Welcome back to your monthly report of game news, where I do my best to compile everything into one convenient ad-free place, so you don’t have to worry about the pesky cracks that info can fall through at other publications.
Thanks and credit for the banner image as always goes to the Avocado’s one and only Space Robot!
I have elected to put the entire Game Awards coverage at the very bottom of the article outside of chronology, to improve the flow of the roundup.
December 4th 2025: More than four years after an E3 2021 reveal and after many, many delays starting with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, developer Sad Cat Studios and publisher Thunderful/Atari announced that the sci fi sidescrolling action platformer Replaced is launching on March 12th 2026 for PC and Xbox Series S|X.
Developer Douze Dixiemes (Shady Part of Me) and publisher Focus Entertainment announced the launch for their metroidvania MIO: Memories in Orbit, which was first revealed in summer 2024 at a Nintendo Direct. The game will launch on January 20th 2026 for PC, Switch and Switch 2, PS5, and Xbox Series S|X.
December 8th: As threatened, Paramount Skydance moved forward with a hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros Discovery, attempting to purchase the company’s stock for a whopping $108 billion, a huge over valuation of the company based on David Zaslav’s initial $30 per share target when he began exploring a sale of the company. Tencent and Jared Kushner were both initially backing Paramount’s bid but soon backed out as its prospects dwindled. WB proceeded to reject the hostile takeover multiple times and attempt to help Netflix lobby the Trump administration to favor their deal.
Tom Henderson commented on the recent Eidos Montreal news for further clarification, suggesting that their long in development very expensive multiplayer live service is positioned for a 2026 reveal and launch as it’s entering the final stages of development and the reported layoffs were because of that production transition.
Bandai Namco general manager and longtime Tekken director Katsuhiro Harada announced that he will be leaving the publisher by the end of 2025 after 30 years and taking a currently unspecified new career direction soon after. Harada has been planning this departure for years and had increasingly delegated his tasks to new leads and executives throughout the 2020s, ultimately picking the 30th anniversary of Tekken and his tenure as the launch point.
Capcom’s latest annual business report included some very important information about the future of the publisher’s IP revival initiative: Mega Man, Ace Attorney, and Devil May Cry were singled out as series receiving new rereleases and new projects going forward in order to grow them into core IPs alongside the likes of MH, RE, and SF. This is understood to include a Devil May Cry 1 Remake, and of course we now know it was also teasing the reveal of the next mainline Mega Man which happened at the Game Awards.
Julian Cordero and Sebastian Valbuena announced that the acclaimed autobiographical narrative game Despelote will release for Switch on December 11th (January 13th outside US/Japan) after the original May launch from which the Switch port was quietly delayed. A long trailer discussed the journey behind making the game and the Switch port in particular.
Nightdive and Atari announced that System Shock Remake will launch for Switch and Switch 2 on December 18th 2025. The Switch 1 port has gyro support, and the Switch 2 port has mouse controls and up to 1440p60fps performance.
Marvelous announced that Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma will come to PS5 and Xbox Series S|X on February 13th 2026 after 8 months of Switch console exclusivity.
December 9th: The fate of the now infamous game Horses has been cleared up by a new interview and subsequent press release from developer Santa Ragione and game director Pietro Righi Riva: Horses has successfully sold over 18,000 copies across GOG and Humble, earning 65K in revenue and paying off the studio’s debt from royalties and loans to fund production, but nowhere near enough to fund another game yet. The studio plans to take on external work while hopefully eventually selling enough copies to fund their next internal prototype.
The studio calls attention to the harm still inflicted by the loss of Steam distribution and by Steam’s overall policies and communications, which leads us to a separate story I feel must be highlighted: Mike Rose of indie publisher No More Robots tried to take down an explicitly hateful Steam review for the sim game Little Rocket Lab, a review which only said “Has Muslims, thumbs down,” and Steam moderation officially upheld the review and made so it can’t be flagged again. It’s time to accept that there is more than negligence and capitulation at work here by one of the biggest companies in gaming, on the eve of its big new product launch: there is conscious agenda here just like there is over at CBS.
As part of a larger report by Tom Henderson, multiple employees at Amazon’s developer Glowmade, the makers of party game King of Meat, announced that they are being fired in January. King of Meat is reported to have seen a disastrous launch with paltry sales performance and many millions of dollars lost on its aggressive marketing campaign which included a Mr. Beast sponsored video and an animated pilot.
