New Game Preview

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Get a sneak peek at the most anticipated games of the year. From action-packed adventures to mind-bending puzzles, we've got something for everyone. Stay ahead of the game with our exclusive previews!

Animula Nook Alpha Playtest Preview—Bigger On The InsideAnimula Nook is the upcoming Lilliput Fantasy Life Simulation from LilliLandia Games that makes a big world from tiny characters.

Previews – CGMagazineMar 19

Nekome: Nazi Hunter Preview - A Personal Crusade Publisher: ProbablyMonsters Developer: ProbablyMonsters Nazi-killing stories used to be as common in video games as revenge stories are today. As the name of ProbablyMonsters’ third-person action game implies, Nekome: Nazi Hunter brings the Nazi killing back into the forefront, but retains the vengeance aspect; it’s right in the name, as “Nekome” means “revenge” or “vengeance” in Yiddish. While at Game Developers Conference last week, I met with the team at ProbablyMonsters to get a hands-off demo of Nekome: Nazi Hunter. In Nekome, you play as Vano Nastasu, a young Romani man whose entire family was murdered by Nazi soldiers. Consumed by grief and rage, Vano vows to take down the vile creatures who did this to his family. Nekome: Nazi Hunter is a linear, narrative-driven experience with an emphasis on hand-to-hand combat. Using gutter fighting, a win-at-all-costs close-quarters style developed in the early 1900s, Vano delivers brutal blows to his deserving adversaries. Vano brandishes a knife for much of the game, but he can also find others, including firearms and other melee weapons. Watching the developer play through various sequences in a very early build of Nekome: Nazi Hunter, I’m struck by how responsive the combat looks. In one curated sequence, Vano thins the herd using bloody stealth takedowns before confronting the remaining officer. Officers are resistant to stealth takedowns, but Vano can overcome that through the skill tree, which consists of three paths: The Knife (for damage and combat), The Man (for character-specific upgrades, like the ability to perform stealth takedowns on officers or upgrading Vano’s focus bar), and The Tool (for improvised weapons you pick up). ProbablyMonsters approached designing much of Nekome: Nazi Hunter as a way to tell emergent stories. That is most aptly shown in the second sequence I witness, which is more of a sandbox design. Using Vano’s focus, he can gain abilities like being able to spot enemies through walls, or one that I can’t wait to use: Focus Strike. Vano’s Focus Strike lets him stop time as he marks multiple targets’ body parts, then attacks them all in rapid succession, leaving the Nazis dead or debilitated. In a game where Vano is almost always outnumbered, this seems like one of the most useful tools in his toolbelt. After taking out a room of enemies, Vano moves on to an outdoor area, with a sniper stationed on the roof. The developer charts a path to that sniper, since having armed Nazi eyes in the sky would probably make his life miserable, and if the gunman spots Vano and fires his rifle, his hopes of stealthily evening the odds goes out the window. En route to the lookout position, Vano burns various propaganda posters – a side-objective tracker pops in the upper part of the screen showing how much hate imagery and propaganda remains to destroy. After reaching the sniper’s position, Vano brutally takes him out and assumes control of the rifle. Having access to a sniper rifle is obviously a powerful upgrade to Vano’s typical knife, but it comes with risk: Firing that gun will alert everyone of Vano’s presence, and Vano has no idea how many shots he has, a deliberate choice by the developers to really lean into the risk/reward aspect of picking up someone else’s weapons. The dev demoing the game decides it’s worth it, so he targets an officer and pops his head from afar; it turns out there was only one bullet in that rifle, but Vano used it effectively. Normally, if you’re discovered, the troops will go into high alert and search everywhere, even calling reinforcements if you don’t take them out in time. However, in this scenario, Vano’s notoriety is high, and ushering that officer into a blood-soaked grave pushed Vano over the top, so several soldiers cower as they try and escape what seems like a certain fate. Some will run, others will hide, some will even beg for mercy. In my demo, they found no mercy, and I anticipate the results will be the same when I get my hands on the title. Nekome: Nazi Hunter is still quite early in development, to the point that the developers assured me that the U.I. is still very likely to change before even the next time I see it. But even in this early stage, everything I saw told me this is a game I should keep my eyes on. We don’t know when Nekome: Nazi Hunter is set to come out, but it is currently planned to arrive on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

