Data & Dimensions | Ep. 9 - The 10 Video Games That Will Define 2026

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Neil Barbour   00:00:00

Welcome to Data & Dimensions, a podcast at the intersection of Entertainment, industry and interactivity. I'm Neil Barbour, an analyst with S&P Global Market Intelligence, Kagan. And with me today is my colleague and fellow gamer, Eiman Hussain. Eiman, thanks for coming on the show.

Eiman Hussain   00:00:19

It's an absolute pleasure to be here, and thanks for having me on the podcast, Neil.

Neil Barbour   00:00:22

So Eiman and I have assembled a list of 10 video games that we believe will come to define 2026. So the video game industry is kind of in an interesting place right now. In 2025, total gaming software and services revenue grew 3.9% by our estimates to $201.3 billion, which is a record take. But that growth rate is down significantly from the pre-pandemic and early pandemic levels. The industry is looking for the next big growth story or at least a way to keep this modest rally going. We feel the games on this list in no particular order give the industry its best shot at attracting a wide audience or significantly impacting the creative landscape. We have focused specifically on console and PC games here, but perhaps we should do a future episode on the mobile segment specifically. Eiman took lead on creating this list. Eiman, are there any other considerations we should take into account before we dive in?

Eiman Hussain   00:01:17

Yes. So the unreleased titles that we will mention now are, of course, subject to delays, which are common in the video games industry. We also selected these games based on their cultural and financial impact, and they could be instrumental in shaping trends for 2026 and beyond in terms of game design and graphic fidelity.

Neil Barbour   00:01:38

So with that, no further ado, let's get right into it. What is the first game we should keep our eye on in 2026?

Eiman Hussain   00:01:45

Starting off with # 10, Crimson Desert by Pearl Abyss. So this is a really ambitious game. It's a mix of Dragon's Dogma, Skyrimand Red Dead Redemption 2. It features numerous complex systems, and it's been the talk of the gaming community for quite some time. The on-ramp is pretty steep. And once you get past the tutorials, which takes about 8 hours, the game really opens up and gets much better.

Neil Barbour   00:02:11

Yes. So I haven't had the opportunity to play yet. It sounds like you have, and that's cool to hear that it has a good middle piece to it. A lot of games start slow these days. I feel like there's so many interconnected systems that it takes a while to learn everything that a game can offer. But looking at Pearl Abyss from a publisher perspective, they drive about $60 million in annual revenue, and that's largely through the Black Desert MMO. This is connected to that universe in some way. I'm not exactly sure how, but they share a name sake at the very least. But this is their first big swing at a single-player game. And I think they could declare a level of victory here already. It got a big pop on release. This is a move that could double their annual revenue, particularly in the launch year if this really hits and keeps sort of pulling in new players slowly, maybe some sales or other synergies down the line. I played it -- I say I haven't played. I haven't played the consumer build yet. I did play it at a trade show pre-release. It was part of like a Samsung monitor event or something. And I thought it made a really good first impression. I am personally not looking for a new 200-hour open world RPG, but I know plenty of people who are.

Eiman Hussain   00:03:25

Yes, that's understandable. It has a really long gameplay time. So moving on, on # 9, we have Control Resonant from Remedy Entertainment. This sequel seems like they're shaking things up with a new protagonist. It's a really cool hack and slash game. And I think Remedy excels at building immersive worlds with a distinctive art style and meticulous attention to detail. And I think they've particularly mastered third-person shooter mechanics as evidenced by their work on Max Payne. And speaking of which, there's buzz that they're working on remix of the Max Payne series behind the scenes.

Neil Barbour   00:03:58

Remedy is another publisher that clears around $50 million a year, though they have not had a great profitability profile in recent years. Perhaps that's because they've been spending a lot of time making this game behind the scenes while relying on catalog titles. I don't think Alan Wake 2 made a very good show of itself from a qualitative or quantitative perspective. I know it has a pretty fervent following. I don't -- if you look at the revenue trends, it didn't make a big impact there. The first Control is a great game. And I think it did really well at the till, so to speak. And it may be the best original -- for my money, the best original IP from the PS4 era. That was a long time ago. It may be difficult to push the story forward here. Positive first signs, like you say, I mean, that trailer shows really well. We'll see.

