2026 Might Be One of the Greatest Years in Gaming History, And a Terrible Year to Be Social
If your New Year’s resolution for 2026 involved finding a partner, getting engaged, or finally cutting down on screen time and actually going outside more, I have bad news.2026 is not that year.2026 is the year where gaming looks at your plans, laughs maniacally, and releases so many massive titles that your free time becomes a limited resource regulated by snacks.
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So instead of pretending this year is about balance, self care, or personal growth, let’s be honest and do what gamers do best.Plan out the entire year according to release schedules.One game per month. Mostly.Sometimes two.Sometimes we cheat.This is not about release dates, it’s about survival.
1 MIO: Memories in Orbit
New year, new vibes.MIO: Memories in Orbit is a quiet, atmospheric sci-fi Metroidvania about exploration, loneliness, and poking around beautiful, broken space stations while soft music plays and nothing yells at you.People are excited for it because it looks thoughtful, moody, and refreshingly small in a year that will soon become extremely loud.This one’s for players who like vibes, slow discovery, and games that trust you to wander without immediately throwing a boss fight at your face.Think of January as the calm, artsy indie you play before the rest of the year kicks down your door.
2 Nioh 3 and Resident Evil Requiem
Bam.Just as you finish your calm indie warm up, February throws a right hook and immediately follows it with a left.Nioh 3 is fast, brutal, and unapologetically demanding.It’s for players who like tight combat, mastery through pain, and the quiet satisfaction of finally beating a boss that has been humiliating you for days.Then, before you can even catch your breath, Resident Evil Requiem steps into the ring.Survival horror, limited resources, creeping dread, and the kind of tension that makes you pause the game just to calm down.Two games. One month. No recovery time.You will tell yourself you’ll alternate between them.You will not.
3 Pokémon Pokopia, Fatal Frame II Remake, and Crimson Desert
March is a crime.This is the month your parents call, slightly worried, wondering why they haven’t heard from you since Christmas.You will not respond.You do not have time to respond.Instead, Pokémon Pokopia has you chasing rare creatures and optimizing your team like it’s a second job.Fatal Frame II Remake has you photographing ghosts in dark hallways and questioning why you chose this emotionally.And Crimson Desert drops a massive open world in your lap and politely asks you to forget about your loved ones.Society crumbles. You don’t notice.Nobody makes it out of March intact.
4 Pragmata
This is where things get weird.You start seeing a HUD even when you go to pee.You’re not sure if you remember how to speak.Pragmata is Capcom’s long teased sci fi oddity, a moody, atmospheric action game about an astronaut and a mysterious android child navigating a broken space station.It mixes combat, hacking, puzzles, and narrative in a way that feels deliberately disorienting, like it wants you slightly off balance the entire time.This one’s for players who enjoy games that don’t explain themselves, reward curiosity, and make you question whether you missed something important or if that’s just the point.
5 007: First Light and LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight
Why?Why would you do this to us?Both of these games are huge, and both let you live out very specific power fantasies.Don’t let the LEGO in LEGO Batman fool you, this is basically the entire Arkham series pretending to be made out of bricks.And then 007: First Light lets you straight up be James Bond.Suits. Gadgets. Globe trotting. Cinematic set pieces.This is the part where your friends stop coming over, because you keep asking them for a martini in a raspy voice.
6 Marathon
After the absolute identity crisis that was May, you’re probably in the mood for something lighter.Something casual.Something like a marathon.Marathon is Bungie’s return to the franchise that existed before Halo, reimagined as a sci-fi extraction shooter where tension, strategy, and paranoia are the main mechanics.June doesn’t give you a break, it just changes the flavor of suffering.
7 Marvel’s Wolverine
This is the month your landlord starts leaving passive aggressive notes.Marvel’s Wolverine comes from the same people who gave us Spider-Man, which is why everyone is losing their minds about it.You get claws, rage, and a hero who solves problems by becoming a bigger problem.Sunlight becomes optional.
8 Forza Horizon 6 and Fable
At this point in the year, release schedules have fully lost their meaning.Forza Horizon 6 promises absurdly beautiful environments, hundreds of cars, and the lie that you’ll “just do one race.”And then there’s Fable.If it finally shows up, expect whimsical fantasy, sarcastic British humor, and moral choices that ruin friendships.August was already a blur. Now it’s an identity crisis.
9 Halloween: The Game
By September, your sense of time is completely broken.Halloween: The Game drops you straight into slasher logic.You are vulnerable. Constantly hunted. Deeply stressed.It’s spooky season, and for once, the calendar agrees with your life choices.
10 Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2
October doesn’t gently ease you toward the end of the year.It kicks the door in.Boltgun 2 is loud, fast, and aggressively grimdark.You will tell yourself you’ll also watch horror movies this month.You will not.
11 Grand Theft Auto VI
This is where the descent becomes total.Grand Theft Auto VI is not a game, it’s a hostile takeover.By this point, you have no life, no friends, and no family.Perfect.
12 Nothing. Are You Kidding Me?
December? New game? Absolutely not. You are still playing Grand Theft Auto VI.There are no holidays. There is no calendar.There is only Vice City.So yeah, about that social life. If 2026 was supposed to be the year you got your life together, this article would like to formally apologize. It’s not that year.Choose wisely.And keep scrolling.
