My favorite games of 2026, halfway through the year

Hello! Today, as June draws to a close and the year is somehow already near halfway over, I've decided to highlight my favorite games so far.

I'm biased, but I'd say it's a good mix, with some expected blockbusters as well as a couple of quite underrated titles I haven't heard much discussion around. It'll also be fun to compare this to my inevitable end of the year favorites, allowing me to see what has changed and what made it through the fall blitz.

Before we begin, some caveats. I'll freely admit I haven't had the chance to check out a couple of big games, including Playground Games' Forza Horizon 6, which is by all accounts absolutely excellent. I'm also explicitly not including any game that has launched in early access and hasn't hit its "1.0" launch, no matter how much I've played it.

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10 - Age of Mythology Retold: Obsidian Mirror

Kicking things off with what is technically an existing game, I've simply had too much fun with it not to mention Age of Mythology Retold - Obsidian Mirror. This latest expansion from World's Edge and its partner studios brought the highly-requested Aztec faction to the strategy world of gods and monsters clashing.

The Aztecs are appropriately unique, standing out in design philosophy and approach compared to anything else in Age of Mythology. The new units are extremely fun, and (combined with prior expansions) means Age of Mythology: Retold is well beyond just being a remake with some tweaks.

Commanding legions of Jaguar warriors and sacrificing troops to earn favor with brutal gods doesn't get old. If you missed it earlier this year, I highly recommend checking it out and reading my interview with World's Edge.

Available on: Xbox, PC, PS5

9 - Pragmata

First announced all the way back in 2020, Capcom's Pragmata finally arrived this year as something of a refreshing throwback. It feels like a cancelled Xbox 360 game that was brought to the modern day, and I truly do mean that as a compliment.

Set on the moon, Pragmata follows the bond between an android named Diana and a man named Hugh. It eschews a lot of the "Sad Dad" tropes that kind of pairing might invoke, and the gameplay relies on a unique hacking system requiring fast decisions to disable enemy defences before attacking with firearms.

Pragmata never revealed anything that could reach GOTY status for me, but it's a consistently fun experience that deserves mention.

Available on: Xbox, PC, PS5, Nintendo Switch 2

8 - Black Jacket

Mi'pu'mi Games — a team usually known for its work supporting other titles — delivered a criminally underrated experience in Black Jacket, which sees a man condemned to Hell, playing games of Blackjack to try and barter his way back out.

This is Hell, however, and it's not so simple, as the other souls bound in torment have dirty tricks and extracurricular cards up their sleeves. As such, the game unfolds in roguelike fashion, as more and more runs open up ways of cheating back via new cards and abilities.

I haven't seen many people talking about Black Jacket, and I really hope that changes. It's not an easy game, but it's easy to say "just one more run."

Available on: Xbox, PC, PS5, Nintendo Switch

7 - Directive 8020

Directive 8020 is the fifth entry in Supermassive Games' Dark Pictures Anthology, and it's the most unique so far. Breaking away from Earth (mostly), Directive 8020 follows a crew sent to scout ahead and ensure life is possible on the world of Tau Ceti f, only to find the planet is already inhabited by something not exactly friendly to humanity.

I have a soft spot for the choose-your-own-adventure horror game sub-genre that Supermassive has pioneered, and the science-fiction setting is genuinely interesting, while the graphical leap over past games in the series is stunning.

It's not perfect — a lot of the more truly horrifying elements take a bit too long to show up, and there's one too many stealth sequences for my liking — but it's still a blast to watch, no matter the decisions you make.

Available on: Xbox, PC, PS5

6 - Mixtape

Beethoven & Dinosaur's second game Mixtape is exactly what it sounds like: an ever-shifting adventure, an experience that rolls from one beat to another, never leaving you in one place for too long. One moment you're rocking out trying to get cheeseburgers, the next you're literally floating away in depression.

The game follows three friends having one last night together before going separate ways, and it captures the angsty nature of being a teenager. That sometimes means being nasty for petty reasons, thinking the tiniest problem is end of the world, and, eventually, realizing you have to grow up.

Every needle drop is well-chosen, and the art direction holds consistent despite some absolutely jarring bits. If you can accept the premise, it's a ride worth taking.

Available on: Xbox, PC, PS5, Nintendo Switch 2

5 - Saros

As Housemarque's debut game while fully part of PlayStation Studios, Saros builds heavily on the foundation laid by the team's prior title, Returnal. Saros is essentially a spiritual sequel to Returnal, once again sending a protagonist into a dark world filled with eldritch secrets. But I wasn't enthralled early on.

Arjun (performed by Rahul Kohli) is unfortunately just not that interesting, not given characterization outside of past misdeeds cloaked in mystery, a backdrop as he pushes forward on the planet Carcosa.

The roguelite arcade-inspired gameplay is solid, throwing him against alien machines and monsters, with new modifiers and additional permanent progression systems that feel good. In polishing the gameplay so much however, Housemarque does remove a fair bit of the friction that made Returnal click for me.

Then the game's second act starts, and it immediately became clear that it was holding back beforehand, with some stunning boss fights and brutal encounters that raised my heart rate time and time again. These encounters and some subsuquent story reveals take too long to arrive, but when they hit, the entire experience is elevated.

Available on: PS5

4 - Reanimal

When Tarsier was acquired by Embracer Group, it was the end of the team's work on the Little Nightmares franchise that it pioneered. It was not the end for excellent horror games in that same vein.