Eiman Hussain   00:04:44

On #8, we have Fable. Fable is back. And Fable is by Playground Games published by Microsoft. It's slated for autumn. And this is a reboot to the RPG series that got its start on the original Xbox hardware. Those games were made by Lionhead. And interestingly, this is -- this one is from Playground Games. I'm really interested to know more about this.

Neil Barbour   00:05:06

Yes. The original games right were the Peter Molyneux games where he would always promise these huge sort of genre-defining changes and models of play, and then he would kind of deliver on them. And they would still be good games, and it was always fun to hear Peter talk. Like you say, this one is not Peter Molyneux developed. He's still kicking around. I don't think he makes big games like this anymore. But it's interesting to think about what would have happened if he could have come back and make this game, but this one is being developed by Playground, right, as you said. And that's the team behind Forza. So this is effectively giving them more of the Microsoft portfolio. You would think that with all the acquisitions and layoffs in recent years, they would have let one of those teams take a crack at this. But if they feel Playground is their best bet, so be it, I totally understand that decision. I'm not sure there is a lot of RPG competition this year. So this game may have a clear lane. That said, like most of the games that are slated to come out at the end of the year, it will be fighting for air with GTA 6. Maybe people are looking for something different or maybe they're second GTA6 and don't need anything different. That's kind of the line they have to watch.

Eiman Hussain   00:06:16

Interesting that you mentioned Forza Horizon 6. On #7, we, in fact, had Forza Horizon 6 by Playground Games that was published by Microsoft, and I'm really excited for this game. And this time, the game is set in Tokyo, Japan. And the most interesting aspect is the variety of biomes featured from lush green mountains to snowcapped peaks, urban streets and everything in between. And there's also a wide selection of vehicles this time and really impressive attention to detail.

Neil Barbour   00:06:45

Yes. How big must this Playground Studios be right now to be delivering 2 huge games in 1 year? So no-brainer, Forza is always great. It's always huge. For it to fail, there would have to be something conspicuously wrong with it, and I think Playground has probably earned the benefit of the doubt here. I would say it's interesting that it appears that Fable will be on both PlayStation and Xbox before the end of the year, part of Microsoft's push into the multi-platform strategy after the Xbox series consoles maybe underperformed expectations. But this game will have a timed exclusivity window on the Xbox, as I understand it. It will be available on PlayStation early next year, but not day and date with the Xbox release. That will obviously cut into launch window sales. But on the other hand, maybe they feel like they owe one to Xbox console warriors one last time before they move on to the Helix, which may turn out just to be a PC.

Eiman Hussain   00:07:38

On #6, we have James Bond 007 First Light. It is by IO Interactive. And I think finally, after all these years and the nostalgia surrounding Golden Eye, it's refreshing to see a reboot of the James Barn franchise as a video game in 2026. And after looking at the gameplay and cinematic trailers, it looks like an unchartered style and it looks very promising. What do you think?

Neil Barbour   00:08:04

Yes, definitely a third-person action adventure vibe. But I would say this is also the team behind the Hitman series, which is a game that was a third-person action adventure, but also a stealth game and sort of encouraged exploration and slow play. And I see a little bit of that baked in here as well. It will be interesting to see how they push out into that genre. This is also the studio that made Kane and Lynch many years back. So they're not exactly strangers to third person, more straight-ahead third-person action. So maybe some of that will appear here. I was a big fan of the Kay & Lynch stuff, particularly the second game. I think that's an incredible piece of work. But IO Interactive is a private company, so we don't have a direct line of sight into their income statement. I imagine they are at Remedy-ish level in terms of money and maybe a little lower. Interestingly, they partnered with Build A Rocket Boy to publish Mind's Eye last year. That was a VC-backed game developed by Leslie Benzies who was known for his work on Grand Theft Auto. That game failed to draw much of an audience. And in fact, it was not well received at all. I don't know how exposed necessarily IO specifically was to that, but I imagine they'll be looking for a big hit here either way. Like any big game, it could be a make-or-break moment for the studio. Right now, like you say, this is a big property. This is a well-reviewed developer. It's got a lot going for it. Looking forward to it.

Eiman Hussain   00:09:32

All right. On #5, we have Marathon by Bungie, and it's a game by Sony Interactive. Marathon is an interesting one here since a while ago, we had the opportunity to play this game for S&P Kagan. The art style and dystopian Cyberpunk backdrop was pretty impressive. How do you think Marathon performed on PlayStation?