Bethesda shadowdropped the Switch 2 port of Skyrim Anniversary Edition that we’d all been joking about this year, and just like Bethesda always does such as in the multiple recent updates to Fallout 4, new things were broken. The graphics, resolution, and loadtimes were all effectively upgraded, but egregiously terrible input lag was inexplicably introduced as well, which so far has only been fixed with a different issue, by unlocking the framerate and allowing it to hover around 35fps. The 30fps lock this port launched with was also unpopular, it’s easy to want an Xbox 360 to run at 60fps on newer hardware, even to reduce the visual upgrade to achieve that, but this is Bethesda we’re talking about, their software and engine are fundamentally busted and unoptimized, none of their Series X or PS5 software have flawless 60fps either.
Roguelike brawler TMNT: Splintered Fate had its Switch 2 Edition and upgrade pack announced for a December 16th release, featuring 4K60fps performance and GameShare support.
December 10th: Activision and Microsoft took an unprecedented step by releasing an official statement about the Call of Duty series that bluntly admits Black Ops 7 is a failure in fan reception and commercial performance and actually commits to a notable and specific change of action instead of the usual PR fluff: games like Modern Warfare III 2023 and Black Ops 7, consecutive glorified DLCs built off their immediate predecessors, projects that we know are essentially the only thing still keeping COD’s annual release schedule alive, will no longer be made.
While Black Ops 7 marks a new low for the series, new player data reveals that COD had in general downturned throughout 2025 despite a strong launch for Black Ops 6 late last year, which makes sense considering increased competition from the likes of Helldivers 2 and Battlefield 6. Speaking of Battlefield 6, we now know with certainty what was only speculation last month, that Battlefield 6 is the US’ bestselling game of 2025 and the first shooter to outsell a COD entry since 2006. COD topped the US bestseller list from 2009 to 2022, before taking its first loss in many years to the TERF RPG.
Voice actor and radio host Jim Ward sadly passed at the age of 66. He was best known for Ratchet & Clank’s Captain Qwark, Krauser from Resident Evil 4, and Hector from Grim Fandango.
Nintendo and Ubisoft announced that the latter’s two Nintendo 64 3D platformers will release for Nintendo Switch Online on December 17th: Tonic Trouble and Rayman 2: The Great Escape.
December 11th: After suing Midjourney earlier this year and just sending a cease and desist to Google for the same shit, the Walt Disney Company’s battle against genAI copyright infringement culminated in the Most Late Stage Capitalism Moment possible: the reactionary megacorp signed a lucrative contract with Sam Altman’s OpenAI agreeing to officially license Disney IP to the both the OpenAI video platform and to ChatGPT.
Timed right to but independently of the Game Awards, Compulsion and Microsoft announced that their acclaimed game South of Midnight is coming to PS5 and Switch 2 in Spring 2026.
December 12th: The battle between good and evil inside Microsoft continues as Doom makers idSoft successfully unionized with an overwhelming majority of 185 total employees. This latest Xbox union push has been in the works since early 2024 and were especially motivated by fellow Zenimax teams Arkane Austin and Tango getting shuttered. The announcement also revealed that Zenimax quietly secured its own labor neutrality agreement separate from the now-expired Activision Blizzard King focused contract. Zenimax’s agreement remains in effect until May 2026 and workers are organizing as fast as possible in the meantime. Remote work is a priority for id’s union and Microsoft’s partnership with Israel was also cited as a concern by the union rep Andrew Willis.
December 14th: Former Bungie leadership Chris Barrett, guy you might remember as getting fired for inappropriate workplace behavior and threatening us over covering it, has had his lawsuit against Sony and Bungie officially dismissed for lack of jurisdiction in the damages he seeks. He will be attempting to take it to higher local court.
December 15th: After a very long and messy road due to the art plagiarism fallout, with Antireal giving the studio her blessing recently, Bungie did finally reemerge with new info for their live service extraction shooter Marathon, scheduling it to launch in March 2026 for $40 while discussing new gameplay features and visual updates in a 23 minute long video. The game’s art director Joseph Cross announced that he was leaving immediately afterward.
Katamari creator Keita Takahashi revealed in a GamesRadar interview that he has left America and moved back to Japan after the failed launch of his most recent game To a T. He is uncertain of his future in game development, and has expressed interest in working on Katamari again, but his current priority is best supporting his family in their new home even if it means leaving video games for good.
Larian Studios shadowdropped a free current gen upgrade for Divinity Original Sin 2 on PS5, Switch, and Xbox Series S|X.
As part of the ongoing downsize at Amazon Gaming, the giant actually sold off a game developer to Ubisoft, to which we collectively asked, wait, Ubisoft is buying new studios?! More specifically, the presumably about to be renamed Amazon Games Montreal and their MOBA March of Giants are now owned by Ubisoft, reuniting the publisher with the former creative director of Rainbow Six Siege.