Enter Reanimal, a game that builds on the foundation set by Little Nightmares, but escalated to new gross heights.

Reanimal is technically playable as a single-player game, but I went through it as a co-op title, and I feel the game was better for it. Working together to harpoon an approaching beast or narrowly evade a mutated creature is great. Jump scares are more fun shared across friends — horror movies make for amazing theatrical experiences for a similar reason — and Reanimal certainly has some frights to give.

More terrifying is the subject matter, which sees children trying to rescue their friends against a backdrop of war, cults, monsters, and bloody rituals. Where Tarsier once shuffled its feet in ideas of childhood terror, it now openly waltzes along the horrors of adulthood.

I still don't know what to make of events that transpire across Reanimal, but I know I won't forget them anytime soon.

Available on: Xbox, PC, PS5, Nintendo Switch 2

3 - 007 First Light

When IO Interactive first announced that it was working on a James Bond game, it seemed like a natural fit. Of course the team that pioneered the Hitman series would be able to adapt and tell a suave spy's story with fun gameplay mechanics, even if there were some areas that would need to be tweaked. Fast-forward a few years and...it was indeed a natural fit.

As an origin story, 007 First Light sees Bond (played by Patrick Gibson) recruited into His Majesty's Secret Service, with training sequences that are genuinely inspired, breaking down immersive sim ideas at a rapid pace with humor. Then you get thrown into the actual missions, and the game doesn't slow down.

007 First Light gets extra points for accomplishing something even some of my favorite games of all time didn't do: it's a stealth game where you don't feel punished for getting caught or fighting back, at least within reason. Bond doesn't have time to hide bodies and manuever carefully forever. If someone doubles back, oh well, bring out the fisticuffs! Are mercenaries literally shooting at you? Then you have a License to Kill, just shoot them back!

All the while, the story grapples with ideas of human intuition against cold calculation. There's a warm spirit in Bond that an AI algorithm can't outperform, which feels relevant for this time.

It's a game that's fun, energetic, sexy, and doesn't overstay its welcome. I'm looking forward to seeing more of this Bond in the future.

Available on: Xbox, PC, PS5, Nintendo Switch 2

2 - Resident Evil Requiem

Truthfully, I'm still going back and forth on these last two, and it's entirely possible you'll see them reversed in position when I do my end of the year ranking. For now though, Resident Evil Requiem is my runner-up.

Capcom has the Resident Evil franchise down to a science at this point, retaining just enough and experimenting in the right ways every time, despite the rapid rate of new releases.

Resident Evil Requiem jumps between newcomer Grace Ashcroft and series mainstay Leon Kennedy, providing both a true survival-horror experience and an action-packed adventure that still feels tonally true, unlike games like Resident Evil 6. The moment I was running down the street and got the prompt to pull out an oversized gun called "Requiem" I had the biggest dumb grin on my face, which is one of the highest compliments I can give a game.

That's not to say there's nothing to criticize. The game doesn't utilize its protagonists switching back and forth to its full potential — the most interesting idea, that enemies Grace struggles with can be easily disposed of by Leon, is indeed only relevant early on — and some late-game story reveals are nonsense, even by the standards of this franchise.

None of that takes away from what an absolute blast Requiem is.

Available on: Xbox, PC, PS5, Nintendo Switch 2

1 - Marathon

I've written before about my love of Marathon, and how its utterly brutal gameplay loop resonates so strongly with my own struggles. That's only more true months later, as it's hard to extricate Marathon from the circumstances around its developer Bungie.

Marathon is gorgeous and haunted. First-person shooting feels as good as in Destiny and as savage as in Hunt: Showdown. It's a game that rewards cruelty of necessity, while making kindness dangerous and special all at once. With every run across Tau Ceti IV or the titular ship itself, a little bit of your Runner is left behind, replaced with something darker yet more hopeful all the same.

I still remember where I was the first time I found gold-level shields while playing with a friend. I still remember every clutch, the times me, my friends, or even a passing compatriot of the day were able to turn the tide, defending against an ambush and winning a fight that should've been lost.

There is something truly wonderful about Marathon and the way it has come together. Even as Bungie tries to expand its reach, introducing new modes and ideas to make it more welcoming, Marathon's viciousness and intrinsic mercy will forever be what brings me back.

Available on: Xbox, PC, PS5

Assorted news

Outside of the latest video game software sales in the U.S. (which have some encouraging wins) it's mostly bad news this week.

• 007 First Light was the best-selling game of May 2026 in the U.S, per Circana senior director and analyst Mat Piscatella, via Bluesky. In second place was Forza Horizon 6, while LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight snagged third place.
• Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto 6 is available for preorder, and it indeed costs $80 for the standard edition, with a $100 ultimate edition adding in extra shops and bonus cosmetics.
• Xbox is raising the price of its consoles again, with 512GB models (Xbox Series S) going up to $500, while the 1TB models (Xbox Series X) will now retail for $750, or $800 if you want a disc drive. The existing 2TB model is being phased out, and all these changes go into effect on Aug. 1, 2026. Horrifyingly, Xbox also claims memory prices are expected to double again by November 2027.
• Sony has laid off hundreds of developers across Bungie and some PlayStation Studios support teams. A full accounting isn't yet available, but the layoffs encompass most of the Destiny 2 development team, as well as some staff that worked on Marathon.