Summary: Out of seven applicants, I slipped into our big list for 2025 of the “Oh, this looks okay” games, only three were released in 2025, and one of them wasn't very good. If hope kills you, then I am four times dead, maybe five times dead. Real Necron crap, honestly.
So, in 2026, I will tread carefully, only making claims about games whose developers/publishers have explicitly stated that they will be released next year. This means no ResistorNo Clockwork Revolutionand probably not Space Marine 3 – but, fingers crossed, yes, and more Control and more cool train flips. I would have Steam engine and here it is the same, if it were a game, and not a box for playing them.
Resonance control
Fresh Jeffed and confirmed for 2026, Resonance control looks like a big and bold sequel lover. It's melee combat rather than another shooter, you play as brainwashed former villain Dylan Faden instead of his sister and original Control leader Jessie, and the brutal megastructure of The Oldest House opens onto the sunny streets of New York. Still, the demo trailer is steeped in the logic-breaking weirdness that gave Control its distinct flavor, and it's not like the lack of guns is any painful loss—the best fight moments involved Jesse flying around and psychically throwing tables at monsters rather than whacking them with a pistol. In this regard, Dylan seems no less gifted.
Denshattuck
I played Denshattuckdemo version and this is joy: A fast-paced, outrageously colorful arcade train-driving game that features Tony Hawk flipping and flipping, all presented with gleeful disregard for how little sense it makes. Sometimes I wonder how it could maintain a sense of dizzying absurdity throughout the game, but then I see giant baseballs crashing into tracks, mechanical sandworms toppling skyscrapers, and laser battles with hot pink robots, and then I remember that I myself rode an out-of-place Ferris wheel into an erupting volcano. I'm sure everything will be fine.
Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core
Although it is unlikely to replace vanilla DRG as my favorite dwarf co-op shooter, Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core This is quite a significant reconfiguration that I'll be keeping an eye on as it makes its way into Early Access. Besides the roguelike feel of all the gnome classes, the new gnome classes look impressively varied—a recent beta added one that includes a short time rewind in its mix—and there's something chillingly appealing about exploring the abandoned mining networks of Rogue Core, as opposed to the purely natural and pristine underground biomes of the original game. Look at my work, fictional resource extraction company, and despair.
Planet Lana II
Planet of Lana II – or Planet of Lana II: Children of the Leaf, it's controversial – claims to be twice the size of the excellent puzzle platformer that came before it. I'm not thrilled about this considering one of the Planet LanaThe game's strengths were its fast pace, but I'm absolutely ready for more team-based puzzles with alien best friend Mui and a few dozen more screens with awe-inspiring sci-fi landscapes in the background. This is another one that I played the demo versionearlier this year, and I suspect the sequel's increased breadth is a result of the increasing complexity of the puzzles themselves: one sequence involved diving to the seabed, dragging Mui across the surface using a retrieved shape-shifting plant, anxiously swimming past sharks, having Mui mind-control a fish, and then blowing ink clouds to aid in the solution more anti-shark stealth. That's too much mental capacity for one girl and her impeachment.
good boy
Observer Interactive calls Good Boy a “Petroidvania” on the grounds that the sentient space rovers you meet while exploring a forgotten planet – as a wheeled robot – are all based on the developers' own dogs. Moan at the pun if you must, but you have a heart of stone and a mind of plasterboard if you don't find this concept fascinating. Moving from region to region is a laid-back, non-violent experience: you catch alien insects to unlock new regions with their abilities but can free them later, and constant chassis upgrades involve returning to base to a friendly human spaceman who kindly lets you use his craft machines. After all, you are a good boy.
Highgard, perhaps
Guys, there's quite a lot of oohs and ahhs here. Highgard could Be Brilliant: This is a competitive first-person shooter from Wildlight Entertainment, a studio made up of mostly former senior developers. Titanfall, Titanfall 2And Apex Legendsthree of the best competitive first-person shooters of the last decade. This is another hero shooter with such a bland aesthetic, despite mixing modern weapons with old-school fantasy, that you might lose track of it in a bowl of porridge. My current plan is to try it out (it will be free to play) and let the gunplay speak for itself. Maybe horse riding.