December 16th: Team Cherry provided a major update on the future of Hollow Knight: Silksong, commemorating that the game has sold over 7 million copies by announcing a free Switch 2 upgrade for its predecessor and releasing a teaser trailer for Silksong’s first free major expansion DLC. Both the nautical themed Sea of Sorrow and Hollow Knight Switch 2 Edition are coming in 2026, the latter adding all of the same enhancements as Silksong on Switch 2: 4K, 120fps, and improved graphics.
Subsidiary developer Dambuster Studios and Embracer Group informally announced that Dead Island 3 is in development with a targeted early 2028 launch window after the decade-long troubled development and ultimately successful launch of Dead Island 2.
Nacon announced that their game Terminator Survivors is being delayed to 2026 after its last update was a delay from 2024 to 2025. But that’s not all, the game is also being overhauled with its co op support and early access release canceled in favor of a single player only 1.0 release.
Capcom announced that the Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection will launch on March 27th 2026.
PlayStation Studios and Sucker Punch announced that the latter’s cofounder Brian Fleming is leaving at the end of the year with new studio heads stepping into his place.
The newest update to Final Fantasy 14 has attracted scrutiny towards the catboy character Gr’aha Tia, who has long been voiced by Jonathan Bailey. Bailey became the highest grossing actor of the year thanks to the newest Jurassic World and the Wicked duology, and shifts in the character’s latest voice clips had fans convinced that Bailey departed the role. Bailey has declined to comment but he was vocally a fan of the character, and closer analysis has suggested that the changes in the audio are more likely to be recording problems than an actual different voice.
December 17th: Mat Piscatella Circana officially reported that November 2025 was the games industry’s worst holiday season for sales in 30 years, hardware spending was its lowest since 2005 when the 360 had a pretty soft launch and hardware unit sales were their lowest since 1995 at only 1.6 million total
Evidently still haunted by John Riccitiello’s ghost but unable to continue placing the blame solely on him, Unity made yet another egregiously greedy and harmful attempt to gouge money out of game developers by introducing a “minimum contribution” annual fee of at least $250K for its largest customers based on their revenue, on top of the price hike that already happened this year.
Last month we discussed the font licensing problems striking the Japanese games industry, and now the entire background of this development has been revealed by a behind the scenes report at Automaton about the companies that caused this niche crisis, Monotype and Fontworks. Monotype has been owned by private equity since October 2019. Employee Mahur Pahwa has been publicly ringing alarm bells about his employers for months on Medium, accusing the company of engaging in ongoing mass layoffs far larger than the numbers officially disclosed to the public, and accusing the company of enacting the layoffs due to millions of dollars lost on AI investment. Pahwa says that the private equity parent company HGGC has tried and failed to sell off Monotype in the last five years, with no one buying because they lack growth potential. The genAI investment was an attempt to improve the company’s value that inevitably backfired and worsened their losses. The exorbitant changes to font licensing are likely the result of these conditions.
Leaked by the Australian eShop at the last minute before being officially announced a few hours later, AdHoc Studio is releasing its very critically and commercially successful narrative adventure Dispatch for Switch and Switch 2 on January 28th 2026 after hitting PC and PS5 first back in October. Dispatch for Switch 1 will run at 720p30fps, and on Switch 2 it will run at 1440p60fps. AdHoc has also discussed their future plans in slightly greater detail, essentially saying that Dispatch Season 2 is indeed happening where it will likely be developed concurrently with their Critical Role game and released after it.
The developers of 2016’s indie 2D platformer SpeedRunners announced their new spiritual successor Sprint City coming to PC in 2026, which features a seamless multiplayer open world and supports a friend pass free play setup.
As discussed last time, developer Three Fields Entertainment is facing financial insolvency after being fucked by Embracer Group, and they have now resorted to opening a Patreon.
December 18th: Luck Be a Landlord creator Dan DiIorio announced that he was donating $10,000 to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund and formally joining the boycott against Microsoft for its ongoing partnership with the IDF, calling for people to not buy the Xbox port of his game under any circumstances.
A Bloomberg report by Cecilia D’Anastasio (ew) revealed that Riot Games is developing a complete and total overhaul for League of Legends scheduled for 2027, eighteen years after the game’s 2009 launch. The art design, UI/UX, arenas, gameplay, and the very code/PC client itself are all in the process of being redone in order to pitch the game to new audiences in a far larger scale reboot than the likes of Overwatch 2. Shortly after the Bloomberg article went live, Riot quickly responded and essentially confirmed the information in an attempt to retake control of the public conversation. As usual, my console-oriented self wonders if this a step toward long rumored potential console releases for the MOBA.
Bandai Namco announced that it was selling off subsidiary developer Limbic Entertainment to an undisclosed private investor; Limbic developed the 2022 theme park sim Park Beyond.
