Upcoming Games: Every Major Release Worth Knowing About Right Now

Between a genre-redefining remaster, the most anticipated open-world release of the decade, and a wave of long-dormant franchises finally getting new entries, the next few months are shaping up to be one of the busiest release windows gaming has seen in years. Here’s everything actually worth clearing shelf space and hard drive room for.

Every year the release calendar gets called “the biggest ever,” and most years that’s marketing talk. This time it’s genuinely difficult to argue with – between now and the end of 2027, we’re getting a new mainline Grand Theft Auto, remakes or remasters of several stone-cold classics, and long-awaited sequels to some of the last decade’s most acclaimed RPGs. We’ve gone through what’s confirmed across PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch 2, and picked out what genuinely deserves your attention rather than just your awareness.

As with any release calendar this far out, a caveat is worth stating plainly up front: game development delays are common enough that treating any of the dates below as absolutely fixed would be naive, particularly for anything scheduled into 2027. We’ve sourced every date here from the most recent official publisher and developer confirmations available at the time of writing, and we’ll keep this page updated if anything shifts, which, on a list this size, something inevitably will.

Quick List: What’s Actually Worth Pre-Ordering

If you’re short on time, here’s the condensed version. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered (29 September) and Silent Hill: Townfall (24 September) kick off a busy final quarter of 2026. October brings Gears of War: E-Day (6 October), a prequel telling the story of the original Gears war, alongside Kingdom Hearts Collection (8 October) and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 (23 October). November is dominated by two genuinely massive releases landing within a fortnight of each other: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Remake (5 November) and, on 19 November, Grand Theft Auto VI – the single most anticipated video game release in years, by any measure. Looking into 2027, keep God of War: Laufey, Persona 4 Revival, Fable 4 and Final Fantasy VII: Revelation on your radar.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered (29 September)

More than a decade after its original release, The Witcher 3 remains one of the most consistently acclaimed open-world RPGs ever made, and this remaster arrives across PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S and, notably, Switch 2 – putting Geralt’s full open-world adventure on a Nintendo handheld for the first time in a technically serious way rather than a compromised port. For newcomers who’ve only played Cyberpunk 2077 or watched the Netflix series, this remains the best way to understand why CD Projekt Red built the reputation it did. For returning players, the appeal is simpler: an excuse to revisit Novigrad and Skellige with updated visuals and quality-of-life fixes that the original never had.

Silent Hill: Townfall (24 September)

Konami’s ongoing Silent Hill revival continues with Townfall, developed by No Code, the studio behind the acclaimed Observation. Following the well-received Silent Hill 2 remake, expectations for the franchise have genuinely recovered after a long, difficult period during which fans openly doubted Konami’s commitment to the series. Early details suggest Townfall leans into a more original, standalone story rather than another remake, which is arguably the bigger test of whether this revival has real creative legs beyond mining nostalgia.

Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve (2 October)

Bandai Namco’s arcade flight-combat series returns, continuing a franchise that’s built a small but devoted following through its distinctive blend of accessible arcade dogfighting and surprisingly earnest, melodramatic storytelling. It’s not chasing the audience of the genre’s biggest names, and that’s rather the point – Ace Combat has carved out a lane nothing else in gaming currently occupies.

Gears of War: E-Day (6 October)

Rather than continuing the numbered mainline story, The Coalition is going backwards with E-Day, dramatising the original Emergence Day – the moment the Locust Horde first surfaced and the human-Locust war began, a event the series has only ever referenced in flashback and lore up to this point. For a franchise that’s always had strong mechanical bones but occasionally shaky narrative ambition, going back to the story’s actual origin point is a smart way to inject fresh stakes into a seventeen-year-old setting.

Kingdom Hearts Collection (8 October)

Square Enix bundles the notoriously convoluted Kingdom Hearts series – a saga that’s sprawled across mainline entries, handheld spin-offs and mobile games with a plot dense enough to need its own wiki – into a single collection for Switch 2, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. For anyone who bounced off the series originally simply because tracking down every instalment across a decade of different platforms was its own quest, this is the most accessible the series has ever been.

