that might be persuaded to put the gun down, given you know their emotional weakness. Decide for yourself on August 23, when the game comes to modern consoles and PC.