The Best New Video Games of 2026 (So Far)

Published Nov 9, 2026, 4:46 PM EST One last look at the year's best before GOTY deliberations begin Image: Intelligent Systems / Nintendo Sign in to your Polygon.com account It's hard to believe, but 2026 is winding down. Well, maybe that's easy to believe if you remember that Code Vein 2 and Highguard kicked off the year in January, and both now feel like ancient history. We're getting closer to putting together our year-end game of the year come December, but there's still a long road until then. We're still catching up on a busy year of games, from big-budget hits to indie hidden gems. Oh, and there's still this little game called Grand Theft Auto 6 to consider. While you'll have to wait for our final list to see where recent releases like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Phantom Blade Zero will land on our final list, as we're still digesting them, these are just some of the games that are on our mind heading into the home stretch. Mind that this list is not ranked. It is ordered reverse-chronologically. How we pick the best games of 2026. For consideration, a game has to be out for at least three weeks, so we know it's not just a flash in the pan. We also select games that are beloved not just by their reviewer but also widely across the team. We'll update this article periodically throughout 2026. 1 Star Wars: Galactic Racer Image: Fuse Games/Secret Mode Release date: Oct. 6 Where to play: PS5, Windows PC, Xbox Series X It's 2026 and pod racing is cool again thanks to Star Wars: Galactic Racer. Fuse Games' impressive debut is the second coming of Burnout, sending you racing across the galaxy in junky vehicles that are ready to explode at a moment's notice. That makes for fast, thrilling races filled with glorious slo-mo explosions. Oli Welsh, Polygon's resident racing game aficionado, called it the "most original and exciting racing game in a generation" in his review, which is very high praise. All of that gives us enough reason to love it even before factoring in the game's breakout star, Biddy Blas. 2 Fire Emblem Fortune's Weave Image: Intelligent Systems/Nintendo Release date: Sept. 17 Where to play: Switch 2 For a certain kind of RPG sicko, Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave might be the most impressive game Nintendo has ever made. The sprawling tactics game, which takes well over 100 hours to complete, ties four wild storylines together into one wartime epic. Though it requires a lot of patience from players, those who click with it have discovered an excellent RPG filled with the series' most weird and wonderful characters to date. "Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave is dazzling as much for the scope of its ambition as for how adroitly developer Intelligent Systems executes that vision," Josh Broadwell wrote in his glowing review. "It's a gigantic turn-based tactics game that, despite a few missteps, carries itself with grace and purpose." 3 The Blood of Dawnwalker Image: Rebel Wolves/Bandai Namco Entertainment Release date: Sept. 3 Where to play: PS5, Windows PC, Xbox Series X There's a world where The Blood of Dawnwalker was little more than a pale imitation of The Witcher. Thankfully, we don't live in that timeline. Instead, Rebel Wolves' debut RPG is a bold riff on CD Projekt Red's formula, drenching it in blood and innovation. The star of the show is its controversial timer, which forces you to spend time wisely as you prepare to save Coen's family from vampires. While it's stressing some players out, Polygon's Marloes Valentina Stella praised the system for pushing players to use their time meaningfully. "Usually, when I play an open-world RPG, I follow the main story for an hour at most, and then I forget all about it while I'm off doing a bazillion other things," she wrote in her review. "But in Dawnwalker, I've met Coen's family, I've felt his despair, and I've only got 30 days to save them. Knowing every time segment brings me closer to their moment of doom, every action I take must bring me closer to victory." 4 Star Wars: Zero Company Image: Electronic Arts Release date: Aug. 27 Where to play: PS5, Windows PC, Xbox Series X Star Wars: Zero Company was a bit of a shocker when it launched in August as one of the best reviewed Star Wars games of all time. In retrospect, that response should have been obvious from the outset. Created by veterans of the XCOM series, Zero Company took everything that made Firaxis' genre-defining tactics game great and combined that with the rich lore of the Star Wars universe. It was a match made in heaven, something that Polygon's Elijah Gonzalez praised in his review. "On top of delivering the XCOM-lite thrills of playing as a field commander, it nails the specifics of this particular time in the Star Wars mythos," he wrote. "Unlike the halcyon image of a 'more civilized age' promised by Ben Kenobi, we see the Republic as the messy, flawed institution it was to the average person not living in a Jedi temple on Coruscant." 