Dragon’s Dogma II (9 October, Switch 2)

Capcom brings its acclaimed action-RPG sequel to Switch 2, following strong releases on PC and other consoles. Dragon’s Dogma has always had a cult, slightly unusual reputation – a game built around unpredictable physics-driven combat, a pawn AI companion system nothing else has really replicated, and a sense of genuine danger in its open world that more polished, safer RPGs often lack. Getting it onto a portable Nintendo system is a smart way to introduce it to an audience that might have missed it the first time round.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 (23 October)

Activision’s annual juggernaut returns, continuing the rebooted Modern Warfare storyline across PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S and Switch 2. Whatever your feelings on the series’ yearly release cadence, Call of Duty remains one of the few games genuinely capable of dominating the cultural conversation around gaming for weeks at a time, and this instalment’s multiplayer and Warzone integration will be the thing most of its audience actually cares about, well ahead of the campaign.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Remake (5 November)

Widely regarded as one of the most influential video games ever made, Ocarina of Time gets a full remake for Switch 2, more than a quarter-century after its original release defined 3D action-adventure game design for a generation of developers. The pressure on a remake like this is unusual: it’s not just about modernising visuals, but about deciding how much of the original’s deliberately paced, occasionally obtuse design philosophy to preserve versus streamline for modern expectations. Get that balance right and this could be one of the best received releases of the entire year.

Metaphor: ReFantazio (12 November, Switch 2)

Studio Zero’s critically adored fantasy strategy-RPG, from key members of the team behind the Persona series, comes to Switch 2 following its acclaimed original release. Metaphor took the social-simulation-meets-turn-based-combat formula Persona built its reputation on and moved it into an original fantasy setting with sharper political commentary than the series it grew out of, and that combination earned it some of the strongest critical reception of any RPG in recent memory.

Grand Theft Auto VI (19 November)

There isn’t much left to say about GTA VI that hasn’t already been said in the years since its first trailer broke every online viewing record on arrival. Rockstar’s return to Vice City, more than a decade after GTA V, carries a level of anticipation that’s genuinely difficult to compare to anything else in the medium’s history – the closest recent equivalent is probably GTA V itself. The dual-protagonist structure, built around Lucia and Jason, is the biggest narrative departure the series has made since it introduced multiple playable characters in GTA V, and the sheer scale of the marketing rollout suggests Rockstar and parent company Take-Two are treating this as not just a game launch but a cultural event on the scale of a major film release. Whether it can actually meet nine years of accumulated expectation is the single biggest open question in gaming right now – but even skeptics generally agree Rockstar has earned enough trust from GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2 to be given the benefit of the doubt.

It’s also worth remembering just how much the games industry itself has changed since GTA V released back in 2013. Live-service monetisation, battle passes and always-online multiplayer economies have reshaped what players expect from a major open-world release, and Rockstar has been notably quiet on exactly how GTA Online’s successor will handle microtransactions within the new setting. GTA Online became an extraordinarily lucrative ongoing revenue stream for Take-Two over the last decade, reportedly generating more revenue in some years than the base game itself, so however Rockstar structures Vice City’s online mode is likely to say a great deal about the direction the wider industry takes for the rest of the decade. That makes GTA VI not just the biggest single release on this list, but arguably the most closely watched business case study in gaming as well.

Looking Into 2027

Once the GTA VI dust settles, early 2027 has its own strong case for one of the best opening quarters gaming has had in years.

God of War: Laufey (16 February 2027) continues Kratos’ Norse saga following Ragnarök, with the title itself – Laufey being Loki’s birth name in Norse mythology – suggesting a much sharper focus on Atreus’s ongoing identity arc than the last two instalments managed. Persona 4 Revival (18 February 2027) brings Atlus’s beloved small-town mystery RPG back with a full ground-up revival, following the successful template Persona 3 Reload set for modernising the series’ older entries without losing what made them distinctive. A week later, Fable 4 (23 February 2027) marks Xbox’s highest-profile attempt yet to revive one of its most beloved but long-dormant first-party franchises, a British fantasy-comedy RPG series that’s been absent for the better part of fifteen years and carries a huge amount of goodwill still attached to its name.

Then in April, Final Fantasy VII: Revelation continues Square Enix’s ambitious three-part remake project, following Remake and Rebirth’s critically acclaimed reimagining of the 1997 classic. If the trilogy’s pacing so far is any indication, Revelation is likely to be the darkest and most narratively ambitious instalment yet, covering the back half of the original game’s story – territory that includes some of the most discussed and, for long-time fans, most emotionally loaded moments in the entire franchise’s history.

What We’re Actually Most Excited For

GTA VI is the obvious, unavoidable answer to “what’s the biggest release,” and there’s little point pretending otherwise – nothing else on this list is being discussed with anywhere near the same intensity. But if we’re picking the release most likely to be genuinely excellent rather than simply enormous, it’s a tighter race between the Ocarina of Time remake and Final Fantasy VII: Revelation. Both are handling material with decades of accumulated fan expectation attached, and both have development teams with a recent track record – the FF7 remake trilogy so far, Nintendo’s recent remaster work – that suggests they understand exactly what made the originals special in the first place, rather than treating a beloved back catalogue purely as a nostalgia cash-in.