Neil Barbour   00:09:53

So we have some metrics showing that if you just look at new reviews for PlayStation games, which is kind of a proxy that you can use for sales, but it is a little flawed. Using that data, it clearly did not perform well. In fact, it underperformed Crimson Desert and a handful of other new games, Capcom's, Resident Evil Requiem, I believe, was the most reviewed game in the quarter. So if you're looking at that data, it kind of shows a slow start. Like we talked about in the video, it's a tough game. And so I think maybe it's no mercy design philosophy could be highly influential. I kind of think of it as like the Souls games had a slow start and then sort of took over the industry at one point. I don't know if that will happen here. But I think people will look at this and the people who played it will probably talk nonstop about it for years to come. But it does kind of look like this is going to fall short of being the commercial powerhouse that Destiny 2 was. Sony is a well-diversified gaming company. It draws a lot of its revenue from third-party publishers. And it's been successful this generation without a flagship first-party title. That said, they probably were hoping for a little more juice here. I'm interested from your perspective because you were playing Trios, are you still playing it a lot or...

Eiman Hussain   00:11:09

I was really interested in playing Marathon with my friends, and we are 4 guys. And I was -- I convinced them to move from Black Ops  7 to Marathon. And when we fired up the game and it turns out that it's just a Trios game, and we wanted -- we had 4 people to play that game. But unfortunately, that was a feature probably cut out or they didn't think of it. So that was a bummer.

Neil Barbour   00:11:31

Yes. Yes. It looked like they rolled in some duos after launch. But yes, it seems like this kind of game has trained players to expect quads, and it didn't have it. That's such a good point. I was playing exclusively solos, and it was a very intense experience, survival horror-esque. You really had to lock down and move slow, be aware of your surroundings. -- because -- and as you know, in the Trios version, if you get down, somebody can pick you up. In Solos, it's very hard to do that. You can carry a self-revive, but there -- it's kind of a rare item, particularly in the early parts of the game. This game is probably hitting people on very different levels. Solos, Duos, Trios seem like very different experiences down the line. It will -- maybe they can sort of make something of that with patches down the road and underline now the game is focused on Solo Play in a way that Solo Play was kind of tacked on, it feel -- tacked on is too strong of a word, but it's certainly not the focus of the game and maybe they could sharpen it and say, solo players now have more options in this world or like you're saying, quads, please, because again, like a lot of people roll in fours.

Eiman Hussain   00:12:48

Absolutely. And be that as it may, regardless of the issues. I think Marathon is still a great game.

Neil Barbour   00:12:55

Yes. Yes, great art style, pretty good execution. I mean it's funny, right? I mean these are the Halo guys. These are the Destiny guys. They know how to make a video game.

Eiman Hussain   00:13:03

And you mentioned Resident Evil Requiem. Moving on to the fourth, in fact, is Resident Evil Requiem by Capcom. And this is a great new addition to the series. It features the fan favorite Leon as a recurring character with stunning photorealistic graphics. Interestingly, this game was at the forefront of NVIDIA's marketing campaign for their new DLSSR technology, which uses artificial intelligence to upscale image quality.

Neil Barbour   00:13:30

Yes, it's interesting you should mention that when I met with NVIDIA at GDC, they were doing I wouldn't say all, but a majority of their demos were being done on Requiem. And of course, it looks amazing on that high-end hardware and the top-end monitors. That's not necessarily an experience that the average consumer will have. But yes, exactly, the partnership between NVIDIA and Capcom, producing some very high image quality. So yes, the game itself, already 6 million units out the door. Again, we just published an article showing it was the most reviewed game on the PlayStation platform in the first quarter. This is the breakout hit of the first quarter of 2026. Capcom is on a heater here. I will say that this should probably be the end of the road for this specific era of Resident Evil, which started with Resident Evil 7 about a decade ago. So this franchise has thrived on reinventing itself. Think about the jump from tank controls and 3 to behind the shoulder in 4 and then the first person in Resident Evil 7. I'm not sure what other modalities of perspective could be accomplished there, but just mixing in a different pacing, different mechanics might be in order. It's not necessarily mission-critical. But as I say, this is -- this franchise has done its best work when it's putting players on their back foot and maybe we're overdue for a little bit of that.