5 Big Walk Image: House House/Panic via Polygon Release date: Aug. 4 Where to play: PS5, Switch 2, Windows PC Big Walk is unforgettable. Untitled Goose Game developer House House evokes the puzzle-solving exploration of Myst in a brilliant co-op adventure that's all about hanging out with your best pals. It looks silly, what with its goofball characters, but Big Walk's trick is that it's a surprisingly emotional journey built to sharpen your communication skills with the people you love. It all pays off in an astounding ending sequence that you have to experience to truly understand. If you can't find a crew to play with but want to know more, you can read Polygon's journal-like review that chronicles our playthrough from three perspectives. 6 Denshattack! Image: Undercoders/Fireshine Games Release date: July 15 Where to play: PS5, Switch 2, Windows PC, Xbox Series X There was never any doubt that Denshattack! would be a special game. Right from its debut trailer, the indie about a kickflipping train felt like a jolt of Dreamcast energy. What's so impressive about the final game, though, is that it's not just a one-trick gimmick. Developer Undercoders went all out to build a varied platformer that combines the best elements of Sonic the Hedgehog, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, and Jet Set Radio. As I wrote in my review: "Denshattack! remembers that reinvention is what made games of the time so radical, and it isn’t afraid to totally jump the shark in creating an over-the-top variation of an old extreme sports formula that’s just ridiculous enough to work." 7 Mina the Hollower Image: Yacht Club Games via Polygon Release date: May 29 Where to play: PS5, Switch, Windows PC, Xbox Series X Mina the Hollower, Yacht Club Games’ ode to the top-down Zelda era, pulls off something remarkable. Rather than settling for easy Game Boy nostalgia, it reinvents a retro adventure format in so many notable ways. Its perfectly-implemented Bloodborne inspiration, for instance, could have felt forced and frustrating in less capable hands, but Yacht Club pulls it off with finesse by understanding where 40 years of video game history naturally intersects. “FromSoftware’s games draw on foundational game design principles that powered ‘80s adventure games,” I wrote in my review. “Mina the Hollower is just the link between worlds.” 8 007 First Light Image: IO Interactive Release date: May 27 Where to play: PS5, Windows PC, Xbox Series X It’s been a long time since we’ve gotten a great James Bond video game, but IO Interactive has ended a long drought in spectacular fashion. 007 First Light nails the assignment, combining the cinematic highs of Uncharted with Hitman’s immersive sim brilliance. That’s all anchored by Patrick Gibson’s strong take on a young Bond that sells First Light’s origin story premise. “He's exactly as you'd expect a younger, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed Bond to be,” Ford James wrote in his review. “Far more talkative than his jaded, older self, but with the perfect amount of defiance for authority, back-chat, and quick-wittedness, alongside enviable levels of suavity.” 9 Zero Parades: For Dead Spies Image: ZA/UM via Polygon Release date: May 21 Where to play: PS5, Windows PC, Xbox Series X Zero Parades: For Dead Spies is the kind of game you need a little distance from to appreciate. Haunted by the drama surrounding its developer, Disco Elysium studio ZA/UM, it was initially too easy to write off the spy RPG as a hollow copy. In actuality, Zero Parades tells a remarkable story about a career screw-up embarking on an apology tour. "You have to go through the work of earnestly apologizing to an old crewmate, knowing the entire time that Cascade’s end goal is roping them into another suicide mission that she can’t get a handle on," I wrote in my review this spring. "Forgiveness is always just out of reach, because you’re ultimately in a line of work that forces you to backstab your colleagues to survive." 10 Forza Horizon 6 Image: Playground Games/Xbox Game Studios via Polygon Release date: May 19 Where to play: Windows PC, Xbox Series X The Forza Horizon series is about as reliable as it gets in gaming. Playground Games' open-world racing games never cease to impress, even if they're not trying to do anything particularly new. That's true for Forza Horizon 6, which doesn't mess with an excellent formula. "Forza Horizon 6 is excellent, because of course it is," Oli Welsh wrote in his review. "It's polished, welcoming, huge, sensible, gorgeous, flexible, intense, relaxing, lavish, detailed, tasteful, dorky, glamorous, and upbeat, because of course it is." Even if it's more of the same, the gorgeous Japanese scenery and some much-needed progression tweaks make Forza Horizon 6 another victory for a series that's all gas, no brakes.