Fable 4 is the wildcard worth watching most closely. Xbox has invested heavily in first-party exclusives recently with genuinely mixed results, and a franchise this beloved returning after such a long absence could either be a genuine console-seller or a cautionary tale about how difficult it is to revive dormant IP without the original creative voices attached. We’ll know a great deal more once substantial gameplay is shown.

Metaphor: ReFantazio also deserves a specific mention here, if only because it’s already been released once, to considerable critical acclaim, on other platforms before this Switch 2 version. That makes it the safest recommendation on this entire list in one specific sense: there’s no guesswork involved in whether it’s any good, only in how well it runs on Nintendo’s newer hardware. For anyone who owns a Switch 2 and skipped it the first time round, that removes essentially all of the risk that comes with every other title covered here.

What About Indie and Mid-Budget Releases?

It’s easy for a release calendar this stacked with blockbusters to crowd out everything else, but the same window covers hundreds of smaller titles, and a handful are worth flagging specifically. Ace Combat 8 already straddles that line, being a AA release from a major publisher rather than a true tentpole, and its continued existence in a market dominated by open-world giants is worth celebrating on its own terms. Beyond the games with confirmed dates covered above, autumn and winter release windows have historically been strong for smaller narrative-driven and roguelike titles specifically because they’re not trying to compete head-on with the AAA giants for the same weekend of attention – instead launching in the quieter gaps between them. If you’re the sort of player who finds the sheer scale of something like GTA VI exhausting rather than exciting, keep an eye on your storefront’s indie and upcoming-releases tab through October and January specifically, which tend to be the two quietest stretches of any given release calendar and therefore the best time for a smaller game to actually get noticed.

UK Pricing and Pre-Order Considerations

Full-price new releases on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S currently sit around £70 in the UK for most major first-party and third-party tentpoles, with GTA VI widely expected to launch at or above that price point given its scale and the near-decade of development behind it – Rockstar has not confirmed final UK pricing at the time of writing. Switch 2 titles have generally landed in a similar bracket for major first-party Nintendo releases, though third-party ports like The Witcher 3 Remastered and Dragon’s Dogma II are typically priced in line with their PS5 and Xbox equivalents rather than at a premium. Pre-ordering physical copies from UK retailers rather than digital storefronts remains the more budget-friendly route for anyone planning to buy several of the biggest titles on this list, since physical pricing tends to see earlier and steeper discounting once a release is a few weeks old, whereas digital pricing on PSN, the Xbox Store and Nintendo’s eShop tends to hold firm at full price for considerably longer.

Platform Breakdown: What’s Coming Where

For anyone deciding where to spend limited gaming budget, it’s worth noting how the releases above split by platform. GTA VI, Call of Duty and Gears of War: E-Day are the marquee console and PC titles with no Switch 2 version currently confirmed. Nintendo’s newer, more powerful Switch 2 hardware, meanwhile, is turning out to be a genuinely strong home for major third-party ports rather than just first-party exclusives – The Witcher 3, Dragon’s Dogma II and Metaphor: ReFantazio all arriving on the platform this autumn is a meaningfully different strategy from the original Switch’s far more limited and compromised third-party support. If you’re debating an upgrade purely to play this wave of games, Switch 2’s ability to run genuinely demanding, recent releases with only modest visual compromises is a stronger pitch than most reviewers expected at launch.

Frequently Asked Questions

When is GTA VI actually coming out?
Grand Theft Auto VI is currently scheduled for 19 November 2026, on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, following a prior delay from its originally announced 2025 window. As with any major release this size, it’s worth watching for official confirmation as the date approaches.

Is GTA VI coming to PC or Switch 2 at launch?
No PC or Switch 2 version has been confirmed for launch. Rockstar has historically released PC versions of its games some time after the initial console launch, so a PC release, if it follows that pattern, would be expected considerably later.

Is the Ocarina of Time remake a full remake or a remaster?
It’s being developed as a full remake for Switch 2, rebuilding the game rather than simply upscaling the original’s assets and resolution.

Do I need to have played the previous Persona games to enjoy Persona 4 Revival?
No. Each mainline Persona entry, including the original Persona 4, tells a self-contained story with its own cast and setting, so Revival is a fine starting point for newcomers to the series.

Which of these games are coming to Nintendo Switch 2?
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered, Dragon’s Dogma II, Kingdom Hearts Collection, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Remake and Metaphor: ReFantazio all have confirmed Switch 2 releases within the window covered here.

How reliable are these release dates?
We’ve based every date on the most recent publisher-confirmed scheduling available at time of writing. Big-budget game development is notoriously prone to delays, so treat anything more than a few months out as a strong current estimate rather than a guarantee, and we’ll update this page if any of these dates shift.

We’ll be updating this list as more of 2027’s release calendar firms up, and reviewing each of these in full as they launch – check back for our verdict on whether they lived up to the hype.