Not-E3 2026: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

I’m embarrassed to admit it, but after years of following E3 like an apostle, I totally forgot it was taking place this past week. 

Part of the reason, of course, is the dissipation of E3 as we knew it and its replacement with Geoff Keighley’s admirable, if lackluster, Summer Game Fest. As I reflect, though, I realize my disillusionment extends far beyond a changing of the guard. Sure, major publishers like Nintendo and Sony still show up to this shindig, but the excitement just hasn’t been the same. You could argue we’re getting more terrific game announcements than ever, yet at a time when fake art is everywhere, it’s hard to discern greatness from goop.

Not-E3 2026 encapsulates that feeling well. In this piece, we’ll cover a lot of terrific game announcements — several that generally lived up to E3s of old. We’ll also delve into the not-so-great moments, from oddball likenesses to Donald Duck to our stance on one major publisher in particular. Better buckle up.

– Written by David Silbert

The 14 Best Game Announcements of Not-E3 2026

Let’s start with the good — and there was plenty to go around. From long-awaited new entries in established franchises, to tantalizing remakes, to interesting spin-offs and new IP, the future of gaming looks bright.

Here are 14 of our favorite reveals from the latest summer of gaming:

Control Resonant

I’m ready for Remedy Entertainment to ruin me emotionally again with Control Resonant. While Dylan Faden wasn’t my first choice of protagonist, I could not be more excited to revisit the world of Control. And maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised (the first game teases both the gun and the sword, and Jesse Faden definitely used the former).

Remedy seems to have found a nice balance between the atmosphere of the Oldest House, the weirdness of the Federal Bureau of Control (FBC), and the combat of Devil May Cry V. Things promise to get weird in Manhattan this fall. 

While the latest footage from Summer Game Fest focuses on Dylan and his search for his sister and FBC director Jesse, I want to know what FBC agent Kiran Estevez has been up to since The Lake House DLC of Alan Wake 2. We’ll find out this fall.

– Written by Clint Morrison

Developer: Remedy Entertainment
Publisher: Remedy Entertainment
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S
Release date: September 24, 2026

Deltarune Chapter 5

Deltarune has become my favorite gaming comfort food. What began in 2018 as a small but ambitious follow-up to Undertale has grown in scope over the past near-decade. In 2021, we got the sublime Chapter 2, while 2025 brought us not just one, but two new episodes to sink our teeth into.

Now, we’re two short weeks away from Chapter 5 — meaning the adventures of Kris, Susie, and Ralsei are now one step closer to the final curtain. That makes me extremely sad. Excited as well, but oh-so-very-sad. No matter the year, the world, or my mood, Deltarune has been there for me through good times and bad. We still have time left with the gang, but as with the best friendships, it just won’t be the same once it’s over.

– Written by David Silbert

Developer: Toby Fox
Publisher: Toby Fox, 8-4
Platforms: PC, Mac, PlayStation 4 & 5, Nintendo Switch 1 & 2
Release date: June 24, 2026

Exodus

I don’t really watch Not-E3 type stuff (and I was also at a bachelorette party, and the girlies don’t always love when you pull up the PlayStation State of Play at the bar), so I wasn’t tracking any of the news until Clint tagged me in the Discord and said, “I feel like Amanda should cover Exodus, or at least get first dibs… I know Amanda’s love for Mass Effect is unmatched.” My guy. I agreed to blurb without even having watched the trailer. 

Now, I’ve watched the new extended gameplay demo, and oh boy, I need Exodus bad. From the first few seconds, I could see the resemblance to the original Mass Effect. Shoot, duck, radial menu to superpower, stand, shoot, duck, radial menu to command companion to attack. Exodus is scheduled to release 20 years after Mass Effect, and its lineage is good and clear. Exodus is being developed by Archetype Entertainment and published by Wizards of the Coast, featuring tons of veteran developers who worked on BioWare’s Mass Effect and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic series.

I’ve wanted to be a space adventurer ever since I was young, and video games have been my rocket ship. Exodus looks like it’s my next ticket to ride. 