Game Informer PreviewsMar 18

Crimson Moon Preview - Ready To Paint The Town Red Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC Publisher: ProbablyMonsters Developer: ProbablyMonsters Release: 2026 Rating: Mature The roguelite genre continues to expand into different genres. From recent racing games like Carmageddon: Rogue Shift to shooters like Deadzone: Rogue, run-based games have become a staple in the games industry. Though FromSoftware delivered Elden Ring: Nightreign in 2025, that took a different path towards the run-based genre, instead fusing elements of the battle-royale and PvE co-op with Soulslike action. Crimson Moon, an upcoming title from ProbablyMonsters, aims to play more into the other side of the equation, delivering what looks like a white-knuckled action/RPG where death and resurrection play even more into the equation. My hands-off demo with Crimson Moon begins in the hub, a gorgeously rendered cathedral. You can choose from multiple different characters, each with their own builds. You control half-angel, half-human protagonists tasked with driving the undead out of our world. To do this, you must go on missions, which are your runs through the world. You choose a loadout, then embark on these runs, with a hefty risk-reward factor in place; they’re still tweaking how it will work, but you could potentially lose any gear you bring into the run if you die. Thankfully, unlike most Soulslike games, you also bring lives into your run. In one section, I watched the developer playing get taken out, but because he had extra lives, he resurrected right in place. You can earn more lives through gameplay progression, but this mechanic is meant to make the game more approachable for a wider audience while still retaining the genre’s trademark difficulty. As you play through the run, you earn new loot, which you get to keep if you make it out of the run alive. Crimson Moon has all the mainstays of the Soulslike genre, including a stamina bar, dodge-rolls, and little potions you drink to heal. But in the forefront is the combat, which looks as smooth as it does precise. After each tense confrontation, you can perform stylish finishing moves, which the team looked towards Mortal Kombat’s brutal Fatalities for inspiration. The demo culminated with a boss battle against a bat/vampire-looking human called Cardinal Mathias, who leapt around a church with acrobatic movements and attacks. The developer’s character looks like they might be in for a tough battle, until the demoist tells me about Angel Mode, a special ultimate-style ability where you enter an overpowered state that boosts your range and movement speed, allowing the player to even the odds and fell the daunting boss battle. Upon returning to the hub, they have the choice to funnel experience, which is granted regardless of your success or failure on any given run (albeit in different quantities), into different attributes like strength, endurance, and vitality. Those attributes, along with any gear you brought out of the run, can carry over to subsequent runs. And while Crimson Moon allows for two-player co-op across platforms, the experience is designed for single-player play. The action/RPG genre is extremely hit or miss for me, but I enjoyed watching the team at ProbablyMonsters unleash an awe-inspiring amount of damage into any foe that dare cross paths with them, and the structure of the game is promising. As the development team told me, you will die a lot in Crimson Moon. My hope is that the structure and gameplay are good enough to make us want to come back from the dead time and time again.

Game Informer PreviewsMar 18

Going Medieval first impressions – the cabbage patch kingdom simulatorThe post Going Medieval first impressions – the cabbage patch kingdom simulator appeared first on The Escapist .

Reviews - The EscapistMar 17

Going Hands-On With Everwind—Wind in the SailsCGM went on with Everwind—Enjoy Studio S.A.'s upcoming voxel fantasy game that combines survival crafting with unique RPG mechanics.

