The 2026 Summer Game Fest showcase is the best one yet, except for one thing

One constant you can always count on is the regularity of the showcases hosted by Geoff Keighley, including Summer Game Fest. While many past years have waxed and waned in content and pacing, for my tastes, this year's entry was a fantastic presentation, stuffed to the brim with games I'm interested in.

Even most of the games that I'm not particularly drawn to looked objectively cool and will likely have some kind of audience, to the point it's hard for me to muster criticism toward this year's lineup.

With one glaring exception.

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Tons of great games, and many are coming soon

As I'm writing this in my hotel in L.A, I'm still impressed with the sheer breadth of games included in the Keighley kick-off. The presentation opened strong with Capcom unleashing Resident Evil Veronica, a remake of the original 2000 Resident Evil: Code Veronica. Claire looks fantastic in what appears to be a darker interpretation of events, and it's slated to launch next year.

It also wasn't Capcom's only appearance in the show, with the prolific publisher revealing the Monster Hunter Wilds: Ascendance expansion, while also revealing a new wave of brawlers coming to Street Fighter 6, including Tifa from Final Fantasy, who is an absolutely perfect fit.

The reveals didn't ever slow down much, with a quick new look trailer for Sega's Alien Isolation 2, while Take-Two's Hangar 13 is working on a story expansion for Mafia: The Old Country (an extremely underrated game that I quite enjoyed last year) that's slated to launch on Aug. 14, 2026.

Studio MDHR also made an appearance, announcing that the team has developed an 8-bit Cuphead platformer called Mighty Cuphead Adventure. While it's launching on modern platforms, it's actually been programmed with the tech of the 1980s, meaning it will technically work on a Sega Master System, which is maybe the coolest thing anyone has announced this year.

Telltale Games showed up to tout that yes, The Wolf Among Us 2 is in fact actually launching in 2027. After so long, I truly don't know what to expect, especially as so many of the original team went on to work at AdHoc on the excellent Dispatch. Still, I'll hope for the best, and a remaster of the first Fabletown adventure will tide me over when it launches this holiday.

Oh, and the developers are also working on a full new Cuphead game, but don't expect it soon, as it's in the "earliest stages" of development.

Strategy games got some love with Electronic Arts and Bit Reactor's Star Wars: Zero Company, which is now scheduled to arrive on August 27, meaning it'll just barely beat the blitz of releases that follows in September.

I'm really looking forward to this one, as XCOM-style gameplay seems a perfect match for Star Wars. Plus, many of the writers for the Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Survivor are working on the story for Zero Company, so I'm expecting a strong narrative.

Rounding out the show are Bloober Team with a multiplayer Saw game, while Stellar Blade developer Shift Up is working on a sequel called Blood Rain that will be self-published. Famed director Fumito Ueda's next game, Gen Atlas, looks absolutely wild, with massive robots littering a huge, lonely world.

The show ended with Square Enix taking to the stage, revealing the third and final entry in its Final Fantasy 7 remake series is called Revelation. Unlike the prior two games, it's multiplatform at launch, meaning Xbox, PC, and Switch 2 owners won't be waiting for PlayStation exclusivity to expire. Oh, and it's coming early next year.

It was a fantastic showcase, and were it not for one particular reveal, this is where I'd be leaving things off. Alas.

The elephant in the room

A new trailer for RGG Studio's Stranger Than Heaven brought a January 2027 release date, which is cool. The trailer also revealed that the late musician Tupac will be brought back to life as a full character, which...isn't.

Let me be clear: I don't have any issues with historical character use in fantastical ways (see also: Assassin's Creed) or even possibly someone who more recently died, provided it's done in proper taste.

This just isn't. This isn't a family giving consent to have a lost loved one honored in some way. It's an estate holder (not in Tupac's family, I'd note) exploiting an appearance for money. It's gross. If any other developers are considering doing something like this, I'd implore them not to.

Assorted news

There are a couple of other tidbits from outside of the Summer Game Fest showcase that are well worth mentioning here.

• Dealabs reports that a remaster of Atari's Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters is on the way. I'm genuinely in awe, as I never thought these games would be brought to modern platforms. If they can also port over Save the Earth (the game I personally preferred) then I'll buy it the moment it's available.
• IO Interactive announced that 007 First Light has already passed 2.7 million copies sold within its first week of release. I finished playing the game just before flying out to L.A, and that success is incredibly well-deserved. The team is promising updates throughout the year, with new simulator content, a new mission, and more.

Housekeeping

For the next three days of Summer Game Fest, I'll be going hands-on with (or taking a behind-the-scenes look at) numerous games from various publishers. Varying embargo times means that my publishing schedule is going to get a bit weird, but no matter how things line up, you can expect significantly more pieces from me in the near future.