Grand Theft Auto 6 has some good competition in Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered

Over the past two weeks, we’ve gotten a metric ton of fall video game release dates. Almost none of those games will land in November, though. Publishers are steering clear of Grand Theft Auto 6’s Nov. 19 release date, slotting their games into a very crowded September and even more-crowded October instead. It’s going to take a specific breed of monster to take on GTA, but Atari knows just the guy for the job: Godzilla.

In this year’s best bit of counter programming, Atari will release Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered on Nov. 3. It’s currently one of the only games with a November 2026 release date, and you know what? Hell yeah, brother. I went hands-on with the remaster at Summer Game Fest and rediscovered a forgotten game that kicks all kinds of ass. Who cares about exploring a photorealistic city when you can reduce one to rubble while piledriving King Ghidorah into the ground instead?

If you’re not familiar with it — and I can’t blame you if you aren’t — Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee was a GameCube-exclusive kaiju fighting game released in 2002. It wasn’t a critical hit at the time, but it became a bit of a cult hit. Atari’s Remastered edition is looking to give the brawler a second wind, with developer Pipeworks Studios (who recently worked as a support studio on Marathon) returning to rebuild the game in Unreal Engine 5.

The new facelift is bound to be a little polarizing. Pipeworks trades in the rubbery charm of its original game for a glossy modern look, but it does still feel like you’re playing with big toys on city playsets. Aside from that, the changes here are tasteful. The levels have been expanded out a bit so they aren’t just square arenas, there’s online multiplayer, and Mechagodzilla has gotten a Showa-era makeover at the request of fans.

All that really matters, though, is that monsters go smash and cities go boom. While it’s not the deepest fighting game, Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee is still ridiculously fun as a casual competitive game. The beat downs are big and silly, like you’re playing an exaggerated professional wrestling game. You’re out here benchpressing Godzilla and tossing his crusty ass into a skyscraper. Eat bricks, moron. Everything feels intuitive on a modern gamepad, retaining the pick-up-and-play nature of the original.

There’s just enough nuance to master for those who crave depth. By the end of my demo, I had gotten pretty good at chucking a monster far enough away to safely set up my atomic breath attack from a distance. Maybe modern fighting game fans can find some untapped potential in an underrated gem. I won’t lose much sleep if they don’t; all I care about is Mechagodzilla hoisting Megalon above its head and blasting him so hard with laser breath that the bastard levitates in midair. That, to me, is video games.

In general, Atari seems to be the only publisher that knows how to deal with GTA 6. Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered is targeting a very specific kind of nostalgia that doesn’t cross over with Rockstar’s glitzy new game. Perhaps Atari’s even smarter, and more daring, move is releasing Barbie: Rewind, a collection of classic Barbie games, on Nov. 12 — just one week ahead of GTA 6. Atari is banking on the idea that there won’t be much crossover between nostalgic kids who grew up loving retro Barbie games and GTA fans. (I’m psyched about both, frankly.)

More publishers could stand to follow Atari’s lead as September stacks up into a battle royale. Would Minecraft Dungeons 2, a children’s game, really suffer much if it dropped two weeks before an ultraviolet crime simulator? Will horror fans not show up for Silent Hill: Townfall if it’s too close to GTA 6? There’s an art to counter-programming and Godzilla is showing everyone else how it’s done.