Previews – CGMagazineMar 13

Stupid Never Dies Preview – Pop Punk Is The Origin Platform: PlayStation 5, PC Publisher: GPTRACK50 Inc. Developer: GPTRACK50 Inc. Stupid Never Dies made quite the entrance last December. Its reveal during The Game Awards pre-show wouldn't have felt out of place in a late-aughts Hot Topic; a zombie boy and human girl singing and dancing to a catchy, rocking love song in a music video filled with undead imagery, comic book scribbles, and colorful bursts, with a quick punch of some action gameplay at the very end. But while it set the tone, it wasn't immediately clear how the two parts came together. After attending a hands-off preview session with developer GPTRACK50, I've got a firmer notion of what Stupid Never Dies is. It is an action RPG, filled with style-switching combat and a roguelite, structured around dives into a monster-filled dungeon. And it is absolutely saturated in pop-punk aesthetics.   I asked studio head Hiroyuki Kobayashi, who has worked on numerous series including Devil May Cry, Resident Evil, and Dragon's Dogma, about how the team created this vision of zombies and pop punk mashed together. "When we talk about pop punk," Kobayashi says. "That's, from the very beginning of the game, as we [started] creating the concept of the game, pop punk was the tone we wanted to aim for." Stupid Never Dies follows Davy, a low-level zombie in a dungeon that's been overrun by monsters. He discovers a human girl, Julia, frozen in a freezer and is infatuated with her. He wants to see her brought back to life. So Dr. Frank, a mad genius, encourages Davy to dive into the dungeon and get the power to do so by slaying KOM – the King Of Monsters. Davy, as a zombie, is not particularly powerful compared to the many strange and dangerous beasts of the dungeon. He can, however, gain power in two key ways: he can die and come back, and he can absorb the skills of specific foes to take on their form. There are myriad forms Davy can take, and we saw a lot of them. Maybe too many. The Zombie is a base form, naturally, and plays with some standard action game tools: normal and heavy attacks, a parry, and a bite. After biting some enemies, though, Davy can turn into them during his dungeon expedition, though he can only carry two additional forms at a time. The Werewolf offers a blitz of speed and fury, while the Harpy unleashes feathered projectiles. The Golem is tough and sturdy, spinning its arms around to send foes flying. The Vampire spawns in swarms of bats, the Will-o'-the-Wisp can swap between the physical and astral planes, and the Cyclops swings hard with big, all-or-nothing strikes. The Snow Fairy might be my favorite, allowing you to freeze foes and then slice them with an ice blade, enhancing the blade's power in the process. The Merfolk form can dive into the ground and make whirlpools, the Lich is a summoner-like form with skeleton pals, and the Demon warps gravity. It's a lot to take in, but essentially, these forms make up a base of power for each run. Getting used to how they work, and especially how they can work together as you flip through them mid-combat, is a core part of Stupid Never Dies. Throw in the extra power of Body Hacks, which add weapons that Davy can employ in runs like a Missile Pod or the imposing Massive Edge blade, and you can have a pretty wide variety in playstyles between different dungeon crawls. "That kind of variety can be much broader if we made this game run-based," Kobayashi says. "That's the reason why we chose this structure." As part of the roguelite nature, Davy builds up a meter of experience growth. Essentially, each run adds bonuses to future experience gains in the dungeon, so each attempt sees Davy levelling up just a little bit faster. While an early venture might spend some time on getting to, say, level 10, he might hit level 20 in just as much time, or even faster, in future adventures. Runs do have a time limit on them, but that might be a good thing if it means later tries can become explosively, exponentially faster. "We want the player to experience blazing fast growth," Kobayashi says. "That's a fundamental system of the game, so each run, you feel different." Layered over all of this is a saturated, exaggerated style that conveys as much character as that first trailer. Davy can even amp it up a bit when he enters his Davy Burst mode, a super mode that comes with over-the-top animations and visual effects. Stupid Never Dies is a fascinating project, sometimes feeling like the action-brawler Warm Bodies roguelite we never got. But beneath the pop punk veneer, there's a fascinating mix of action combat mechanics and fast-ramping roguelite progression. It's different and strange in all the best ways, and has certainly found a place on my radar for the hidden gems of 2026.

