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!

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

Mouse P.I. for Hire nails its cartoon-noir vibes, but the real surprise is how it plays Maybe you're intimately familiar with Fleischer Studios' 1930s cartoon classics; maybe your knowledge pretty much begins and ends with Studio MDHR's glorious 2017 video game homage, Cuphead . Either way, you'll immediately know what Mouse P.I. for Hire is going for, and developer Fumi Games pretty much nails the "rubber hose" look. This is black-and-white era Fleischer meets 1940s detective noir; and there's even a bit of old-school Disney thrown in, given the seedy world of Mouse P.I. - Mouseberg - looks like it's populated by long lost, down-on-their-luck relatives of early days Mickey. Read more

Eurogamer.net Previews FeedMar 5

Mouse: P.I. For Hire Preview – Rubber Hose RodentMice guys finish last The post Mouse: P.I. For Hire Preview – Rubber Hose Rodent appeared first on WellPlayed .

Preview – WellPlayedMar 5

Going Hands-On With Mouse: P.I. For Hire—A True ClassicWhen I took a look at Mouse: P.I. For Hire back in June, I really liked what I saw, but I was definitely left wanting more. I had been following the game for a while, so I was already on board, but watching someone else play an FPS is only so much fun. I needed […]

Previews – CGMagazineMar 5

Going Hands-On With The Mega Man Star Force Legacy CollectionCGM got a sneak peak at the upcoming Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection, which features all the Mega Man Star Force games initially released on the Nintendo DS.

Previews – CGMagazineMar 4

Crimson Desert Preview – Pimp My Open-WorldI applaud Crimson Desert for trying to do so much. I hope it nails most of it The post Crimson Desert Preview – Pimp My Open-World appeared first on WellPlayed .

Preview – WellPlayedMar 4

Thick As Thieves Preview - A Legendary Team Returns To A Genre It Helped Invent Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC Publisher: Megabit Publishing Developer: OtherSide Entertainment Release: 2026 Rating: Teen Thick As Thieves is my most anticipated game of the year, but surprisingly, I know very little about it. Though it’s been in development for years, the asymmetrical stealth multiplayer project has remained shrouded in mystery since its announcement. I even sat down for an intimate behind-closed-doors demonstration at Summer Game Fest and still have a limited understanding of the project thanks to a campus-wide internet issue that complicated our short session. The universe works in mysterious ways – apt for a stealth game steeped in peculiar magic. Despite the poor showing, my excitement and curiosity remain unwaning. OtherSide Entertainment is helmed by a legendary game designer, Warren Spector. Known for creating Deus Ex and Thief: The Dark Project, two groundbreaking stealth games renowned for their immersive simulation elements, Spector is a prolific game designer, but he hasn’t released a game since the Epic Mickey series concluded in 2012. “There are very few game-making teams out there with the skillsets to make a great stealth game, which is one of the biggest reasons, in my opinion, that we don’t see many games like this in the market,” game director Jeff Hickman tells me over email. “Our goal is to make a game that is [...] full of emergent gameplay moments and very approachable to any person who wants to play. A game that can be played both solo and in multiplayer modes that ramps up challenges as the player gains mastery of their thieving skills.” Set in an alternate 1910s, Thick As Thieves is a speculative fiction set in the Scottish city of Kilcairn, where magic and technology abound. Whether playing solo, cooperative, or against other player-controlled thieves, multiple maps offer a variety of missions and valuables to steal. Players can track down clues to discover new routes and hidden treasures across Kilcairn, as well. “To support multiplayer well, we are looking at more focused session play, where a team of thieves might complete a mission in a level within a half-hour or less,” Hickman says. “That calls for tighter-scoped levels. But at the same time, we are adding more depth, variety, and surprise to our levels than [Thief or Dishonored] to make them much more replayable.” OtherSide is incorporating magic and speculative technology into Thick As Thieves, not only to realize a unique aesthetic but also to affect gameplay. Floating, magical sentries spotlight the guarded entrances of Kilcairn’s Scottish Baronial architecture, requiring careful consideration to bypass undetected. In some hands-off gameplay footage, I watch as a player equips a magical mask to impersonate a guard and bypass the sentry. However, once inside, they must rely on traditional stealth mechanics, bypassing patrols with careful pathing while staying in the shadows. Further in, a maze of reflected light beams and seemingly weight-sensitive tiles serve as a robust security system, making neutralizing guards much more difficult. In an exciting escape sequence, the thief disappears above the rooftops thanks to their handy grapple gun. “Multiplayer stealth games provide amazing opportunities for cooperative and competitive gameplay, and we’re focusing on breaking new ground in the space in a way that takes advantage of multiplayer gaming without the player frustrations that can arise because of it,” Hickman concludes. “We’re confident that no one has ever built a game quite like Thick as Thieves.”

Game Informer PreviewsMar 3