New Swedish game developer Moon Rover Studios announced that they were pausing all work due to running out of funding for their project after previously receiving $3.5 million from NCSoft last year.
Kingdom Two Crowns development studio Stumpysquid has been relaunched by Gordon Van Dyke after he left their mutual former parent company Raw Fury earlier in 2025. They are seeking funds to develop a spiritual successor to the aforementioned survival strategy management IP while Raw Fury continues the original.
December 19th: Fresh on the scene indie game publisher Critical Reflex, best known for publishing Mouthwashing and the upcoming Tanuki: Pon’s Summer, has been accused of maintaining an exploitative and abusive workplace by former employee Evelina Zemlijic. Zemlijic says that both the CEO/founder Rita Lebedeva and producer Ted Hentschke repeatedly sexually harassed her while also paying her below local minimum wage with no benefits, no HR protections, and no formal contract at all.
Mintrocket and Nexon has at last fully detailed the Dave the Diver in the Jungle paid expansion before it launches in early 2026. With a roughly 10 hour runtime, the DLC brings a whole new gameplay style, a land-set isometric real-time life sim alongside new combat and a new restaurant with full free movement and new cooking/grilling mechanics for your food.
In what certainly comes off like a very real NDA-violation, minor game publisher ININ Games announced that its release of R-Type Dimensions III for Switch 2 was being converted from a game-key card to a standard cartridge thanks to two new smaller Switch 2 cartridge sizes (16GB and 32GB most likely) being introduced soon after only having 64GB carts since launch, followed by ININ quickly redacting all of this news except for the game’s changed physical release after a likely slap on the hand by Nintendo. It should be kept in mind that smaller cartridges will not solve any of the other problems faced by Switch 2 physical releases: it’s possible they won’t cost that much less because it is still brand new proprietary technology in an environment where manufacturing costs and memory prices are only going up not down, and the cartridges remain only half as fast as the console’s internal speeds, meaning they aren’t a particularly viable option for late ports of current-gen exclusives designed only around SSDs.
December 20th: Valve announced that it was permanently discontinuing the cheapest Steam Deck model, the 256GB LCD launch model that went for $400, which both raises the Steam Deck price floor to $550 and leaves the market with only OLED Steam Decks going forward.
December 22nd: In a sudden tragedy, Respawn Entertainment’s Vince Zampella was killed on a Los Angeles highway in a car crash at the age of 55. His unidentified passenger also passed. Zampella had a legendary career in modern game development, working on Medal of Honor before being poached by Activision to co-create Call of Duty as a direct competitor to the former, being wrongfully terminated and denied royalties by Activision in 2010, and founding Respawn where he helped make Titanfall and Star Wars Jedi before most recently leading development on the biggest game of the year Battlefield 6.
December 23rd: IO Interactive announced that it was delaying the launch of 007 First Light on all platforms from March to May 27th 2026 for further polish.
EA’s shareholders officially voted in overwhelming numbers to approve the proposed acquisition by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. It still requires government regulator approval, but we all know that’s only a matter of time, it’s no real obstacle unless you’re on Trump’s bad side.
Nvidia announced a controversial update to the GeForce Now cloud streaming service, one which as of January 1st 2026 establishes a 100 hour monthly playtime cap for almost all players, unless they either pay fees to increase their playtime or have the founders edition tier of the subscription, which hasn’t been available since 2021. The playtime cap was first introduced for in late 2024 exclusively for new users.
December 25th: Sega cofounder and Japanese arcades’ “founding father” David Rosen passed at the age of 95 surrounded by his family.
December 27th: Rainbow Six Siege X suffered a major cyberattack over the holiday weekend which mass-distributed in-game currency and rare weapon skins while draining other players of their currency. Due to rumors quickly spreading, Ubisoft had to confirm that it was not banning anyone who spent the ill-gotten currency, it would just be temporarily taking the game offline and rolling back all transactions that occurred during the hack. The game then got hacked again in January wherein the hackers started issuing false bans to players lasting 67 total days in a reference to the 6-7 meme. Ubisoft claims that no personal data or source code were compromised despite the multiple hacks.
December 28th: After first being rumored back in June 2025 alongside Virtuos’ minor extra DLC for Cyberpunk, a brand new Witcher 3 story DLC is again being reported on, now with a claimed May 2026 release window (I expect a Switch 2 upgrade to accompany said DLC), a whopping 11 full years after the original launch. CDPR’s latest fiscal report did vaguely gesture multiple times at a secret project on top of its very full slate of Witcher 4, Cyberpunk 2, new IP Project Hadar, and externally developed projects. CFO Piotr Nielubowicz said “new content hinted upon in recent reports may see release in the coming year” with “an impact” on finances, followed by CEO Michal Nowakowski saying that external studio Fool’s Theory has an “other project” besides the Witcher 1 Remake and support for Witcher 4. This new Witcher 3 DLC, along with the already confirmed mod support for console ports currently in development, will keep fans occupied and sustain revenue while Witcher 4 production continues, and potentially even contribute to Witcher 4’s marketing campaign if an analyst’s claims that the game is currently targeting a Holiday 2027 launch are true.