– Written by Amanda Tien

Developer: Archetype Entertainment
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S
Release window: Early 2027

Fable

I didn’t play the original games, so the nostalgia that many players have toward the Fable series is lost on me. But to say I’m looking forward to Playground Games’ take on the franchise would be a massive understatement. 

It’s no secret to anyone who knows me that fantasy is my favorite genre. It’s also no secret that I love a good story, spend hours customizing characters, and nerd out over a good soundtrack. And from the looks of things, Fable will have all that and more. 

Every trailer I’ve seen looks incredibly impressive. The dialogue is animated and funny, the character models are realistic, the combat looks dynamic and intuitive, the world is gorgeous, and Richard Ayoade is in it. And huge. But the most exciting feature of the game for most prospective players is the ability to truly carve your own story. There are so many variables that your choices, from the trivial to the vital, are affected by. No two playthroughs will be the same.

We’ve still got a while to wait, but I’m holding out hope that Fable will be an all-time favorite for me and other story-driven game fans. Don’t disappoint us now, Playground.

– Written by Darcy Maunder

Developer: Playground Games
Publisher: Xbox Game Studios
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S (also on Game Pass)
Release Date: February 23, 2027

Final Fantasy Resonance

One of the nicest throughlines from Nintendo’s June Direct was a focus on RPGs — not just known quantities, like Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave or Deltarune, but genuinely zany ones. Last year, the confoundingly named yet promising Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales stole the show. This year, Square Enix and its HD-2D team carried the water yet again with the reveal of Final Fantasy Resonance.

In what’s been a busy 12 months for Square Enix Creative Studio 5, Team Asano has delivered the excellent Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D, given new life to an old mobile game with Octopath Traveler 0, taken a stab at the 2D Zelda formula with The Adventures of Elliot, and now added a fourth project to the mix. Like Octopath 0, Resonance is built on a mobile game (Brave Exvius, now sunsetted). Like Dragon Quest I & II, it harks back to the series’ roots. And like all other Team Asano projects, it looks visually stunning.

With any other studio, a game birthed from a defunct mobile game would be cause for alarm. With Team Asano, I have no doubt they’re cooking up something special. 

– Written by David Silbert

Developer: Square Enix Creative Studio 5
Publisher: Square Enix
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 1 & 2
Release date: October 22, 2026

Final Fantasy VII Revelation

Square Enix rose from the ashes this week with a bevy of announcements, headlined by the final entry in the Final Fantasy VII “re-trilogy” series: Revelation. 

The trailer showcased the capabilities of the Highwind, which will define Revelation’s open world, as well as the Fit system, which applies a job-class-esque layer of classic RPG customization atop the action and synergy-based bones of Rebirth’s impeccable combat. The trailer also gave us tantalizing hints of the epic, possibly meta-physical narrative as we race toward a conclusion that some might say is decades in the making. 

Director Naoki Hamaguchi has assured fans that “the ending of the story is going to be a singular ending.” I’m hopeful that Revelation will be the conclusion many of us are waiting for.

– Written by Kei Isobe

Developer: Square Enix Creative Studio 1
Publisher: Square Enix
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2
Release date: Spring 2027

God of War Laufey

God of War has somehow become one of PlayStation’s more bizarre and (somehow) malleable franchises. The Norse duology bears little resemblance to the earlier titles that focused squarely on Greek mythology, and now the folks at Sony Santa Monica are further complicating things with God of War Laufey, which received a more-than-20-minute gameplay trailer at the most recent State of Play.

To put it simply, the new God of War gives players control of Laufey, Kratos’ wife whose passing marked the beginning of the 2018 reboot, where the Ghost of Sparta and his son, Loki, journey to spread Laufey’s ashes at Jötunheim. In this upcoming third-person action title, Laufey’s spirit awakens in some kind of strange afterlife that appears to include deities and other mythological figures from across multiple religions and cultures, including a talking gelatinous cube.

The gameplay in the reveal trailer looked just as action-packed as one would expect from a series about killing hordes of enemies in especially brutal ways, but also seems to have enough of its own flavor to stand out from the pack. Laufey herself moves in a more balletic manner, with double-jumps and flips galore, and her apparent partnership with Phranque seems primed for plenty of humorous moments. Sony Santa Monica is basically incapable of making a truly bad game, so I have high hopes for this one.

