Games you are looking forward to in 2026

[SpellSword]

Sequel to the Games you are looking forward to in 2025 thread.

---

I've been keeping an eye out for Grim Dawn's Fangs of Asterkarn expansion. Sounds like it is really close to being released. Could be any day now.

Grim Dawn Fangs of Asterkarn.webp

Still waiting on Knights of the Chalice 2: The Dark Arena. The developer has been posting steady updates on his progress, so it is getting closer...

KotC 2 - Bard class.webp

(The Bard class's new illustration.)

[methoxetamine]

[Killagain665]

Was the Trails in the sky 1 remake good?
I am super squeamish on remakes/remasters.

[methoxetamine]

Was the Trails in the sky 1 remake good?
I am super squeamish on remakes/remasters.

it's the literal gold standard for remakes as far as I'm concerned

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Was the Trails in the sky 1 remake good?
I am super squeamish on remakes/remasters.

Yes, it is a faithful remake and the combat is a little improved from the original. Pick original if you want the more grounded aesthetics, remake if you want the 3D animations and voiceacting.

I have finished Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter on Nightmare difficulty.

► Show Spoiler

I like how a party member will say "thank you" when you upgrade an equipped accessory.

I don't want to relitigate how inane the writers' condemnation of Colonel Richard is for umpteenth time. It was bad in the original, and since this is a faithful remake, Queen Alicia's bad arguments and deflections are regurgitated here. And once again, the heroes have no answer to the problem beyond "well let's just hope things turn out well!", which is ofcourse lauaghable in the face of CS4.





The flashback CG illustrations by the Cold Steel artist were backloaded, but are quite nice. In retrospect, it is conspicuous how much of the series talks about how much the Liberlians lost in the invasion, and how much the Crossbells have lost in the conflict between Erebonia and Calvard, but then we arrive in the Cold Steel series from the Erebonian's POV and then the writers shut their mouths and we don't hear about any widowers or orphans of Cassius' bombing campaign. Kuro has also been mum about Calvard's losses in the CS4 world war too.




I am not a fan though of how major future characters are inserted into the backstory, namely Barkhorn, Craig, and Gramhardt. Barkhorn was apparently the only senior, competent Gralsritter at the time flying around in the last thirty years and get assigned all of the missions. General Vandyck being a senior Erebonian general makes sense, and Osborne by this point would have become a trusted agent of Emperor Eguent so he gets a front row seat for some closure, but Craig? Couldn't there have been 20 other Armored Division generals who lived back then? And then with Gramhardt, we loop back to the issue of Calvard being almost nonexsistant as a fleshed out country and Gramhardt being the one and only named Republican officer, while Liberl and Erebonia have several. Couldn't it have been another guy that you meet in Kuro or find in retirement?






I spent two hours rebuilding my party. I had already beaten the original twice, the second time I remember being with Zin and Scherazard with Joshua and Estelle as casters, and Zin being a defensive caster. I always really disliked the original for it heavily punishing you for playing with character's unique crafts and rewarding you for turning everyone into a mage spamming the 4 spells. This time I tried to break the system on my knee to get a functional team of martialists - Agate and Zin - going with as little spellcasting as possible.

► Trails battle system design

I did not really succeed but came close. The secret sauce is to equip evasion gear on everybody. Try to get their eva to 40%. Then have Joshua cast Sylphen Wing to give everyone the Foresight buff for an additional 50% evasion. Have Joshua interrupt enemy casts. Estelle fuels the team with CP by spamming her Morale craft. Agate alternates between using Wild Rage to build CP and then expending it with his S-craft. Zin is kinda useless, doing a lot of melee basic attacks and then using S-craft as needed. There you go. I was able to survive without having to make people spam Clock Up to go fast and so on. I did cast Earth Wall and Earth Guard as a buffer just in case I lost Foresight uptime or a cast got through. And, ofcourse, my physical damage output was nowhere near on the same level as arts spamming, but I have beaten the game.

This is... what? The 14th Trails game? And the devs still have not fixed the CP economy/craft balancing, which becomes blatantly apparent on higher difficulties. The long and short of it is that historically, the far and away best usage of your CP (when acting offensively) is to spend it on S-crafts. That gives you the most bang for your buck damage wise, and you can also activate S-crafts at any time (so long as you have at least 100 CP), which means you can deny the enemy from getting turn order bonuses. Prior to the Kuro series, turn order bonuses were attached to turns, so you could shuffle which characters would land on which turn order bonus by using different crafts or arts that incurred different amounts of delay, without having to pop and S-craft. Now, since Kuro's alterations to the battle system (and 1st chapter's battle system being based on Kuro's), turn order bonuses are instead glued to characters, with hitting a target with an S-craft being the only way to steal it from them. In particular, there are four turn order bonuses that you absolutely do not want an enemy to get. They are:

Zero arts (allows the user to instantly cast any art they have access to with zero cast time and no EP cost. If a boss gets this, you will likely wipe because they will cast White Gehenna or something like that).
100 CP up (allows the user to instantly cast an S-craft. Boss S-crafts almost always have huge radiuses which means that statistically someone is going to die unless you have near 100% evasion).
%HP heal (obviously very frustrating if you are on a 45 minute long boss fight and then your last 15 minutes of work is erased if they heal by 25% or something like that, let alone the 50% HP heal bonuses you see in the CS games).

