10 biggest games still coming in 2026

For a lot of gamers the final months of 2026 are going to revolve around Grand Theft Auto VI. Few releases are large enough to influence the calendar around them, but Rockstar's November launch has left the month unusually quiet as other publishers give it space.

That does not mean the rest of the year is empty. Nintendo is rebuilding Ocarina of Time for Switch 2, Call of Duty has another major October release lined up, and what we saw of Gears of War: E-Day at Gamescom suggests The Coalition's return to the beginning of the Locust War deserves plenty of attention of its own.

There is also a new Castlevania, Dawn of War is returning after almost a decade, and FromSoftware still has The Duskbloods scheduled for 2026.

These are the 10 biggest game releases still coming before the end of the year.

We start with a series we have not seen in this form for more than a decade. Professor Layton and the New World of Steam brings Layton and Luke back together, but not quite in the roles we remember.

Luke has already built a reputation as a detective in Steam Bison by the time Layton arrives, which shifts their old teacher-pupil dynamic. The puzzles are changing behind the scenes too, with QuizKnock taking over from the Akira Tago tradition that helped define the original games.

The bigger change is where people will be playing it. After years of being closely associated with Nintendo handhelds, New World of Steam launches simultaneously on Switch, Switch 2, PS5 and PC on December 10.

Next up is a series that has spent almost twenty years changing its mind about what kind of strategy game it wants to be. The original Dawn of War was built around bases, territory and large armies, while Dawn of War II moved much closer to small-squad tactics. Dawn of War III tried to bring those ideas together, but the series disappeared soon after.

Dawn of War IV looks much more decisive. KING Art Games is bringing back base building, resource control and larger armies, while also returning to Kronus from Dark Crusade and keeping The Last Stand mode introduced in the second game.

After nine years without a new entry, this feels much closer to the kind of Dawn of War many players have been waiting to see again. It launches on PC on December 3.

Castlevania: Belmont's Curse feels like a pretty natural next step for Evil Empire. The studio spent years working on Dead Cells, eventually got to play with Konami's series in Return to Castlevania, and is now making an actual Castlevania game of its own.

This time we play as Rose Belmont, Trevor's daughter, who travels through Paris and Dracula's castle in 1499. The Vampire Killer is used for both combat and getting around the castle, while defeated bosses unlock new Arcana abilities.

That Dead Cells connection has naturally shaped a lot of the discussion around the game. There is plenty of excitement about Evil Empire taking over, but also some concern that the faster movement and combat could push it a little too close to Dead Cells. Belmont's Curse launches October 15.

Star Wars: Galactic Racer is probably the closest we have come in years to a proper arcade racer set in this universe, and the team behind it makes that a lot more interesting.

Fuse Games was founded by developers with experience on Burnout, Need for Speed and Star Wars Battlefront II, so there is plenty of racing pedigree behind it. 

The game mixes podracers, landspeeders and speeder bikes, with branching tracks and a campaign built around choosing events rather than simply working through a fixed championship.

The Ramjet is probably the mechanic that best shows what Fuse is going for. You can keep pushing the boost for more speed, but let the heat climb too far and you risk destroying the entire vehicle. Galactic Racer launches October 6 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC.

Phantom Blade Zero has been one of those games people keep talking about whenever new footage appears, mostly because the combat looks absurdly fast without becoming impossible to read.

There is quite a bit more underneath that presentation now too. Soul can use more than thirty primary weapons alongside twenty-five Phantom Edges, and reforging gives invested upgrade materials back, which should make it much easier to experiment instead of sticking with the first strong build you find.

S-GAME is also leaning heavily into wuxia rather than simply chasing the Souls-like label. Donnie Yen has been involved as a creative consultant since 2023 and performs Mó Yuan through facial and motion capture, giving the combat a direct connection to the kind of martial-arts cinema the game is clearly drawing from. Phantom Blade Zero launches on PS5 on October 29.

The Duskbloods is still one of the bigger mysteries left on the 2026 calendar. We know FromSoftware is building an eight-player PvPvE game exclusively for Switch 2, and we have seen enough to understand the basic idea, but there is still no exact release date.

Players enter matches as predefined Bloodsworn, with AI enemies, temporary alliances and personal objectives all overlapping. It is a much more direct multiplayer game than the Souls titles, and Hidetaka Miyazaki is directing it himself rather than Nightreign director Junya Ishizaki.

What we do not know is when we will actually get to play it. Nintendo still lists The Duskbloods simply as a 2026 release, which leaves FromSoftware with a fairly small window to reveal much more before launch.

Gears of War: E-Day already looked like one of the stronger Xbox releases of the year when we saw it at Gamescom. Instead of continuing from Gears 5, The Coalition is going all the way back to the first Locust attacks and putting Marcus and Dom in the middle of Emergence Day.

That changes the tone immediately. The Locust are still an unknown threat, so enemies we have been fighting for years are meant to feel dangerous again rather than familiar. The campaign follows the destruction of Kalona over three days, with Marcus and Dom watching the city fall apart around them.

It is also the first Gears built in Unreal Engine 5, which feels appropriate for a series that was once one of the defining showcases for Unreal Engine 3. Gears of War: E-Day launches October 6.

Ocarina of Time is one of those games Nintendo could have kept rereleasing forever, so a full Switch 2 remake immediately raises the question of how much it is actually willing to change.

The answer appears to be quite a lot. Link can manually jump and dash, the camera has modern controls, and cutscenes are now fully voiced with expanded dialogue. The manual jump is probably the biggest change, simply because the original game was built around Link automatically leaping from specific ledges.

Nintendo is effectively modernising one of the games that helped establish how 3D action adventures worked in the first place, rather than just cleaning it up visually. Ocarina of Time launches November 5, only two weeks before GTA VI.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 was always going to be one of the biggest releases left this year, but the return of DMZ is probably the most interesting part of the package.

The original mode gave Call of Duty a very different rhythm. Once you had something valuable in your backpack, another gunfight was no longer automatically a good idea, because dying meant losing what you had picked up.

Infinity Ward is bringing that idea back with persistent progression, story missions and the Hajin Exclusion Zone, rather than treating DMZ as another temporary Warzone experiment. The campaign also splits its focus between Captain Price and South Korean soldier Private Park Hyun Jun. Modern Warfare 4 launches October 23.

There was never much doubt about what would take the number one spot. GTA V has sold more than 225 million copies and kept Los Santos alive for three console generations, so the first new numbered Grand Theft Auto in thirteen years was always going to be the biggest release of 2026.

Rockstar's August Extended Look showed almost half an hour of in-game footage, with Jason and Lucia switching during active missions, robbing stores, stealing vehicles and trying to lose the police during getaways. Their story also runs through a much larger criminal network, with characters such as Boobie Ike, Brian Heder and experienced bank robber Raul Bautista already involved in different jobs.

Leonida stretches well beyond Vice City too, with the Keys, Grassrivers, Port Gellhorn, Ambrosia and Mount Kalaga all confirmed. Rockstar has shown everything from scuba diving and basketball to dirt bikes and fanboats across those areas.

After thirteen years, another enormous map was expected. How all of these systems and characters come together is what could make GTA VI feel like a real generational jump. Grand Theft Auto VI launches November 19.