Edwin's most anticipated PC games for 2026

Most anticipated? Oh reader, you gentle, innocent child. Hark at you, ambling in here with supple joints, eyes clear as springwater, and the scent of hope in your hair. I have grown old, dear reader. I no longer feel this emotion called “anticipation”, anymore than I remember the taste of strawberries in the Shire. Years of waiting for another Legacy of Kain game have broken my spirit. My heart is a sponge of sorrow. My beard coils round my ankles like a listless cat. All has become grey.

Still, I dimly recall a younger version of myself, perhaps a version of myself from a couple of weeks ago, writing a list of potentially 2026-bound games they were looking forward to. There, I have found the dusty paper. Let me light a candle and peruse it. Argh! I have set my beard on fire. Quickly, while it burns, read the list in the stinking glow.

Folk Emerging

This curious indie strategy sim is basically the first turn of Civilization stretched out for hundreds of years. It casts you as a tribe of primordial hunter-gatherers exploring a world of changing weather conditions and fragile food webs. You won’t just “research technologies”, such as learning how to sharpen flints; you’ll also cultivate values like hedonism, develop social systems, and help individual tribespeople get along from generation to generation. I think it’s the most intriguing 4X in a long while, partly because it declines to entirely become one.

Mars Tactics

Dear Premier Tim Curry, I regret to inform you that space has been corrupted by capitalism, but take heart – the revolution that never quite took on the Blue Marble begins anew on the Red Planet. That is, providing we can secure our airfield and set up a decent hydroponics operation. Mars Tactics is a turn-based tactical strategiser from developers Takibi Games and publishers Hooded Horse. You command the forces of either Capital or Labour, expanding facilities and supply lines while sending your grizzled customisable infantry to battle each other XCOM-style on destructible maps. I like the asymmetry of this – Capital start out with a stronger foothold, but are a monolith reliant on Terran shareholders for resources, while Labour have to build momentum, but have passion and ingenuity on their side.

Subnautica 2

The next game from Unknown Worlds began life as an undersea survival game with all-new co-op features, but they’ve since transformed it into a legal attrition simulator from which all mention of weird fish has been scrupulously redacted. This new version of Subnautica 2 still supports multiplayer, but it’s now a turn-based experience that can only be played by millionaires and billionaires; actual game developers appear only as background scenery, desperately trying to tell you about biomes while lawyers scream about incriminating ChatGPT logs. Please, please, Unknown Worlds – please find a way to turn Subnautica 2 back into an undersea survival game before release. I thought the first one was really, really good. I would like to have those feelings again.

The Bustling World

There are two things to know about The Bustling World. Firstly, it’s an everyone RPG. You can be a general. You can be a bandit. You can be a guy with exactly one vase to his name. You can be a martial artist, or an urban architect, or a competitive chef. That’s the theory, anyway. In practice, I do wonder if this game is going to fall apart like a jumbo jet made of sellotape. Secondly, The Bustling World is a peach. The textiles! Those paper lanterns! Those gaudy, crowded streets! Even if the game’s social simulation and assortment of vocations collapse under the weight of ambition, I think it’ll be worth playing this just to grab some screenshots.

Cicadamata

Gosh, how I love the trailer for this limber and pearlescent FPS. It’s like drinking Red Bull through your eyes and ears. The fizzle and whine of the level props, the flip and slam of the weaponry, the quasi-Designers Republic backdrops, the helterskelter vaporwave score… I’m going to be rubbish at Cicadamata, I know. I’ve probably just encumbered it with a bunch of misleading references, too. But it is nonetheless a game for me – a reincarnation of my old PS1 favourite Jumping Flash that has taught itself parkour and traded Robbit’s blaster for a double-barreled shotgun.