– Written by Sam Martinelli

Developer: Sony Santa Monica
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Platforms: PlayStation 5
Release date: TBD

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (2026)

Okay, the actual trailer itself for the long-awaited remake of the greatest game of all time wasn’t exactly thrilling. It basically just showed a tapestry of various characters and places from the original Nintendo 64 classic, with an older man’s voice (likely the Deku Tree) telling the tale of the Kokiri and the Hero of Time, who we see in gorgeous 4K glory… for maybe a few seconds. Really, we only see Link sleeping on his side, his hand glowing with the Triforce of Courage. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to set everyone OFF.

In all seriousness, the trailer didn’t show a lot, but that doesn’t mean it showed players nothing. First of all, the most obvious change is the existence of the voice itself, as mainline Zelda games didn’t have true voice acting until 2017’s Breath of the Wild. Also, the glowing Triforce on sleepy Link’s hand? That’s not supposed to appear that early in the game, which implies that maybe the changes to the original are more radical than I first imagined. Either way, I will 100% play whatever this is on day one, and I certainly can’t wait to see more than just a minute and a half the next time Nintendo gives us a preview.

– Written by Sam Martinelli

Developer: TBA (presumably Nintendo EPD)
Publisher: Nintendo
Platform: Nintendo Switch 2
Release date: TBD 2026

Marvel’s Wolverine

I loved the Wolverine movies, even if they were of… varying quality. But Logan destroyed me. It was a good movie, and a good conclusion for the character, but I was definitely not okay for a week or two after watching it. 

When I found out about Insomniac Games’ upcoming Wolverine game, I was excited to get to see Logan in something where he wasn’t, you know, dying. I was even more excited after watching the gameplay trailer, where Logan is seen rescuing a group of captured mutants alongside Jean Grey. It’s engaging, it’s cinematic, it pays homage to both the movies and the comics, and it shows off how much of a badass Logan is. I actually lost count of how many people’s faces he punctured. The movement and progression of the scene feels like it’s been ripped out of one of the movies, which, personally, is exactly what I wanted from a game like this.

As with any media that features beloved characters, there will always be things that I and other fans aren’t one hundred percent happy with. But, overall, I think Wolverine has the potential to be a really solid game!

– Written by Darcy Maunder

Developer: Insomniac Games
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Platforms: PlayStation 5
Release date: September 15, 2026

Resident Evil Veronica

I know the RE Engine when I see it. The second that grandma showed up in the trailer, I knew we were getting either a new Resident Evil or a new Devil May Cry — I’m always praying for the latter, but I’m never mad about the former. And this is shaping up to be another gorgeous, horrifying entry in the saga.

I never played the 2000 original, but I’ve watched enough YouTube retrospectives to know its reputation for both greatness and glorious cheese. What truly sells me, though, is Claire Redfield. As much as I adored Resident Evil Requiem, her absence was a glaring omission — a return to Raccoon City that felt incomplete with nothing but a gun charm to remember her by. Now, this is her game, full stop, and the reveal trailer puts her front and center.

Will it tie back into Requiem? Will the story get reworked to connect the dots? No idea. But I know it’s another day-one buy. Capcom owns me. Help.

– Written by Donovan Harrell

Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2
Release date: TBD 2027

Stellar Blade: Blood Rain

Blood Rain is a sequel to 2024’s Stellar Blade, which took the internet by storm. As an avid Stellar Blade… enjoyer? Agonizer?, I’m tentatively excited for what a sequel will bring to the table. 

To address the elephant in the room — yes, Evie’s face model is jarringly childish, an intentional choice by developer SHIFT UP. Eve herself went through several redesigns in the trailers leading up to Stellar Blade’s final release, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Evie undergo a similar-ish sort of transformation just for general palatability reasons. 

