Hundreds of video games were unveiled at June's annual Summer Game Fest bonanza. After watching more than 15 hours of showcases, our video games editor picks the highlights.
Alien: Isolation 2
The sequel to the revered 2014 horror game from British developer Creative Assembly. This time you must evade the xenomorph on the surface of a storm-ravaged colony world. Available on Nintendo, PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.
Bad Magpie (2027)
A little magpie with a broken wing and a lost flock makes its way alone, enthralled by a fallen piece of star. Coming to PC and Xbox.
Resident Evil: Code Veronica (2027)
The latest of Capcom's zombie games to be raised from the dead is 2000's Code: Veronica, presented here in first-person rather than the original's third-person view. Every RE remake so far has been a banger, so expectations are high. Available on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.
Mighty Cuphead Adventure
An extremely 1980s platform shooter that looks straight off the NES/Mega Drive, from the makers of the notoriously difficult 1920s-animation tribute Cuphead. Fans of that game will also be delighted to know that development has finally begun on another new Cuphead game, and that the announcement was made by a Cuphead puppet in a business suit. Available on Nintendo, PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.
Apple Crumble
It's your grandma's birthday and your family is here – to murder her. This Knives Out inspired British locked-room mystery comes from the makers of Duck Detective. Available on PC.
God of War: Laufey
The first blockbuster action game in which we play an extremely angry mother: Kratos' wife, Laufey, trapped in the afterlife with a whole pantheon of other gods and demigods. Co-starring a talking sword and a gelatinous cube. PlayStation exclusive.
Magicians: The Devil's Deal
A sort of extended violent vaudeville production in which a magician has to escape hell, mocked at every turn by a very dapper Satan and his minions. Notes of Bioshock and Dishonored. Available on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.
Gen Atlas
The first game in a decade from Fumito Ueda, designer of landmark PlayStation games Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, and The Last Guardian. It has those games' trademark sense of scale, as you pilot gigantic robots from within their detachable heads. Expect Pacific Rim but with delicate emotional nuance. Available on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.
Crossfire
A military sci-fi narrative action game in the Last of Us mode, from developer That's No Moon, in which two opposing operators must form an alliance to survive. Available on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.
Control: Resonant
In this paranormal action game, you are an operative from the Federal Bureau of Control, a shady US government agency tasked with keeping supernatural threats imprisoned in a brutalist building in Manhattan. Except everything from the parallel realms that they were trying to contain is now loose, and you've got to deal with it. Available on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.
Guild Wars 3 (2027)
It's high time someone tried to evolve the massively multiplayer online role-playing game in which World of Warcraft still has a near monopoly. The glimmering high-fantasy setting of Guild Wars makes a pleasing contrast to the ravaged worlds of many online games. Available on PC and PlayStation.
Virtua Fighter Crossroads
From Yakuza/Like a Dragon developers RGG Studio, this resuscitated Sega series sees you running from the Chinese mafia – half fighting game, half story adventure, with shades of Shenmue (which itself started out as a Virtua Fighter game). Available on PC and Xbox.
1666 Amsterdam
French designer/director Patrice Désilets presents this impossible-to-describe game about witches set in early modern Europe, but these robed women are battling demons rather than consorting with them. Available on PC.
Final Fantasy VII: Revelation (2027)
The long-awaited final part of Final Fantasy VII Remake, in which Cloud and his painstakingly assembled crew of allies finally face off against Sephiroth. The conclusion of a six-year project to breathe new life into a seminal role-playing game. Available on Nintendo, PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.
Into the Wind
Seemingly inspired by both Kiki's Delivery Service and Pixar's Luca, in this game you inherit a family delivery service and must fly/zoom around an island community on a scooter or in a plane to get the goods to their destination. Available on PC.
Fable (2027)
Man, this fantasy game has had quite the glow-up. It appears to have ditched the fairytale vibe and fart humour of the classic games for a more ambitious (but no less irreverent) tone. Available on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.
Gears of War: E-Day
Now back to being an Xbox exclusive, this long-awaited prequel covers the day when subterranean aliens arise to wipe out humanity. Available on PC and Xbox.