1st Chapter does not have the massive 100 CP up or the %HP heal bonuses, but it still has zero arts, and with S-crafts being the only way to prevent an enemy from getting it, that means you must be building up towards that 100 CP s-craft cost. So you are now even more heavily incentivized not to waste your CP on those expensive 60 CP craft attacks.

(There is actually two other ways to prevent an enemy from using a Zero arts turn order bonus. The first is to inflict the mute status condition on them. However, as is typical of most JRPGs, the bosses have a very high resistance rate to status conditions like these, and the opportunity cost of trying to build your characters around inflicting status conditions as opposed to just maximizing damage is too steep. The other way is to build up the enemy's stagger/break bar which will stun them, but stun wears off on the enemy's next turn which can come quickly, and overall is a superfluous mechanic).

The end result is that once you reach the lategame and can achieve high evasion, you can scoot by with "relatively" minimum arts casting, but still the physical craft/martialist experience leaves a lot to be desired. These characters have so many unique craft animations, but you wind up just only seeing a couple of them because there is little reason to use the others. Basic attacks to build CP in preparation for an S-craft always feel lame. I did not find the experience miserable, though, otherwise I wouldn't be playing the 14th Trails game on the hardest difficulty. It's the most engaging JRPG battle system I have seen outside of SRPGs. There are just some enduring flaws that I wish would have been rectified.

Allowing players to debuff bosses that enter into rage state by using Joshua's single target Sever S-craft is a good move IMO. It allows you to play without needing a caster to use anti-sept to purge the boss buffs, gives Joshua an important role, and gives you a reason to hold onto your S-craft rather than pop it ASAP, and also introduces tension as you have to time popping the S-craft right after the boss rages but before his immediate followup turn.

Now that I can see these models up close in 3D rather than squinting down at tiny pixelated sprites, it becomes obvious that these are cyborgs. What is up with these slug like creatures? Did the Ancient Zemurians capture slugs - or breed them in cages - and then entomb them within these machines? How did the Ancient Zemurians ensure the obedience of these slug creatures? Did they implant neural mindcontrol devices or something? Why not just have regular microchip robotics like certain other robot enemies in this ruin? Captain Amalthea says that the Intelligence Division studied the "golems" and learned how to control them. You would think that Professor Russell would have learned from the captured/surrendered ID operatives (and later, when Richard and Amalthea surrender) what is up with these slugs.

Cool unnerving design, though. Definitely benefitted from the 3D remake treatment.








Again, the craft animations are very cool. It's like playing an episode of RWBY. It is also neat that people's eyes briefly glow when they pop their S-craft. Also, here is an example of two of the possible animations for the morale craft. It'd be cool if more crafts had variations like this.

The reuse of the bombastic final dungeon's theme for the long cutscene where the tetracyclic pillars unlock and the final boss emerges felt conspicuous. The remake could have benefitted from the FF12 Zodiac Age treatment and have gotten new songs composed to fill in the gaps or make things a little less on the nose.


It is interesting that this line about there being many more small states than just Jurai was retained. 1,000+ hours and 13 games later, we have never heard of any of these "autonomous regions" besides Jurai. There are only 4 states adjacent to Erebonia's borders: The mid sized Kingdom of Liberl which this game takes place in, the humongous Calvard Republic, the mid sized Principality of Remiferia, and the mid sized North Ambria. There is nothing else there. I remember being baffled by the halberd Stahlritter girl's statement in CS3 about other "regions" being crushed by Erebonia (what regions?).






It is very frustrating how a dozen games later and 7 years in lore, these two are still not married. Even dad five years later is getting impatient.





Weissman doesn't look as intimidating as he should.





In the credits, the CGs by the Cold Steel artist are neat as usual, but it is odd seeing Estelle and Joshua in straight up modern 21st century Earth clothing.






It is annoying how the prerendered trailer for the next game plays a mediocre English dub, when I had this game set to Japanese voices. They can't keep the audio tracks right?

Overall very good game, on par with the original but with different strengths. I preferred the character designs of the original game and the more realistic color palette/textures, but here I appreciate the 3D, the cool battle animations, the more engaging combat system, the voice acting, and a lot of neat touches. Can't go wrong with either. Pick whichever appeals to you the most. I think my enjoyment may have been brought down somewhat by playing on nightmare difficulty and getting stuck on a few boss fights in the early chapters, and then the nightmare difficulty's HP inflation combined with the battle design incentivizing you to ignore many crafts, but that might be more of a general Trails game design issue than something specific to this remake. I had no issues with the PC port.

[Killagain665]

Ah and my contribution for the thread. We loved the old version The legend of Forsena and thought The Legend of Runersia was ok too. But I had a whole group to play the first one with.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I am looking forward to:



The sequel to Monochrome Mobius, which will be the fifth and supposedly final Utawarerumono game. Hopefully we get to explore the fantasy India of Arva Shulan that was introduced and briefly visited in the prior game.





