Summer Game Fest no-shows: The big games that were absent from 2026’s showcases

Now that the Summer Game Fest weekend is over and the buffering video’s caught up to the audio feed at last, we can look back over the festival of trailers and announcements and say, hey, what about that one thing we were expecting to hear about (or in some cases—cough, Destiny 3, cough—are just trying to cope into existence)?

In the flurry of reveals from Summer Game Fest (the Xbox Games Showcase, the Future Games Show, Sony State of Play, the PC Gaming Show, and the rest) what games are missing?

Ananta

Jody Macgregor, Weekend Editor: Ananta’s the anime bunnygirl Grand Theft Auto combining Arkham-style combat with Spider-Man’s urban traversal and GTA 5-esque character-switching and car chases and a vampire who vomits a rainbow and, frankly, too much. It’s also free-to-play, but while it has the look of a gacha game, apparently only cosmetics and furniture will cost money. Wait, it has furniture? Is this The Sims as well as like, four other games? Since Ananta wasn’t at any of the weekend’s showcases, we’ll probably have to wait until ChinaJoy or Tokyo Game Show to find out.

The Witcher 3 DLC

Harvey Randall, Staff Writer: Bit too soon to talk Witcher 3 DLC, especially after the rumour mill ground the rumour grain into rumour flour and made rumour bread. After a ton of speculation, CD Projekt accidentally let slip it was working on a Witcher 3 DLC via its own storefront, oops! And while we’ve enjoyed plenty of details, SGF didn’t give us the goods. Gamescom isn’t far, though, and it seems a far more reasonable date to get us back in Geralt’s boots for one last go before Ciri takes over.

Arkane’s Blade

Ted Litchfield, Associate Editor: I remember saying last week, verbatim, “If we don’t see Blade this year, I’m going to be seriously worried for Arkane”—It’s been three years since we saw its announcement teaser, and online editor Fraser Brown was already nervous about it being a no-show at last year’s summer trailer bonanza.

Arkane’s US half was shuttered by Microsoft two years ago, leaving its Lyon branch, which created Deathloop, to carry the triple-A immersive sim torch. I’m not one for Marvel superheroes these days, but I will always make an exception for Blade, and Arkane’s mood-setting first trailer is still incredibly enticing.

We know this is set to be Arkane’s first third-person action game, but Blade will almost certainly retain the open-ended, reactive design the studio is known for. A similar union of cinematic console design and classic PC crunch has worked out well for both MachineGames and IOI in recent years, leaving me optimistic for the project⁠—I just hope Microsoft lets Arkane fully do its thing.

Injustice 3

Jody: What with Injustice 3 showing up on the resume of a Warner Bros. Games employee, and Superman and Aquaman’s voice actors apparently dropping hints about it to fans, we’ve been waiting to hear something official about NetherRealm’s next superhero fighting game. Will it move on from the Batman versus Superman theme? Will it have He-Man in it, like the last Injustice comic did? Will the Flash get a super move even more outrageous than the one where he drags people back through time to throw them at a T-rex? These are the questions that matter.

Fallout 3 Remastered

Jody: After the successful shadow-drop of Oblivion Remastered, every time a Bethesda logo pops up at the Xbox Games Showcase there’s an intake of breath as we contemplate the possibility of a Fallout 3 remaster arriving out of the blue. Or even a remaster of New Vegas, which we still cradle an old photo of like the Wolverine meme. But no, it was just a case of another year, another Fallout 76 update trailer.

Fallout: New Vegas Remastered

Ted: Currently cradling an old photo of this like the Wolverine meme.

Divinity

Harvey: Despite the major buzz around Divinity‘s announcement and very gory trailer, Larian’s next RPG masterwork didn’t descend from the heavens to grace this Summer games Fest. Honestly, it arguably didn’t need to—I’d bet good gold that Swen Vincke could spend the next several months straight-up pretending like Divinity was a fugue dream, and it’d still sell like hotcakes when it inevitably comes to early access.

Well, provided the studio can properly recover from the AI debacle from earlier this year—though I can’t imagine it’d be enough to sink the absolutely enormous good ship Divinity.

Tides of Annihilation

Jody: It was a big year for sword-combat spectacle fighters made by Asian studios. Eclipse Glow Games, the Sichuan studio behind Tides of Annihilation, was notable by its absence, however. Admittedly Tides of Annihilation is a little different thematically, since it’s so English it stars Jennifer English, who fights Arthurian legends across a crumbling modern London. Though it debuted at Sony State of Play last year, maybe Tides of Annihilation is another one for ChinaJoy or Tokyo Game Show in 2026.

Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra

Jody: Variety recently confirmed Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra was “still in the works”, but Skydance New Media’s World War II team-up between Captain America and Black Panther was absent from this year’s showcases. It’s also another year without anything to be seen of Arkane’s Blade, and there’s been complete radio silence about EA Motive’s singleplayer Iron Man game too.

