Beyond GTA VI: Why 2026 might be gaming’s best year yet

There is little doubt that Grand Theft Auto VI will be the biggest game of 2026, and potentially the biggest entertainment release of the year. With Rockstar finally set to launch it on November 19, the gaming world has spent years waiting for Vice City to make its return, and I’m no different. But the more games I’ve played this year, and the more I look at what’s still coming, the more I think we’re viewing 2026 through the wrong lens.

Because GTA VI isn’t what makes this year special. It’s everything around it.

The games have already been cooking

The easiest way I can explain why 2026 has felt so good is to look at what I’ve actually spent my time playing.

Resident Evil Requiem arrived in February and immediately reminded me why Capcom remains one of the safest bets in gaming. It’s gorgeous, nasty, atmospheric and somehow manages to look like a technical showcase without turning the PC version into an endurance test. Capcom says it crossed six million sales incredibly quickly, making it the fastest Resident Evil game to reach that milestone.

Then there was PRAGMATA, which I was particularly happy to see land as well as it did. A completely new IP in 2026 already feels like an act of rebellion, and Capcom decided to make one involving a space station, an android girl, shooting, hacking puzzles and an oddly charming relationship at its centre. Somehow, it worked. Really well. It even passed two million units in just 16 days.

007 First Light was another personal highlight. IO Interactive took the Bond formula and mixed it with the DNA of Hitman, which sounds like such an obvious idea that I’m honestly surprised it took this long. The stealth, gadgets, cars, and globe-trotting spectacle finally make James Bond feel like James Bond again.

And then there’s Forza Horizon 6. I have spent enough time with this game to know that “I’m just going to drive around for 20 minutes” is one of gaming’s great lies. The move to Japan gives the series a fantastic playground, and it remains one of those games that can make even someone who doesn’t care about cars suddenly care very deeply about the exact colour of a Nissan. It launched on May 15 and has already become one of the year’s standout racing experiences. From my handheld to my PC, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed playing the game, and I still fire it now and then when I need a break from work.

I also really enjoyed LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight. It sounds like the sort of game that should be easy to dismiss when you’re surrounded by giant cinematic blockbusters, but it absolutely isn’t. It is charming, funny, and ridiculously polished, and it reminded me that sometimes I don’t need a 70-hour open-world psychological breakdown. Sometimes I just want LEGO Batman to punch someone.

The smaller games haven’t been sitting quietly in the corner

I’ve become increasingly convinced that one of the reasons this year feels different is that the good stuff isn’t confined to games with enormous budgets.

Take Big Walk. It’s basically a co-op game about wandering around, solving things and being an absolute menace with friends. That’s it. No world-ending prophecy. No ancient evil. No protagonist whose parents were tragically murdered in the opening cutscene. And somehow, that simplicity is exactly why it works.

Then there’s Cairn, which is one of the weirdest games I’ve played this year because it turns climbing a mountain into something genuinely stressful. There are no armies to defeat or cities to save. There is just a giant rock, a climber, and the horrifying realisation that one bad decision can send everything downhill. The game has been widely praised for that deliberately methodical approach.

Throw Mewgenics into the mix, and my argument gets even stranger. It is basically a tactical roguelike about genetically questionable cats. That sentence should be enough to convince anyone that gaming in 2026 has gone wonderfully off the rails. And honestly, I love that.

The ridiculous part is that the year isn’t slowing down

This is the bit that keeps making me look at the release calendar and wonder who approved all of this.

Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 2 lands on August 27, bringing Metal Gear Solid 4, Peace Walker, and Ghost Babel to modern platforms. The fact that MGS4 is finally escaping its PS3 prison is already a big deal for longtime fans. For me, this is one of those releases where nostalgia and preservation actually line up in a way that feels meaningful. Then there’s The Blood of Dawnwalker on September 3. Rebel Wolves is made up of veterans from CD Projekt Red, and the game is an open-world dark-fantasy RPG set in 14th-century Europe, where protagonist Coen is human by day and a vampire by night. I mean, come on. If “medieval vampire RPG” doesn’t get at least a little attention, what are we even doing here?

A couple of weeks later, Marvel’s Wolverine arrives on September 15. I was already interested because it’s Insomniac making Wolverine, but recent hands-on previews have made me considerably more excited. The combat looks heavier and nastier than the Spider-Man games, and if you want a darker environment, then there is Control Resonant on September 24. Remedy already has a reputation for making games that look like somebody fed a fever dream into a physics engine, so I’m expecting this one to be another technical and visual showpiece.

