Callum's most anticipated games for 2026

More than a dash of horror

If I were the foreman of an crippled refinery, I mightiness beryllium dabbing my forehead successful anticipation close present due to the fact that determination is simply a batch coming down the pipeline successful 2026. You whitethorn beryllium looking astatine the telltale bulge of Grand Theft Auto, but I'm much focused connected the magnitude of damn good fearfulness we've got successful the plumbing.

I've had my receptor to riveting and I tin perceive the screach and scuttle of otherworldly creatures, each of which are present catalogued connected my wishlist for 2026. I'm acceptable to get my spook connected adjacent year, and present are 4 games I'm gonna devour, positive 1 non-horror crippled that volition astir surely not travel out, but I'm crossing my fingers it will.

Resident Evil Requiem

As a longtime instrumentality of the series, Resident Evil Requiem is shaping up to beryllium precisely what I want. We’ve got a caller protagonist, Grace Ashcroft, quivering successful her booties arsenic she's hunted by a big, bug-eyed stalker that tin crawl done walls, and Leon Kennedy returning to mutter corny one-liners and karate footwear zombies successful the face. In different words, Capcom is taking different ace astatine Resident Evil 6's divided of slow-paced fearfulness and fast-paced endurance action. Admittedly, that crippled was a catastrophic messiness of ideas, but it had promise: Offer the yin and yang of what makes Resident Evil special.

Capcom whitethorn person whiffed it successful 2012, but they’ve spent the decennary since executing some styles impeccably. If Grace Ashcroft’s stints of first-person corridor creeping are arsenic tense arsenic Resident Evil 7’s, and Leon’s zombie chainsawing action-fests are arsenic frantic arsenic Resident Evil 4 Remake’s, past Requiem has everything it needs to beryllium a delectable all-you-can-eat buffet of Resi goodness.

Requiem looks to beryllium a combo platter successful different way. It besides looks to harvester the first-person spooks of new-age Resident Evil with the third-person enactment of its Resi 4 overhaul. I’m besides getting a chiseled vibe of the archetypal game's Spencer Mansion from the Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Centre Grace explores successful the trailers. It feels similar Capcom signalling the extremity of an era, and I cannot hold for the gloriously convulsive jaunt down representation lane I truly anticipation this ends up being.

Reanimal

Playing Little Nightmares 3 earlier this twelvemonth near maine hollow. It was fine. It looked similar Little Nightmares. Played similar Little Nightmares. Was themed similar Little Nightmares. But thing was missing. Then I played the Steam Next Fest demo for Reanimal, the caller crippled from Little Nightmares 1 and 2 developer Tarsier Studios, and I realised precisely what was missing: Tarsier.

Reanimal is Tarsier doing what they bash best. I’m a small feline successful a large satellite ripped from my nightmares, and this time, that satellite is afloat of slug men wearing bare quality tegument similar fleshy mechs and decaying carnal husks that reanimate to devour maine whole.

But beneath each the grotesque environments that look similar grim paintings and pulse-racing chases with towering abominations, there’s a enigma astir kids successful carnal masks trapped connected a workplace wherever they're the livestock. I person nary hint what they’re doing there, but I’m truthful excited to find out.

Mewgenics

Mewgenics has you rise a clump of raggedy stray cats successful a shack and, to support them fed, nonstop them retired connected abbreviated DND campaigns done section backmost alleys successful hunt of grub. Each run is simply a randomised hodgepodge of skill-checking communicative events and turn-based fights against chap strays, pests, and, of course, demons. And betwixt both, you level up and summation magical abilities. Standard fare, specified arsenic being capable to fart with specified unit that it sends your opponents flying into adjacent objects.

When the campaign’s wrapped up, your unit instrumentality to their shack, loot successful paw, and stock a steamy nighttime of post-adventure passion. A fewer birds and a mates of bees later, you person immoderate kittens, and look astatine that, they’ve inherited their frisky dad’s magic farts. So, naturally, you strap armour to those flatulent small bastards and nonstop them onto the frontlines. The full happening looks disgusting. Definitely juvenile. And I’m in.

I retrieve playing Binding Of Isaac and adoring however McMillen layered his irreverent, albeit unnerving, animation benignant atop a crushing gameplay loop. His creation finds specified a bladed enactment betwixt humour and horror, and exploring the endlessly expanding depths of Isaac's basement veers betwixt wildly unserious and profoundly unsettling connected a whim. But Binding Of Isaac’s duplicate instrumentality shooting was ne'er truly my jam. Turn-based strategy? Now there’s thing I tin get behind, and I person a feeling I'll beryllium sinking a revolting magnitude of hours into Mewgenics, creating my elite feline farting squadron.

Ontos

I’ve ever been somewhat lukewarm connected Frictional Games’ Amnesia series. Its sanity mechanics near maine cold, and its intelligence stories ne'er deed rather right. The studio’s 2nd project, Soma, however, near a lasting impression. Dark, morally probing, and deliciously dystopian, ending connected 1 of the astir affecting last stingers I’ve experienced.

In Ontos, a spiritual successor to Soma, Frictional has recovered country to spell backmost to sci-fi, and man, the 2nd people looks appetising. The full happening takes spot successful a abstraction edifice filled with walls of talking rats, dissected quality heads kept live by wires, and mysterious acheronian vortexes to different worlds. And connected apical of that you’re guided by Stellan Skarsgard, who plays a idiosyncratic that each but admits he’s a megalomaniacal crackpot struggling with a deity analyzable disguised down the veil of “progress”. When bash I cheque in?

It looks much BioShock-y than I would person imagined for a Fricitional game. The wider scope intrigues me, particularly arsenic it seems to beryllium filled with creepy ideas that I can't hold to recoil from. I'm definite I'll immoderate messed-up worldly erstwhile I inevitably fto a twitching rat monster escaped due to the fact that it asked maine precise nicely successful its croaky quality voice.

Persona 4 Revival

I’m a huge Persona fan, and the crippled that got maine into the bid was Persona 4. When Persona 4 Revival, a full, from-the-ground-up remake, was announced past year, I jumped retired my seat, danced astir my country and past instantly started readying the champion mode to ace my fictional exams.

I’m damn excited for Atlus to revisit this crippled with the aforesaid emotion and attraction they did with past year’s Persona 3 remake, Persona 3 Reload. Persona 4 had a unsocial vibe that, with a small modern Atlus TLC, could truly marque it radiance successful 2026. It wasn’t acceptable successful the series's modular sprawling cityscape, but alternatively a agrarian municipality named Inaba. Plagued by a drawstring of ritualistic murders that, of course, are connected to a satellite of shadowy dungeons and mystical gods, it falls to your squad of plucky, charming precocious schoolers person to defeat.

It has immoderate of the champion characters successful the full series, and portion casual to deduce, its whodunnit enigma is simply a unsocial hook that leads to a agelong and compelling story. However, its a communicative that desperately needs a taste update. Several of its broadside plots are misogynistic and inexcusably homophobic. If Atlus bring maine backmost with the punchy goodness of the modern power scheme, rewrite its insensitive quality arcs and drench the full happening successful stylish sauce, I’ll autumn caput implicit heels for this anime dungeon-crawler transverse Japanese precocious schoolhouse simulator each implicit again.