Mass Effect Next

Jody: Maybe BioWare is keeping its head down while Exodus does an extremely Mass Effect-adjacent take on a space opera RPG. Maybe there will be a trailer on November 7, the unofficial fan holiday for Mass Effect that sometimes results in a blog post or some artwork. Maybe this needle full of hopium will last until then.

Jet Set Radio/Golden Axe

Jody: In 2023, Sega announced reboots of a bunch of arcade classics were coming our way. And while Sega has since canceled a live-service “super game”, reboots of Jet Set Radio and Golden Axe seemingly still exist on a spreadsheet somewhere. Perhaps it’s for the best we didn’t hear anything about them, given how well the new Crazy Taxi’s use of generative AI has been received.

Kingdom Hearts 4

Jody: Kingdom Hearts 4 was revealed four years ago, with a trailer depicting Sora trapped in the world of Quadratum. He’s apparently been trapped there ever since. Now that Final Fantasy 7 Revelation is only a year off, it’s time for Goofy and Donald to get to work on that whole situation.

Deus Ex Remastered

Jody: Aspyr’s remodeling of the antique immersive sim caught so much flak when it was first revealed that it was delayed indefinitely and all preorders were refunded. We could be disappointed to still not have any updates on the situation, but since the announcement of Nightdive’s Thief: The Dark Project Remastered we’ve been too busy drooling over that to care.

FromSoftware, like, in general

Jody: FromSoftware’s next game, The Duskbloods, is exclusive to the Switch 2, so the studio’s probably holding off for the Nintendo Direct. It just feels odd to see trailers for so many games indebted to the FromSoftware style without its progenitor being represented.

Beyond Good & Evil 2

Jody: Ubisoft has reminded us that Beyond Good & Evil 2 is genuinely still in development, no but for really real you guys, 29 times now. They could have made it 30.

Destiny 3

Harvey: Everybody wants Destiny 3. Bungie is not making Destiny 3. Despite ensuring that one of your biggest, live service, flagship franchises doesn’t just whimper into obscurity after a couple bad expansions, Bungie has closed doors on Destiny 2 without much intention to follow it up. It’s all Marathon for the foreseeable—and while it’s been received well by our own extraction shooter enthusiasts in our Marathon review, its wonky first impression does have me tugging on my collar a bit.

The Elder Scrolls 6

Rory Norris, Guides Writer: As of writing, it’s been 2,919 days since Bethesda officially announced TES6. If you ask me, coming up on eight years is way too long between a game’s announcement and, well, literally any news about it, let alone it actually releasing. According to a former lead earlier this year, it was only announced so far in advance to make sure “people were not just pissed at us” for revealing Starfield instead. I don’t think it’s panned out quite like that so far.

As much as the Xbox (sorry, XBOX) showcase did have some very promising games—shoutout to Vivarium—the absence of TES6 is getting real awkward now. Still, I’ll patiently wait. And play lots of The Elder Scrolls Online in the meantime.

Star Wars Jedi 3

Rory: Outside of Andor, I stand by the belief that the Jedi games are the best Star Wars anything in ages. With a four-year gap between Jedi: Fallen Order and Survivor (the latter of which launched in 2023), it was speculated that we’d see whatever’s next for Cal Kestis soon. It’s yet to be officially unveiled, but back in a 2024 investor meeting, EA entertainment and tech president Laura Miele confirmed that “Respawn is working hard to bring the final chapter of this thrilling story to players.” Perhaps next year, then.

Knights of the Old Republic Remake

Harvey: Yes, it’s still coming, no, it’s not coming yet. The Knights of the Old Republic remake, which was first announced way back in 2021, plucked out of Aspyr’s hands, put in Saber Interactive’s mitts, revealed that it was still alive alongside an iller-fated KOTOR 2 remake—and at long last, at this Summer Games Fest… absolutely not acknowledged in any way, shape or form. Phooey.

XCOM 3

Harvey: Where is XCOM 3? Who knows. Certainly not XCOM originator Julian Gollop, who was unfortunately trying to get a life sim off the ground and couldn’t. It really is a bit of a marvel, given it seems like a straightforward slam-dunk. XCOM 2 is regarded as one of the best turn-based strategy games basically ever, and it’s over a decade old at this point. Heck, our “What we want from XCOM 3” article isn’t that far behind.

There’s been Chimera Squad in the interim, and while it has its defenders, I want my grand strategy doomsday clock fix, dangit!

Darksiders 4

Harvey: This one’s a simpler bet: While Darksiders 4 is absolutely on its way, it’s being published by THQ Nordic, which has its own showcase that usually rolls around late July/Autumn. Hence no apocalypses, for now. It’s being developed by Gunfire Games, who made the third game—as well as one of my personal favourites, Remnant 2.

A statement on the future of Xbox

Jody: While we weren’t expecting Asha Sharma to bring out Phil Spencer in a wicker man and ritualistically light him on fire or anything, it seems odd to have an Xbox Showcase with a new Xbox CEO, but not have a buzzword-laden statement about the future of the brand. She did appear briefly to say Gears of War: E-day would be exclusive to Xbox (don’t worry, it’s coming to PC as well), but otherwise let the “look to the past” nature of the showcase speak for itself.