Clutch
It's been so long since we had a driving game with a story! This is a new cinematic open world driving game, set in Monaco and the French Riviera, a story about a young driver in a seemingly extremely dangerous racing competition run for the entertainment of the super-rich. The opulence of the surroundings matches the cars. Featuring Peter Serafinowicz and Little Simz. Available on PC and PlayStation.
Until Dawn 2
A bunch of young idiots are on a very haunted tropical island making a documentary about horrible things that happened there. Unsurprisingly this does not end well: your choices determine who lives and who dies. PlayStation exclusive.
The Lost Wild
The dinosaur survival game of every young kid's nightmares – it looks like you'll spend a lot of time avoiding extraordinary beasts while cowering underneath things that provide very little protection from their jaws. Available on PC and PlayStation.
Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis (2027)
A remake of the very first Lara Croft adventure, starring Alix Wilton Regan as the next iteration of the storied action-hero. A classic globe-trotting adventure film of a game. Available on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.
Threads of Time
I was very charmed by this stunning-looking indie tribute to Chrono Trigger and the other Japanese RPGs of the 90s, which its developers obviously revere. Its band of heroes ravel through the eras of human history, from prehistory to the far future. Available on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.
Red Kiss
Vampires are running amok in 1989 Berlin – and you are one of them, running a house of sexy undead misfits. A counterculture-inspired underground/underworld game with a soundtrack to match. Available on PC.
Exodus
From some of the key people behind the sci-fi opera Mass Effect comes a new space-game that looks… well, a lot like Mass Effect. You're a traveller venturing across worlds abandoned by an ancient race of aliens, looking for tech that can save your homeworld. It's difficult to tell at this stage whether it will be as colourfully written as its inspiration, but one of the characters was a sentient octopus and another was an elephant, so there's hope on that front. Available on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.
Silent Hill: Townfall
Possibly the most promising of all the many, many horror games shown at the summer showcases, this psychological horror game is set on a Scottish island and looks profoundly (and interestingly) horrible. Available on PC and PlayStation.
The Wolf Among Us
After many, many years of development hell, this comic-book adaptation returns from a re-formed Telltale Games. Available on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.
Crazy Taxi: World Tour (2027)
Sega's colourfully insane driving game returns after a long, long hiatus – complete with its original theme track from the Offspring. It's truly 1999 again. Available on Nintendo, PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.
Wardogs
A 100-player battlefield game for those who appreciate online shooters the old way – ie, not an extraction shooter or a battle royale, but a tactical war game. Old school Battlefield vibes. Available on PC.
The Lift: Supernatural Handyman Simulator (2027)
Turn screws, assemble modules, rebuild furniture, clean things and find out what on earth went on in a vaguely post-communist-looking facility that it's your job to renovate. Available on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.
Clockwork Revolution (2027)
InXile's new game looks really fun, like Peaky Blinders except steampunk – another game in the Dishonored tradition. Time-travelling rogues flit back and forth in time to mess with the balance of power in their corrupt city. Available on PC and Xbox.
Persona 6
There was just the merest glimpse of this upcoming entry in Atlus's impeccably stylish series of role-playing games, in which teenagers harness manifestations of their psyches to battle (usually adult-controlled) evil. But the previous games' pedigree is enough to inspire excitement. Available on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.
There Are No Ghosts at the Grand
Restore a crumbling old grand hotel in a dilapidated British town, befriending the local hapless policeman and meeting all the local residents. Also: there are giant shadow-spiders to shoot, and everything gets very weird after dark. Available on PC and Xbox.
Vivarium (2027)
A game about summertime memories that looks like a 1970s children's manga, set in a rural community where humans intermingle with fantastical creatures. The Ghibli comparisons are inevitable, but appreciators of niche Japanese PlayStation games will also notice notes of Boku no Natsuyasumi. Available on PC and Xbox.
Penguin Colony
Horror from a new perspective. This adaptation of HP Lovecraft's novellas At the Mountains of Madness and A Shadow Out of Time has you observing through the eyes of a penguin, as humans come to the Antarctic in search of a cosmically powerful entity. Available on PC and Nintendo.