Otherwise, Blood Rain looks like it may have abandoned its NieR: Automata-based aspirations for more of a Stand Alone Complex with monsters aesthetic, and I’d be happy to see the series transition from a more Soulslike exploration focus to a tighter, action-packed one as it moves into a more urban vibe. Evie has exchanged the blade for her fists, but Blood Rain clearly has Stellar Blade’s DNA — flashy combat, parries, impact frames, slo-mo finishing blows, QTEs, and gratuitous ass shots galore. For better or for worse, I’m invested. 

– Written by Kei Isobe

Developer: SHIFT UP
Publisher: SHIFT UP
Platforms: TBD
Release date: TBD

Star Fox (2026)

When Nintendo first announced Star Fox (2026), a reimagining of 1997’s excellent Star Fox 64, in a surprise game-focused Direct presentation last month, I knew pretty quickly I’d be into it. Star Fox 64 is one of the best rail shooters of its era, one of the best Nintendo 64 games, and an all-time classic that’s just as essential to Nintendo’s history as many of the best Mario and Zelda games. It makes perfect sense, then, to re-craft the experience for new audiences with sharper graphics, entirely updated character models and voice acting, new cutscenes, and a slew of new game modes, including online multiplayer.

While Nintendo already went pretty in-depth on the remake in that May trailer, its June Direct this week announced that players could try out a demo of the game on the eShop after the presentation. Obviously, I went to download it right away, and let me tell you: It does not disappoint. It may be an all-too-familiar story, but I can’t wait to dig in and see what new angles and perspectives it offers. One of my most anticipated Switch 2 games, without a doubt.

– Written by Sam Martinelli

Developer: Velan Studios
Publisher: Nintendo
Platforms: Nintendo Switch 2
Release date: June 25, 2026

Valor Mortis

When I sampled Valor Mortis during PAX East 2026, I came away beyond impressed. Set in an alternate-reality 19th-century France, this first-person Soulslike is quite the departure for developer One More Level (Ghostrunner 1 and 2), previously responsible for neon cityscapes and death-defying parkour. But the team seems more than prepared for the challenge, and it showed during my demo time.

The latest trailer doesn’t provide many new details, aside from a few story teases, some delicious slivers of footage, and the reveal that Napoleon will be voiced by French great Vincent Cassel (La Haine). It also gave me the only new information I really needed: a release date. That date cannot come soon enough.

– Written by David Silbert

Developer: One More Level
Publishers: Lyrical Games, One More Level
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S (also on Game Pass)
Release date: October 13, 2026

Update (6/11): Well, that was short-lived. Just days after announcing a release date of September 24, 2026, One More Level has announced that Valor Mortis will be delayed, ever so slightly, to October 13 to avoid a deluge of games at the start of the fall. We’ve updated our piece accordingly.

Xenoblade Genesis

Xenoblade fans are eating good. Hot off the heels of Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition for Switch 1 and 2, we’re getting not just three Switch 2-enhanced versions of the core trilogy, but also a brand new game. And it’s a prequel spin-off!

The announcement trailer packed plenty of info into two and a half minutes. Story-wise, it looks like we’ve got a mix of influences. There’s Avatar: The Last Airbender (a world formerly in balance turned to war). There’s Attack on Titan (characters who wield the elements to turn the tide of battle). And then there’s Fire Emblem: Three Houses (classmates who must grow stronger for the sake of their country). Of course, I’m sure Xenoblade Genesis will tell a tale uniquely its own. Just the premise of a prequel that explains how Mechonis and Bionis came to be is enough to excite me. 

I’m terribly behind on checking the Xenoblade games off of my backlog. This is exactly the fire I needed to right that wrong.

– Written by David Silbert

Developer: Monolith Soft
Publisher: Nintendo
Platforms: Nintendo Switch 2
Release date: TBA 2027

The Worst Game Announcements of the Week

Kingdom Hearts IV

Fifteen years ago, a new Kingdom Hearts trailer would have been cause for jubilee. In 2026, however, the series feels not only uninspired but, dare I say it, downright boring.