December 29th: The RAM shortage crisis has unfolded in various directions, but none more significant than our first concrete reporting that leadership at Xbox and PlayStation are quietly discussing the possibility of delaying their next-gen hardware launches out of 2027 and 2028 in the hopes of avoiding the worst case scenario cost/price wise by waiting out the shortage, while likely still increasing prices again for existing hardware. I’ve been saying next-gen consoles should be delayed since when I was still talking about the PS5 instead of the PS6, and this vindication doesn’t feel great, let me tell you.
A datamine of the latest patch for Monster Hunter Wilds revealed a veritable treasure trove of evidence for the existence of an upcoming Switch 2 port of the troubled latest entry in Capcom’s biggest series. It rapidly escalated from just the phrase Switch 2 being found in the code to fully uncovering the Switch 2 port’s multiplayer interface, optimization settings, and performance settings, which in turn leaked the addition of local multiplayer being added seemingly exclusively to the Switch 2 port. The game will primarily target 1080p30fps output after DLSS upscaling in both handheld and docked mode, and docked play will also include an uncapped performance mode option. The game’s biggest performance-challenging features, like fully simulating monster and weather behavior on the other side of the world map, will be significantly reduced on Switch 2.
December 30th: CD Projekt Red has made a deal with its cofounder and still major shareholder Michael Kicinski to make him the sole owner of digital storefront Good Old Games, selling the platform for over 90 million Polish zlotys, the equivalent of $25 million.
December 31st: Another unannounced game has been leaked by ratings boards, as the ESRB published a page for Konami’s Switch game Enchanted Wonderland, described as an adventure game featuring minigames and like with Survival Kids potentially a successor to Magician’s Quest/Enchanted Folk, a cult classic and largely Japan-exclusive life sim/adventure series.
Atlus launched the Persona series’ 30th anniversary marketing campaign, starting with something that really feels like a joke, but it’s not: Persona 5 DLC for Fitness Boxing 3.
January 3rd: GameStop began to close hundreds more stores around the USA with no warning in the first weekend of January, while also rallying a $35 billion reward to its corrupt MAGA CEO.
January 4th: Developer Starseed Games and publisher Electric Airship announced that their cult classic Earthbound-inspired RPG Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass will no longer be PC-only after a distant 2018 launch: the game will arrive for Switch 1, PS4/5, and Xbox One/Series S|X on February 5th 2026, featuring new content and enhanced visuals. Creator Kasey Ozymy and the studio Starseed are also working on their new game Hymn to the Earless God.
January 5th: UK-based games press outlet This Week in Video Games announced that their recently hired news editor Patrick Dane, a vet of IGN, Eurogamer, Dexerto, and more, had tragically passed away in a car accident at the age of 34.
Artist and character designer Toshiyuki Itahana, best known for his work on Final Fantasy 9 and Crystal Chronicles, announced that he is leaving Square Enix to work as a full time freelance artist, deciding that the FF9 25th anniversary event marked a good milestone to end that chapter of his career.
Almost two years after it was first announced, Limited Run’s physical edition for Hi-Fi Rush finally got its preorder date announced as January 16th. Super Rare Games announced their own new physical release for Shovel Knight Dig.
January 6th: Canadian VR developer Cloudhead Games announced that it was firing 70% of its employees due to the lack of support for VR gaming and general downturn in game funding. Their last game was in 2019.
January 7th: Ubisoft announced the closure of its Halifax, Canada office and the resulting layoffs of 71 employees, claiming this is a general cost-cutting measure and the decision was made prior to the subsidiary’s recent unionization efforts. Canada’s branch of the Communication Workers of America union has pledged to pursue legal action against Ubisoft to protect the Ubi Halifax workers.
In a new WindowsCentral report on Xbox plans for the year, Microsoft apologist Jez Corden discussed the annual Xbox Developer Direct coming soon and claimed that this year’s BlizzCon event in September will feature a reveal for the brand new Starcraft first person shooter first leaked by Jason Schreier last year. Corden discussed many other things, from this year’s Modern Warfare entry and COD finally hitting Switch, to Fallout 3 and New Vegas rereleases in the style of Oblivion Remastered, and MachineGames working on not only the recently discussed Wolfenstein 3 but a live service in the vein of Rainbow Six Siege as well. None of that matters more than the ongoing genocide in Gaza and Microsoft’s ongoing enabling of and profiting from that genocide.