Game Informer PreviewsMar 12

Blighted Preview - Corrupt To Cleanse Platform: Switch 2, PC Publisher: DrinkBox Studios Developer: DrinkBox Studios Drinkbox Studios is commonly known as the team that brought us the Guacamelee series and Nobody Saves the World , but perhaps my favorite title in its catalogue is Severed, which originally released in 2016 on the PS Vita. While that game features fun touchscreen-based combat and an intriguing minimalist story, what stuck with me the most is its striking art style. As I walked up to the station where I’d spend the next 20 minutes playing Drinkbox’s latest game, Blighted, I immediately noticed echoes of that gorgeous Severed art style, even as the gameplay deviates from it. Vibrant, contrasting colors and a psychedelic vibe permeate every inch of the isometric action RPG. And the notion of a corrupted world, which was central to Severed’s premise, reverberate off Blighted’s own. In Blighted, the protagonist comes from a culture with a fascinating tradition surrounding their dead: When someone passes away, they plant a tree seed in their brain before burying them. Then, when that tree sprouts and bears fruit, the people consume that fruit, allowing them to experience memories of their ancestors. It’s a fascinating premise and a beautiful (if not strange) tradition. However, when the Sorcisto, the game’s evil antagonist, learns that if he eats your people’s brains, he will receive their memories and mystical powers, he consumes your entire village. Unfortunately for him, this process results in Sorcisto becoming overtaken by Blight, which transforms him into a grotesque monster. As the sole remaining member of your village, you must travel the dangerous surrounding lands to recover the memories of your people and defeat Sorcisto. Despite being an isometric RPG, Blighted pulls heavy inspiration from Metroidvanias and the Soulslike genre. As the hero navigates the world, they encounter all manner of hideous creatures with distinct powers. Managing your stamina bar, you can attack, dodge, and parry enemies – or blast them at range with your gun, which operates on a cooldown – and the better you do, the more difficult the game becomes; while playing with the developers, they cranked up the level of Blight using a debug menu that won’t be in the final game to demonstrate how much more aggressive and powerful enemies become when you’re on a hot streak. However, you can expect better rewards during this time. As you fight through and explore the various biomes, you solve environmental puzzles, unlock shortcuts, and learn about the corruption of this beautiful world. You also encounter massive bosses with their own suites of powers. These huge, ungodly creations unleash powerful attacks, with color coding about which can be parried and which must be dodged. After defeating the two bosses I faced off against, I obtained their abilities. The catch? To earn it, your character must consume their brains, creating a compelling narrative about how we can sometimes become the very monsters we hate in the relentless pursuit of our goals. I can’t wait to see how Drinkbox further explores these themes in the narrative. After defeating one monstrous boss, my character earns a stomp move, which not only offers an area-of-effect attack but also a way to clear certain barriers. As someone who has played his fair share of Metroidvanias, this immediately scratched that part of my brain, as new paths were suddenly available to explore as I returned to one of the areas I was navigating before that boss battle. I played my entire demo in two-player co-op, which can be done locally or online in the full game, but it is designed fully with solo play in mind. Just like in Soulslike games, sometimes it’s just nice to have someone else to draw the boss’ aggro for a little bit. I was intrigued by Blighted ever since I first saw it at the tail end of 2025, and when you combine it with the studio’s excellent pedigree and this incredibly fun demo, it’s one I will absolutely be watching for when it comes to Switch 2 and PC this fall.

Game Informer PreviewsMar 12

Open-World Survival Shooter The Legend Of California Is Former Overwatch Lead Director Jeff Kaplan's New Game Jeff Kaplan , former vice president of Blizzard Entertainment and lead director on Overwatch, left the company in 2021 after it demanded Overwatch generate recurring revenue or it would lay off 1,000 employees, according to a recent interview on the Lex Fridman podcast . In that time, Kaplan founded a development studio called Kintsugiyama and it has revealed what it has been working on all these years. A far cry from the fantasy of Warcraft and science-fiction of Overwatch, The Legend of California is an open-world survival shooter game set in California during the gold rush era.   In the game players will survive and compete for resources in the "mythical Island of California." It is designed to be played alone, or you can survive and thrive (or die) with up to three friends. Along with expected survival mechanics, like cutting down trees to make shelter, you can also tackle outposts filled with enemies to make money. The persistent online world will also let you build a ranch, stables, and explore mines. The Legend of California is coming to Early Access on PC by way of Steam some time in 2026.

Game Informer PreviewsMar 12

Solasta II Early Access Preview—Deep Strategic RoleplayingIf you're playing Solasta II for the fighting, you won't be disappointed.

