Top picks for 2026

WE ROUND UP THE BEST TITLES COMING YOUR WAY IN THE NEXT 12 MONTHS

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AFTER a lacklustre 2024, video games redeemed themselves with a stellar 2025.

As you'd expect, this survival horror features combat, investigations, puzzles, and resource management, with gameplay allowing you to freely switch between first and third-person views to face the horrors in a way that suits your playstyle.

007 First Light

(PEGI 16)

Platforms: PS5, Xbox X/S, Switch 2, PC

Release: May 27

Anyone who has read Charlie Higson’s Young Bond series will have been excited about the potential of a James Bond “origin” story.

This game may reimagine the future 00 agent's roots, but it allows fans to take on the role of the audacious young hero as he sets out to become the best MI6 has to offer.

First Light is the first official Bond game since 2012's 007 Legends, which proved such a flop publisher Activision never made another Bond game.

Alongside a young James, there's characters such as M, Q and Moneypenny, all reimagined to reflect their roles in shaping the burgeoning agent.

While a lot has changed, the developers promise you'll still be able to drive some of the franchise’s most iconic vehicles, and travel to far flung places for missions and adventures.

Grand Theft Auto VI

(PEGI TBC)

Platform: PS5, Xbox X/S

Release: November 19

Possibly the only game many players are still waiting to get their hands on after a year of disappointment.

The eighth main entry and 16th game in the series, it's been 12 years in the waiting and counting.

Initially delayed until May 2026, it was pushed back a second time to November 2026 as Rockstar said it needed extra time to finish the game with the level of polish fans had come to “expect and deserve”.

Set in the fictional open world state of Leonida - loosely based on Florida - the state is billed as “home to the neon-soaked streets of Vice City and beyond”.