Best games from Summer Game Fest 2026

The demos gave us a much deeper look into some of 2026’s most anticipated titles, and even some slated for 2027. Here were some of our favorite games we played during Summer Game Fest, which teased an exciting year ahead for an already busy year for new games.

1

Control Resonant

Who knew that Remedy Entertainment could make a hack-and-slash game that’s every bit as fast and fierce as Devil May Cry? Control Resonant takes the supernatural atmosphere of 2019’s Control and places it into an action RPG that’s unlike anything the studio has made before. Don’t be worried about that; the studio pulls it off with finesse. Protagonist Dylan Faden has a deep arsenal of tools and skills that let him chew through hordes of Hiss in a twisted version of New York City. What I appreciated most in my demo, though, is that it’s still a Remedy game under all that killer action. Cryptic cutscenes and liminal labyrinths already make this feel like a natural evolution of Control’s unforgettable vibe. —Giovanni Colantonio

2

Onimusha: Way of the Sword

I’ve already said that Capcom’s new Onimusha is the best game I played at Summer Game Fest, but I’ll reiterate: In a year of games packed with AAA Capcom hits, Onimusha: Way of the Sword feels fresh and exciting. It’s a combat-action game that doesn’t overwhelm, but offers a deep bench of combat tools to dispatch terrifying zombies and inventive demonic bosses. Way of the Sword also has character; protagonist Miyamoto Musashi is a lovable oaf, his magical gauntlet arm Shizuka is a fascinating mystery, and the bosses are full of weird Joker energy. It feels great to be excited about Onimusha again. —Michael McWhertor

3

Clutch

I figured that I knew what to expect when I sat down to play a bit of Clutch, a new open-world racing game by some of the minds behind the Forza Horizon series. Realistic driving, a beautifully detailed world, and some good vibes — what more was there to know? Quite a bit, it turns out. Clutch is doing everything in its power to push the racing genre forward with high-quality cinematics, Hollywood acting, and a rich story about two siblings navigating a changing racing world. Stir all that in with some best-in-class driving, and you have something that feels like a true iteration on Forza’s formula. Did I also mention that you can strap a grappling hook to your car and swing off a helicopter? Yeah, this sucker rocks. —Giovanni Colantonio

4

Bub

Image: Paperfrog

No matter what I write here, I know that I won’t be able to adequately explain what Bub is. The surreal narrative game combines flashes of personal storytelling with a collage of hand-drawn art to create an art house game unlike anything I’ve experienced before. What’s especially compelling about it is the story behind it, though. Originally conceived as a game about anxiety, the scope of the project changed entirely after one of its creators was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Bub became a way to process the disease, to find peace with mortality, and to visually represent the artist’s creative process. This is the kind of bold storytelling that makes gaming such a remarkable, varied medium. —Giovanni Colantonio

5

Blood Dungeon

Image: Messhof

There are plenty of games that have tried to replicate the success of Vampire Survivors just by making the same game again. Blood Dungeon, the latest game from Wheel World developer Messhof, goes one step further and stumbles into gold. What if Vampire Survivors was a 2D platformer? It doesn’t make much sense on paper, but it’s an absurd blast in practice. My demo had my cartwheeling ninja hero auto-firing at enemies as I navigated a 2D maze looking for chests and gold, all while leveling up and getting even more powerful. By the end, I was whacking enemies with whips, bouncing balls, and shotgun blasts all at once in a display of pixelated chaos. Messhof was also proud to tell me that Blood Dungeon has an M rating because one character has a four-pixel penis, which maybe describes the ridiculous joy of this game more than anything else I just wrote. —Giovanni Colantonio

6

Bad Magpie

In Bad Magpie, you are a magpie with a broken wing who acts badly to solve puzzles and win over a cute falling star. If that sounds a little twee, I get it. But Bad Magpie was a delightful surprise from Xbox and developer Milktooth, offering a welcome break from the gun-heavy action at Summer Game Fest. As the titular bird, you pick up objects to start fires (by pecking at flint) or terrorize mice and smiling flowers with your magpie screech. Bad Magpie has a lot of Untitled Goose Game and Katamari Damacy vibes, but it’s enjoyable, chill, and full of clever puzzles. It helps that it has a warm, fuzzy aesthetic, but this is a gameplay-rich puzzle-solving game first and foremost. —Michael McWhertor

7

End of Abyss

Image: Section 9 Interactive/Epic Games

Genre fusions can be tricky to pull off, but developer Section 9 Interactive is nailing its elevator pitch for End of Abyss. Get this: It’s a horror Metroidvania that’s also a top-down twin-stick shooter. Those ideas were in perfect harmony during the impressive demo I played. I spent 30 minutes losing myself in an eerie facility filled with zombie-like monsters, en route to a terrifying insect boss. Along the way, I used a scanner to uncover additional lore, found secrets tucked away in the environment, and got a tease of some abilities that will open up new routes in the world. Most striking of all, though, was the tense atmosphere. The project comes from some of the former developers behind Little Nightmares, and I could see that expertise in an eerie environment where I felt small and defenseless in a very unnerving world. —Giovanni Colantonio

8

Sprawl Zero

Image: Maeth/Kwalee

We’ve had our fair share of Doom-inspired “boomer-shooters,” but where are our Halo-inspired “millenial-shooters?” Developer Maeth is on a mission to pioneer that trend with Sprawl Zero, a follow-up to its retro-FPS Sprawl. The sci-fi shooter calls back to the Xbox era, pulling inspiration from games like Halo and Fear in a fast-paced shooter. Though it’s very faithful to that era — especially in its banging electronic soundtrack — Maeth adds in a lot of twists that make for some wildly fun gunplay. You can chuck weapons at your foes, enter bullet time for slo-mo shootouts, absorb incoming bullets with a shield and send them flying back to sender, and use a Half-Life 2-style Gravity Gun to send objects flying. The nostalgia-tinged shootouts are an absolute blast, and I can’t wait to see what speedrunners do with the wealth of offensive systems. —Giovanni Colantonio

9

Out of Words

Image: Wired Fly/Kong Orange, Epic Games

Last year, Epic Games brought Out of Words to Summer Game Fest, and left a trail of teardrops in its wake. Several people I spoke to during the event last year praised the co-op game as a beautiful tear-jerker. Epic rolled out a second demo of the game for this year’s show, but this one was more focused on co-op puzzle platforming. It turns out that Out of Words has a lot more going for it than emotional cutscenes. The new snippet I played was filled with clever ideas, including a puzzle where my partner and I had to pass around an object that shifted our gravity around. All of that happened against some incredible backdrops made up of physical sets and puppets that have been scanned into the game via photogrammetry. It looks like a stop-motion film, but developers KongOrange and WiredFly aren’t leaning on that as a gimmick; the co-op play and storytelling are there to match it. —Giovanni Colantonio

10

Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered

I wouldn’t usually include a remaster in a roundup like this, but I’ll make an exception for Godzilla. One of the very last games I played at the show was Atari’s Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered. I’m not sure if it’s just that I was exhausted from demoing games at that point and needed something light, but it ended up being the purest fun I had with a demo during the entire event. The new Unreal Engine 5 remaster does the GameCube fighting game justice, refining everything just enough to let you enjoy the larger-than-life kaiju fighting. While the original game landed as an acquired taste when it first launched, I’m betting that the remaster is going to convert a lot more players into fans. —Giovanni Colantonio