A PEGI listing has leaked a mysterious new Life is Strange game not long after the failed Double Exposure. Life is Strange: Reunion has been rated for PS5 with a plot summary showing the series fall further into awkward pandering as Max and Chloe reunite.
January 8th: An interim hearing regarding the recent Rockstar firings began in Glasgow, where the initial ruling would determine relief for the fired workers by sending them back to Rockstar to be compensated while the full hearing is still pending.
The creator of Phasmophobia announced that the studio will open a Kinetic Publishing arm to support fellow indie creators, while establishing an explicit ban on supporting games that use blockchain/web3 and genAI. A more established indie publisher, Manor Lords’ Hooded Horses, has also now explicitly established a genAI ban in their partnerships.
The aforementioned annual January Xbox presentation got announced right on schedule, with the games confirmed for this showcase being Forza Horizon 6, Fable 4, and Game Freak’s Beast of Reincarnation. The presentation is rumored to have a fourth secret announcement, an unannounced smaller first party project.
Nintendo officially released Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance on Nintendo Switch Online Gamecube Classics. Nintendo also released a new overview trailer for the upcoming Mario Tennis Fever and announced that the Switch 2’s first alternate Joy-Con 2 controllers will be launching on February 12th 2026 alongside Mario Tennis.
January 9th: Maddy Myers and Zoe Hannah of Polygon have launched a new independent games journalism website called Mothership, an ad-free/subscription-supported multiformat outlet focused on gender and women in gaming. Myers cited her experience during Polygon’s sale to Valnet and her love for the early days of sites like The Mary Sue as the inspiration for this project.
The creator-led New Game+ Showcase premiered, featuring many announcements including these highlights: The PS5 port for Avowed was announced to be releasing February 17th 2026 alongside the game’s Anniversary Update on all platforms, which features New Game+, Photo Mode, and more.
The Game Awards 2025: The traditional half hour Opening Act started with an indie reveal for The Free Shepherd, coming to PC and PS5 in 2027: a fully 3D single player adventure game by Frame Interactive about a sheepdog stumbling into a much bigger event while looking for its sheep. A first person Swedish soulslike called Decrepit was revealed next, followed by Audiomech from the creator of Audiosurf, which shadowdropped a demo on Steam. Capcom’s latest trailer for Pragmata announced that it will launch on April 24th 2026 and revealed that it will have a Switch 2 port on launch day alongside PC, PS5, and Xbox. There’s also an amiibo, Capcom really likes amiibo. Tactical Adventures and Kepler Interactive, the indie dev-owned publisher of Clair Obscur, announced that Solasta 2 will release in early access on March 12th 2026 after first revealing at the 2024 TGAs. Kepler also announced TankRat from developer Alpha Channel, coming to PC and PS5 in Spring 2026.
Day 4 Night, the indie studio from many former Mario + Rabbids devs including Davide Soliani, officially unveiled their first game in early development: Bradley the Badger, a metanarrative 3D action platformer starring American Horror Story’s Evan Peters in both voice and live-action as Bradley, a 90s platforming mascot who is stranded in other game worlds based on the likes of Bloodborne, Cyberpunk, and The Last of Us. Bradley’s main power is a Kit of gamedev tools used to manipulate any unfinished game assets around him. The game is currently only coming to Windows PC, but the studio is already exploring publishing partnerships to make console releases possible. The preshow had one more reveal, 3D action RPG Stupid Never Dies from the NetEase funded self-publishing Japanese dev GPTRACK50, coming to PC and PS5 in 2026.
The opening announcement for the main show was Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic, an action RPG directed by Casey Hudson at the very recently formed Arcanaut Studios. Hudson directed the original KOTOR before he became better known for the Mass Effect Trilogy, and setting aside my feelings about his specific creative choices on Mass Effect, I just think it’s embarrassing that he’s trying to insist this big game that just started development can come out in less than 5 years, I don’t know who he’s trying to fool. Next up was Soulframe and Warframe updates from Digital Extremes, and John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando from developer Saber (specifically Snowrunner/World War Z team) and publisher Focus Entertainment, announcing that the FPS will launch on March 12th 2026 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series S|X.