Nintendo aired the surprise reveal, wedged between the announcement of yet another Kingdom Hearts collection and the not-so-surprising endcap that was the Ocarina of Time remake. The latter might have been leaked before, but it was nonetheless gripping, teasing a tantalizing new orchestral score and gorgeous hyper-realistic art style. The former… well, it stumbled right out of the gate with an allegedly gen-AI-doctored Donald Duck. They massacred our boy on his 92nd birthday, no less!

As for Kingdom Hearts IV… well, we’ve seen this trailer about four times already. It’s hard to get excited about the same bland cityscape — which, as Donovan joked, feels ripped straight out of Final Fantasy XV — or vague story tidbits that hold little meaning. The characters seem generic, the graphics look underwhelming, and everything just feels uncharacteristically unpolished. To cap it all off, the logo is lame!

There’s still time for Tetsuya Nomura and team to right this ship. (As with every KH4 trailer before this one, there’s no release window.) If nothing else, we know the game will ship sometime during this generation — though I have a feeling that even with all the time and money in the world, this project may wind up dead on arrival.

– Written by David Silbert

Developer: Square Enix Creative Studio 1
Publisher: Square Enix
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2
Release date: TBA

Stranger Than Heaven

The trailer before this latest one had me more hyped than almost any marketing I’d seen all year: swinging music, a period-noir vibe, that over-the-top-yet-deadly-serious tone Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio (the Yakuza/Like a Dragon team) does so well, and a premise steeped in identity, nationalism, and assimilation versus alienation.

Then Snoop Dogg showed up, and my hype curdled into confusion. Snoop will do anything for a check, but I wasn’t expecting him here. The last time I saw him in a fighting game, he was the villain in Def Jam: Fight for NY. Still, I stayed on the train.

Then Tupac appeared. Tupac. Why? What? Did his estate approve this? They did? Okay — why? What’s he here for? Was Suge Knight playing a long game none of us could’ve conceived?

There are multiple levels to the ugly feelings Pac’s appearance brought out of me. Pac said in his 1996 song “Reincarnation” that his only fear of death was reincarnation, and here we are reviving him in holograms and now a video game. His character is literally named Amaru, his middle name. I’m starting to think we’re all participants in his personal hell.

And with the game’s commentary on identity being front and center, I thought of Tupac’s activism and powerful lyrics on social justice issues. I thought of a recent call for Black people to boycott Asian-owned businesses after the shooting of Cyrus Carmack-Belton, a 14-year-old who was killed outside a Columbia, South Carolina, store in 2023 after the owner, whose background news reports have described only as “Asian,” wrongly decided he’d pocketed a few bottles of water, chased him from the store, and shot him in the back as he ran. On June 1, 2026, a jury cleared him of murder. 2Pac’s 1997 song “I Wonder If Heaven Got a Ghetto” names Latasha Harlins, a 15-year-old shot in the back of the head by a Korean shop owner in 1991 over a $1.79 bottle of orange juice. Pac lamented the worth of a Black life — a bottle of juice then, a bottle of water now. Neither shooter went behind bars. Asian communities, of course, aren’t a monolith, but this also comes as multiple expressions of anti-Blackness have been surfacing in different forms across social media in Asian countries recently. 

This game resurrected Tupac’s digital corpse, stamped Snoop on the poster, and is riding the clout from Black musicians in the same season a jury decides a Black kid’s life was worth less than a bottle of water. Lives are snuffed out while the culture’s sold and consumed. I can’t say for sure Pac would’ve wanted into this project. But I know he’d have something to say about the moment we’re in.

– Written by Donovan Harrell

Developer: Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio
Publisher: Sega
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S (also on Game Pass)
Release date: January 15, 2027

The Ugliest Elephant in the Room

Everything Microsoft

With one exception, we at The Punished Backlog chose not to cover Microsoft-published games in this article. This is part of an ongoing BDS boycott due to the company’s complicity in the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. In support of human rights and the people of Gaza, we will not be providing individual features for Xbox-exclusive or first-party games. While many of us have loved these franchises in the past, we cannot in good conscience give air to a company providing Azure cloud and AI services to Israel at the cost of Palestinian lives.

Microsoft continues to make our boycott decision an easy one, as, on June 10, 2026, the company announced that even more layoffs are forthcoming.