Previews – CGMagazineMar 11

Big Walk Preview – A Walk Well Wasted Platform: PlayStation 5, PC Publisher: Panic Inc. Developer: House House Confetti, friends, paint and noisemakers; a sunset over the ocean after solving a series of puzzles. Big Walk is filled with little bits of interactivity, interspersed throughout a wide landmass of structures and mysteries. It is a world you want to trek across, stopping and pausing along the way, with a good group of friends. I spent some time exploring Big Walk in a preview session at publisher Panic's Portland offices, as a preview of the team's plans to eventually open the same playtest up to the public. After a brief introduction, I sat down at a computer terminal – complete with immersive hood and lights – and spent around the next 90 minutes or so trying to figure out Big Walk with three pals. Big Walk is, as developer House House describes it, a "walker talker." (I did ask about the overused term "friendslop," though its inception postdates the start of development on Big Walk; they like the friend part, but not so much the slop.) You and up to 11 friends are spawned into a room on an island and let loose. From there, the world is yours to explore. A jungle gym-like area taught us basics like sliding, lifting, and pointing, and then we could go wherever our hearts collectively desired. House House tells me the concept of Big Walk actually came from a desire to spend time together during a time when most couldn't: the COVID-19 lockdowns. "So this is 2020. We're all stuck inside our houses, not seeing each other," game developer Nico Disseldorp says. "And the way that we're connecting most is by playing video games with each other a couple times a week, and getting this kind of sense of togetherness from that." As House House wrapped up production on the two-player mode for its previous project, Untitled Goose Game, Big Walk felt natural. It spoke to the yearning they felt for connection and togetherness. Setting out, my avatar – which we dubbed birds, though there's no confirmation whether or not they are birds – jogged alongside my three friends, and we came across a giant crane with a clamped object and button at the top. After a few earnest attempts at knocking the object down with whatever makeshift projectiles we could find, we stacked up and made a bird-tower, letting the top bird tap the button and un-clamp our objective: a gourd-like item. Some confetti shot out, and we celebrated. This was an instructive puzzle for understanding how House House plans to scale Big Walk. There are three "modes" that groups can play in: two-player, three-player, and four-or-more, up to a maximum of 12 players. For two players, the crane might be a lower height than it would be for four or more. Broadly, you can expect a similar experience across the game, but puzzles might be altered to accommodate the player count for duos or trios. As for why groups are capped out at four players? Well, on the one hand, House House says coordinating five or more people started to get unwieldy. But with a big group, players could start to split up and go off on their own. They could have jobs, or some could simply watch others complete a task, helping from the sidelines. Groups could splinter off, complete a challenge, then come back with the reward and a story to tell the other. House House says the team even wants to encourage splitting up. Some challenges require players to form small groups and complete puzzles across vast expanses, and some tools naturally encourage splitting up by letting players keep in contact. A whiteboard or fireworks, for example, could help with nonverbal communication across vast distances. Comms were surprisingly expressive and adaptive in my playtest, too. While proximity voice chat was the natural option, the text chat and other communication options – even just pointing and gesturing with your avatar – worked incredibly well, and added physicality to our vocal discussions, as we could point things out to friends while talking about them. Some puzzles even revolve around limited communications, where players might not be able to talk to each other and have to gesture, or use alternative means. "Once you have this rich way to communicate with each other, taking away limited aspects of that and making you use the others is actually a really good way to get you thinking creatively and get you kind of playing and having fun, and like exploring the boundaries of those puppets," game developer Stuart Gillespie-Cook says. Also, you'll need to bring your own friends. While House House and Panic are planning a launch later this year for PC and PlayStation 5, with cross-play between the platforms, you won't be able to matchmake into other people. You'll have to invite friends to play with you. House House says they imagined Big Walk as a group game, similar to a recurring Dungeons & Dragons session, that you might play for a few hours at a time over several sessions. My time in Big Walk flitted by in what felt like minutes. The little interactive bits, like music stations or fiddly tools, were a blast. The puzzles were pitch-perfect, often requiring us to group up, discuss, and collaborate for a solution. Just as often, though, I loved the little moments of talking and walking. We'd start making jokes, or discussing what we thought we'd need to do next, or even just making funny noises and singing. It really did feel like a Big Walk with some pals in a virtual space. "The walk's not there for no reason," Disseldorp says. "That's the negative space, that's the space for you to have your own fun and do your own thing in. So everything's nicely far away, and it's enough time for in between for you to kind of get a break, catch your breath, start talking to each other again, rather than this kind of unrelenting, 'okay, what's the next challenge?'" Big Walk carries forward a lot of the interactivity and playfulness you might expect from the makers of Untitled Goose Game, but it understands the desire for a collaborative game so well. It's not just about the shared achievements and challenges, but about the virtual third space you can share together. It's easily become one of my most anticipated releases, and I'm eager to take a Big Walk with some friends later on this year.

Game Informer PreviewsMar 9