Callum’s most anticipated video games for 2026

If I had been the foreman of an recreation refinery, I may be dabbing my brow in anticipation proper now as a result of there’s a lot coming down the pipeline in 2026. You could also be trying on the telltale bulge of Grand Theft Auto, however I’m extra targeted on the quantity of rattling high quality horror we have within the plumbing.

I’ve had my ear to riveting and I can hear the screach and scuttle of otherworldly creatures, all of which at the moment are catalogued on my wishlist for 2026. I’m able to get my spook on subsequent yr, and listed below are 4 video games I’m gonna devour, plus one non-horror recreation that can virtually definitely not come out, however I’m crossing my fingers it’ll.

Resident Evil Requiem

As a longtime fan of the collection, Resident Evil Requiem is shaping as much as be precisely what I need. We’ve received a brand new protagonist, Grace Ashcroft, quivering in her booties as she’s hunted by a giant, bug-eyed stalker that may crawl by way of partitions, and Leon Kennedy returning to mutter corny one-liners and karate kick zombies within the face. In different phrases, Capcom is taking one other crack at Resident Evil 6’s break up of slow-paced horror and fast-paced survival motion. Admittedly, that recreation was a catastrophic mess of concepts, but it surely had promise: Offer the yin and yang of what makes Resident Evil particular.

Capcom might have whiffed it in 2012, however they’ve spent the last decade since executing each kinds impeccably. If Grace Ashcroft’s stints of first-person hall creeping are as tense as Resident Evil 7’s, and Leon’s zombie chainsawing action-fests are as frantic as Resident Evil 4 Remake’s, then Requiem has every little thing it must be a tasty all-you-can-eat buffet of Resi goodness.

Requiem seems to be a combo platter in one other approach. It additionally seems to mix the first-person spooks of new-age Resident Evil with the third-person motion of its Resi 4 overhaul. I’m additionally getting a definite vibe of the unique recreation’s Spencer Mansion from the Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Centre Grace explores within the trailers. It looks like Capcom signalling the tip of an period, and I can not await the gloriously violent jaunt down reminiscence lane I actually hope this finally ends up being.

Reanimal

Playing Little Nightmares 3 earlier this yr left me hole. It was high quality. It regarded like Little Nightmares. Played like Little Nightmares. Was themed like Little Nightmares. But one thing was lacking. Then I performed the Steam Next Fest demo for Reanimal, the brand new recreation from Little Nightmares 1 and a couple of developer Tarsier Studios, and I realised precisely what was lacking: Tarsier.

Reanimal is Tarsier doing what they do finest. I’m a bit man in a giant world ripped from my nightmares, and this time, that world is filled with slug males sporting empty human pores and skin like fleshy mechs and decaying animal husks that reanimate to devour me entire.

But beneath all of the grotesque environments that seem like grim work and pulse-racing chases with towering abominations, there’s a thriller about children in animal masks trapped on a farm the place they’re the livestock. I’ve no clue what they’re doing there, however I’m so excited to search out out.

Mewgenics

Mewgenics has you elevate a bunch of raggedy stray cats in a shack and, to maintain them fed, ship them out on brief DND campaigns by way of native again alleys searching for grub. Each marketing campaign is a randomised hodgepodge of skill-checking story occasions and turn-based fights towards fellow strays, pests, and, after all, demons. And between each, you stage up and achieve magical talents. Standard fare, comparable to with the ability to fart with such drive that it sends your opponents flying into close by objects.

When the marketing campaign’s wrapped up, your crew return to their shack, loot in paw, and share a steamy night time of post-adventure ardour. Just a few birds and a few bees later, you’ve got some kittens, and take a look at that, they’ve inherited their frisky dad’s magic farts. So, naturally, you strap armour to these flatulent little bastards and ship them onto the frontlines. The whole factor seems disgusting. Definitely juvenile. And I’m in.

I keep in mind taking part in Binding Of Isaac and adoring how McMillen layered his irreverent, albeit unnerving, animation type atop a crushing gameplay loop. His artwork finds such a skinny line between humour and horror, and exploring the endlessly increasing depths of Isaac’s basement veers between wildly unserious and deeply unsettling on a whim. But Binding Of Isaac’s twin stick taking pictures was by no means actually my jam. Turn-based technique? Now there’s one thing I can get behind, and I’ve a sense I’ll be sinking a revolting quantity of hours into Mewgenics, creating my elite feline farting squadron.

Ontos

I’ve all the time been considerably lukewarm on Frictional Games’ Amnesia collection. Its sanity mechanics left me chilly, and its psychological tales by no means hit fairly proper. The studio’s second challenge, Soma, nevertheless, left a long-lasting impression. Dark, morally probing, and deliciously dystopian, ending on probably the most affecting ultimate stingers I’ve skilled.

In Ontos, a religious successor to Soma, Frictional has discovered room to return to sci-fi, and man, the second course seems appetising. The entire factor takes place in an area lodge stuffed with partitions of speaking rats, dissected human heads stored alive by wires, and mysterious darkish vortexes to different worlds. And on high of that you simply’re guided by Stellan Skarsgard, who performs a scientist that every one however admits he’s a megalomaniacal crackpot scuffling with a god advanced disguised behind the veil of “progress”. When do I test in?

It seems extra BioShock-y than I’d have imagined for a Fricitional recreation. The wider scope intrigues me, particularly because it appears to be stuffed with creepy concepts that I can not wait to recoil from. I’m certain I’ll some messed-up stuff once I inevitably let a twitching rat monster unfastened as a result of it requested me very properly in its croaky human voice.

Persona 4 Revival

I’m a enormous Persona fan, and the sport that received me into the collection was Persona 4. When Persona 4 Revival, a full, from-the-ground-up remake, was introduced final yr, I jumped out my seat, danced round my room after which instantly began planning one of the simplest ways to ace my fictional exams.

I’m rattling excited for Atlus to revisit this recreation with the identical love and a focus they did with final yr’s Persona 3 remake, Persona 3 Reload. Persona 4 had a singular vibe that, with a bit fashionable Atlus TLC, may actually make it shine in 2026. It wasn’t set within the collection’s normal sprawling cityscape, however as a substitute a rural city named Inaba. Plagued by a string of ritualistic murders that, after all, are related to a world of shadowy dungeons and mystical gods, it falls to your staff of plucky, charming excessive schoolers need to defeat.

It has a few of the finest characters in the whole collection, and whereas straightforward to infer, its whodunnit thriller is a singular hook that results in an extended and compelling story. However, its a narrative that desperately wants a cultural replace. Several of its aspect plots are misogynistic and inexcusably homophobic. If Atlus convey me again with the punchy goodness of the trendy management scheme, rewrite its insensitive character arcs and drench the entire thing in fashionable sauce, I’ll fall head over heels for this anime dungeon-crawler cross Japanese highschool simulator over again.