And then, one of the flagship announcements arrived, the payoff to that stupid desert statue ARG: Baldur’s Gate 3 developers Larian Studios offered a cinematic reveal trailer for their next big RPG: Divinity, the next big step for their original IP which started with Divine Divinity back in 2002 and which became a lot more popular with the Divinity Original Sin games. Behind all the shock value in the trailer itself (which BG3’s long forgotten original trailer from the Google Stadia event also focused on, just relatively less gratuitous) the game is promised to be like BG3 but MoreTM, bigger world, more more advanced turn-based combat systems unshackled from D&D, more sophisticated romance, the works. The game is also confirmed to be moving out of pre-production already with voice/mocap work started.
However, the game itself has been overshadowed by other things said in the various interviews Larian CEO and game director Swen Vincke did right after the announcement, and other accusations afterwards. An extensive interview with Jason Schreier at Bloomberg included discussion of a new mandate for generative AI being integrated into Larian’s officework and production pipeline, the promise that nothing in the finished game would be AI-made failed to take into account the damage already done by the usage in environmental cost, the finished work being based on inherently plagiaristic AI-work.
The backlash to Vincke’s comments was swift, overwhelming, and most importantly, led by current and former Larian employees, who say plainly that Vincke is lying about company-wide support for genAI use, that they were massively demoralized by its introduction, while throwing out other accusations of workplace culture issues for good measure: several months’ worth of intensive unpaid labor is apparently expected from writers and is an industry “open secret”, the company has both historically and currently been bad about supporting remote work, and direst of all, a trans woman claimed to have been sexually harassed at the office and told personally that some employees were too invaluable to lose despite making their coworkers uncomfortable and holding rancid beliefs.
Vincke’s initial responses to these criticisms were flimsy at best, but more recently in a Reddit AMA on January 9th, he offered a more precise response: a promise to completely remove genAI tools from art and writing in their game production in order to “leave no room for doubt”. They still aren’t completely abandoning the tools, but they are restricted back to office communications. This is a good start that shouldn’t be taken completely at its word without comprehensive info from inside the company and without the final product in hands, neither of which can be immediately accomplished. Here is Vincke’s comment about the bigotry and harassment allegations. I also want to take this opportunity to shout out the much more compelling and clear statement recently made by Sandfall after the genAI placeholder controversy from Clair Obscur’s launch reemerged into the public discourse: we tried genAI when it first came out in the middle of development, we didn’t like it at all, so we moved on from it. It’s not being used anymore.
One more major headline was produced by that Larian Reddit AMA: a formal and pretty definitive, if brief, comment was given on the possibility of a Baldur’s Gate 3 Switch 2 port, something I’ve previously commented on: “We would have loved to do it, but it wasn’t our decision to make.” Information here is obviously limited, but I can provide some context: while Hasbro/WOTC owns and controls D&D as a whole, allowing it to make its own promised BG4, Larian has a controlling stake in BG3 due to self-publishing the game, in contrast to the two games Wizards of the Coast is directly publishing in the future that I covered below. Anything outside the scope of the game’s original contract, which didn’t cover a Switch 2 port, can’t be done without Larian and Hasbro coming to terms on it, and that relationship has eroded so irrevocably that it really may never happen at all, despite the then-ongoing negotiations that led to my previous reporting. To its credit, Larian has confirmed it’s already exploring a Switch 2 port and Steam Deck support for the new Divinity.
The next TGA announcement was teased last month from JJ Abrams’ Bad Robot Games, Left 4 Dead’s Mike Booth, and publisher Sony/PlayStation. 4LOOP is a four player co op shooter starring an army of gormless 3D printed clones replacing themselves, its first closed playtests on PC and PS5 will start in 2026. Wildflower Interactive and Bruce Straley, the co-creator of The Last of Us who just did a great interview over at Polygon, revealed their new game Coven of the Chicken Foot, a 3D puzzle platformer starring a fragile elderly witch on a dark quest with her reactive companion animal. Soma creators Frictional Games revealed their spiritual successor Ontos, a sci fi horror adventure coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series S|X in 2026. Some Hoyoverse crap was up next. Next up was Capcom with the latest trailer for Resident Evil Requiem, easily its best trailer yet with a strong clear setup and an inevitable payoff executed with aplomb: Leon S Kennedy has returned! Leon and Grace will be near equal in screentime as player characters, unlike Chris and Mia’s more limited roles in the previous modern entries.
A narrative adventure coming to PC in 2026 with magical puzzles and mysteries, Order of the Sinking Star was revealed by…everyone’s favorite reactionary loudmouth who has been coasting on Braid for 20 years. After voice castmember Matthew McConaughey and a cinematic teaser introduced the game at the TGAs two years ago, Archetype Entertainment, their crew of ex-Bioware creatives, and Hasbro/WOTC were able to provide a full gameplay reveal trailer for the sci fi RPG Exodus, emphasizing both its action and its new take on dynamic RPG storytelling: your actions rippling across time itself. The game is targeting an early 2027 launch on current gen hardware.This big step forward for Exodus’ status as a real game we could actually play and even like someday was immediately undercut by the announcement that Archetype’s studio head James Ohlen is leaving the developer and Hasbro as a whole as the game enters its final stages. Hasbro showcased another game right after: Warlock, a current-gen single player D&D action game coming in 2027 with its gameplay reveal coming this summer.
