{"id":1880892,"date":"2026-04-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1880892"},"modified":"2026-04-14T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T21:00:00","slug":"here-are-six-of-our-favourite-games-of-2026-so-far","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1880892","title":{"rendered":"Here are six of our favourite games of 2026\u2026 so far"},"content":{"rendered":"
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They never stop, do they, the games? It\u2019s relentless. There you are, still trying to finish Witcher III<\/em> with absolutely no idea where you are on the map or what this active quest is about, and the games industry dumps a massive pile of delectable content onto your lap.<\/p>\n

Before you give up entirely and just go back to hotlapping in\u00a0LMU<\/em>, consider these six titles that represent the cream of 2026 so far. You\u2019ll laugh, you\u2019ll\u2026 well, probably not cry exactly, but at the very least you\u2019ll become uncomfortably sweaty at the sights\u00a0Resi Requiem<\/em> wants to show you.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Feeling brave? No, but seriously \u2013 Capcom\u2019s latest instalment of this legendary survival horror series has some moments in it that teeter right on the verge of unbearably tense and nightmarish, even to veteran players. It\u2019s a smart marriage of old-school third-person shooter and\u00a0Resi 7<\/em>-style first-person sequences, divvied up between Leon \u201cthe hair\u201d Kennedy and new character Grace Ashcroft, with a story that feels personal and pacey.<\/p>\n

Grace may have become the unfortunate poster girl for Nvidia\u2019s \u2013 ahem \u2013\u00a0controversial DLSS 5 tech<\/a> since the game\u2019s release, but let\u2019s not forget she\u2019s first and foremost the star of a slick, gorgeous-looking and gripping adventure into the origins of the Raccoon City Destruction Incident.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Who had \u2018a meditative climbing game will be among the year\u2019s best output<\/a>\u2019 on their 2026 bingo cards? Nah, sit back down. You\u2019re fibbing. We all suspected\u00a0Cairn<\/em> might be good, but nobody saw its GOTY potential until they started climbing.<\/p>\n

As hard-headed mountaineer Aava, you set off to climb the highest peak in the land, the fictional Mount Kami whose summit no human has previously reached. You do that by controlling her, limb by limb, picking the exact placements of her hands and feet in a remarkably granular system that makes you feel like you\u2019re<\/em> the expert mountaineer, not Aava.<\/p>\n

And then you find a cosy spot to set up camp, cook some food for the next day, and rest up until dawn. That climb-and-camp gameplay loop is so much more immersive than if you were simply scaling endless rockfaces, and that makes\u00a0Cairn<\/em> feel like a bona fide adventure, unique to you and your choices.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Yes, we\u2019re cheating with this one.\u00a0AC Rally<\/em> entered Steam Early Access<\/a> in 2025, but its ongoing development and meaty 0.3 update are sufficient grounds for us to look you dead in the eye and tell you it\u2019s one of 2026\u2019s best games thus far. Got a problem with that? Come argue with us. We\u2019ll be in that soggy Welsh ditch over there.<\/p>\n

Truth be told, we still haven\u2019t completely mastered the demands of its unprecedented handling model, which removes all sugar-coating applied by arcade rally titles with a stiff bristle brush and then dares you to take the next \u201cleft five over bump, caution logs\u201d flat-out. But that\u2019s the beauty of it. It\u2019s a sim that brings you intrinsic joy just from driving, figuring out the intricacies, and levelling yourself up just marginally with every run. We can\u2019t wait for the full release, which will surely be the game of the year\u2026 whenever that year is.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It\u2019s\u00a0very nearly an instant classic<\/a>. We didn\u2019t gel with\u00a0Screamer<\/em>\u2019s twin-stick handling, but there\u2019s still an awful lot to love about this narrative-led and anime-infused take on arcade racing. Frankly, after 20 years of\u00a0Need For Speed<\/em> dominance in that area, it\u2019s just nice not to play a story about undercover cops or slighted street racers.<\/p>\n

The characters get under your skin, and their customisable cars are each written to a bespoke design language that seems to speak to their disposition. Inspired little touches like active upshifting are scattered throughout the racing, which is even more tactical and boost-focused than a weekend at Formula E.<\/p>\n

2025 was the year of ambitious but flawed hardcore driving sims; if 2026 is all about heroic arcade projects, we\u2019re completely on board.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Bungie, that lot wot made\u00a0Halo<\/em> and\u00a0Destiny<\/em>, are about as safe a pair of hands as one could find in the first-person shooter domain. Nevertheless, it took all the studio\u2019s experience to pull off a reimagining of a \u201890s corridor shooter in PvPvE extraction shooter finery.<\/p>\n

Marathon<\/em> is slick and stylish. It looks like it went to art college and then got really into Philip K. Dick books. The shooting and movement feel wonderful \u2013 obviously, it\u2019s Bungie \u2013 but it\u2019s the way this game cherry-picks the best bits from recent extraction hits like\u00a0Arc Raiders<\/em> and blends them into such a stylish world, that has you thinking about it when you should be doing your work or checking it\u2019s safe for your kid to cross the road.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Making a fine case for nominative determinism,\u00a0Esoteric Ebb<\/em> is indeed driven by pretty idiosyncratic passions, namely dice rolls, D&D rules and fantastically flowery writing. It\u2019s an RPG, really, but one that gives you enough license to make a real mess of things. Don\u2019t be perturbed if Dungeons & Dragons<\/em> isn\u2019t your thing \u2013 really this is an improv comedy that just happens to be wearing a medieval breastplate and carrying a goblin sidekick in tow.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They never stop, do they, the games? It\u2019s relentless. There you are, still trying to finish Witcher III with absolutely no idea where you are on the map or what this active quest is about, and the games industry dumps a massive pile of delectable content onto your lap. Before you give up entirely and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,237],"class_list":["post-1880892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-topgear-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1880892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1880892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1880892\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1880892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1880892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1880892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}