Eiman Hussain   00:15:06

Absolutely, I agree. That's a really great point. On #3, we have Saros by Housemarque, and this is also by Sony. This is the same developer behind Returnal, and this developer is back with a new title called Saros, a new third-person action adventure game developed by Housemarque. Now this particular genre, it's called "bullet ballet" for some reason due to its fast-paced traversal and combat mechanics. And it seems like it's a good new addition to the PlayStation's lineup of games for 2026. What do you think about this one?

Neil Barbour   00:15:38

Yes. I don't know if this game will make a big financial impact. The Housemarque games have always been kind of more fan favorites than blockbusters. But they also tend to hang around and win over hearts and minds and they tend to be an integral part of the platform. What was it Resogun was in the launch window of PS4. This is also being positioned as a big showpiece for the PS5 Pro. These games have a lot of particle effects. They look great in HDR. They thrive in high fidelity environments. This probably isn't the game that talks someone into buying a $900 PS5 Pro, but it will be a point of pride for the people who have already bought into the ecosystem. So like Returnal, this is going to be one of those games that hardcore gamers just continue to talk about down the line, I imagine.

Eiman Hussain   00:16:26

And also really interesting in seeing the procedural generation they've deployed this time on Saros. That will be really interesting to see as well. All right. We are slowly moving towards the big names. All right. So number two, we have Wolverine by Insomniac Games and Insomniac Games is owned by Sony Interactive. So far, it looks like an exciting 2026 for Sony with several big exclusives on the horizon. Insomniac is back with another fan favorite Marvel Superhero -- and the game will feature a semi-open world and a fluid combat system. And we are really excited to see Insomnac's take on Wolverine. And I believe this Wolverine is in the same universe as Insomniac Spider-Man. So we're really excited to see whether this Wolverine and Spider-Man will cross paths in the future sequel, which is really exciting to think about. Do you have any thoughts on this one?

Neil Barbour   00:17:16

Yes, it does sound like a fan dream, doesn't it? Yes. So what does it say? Big time development studio with Insomniac, big time IP with Marvel. If they can execute here, and Insomniac usually does, they'll have a big hit right off the bat. I do wonder, though, with Wolverine not being part of the Avengers universe or whatever you would call that sort of the new Marvel, will it still resonate with younger fans? Wolverine is such a cool character, jumps off the page, across generations. I imagine the answer is probably yes. but something to think about.

Eiman Hussain   00:17:49

Also, I feel like there's a huge pressure on the voice actor now that he's -- after a huge Jackman, it's going to be him.

Neil Barbour   00:17:55

I hadn't thought about that. Is this not somebody who had done it in a cartoon or something before?

Eiman Hussain   00:17:59

Probably, yes. Probably yes. But I saw his interview on the Sony PlayStation, YouTube channel. Really cool guy, and he does look like Wolverine even. So really exciting.

Neil Barbour   00:18:11

That's interesting. Yes, I hadn't thought about Hugh Jackman being connected with the character for, what, 10, 15 years now and then sort of transitioning back to a more cartoony presentation maybe. Is cartoony a fair word to use here? I'm struggling to think about what the press images have looked like out of this game so far.

Eiman Hussain   00:18:29

It's semi -- I would say it's stylized art.

Neil Barbour   00:18:32

Stylized. Okay. I like it.

Eiman Hussain   00:18:34

All right. Moving on to the big name, the biggest -- the most anticipated game in the video games industry. And on #1, we have Grand Theft Auto VI by Rockstar and Rockstar Games is owned by Take-Two Interactive. Now the video games industry is holding its breath for the next Grand Theft Auto. We are excited to see the next earnings call from Take-Two Interactive as we enter into summer. And summer is exactly when Take-Two indicated that they will kick off the marketing for GTA 6. And this time around, GTA promises to be bigger, better and the most expensive open world game experience yet. This time, it features 2 protagonists. They're called Jason Duvall and Lucia. They have a really strong Bonnie and Clyde chemistry going on. So what's interesting is that given the current state of console prices and the recent price hikes, we're also looking forward to seeing what console shipment sales will look like post launch of GTA 6.