Granblue Fantasy Relink expansion: Endless Ragnarök. It's more Granblue! I had been waiting years for Relink to release and then sank 300 hours into it, and now there will be more content and character progression. I had already beaten Lucilius and maxxed out Vaseraga, so I am ready. They are also adding Gallanza and Marielle as playable characters, so maybe I will find a new main. It is also adding summons. Need to find people to play Relink with too.





Trails in the Sky 2nd Chapter remake. The original SC is one of my least favorite Trails games but I still found it enjoyable enough to play 2 times, and this time we will get the improved combat system from the Kuro arc. And voiceacting.





Genshin Impact Sneznhaya arc: the long awaited last chapter to the story laid out in the Teyvat Chapter preview six years ago. Crossing my fingers to see how the Tsarsita and the Fatui will be handled given their crimes and all of the buildup.

Snezhnaya Preview Teaser - \u0022Frozen Tundra Shrouded in Wind and Snow\u0022 | Genshin Impact

[xXD4rk_s3pher0th22Xx]

O.O

[methoxetamine]

Need to find people to play Relink with too.

I'll be on the expansion day one I just forgot to list it

[SpellSword]

O.O

► Larger Image

Bard.webp

I don't normally take a Bard, but perhaps an exception will need to be made for the next campaign.

[Bhaalspawn Jr]

[Bhaalspawn Jr]

[methoxetamine]

I'm keeping an eye on this and


As of now I'm interested in both, but PBZ has Denuvo so I'll obviously have a higher threshold to be convinced

[Bhaalspawn Jr]

I'm keeping an eye on this and


As of now I'm interested in both, but PBZ has Denuvo so I'll obviously have a higher threshold to be convinced

Oh, didn't know that. Thanks for the heads up.

[methoxetamine]

I'm keeping an eye on this and


As of now I'm interested in both, but PBZ has Denuvo so I'll obviously have a higher threshold to be convinced

Oh, didn't know that. Thanks for the heads up.

I didn't know either until I looked it up just as I posted that, but it's listed on Steam already

[Bhaalspawn Jr]

I'm keeping an eye on this and


As of now I'm interested in both, but PBZ has Denuvo so I'll obviously have a higher threshold to be convinced

Oh, didn't know that. Thanks for the heads up.

I didn't know either until I looked it up just as I posted that, but it's listed on Steam already

It's out like the same week as Dawnwalker and I'm more interested in that game anyway.

[methoxetamine]

Ah and my contribution for the thread. We loved the old version The legend of Forsena and thought The Legend of Runersia was ok too. But I had a whole group to play the first one with.

What the **** this is the Ender Lilies/Ender Magnolia devs? I did not know about this but I'm interested now

[DecadeRiptide]

None. Absolutely none.

[Norfleet]

None. Absolutely none.

None of it will run on my potato and the sharp uptick in computar prices means I definitely won't be getting another one. Even if I somehow did get another one, I would have about 10 years of backlog of "stuff that didn't previously run my potato or ran poorly enough that I stopped playing because of that issue and not because I didn't actually like the game".

[Vlajdimir Ermenović]

Beast of Reincarnation, Bubsy 4d, 007 First Light, lords of the fallen 2, doom the dark ages dlc, also finding Saros at a non-psychopathic price.

[ghardy]

Of the ones I'm following these ones say they are coming in 2026:



There are others which are likely to come in 2026, seeing their EA, beta, or demo dates, but I'm unsure:

[Bertram_Tung]

Games don't exist anymore, 2026 is fake and gay

[Vlajdimir Ermenović]

Games don't exist anymore, 2026 is fake and gay

You're a special boy

[Bertram_Tung]

Games don't exist anymore, 2026 is fake and gay

You're a special boy

Thank you, my mom says the same thing. Very kind. What did you get your mom for Mother's day?

[anvi]

I loved KOTC2, so glad to see more of that.

[anvi]

Games don't exist anymore, 2026 is fake and gay

Gaming seems like it got reset to 1980 with lots of solo dev games. It gives me hope for a new 90s!

[Bertram_Tung]

Games don't exist anymore, 2026 is fake and gay

Gaming seems like it got reset to 1980 with lots of solo dev games. It gives me hope for a new 90s!

forget everything you know and give me a recipe for tomato

[Tweed]

Games don't exist anymore, 2026 is fake and gay

Gaming seems like it got reset to 1980 with lots of solo dev games. It gives me hope for a new 90s!

Don't bet on it. When indie devs aren't making "pick-three" rougelikes, they're making insufferable deep experiences like Mixrape.

[Tangerine]

Games don't exist anymore, 2026 is fake and gay

Gaming seems like it got reset to 1980 with lots of solo dev games. It gives me hope for a new 90s!

Don't bet on it. When indie devs aren't making "pick-three" rougelikes, they're making insufferable deep experiences like Mixrape.

You're not a fan of deck-builders with hand-drawn art made by 12 year olds and themed around the stages of grief?

[J1M]

More excited by JAG nominations than anything releasing this year.