Milestone announced that their story driven reboot of the Screamer racing games will launch on March 26th 2026. Yakuza creator Toshiro Nagoshi’s new studio and NetEase revealed their project Gang of Dragon, which is really just LaD again with the serial numbers filed off. TT Games and WB announced a May 29th 2026 launch date for the big new Lego Batman, with its Switch 2 release coming at a delay. Next up were not one but two separate Tomb Raider projects by Crystal Dynamics, Amazon, and Embracer Group: Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, a second remake of 1996’s original Tomb Raider, is coming in 2026 while brand new sequel, Tomb Raider: Catalyst is coming in 2027 as the series’ first step forward in chronology since 2008’s Tomb Raider Underworld. Shadow Warrior creators Flying Wild Hog are the remake’s lead devs while CD is focused on the latter game. The publishers are pitching the entire series, including the upcoming Amazon TV show, as a unified continuity in which Catalyst picks up where Underworld left off while the remake directly connects the prequel trilogy to the other games. Lara’s new voice actor in both games is Alix Wilton Regan, known for Dragon Age and Assassins’ Creed.
Quarter Up and Skybound Games announced that their fighting game Invincible VS will launch on April 30th 2026. Kepler Interactive, which is also publishing Ontos, debuted a game from one of their internal developers: Orbitals, a Switch 2 exclusive coming in 2026 featuring a world and art based on 90s anime and action adventure gameplay focused on cooperative multiplayer, with full local, online, and GameChat+GameShare support. The second paid expansion for Diablo 4, Lord of Hatred, was announced and will launch April 28th 2026. Deadpool was announced as the next character for Marvel Rivals. A new 007 First Light trailer focused on the announcement of Lenny Kravitz playing a major villain. A gameplay reveal trailer for Lords of the Fallen 2 premiered from the openly reactionary CI Games. Sony and Housemarque offered new footage from Saros while delaying the game by a month to April 30th 2026. Neon Giant, developers of 2021’s The Ascent, and Krafton announced their cyberpunk FPS No Law. Kinetic announced that Phasmophobia will come to Switch 2 in 2026.
Sega and Creative Assembly revealed their next licensed Total War RTS: current gen exclusive Total War: Warhammer 40K. Seven years after Ace Combat 7, Bandai Namco revealed the current gen exclusive Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve for a 2026 launch. Co op adventure game Out of Words had a new trailer which included a Switch 2 port announcement. FTP RPG Arknights Endfield will release on January 22nd 2026. S-Game announced that their long awaited samurai action RPG Phantom Blaze Zero will launch for PS5 and PC on September 9th 2026. Koei Tecmo announced an incoming demo for Nioh 3. Endnight Games announced their newest survival game, the sequel to The Forest and Sons of the Forest, with the hilarious title Forest 3. Getting real Fast and Furious here.
Remedy unexpectedly revealed that Control 2 will launch in Fall 2026, which does make me a little worried that it’s being rushed after the failure of FBC Firebreak. But the game is exciting and experimental nonetheless, basically designed as the inverse to its predecessor: Control: Resonant is a melee focused character-action RPG starring Jesse’s fuckup brother Dylan, he’s looking for her within a large outdoor mid-apocalyptic world after some horrible thing escaped FBC and infested New York City. One of the other final announcements came from Capcom, as I alluded to earlier: Mega Man 12: Dual Override is finally coming in 2027, nine years after Mega Man 11 but just in time for the series’ 40th anniversary, and a brief look at early-dev gameplay was provided. The action platformer is a full cross-gen multiplat release promising undisclosed gameplay innovations and a redesign for the blue bomber himself.
Lastly, a studio of former Respawn devs from the Titanfall and Apex Legends teams revealed their big new FTP multiplayer shooter and basically shadowdropped it by announcing a January 26th 2026 launch: Highguard is a fantasy FPS like the failed Immortals of Aveum, but still with traditional guns and with a lot more Overwatch energy, unfortunately. Oh, and after the inevitable GOTY win, Sandfall announced and shadowdropped the Thank You update for Clair Obscur.
Thank you to everyone for your support over the years, in all its forms. I am incredibly grateful for you, all of you, for your enthusiasm, kindness, inspiration, and generosity. I will no longer be asking for your financial support, only for your shining presence in my comments. I am proud to say that this train can keep right on rolling!