Neil Barbour   00:19:36

Yes, such a good point, right, because the prices have gone up. The sales were kind of slowing anyway for PlayStation and Xbox Series consoles. I suspect that maybe at launch, and I don't know if we've nailed down a date yet, but I assume maybe at launch that the console prices stay steady. And then as we move into Black Friday, there will be some big sales associated with the launch. And maybe there'll be a console that bundles it or maybe they just say, here's a $400 Xbox or PlayStation and you know that Grand Theft Auto is on shelves here and you can come in and buy them together. So I do think that we still see a bump in sales. it's possible that the bump would not -- will not be as pronounced as it would have been if the consoles were at their initial $500 price points or had been moved down to $400. It's -- again, it's very rare for a console to grow in price over the lifetime of its being available. I will say, I said earlier that these games are in no particular order. We have been numbering them. This is definitely number one. This is the big one, right? Take-Two depends on it. The console ecosystem depends on it. It's all been building to this moment. I sort of think of this as a Star Wars sequel situation where it's too big to fail and people are going to buy in regardless of what the product actually looks like. The question is, will it be just another big game in the GTA series? Or will it be the biggest game of all time. I think they need to give people something a little new here if they really want to break through the next level, establish the franchise to a new generation of players. I'm not sure what that would be exactly. I'm not a developer. It's not my problem really, but the rumors around a robust user-generated content ecosystem is probably a good start. If they're going to lean into the not quite Roblox level, but the idea that you could design your own levels or your own character or your own cars to a high degree of user agency, that could really be a game changer and pull in a lot more people than they already have. And it's already humongous game, obviously.

Eiman Hussain   00:21:45

It's interesting that you mentioned that they have to give people something new because they have submitted some patents, which are a really interesting read, and I recommend that you go over them because apparently, they're trying to do things unprecedented in video games in terms of artificial intelligence, NPCs, and different gameplay modes. So I'm really interested in seeing how it turns out in the end.

Neil Barbour   00:22:08

Yes. Maybe that has something to do with them pushing it back here. AI really came on strong at the late term of the development of this project and maybe they're finding ways to sort of rope that into the game in new and interesting ways. It's going to be a huge release and something that people will be playing for 3, 5, 7, 10 years down the road if GTA V is any indication. It looks like we have some honorable mentions here as well. These are kind of -- I would assume these are games that we personally are looking forward to, but maybe don't have the strongest marketing potential. Do you want to walk through some of your favorite...

Eiman Hussain   00:22:45

We have Out of Words by Kong Orange and WireFly. This looks like an amazing couch co-op game with a stop motion retro art style great aesthetic and looks like a really compelling story. Couch co-ops have become a really popular trend, largely established by Hazelight Studios with title like -- it Takes Two, A Way Out and Split Fiction. These games have found a dedicated audience of 2 players who enjoy playing together either as couch co-op or online co-op while experiencing engaging narratives. That's the key selling point.

Neil Barbour   00:23:20

Yes. It Takes Two has been such a sleeper hit for -- is it Electronic Arts is the publisher there? You can see sort of like a cottage industry of these couch co-op games taking root right now. So yes, it would be interesting to see if that one can raise to the same level. My honorable mention will be Zero Parades for Dead Spies. This is the spiral successor to Disco Elysium I believe the developer is pronounced ZA/UM. It's capital ZA/UM. I don't know if I've ever heard anyone say it out loud, so I'm kind of taking a guess there myself.

Eiman Hussain   00:23:58

Yes, I was pretty confused when I saw this as well.

Neil Barbour   00:24:00

So Disco Elysium was like a chatty, cerebral, meta RPG from 2019. Another one of those sleeper hits has a very dedicated following. After it was released, there was some acrimony between maybe the financial side and the creative side and sort of splintered the company into a few shards. So this game will not have the original game's creative mastermind, Robert Kurvitz involved. But it does have a lot of other members of that development team. I got to play some of it at GDC in March, and it seemed to have the same spirit and roughly the same quality as Disco. I'm personally looking forward to it.

Eiman Hussain   00:24:37

Awesome.

Neil Barbour   00:24:38

All right. And that's going to wrap us up for the 10 games that will define 2026. Thanks so much, Eiman, for coming on the show and giving us some of your insights.

Eiman Hussain   00:24:47

Absolutely. Thank you so much. It's been my pleasure.