Then there’s Gears of War: E-Day, which launches October 6. I’ve seen the multiplayer and the footage looks brutal in exactly the way Gears should look. The studio says it has rebuilt the cover system, movement, and combat sandbox while keeping the series’ defining identity intact. That is precisely what I want from a Gears game. And if you’re someone who isn’t exactly excited by that but still wants a shooter game, then Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 arrives October 23. The campaign is moving into darker territory around a conflict on the Korean Peninsula, while the multiplayer and Warzone ecosystem is once again set to swallow entire chunks of people’s free time. Whether someone loves or hates COD, it remains one of the biggest forces in gaming for a reason.

But the game I’m probably most curious about in October is Phantom Blade Zero. I saw the recent gameplay footage, and honestly, this thing looks bonkers. The combat is incredibly fast, the choreography is ridiculous, and the whole thing feels like a playable Hong Kong action movie crossed with a Wuxia fever dream.

The game stars Soul, a warrior with just 66 days left to live, which kinda reminds me of Sifu a bit, just a different take on the age factor though, and the game releases October 29 on PS5. I genuinely cannot wait to get my hands on it.

And then Rockstar walks into the room

Which brings us back to GTA VI.

November is almost comically empty around it, and that’s probably not an accident. Rockstar has locked the game for November 19, and I can’t imagine many publishers wanting to compete with the spotlight. And truth be told, I’m expecting GTA VI to be spectacular. I also expect it to completely hijack the conversation.

But here’s the interesting part: it doesn’t need to carry the year. By November 19, gamers will already have had Resident Evil Requiem, PRAGMATA, Forza Horizon 6, 007 First Light, Cairn, Big Walk, Mewgenics, Black Flag Resynced, Wolverine, Dawnwalker, Gears of War: E-Day, Phantom Blade Zero, Control Resonant and several other games I’ve probably forgotten while writing this sentence. And that is before adding the other genres, indie games, and surprises that inevitably appear between now and December.

More games, less reason to upgrade

One thing I’ve really loved about 2026 is that there isn’t one platform hogging all the fun. PlayStation has Wolverine and Phantom Blade Zero, Xbox has Gears of War: E-Day, PC is getting pretty much everything plus its daily indie-game chaos, and Switch 2 is building a surprisingly strong library of its own with games like Resident Evil Requiem, PRAGMATA, 007 First Light and LEGO Batman. Even Nintendo Switch Sports Resort is coming later this year with 12 motion-controlled sports, which means there’s a very real chance I’ll eventually be forced into playing it at a family gathering against my will. Nintendo does have a special talent for this sort of thing.

The funny part is that while the games are getting better, my PC upgrade budget certainly isn’t. GPU prices have been climbing again, while RAM and SSD costs aren’t exactly doing anyone’s wallet a favour either. As someone who spends an unreasonable amount of time testing gaming hardware, that makes one thing increasingly important: good optimization. A gorgeous game is great, but not when it demands a graphics card that costs more than the rest of the PC put together.

And that’s one of the more encouraging things I’ve noticed this year. I’m not going to turn this into another “UE5 bad” rant, because that’s far too simplistic, but some of the year’s better-looking games have shown what happens when developers really squeeze the life out of their technology. Games like Resident Evil Requiem and PRAGMATA have looked fantastic without making performance feel like an optional feature. In a year when upgrading hardware is getting harder, seeing developers meet gamers halfway might be one of the best trends of all.

I have no idea what wins Game of the Year. And that’s the point!

The Game Awards rolls around on December 10, and for once, I genuinely have no clue what the big winners will look like. Normally, by this point in the year, the shortlist starts becoming pretty obvious. This time, Resident Evil Requiem, PRAGMATA, Forza Horizon 6, Dawnwalker, Wolverine, Control Resonant and Phantom Blade Zero could all have a case to make, depending on how the rest of the year plays out. And then there’s GTA VI, lurking in November like the final boss nobody wants to fight.

GTA VI might be the biggest game of 2026. It just doesn’t have to be the reason 2026 was great.

That, more than anything, is why this year has felt so special to me. I’ve had games surprise me, games I didn’t expect to care about eat entire evenings, and enough good stuff on my backlog to make the concept of free time feel increasingly theoretical. I’ve even found myself putting hardware testing on hold because I wanted to squeeze in “just another hour” with a game. And with months still left on the calendar, I honestly don’t see the madness slowing down. Whatever ends up taking home Game of the Year, I already know what I’ll remember about 2026: I never ran out of something I wanted to play. And as a gamer, that might be the best problem to have.