If you’ve spent the last six months staring at your Steam wishlist waiting for a sign of life, I have some news. Some of it’s great. Some of it’s going to make you want to throw your mechanical keyboard across the room. We’re officially in 2026, and the landscape of new PC games coming out has shifted into something... well, weird.
The "Big One"—you know which one I mean—is finally on the horizon, but PC players are once again getting the short end of the stick. Meanwhile, a swarm of sequels and high-budget experimental titles are filling the void. It’s a year of massive transitions.
The Leonida Elephant in the Room
Let's just address it. Grand Theft Auto VI has a release date. Rockstar finally pinned it down for November 19, 2026.
Here is the kicker: that’s for consoles. If you’re looking for new PC games coming out and hoping GTA VI is on that list for this year, you’re going to be disappointed. Rockstar is sticking to its decades-old playbook of making PC players wait. Historically, this "wait" lasts anywhere from 12 to 18 months. While PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X users are exploring Vice City this fall, we’ll be watching 4K streams and trying to avoid spoilers like the plague.
It sucks. Honestly, it does. But it also means the rest of the 2026 calendar is actually allowed to breathe.
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The Heavy Hitters You Can Actually Play This Year
Since we aren't getting GTA, what are we getting? Surprisingly, February and March are looking absolutely stacked.
Resident Evil Requiem is landing on February 27. Capcom is taking us back to Raccoon City, but not in the way you'd expect. It’s not a remake. It’s a "revisitation" of the ruins, and the early footage looks terrifyingly polished. Then there’s Crimson Desert on March 19. This thing has been in development since forever. It started as a prequel to Black Desert but morphed into a massive single-player epic that looks like The Witcher met Dragon’s Dogma and had a very expensive baby.
A Quick Glance at the Q1 and Q2 Slate:
- Pathologic 3 (January 9): If you like your games to feel like a fever dream that also hates you, this is your winner.
- Arknights: Endfield (January 22): A base-building ARPG that’s trying to prove gacha-adjacent games can have real mechanical depth on PC.
- Nioh 3 (February 6): Team Ninja is back. Expect to die. A lot.
- Mouse: P.I. For Hire (March 19): This is that 1930s rubber-hose animation FPS. It looks like Cuphead with a Tommy gun.
Why The Witcher 4 Isn't on This List
There was a lot of hope that CD Projekt Red would pull a rabbit out of a hat for late 2026.
They didn't.
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Joint CEO Michał Nowakowski was pretty blunt in the recent earnings calls—The Witcher 4 (Project Polaris) is not coming out in 2026. It’s in full production, but they are clearly terrified of another Cyberpunk 2077 launch disaster. They’ve committed to a six-year window for the entire new trilogy, which sounds ambitious, but the first entry is definitely a 2027 or 2028 story.
It’s the right move. Nobody wants a buggy Geralt (or whoever the new protagonist ends up being). But it leaves a "prestige RPG" hole in the 2026 schedule that games like Crimson Desert and Kingdom Come: Deliverance II (which is finally hitting its stride with post-launch DLC this year) are trying to fill.
Remedy is Speedrunning Development
If there's one studio that doesn't seem to sleep, it's Remedy.
There are massive rumors—and some leaked internal timelines—pointing to Control 2 (possibly subtitled Resonant) aiming for a late 2026 launch. Given how Alan Wake 2 connected the "Remedy Connected Universe," the hype for this is through the roof. We’re talking more brutalist architecture, more reality-warping physics, and likely more musical numbers.
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They’re also working on the Max Payne 1 & 2 remakes, but most insiders say those have been pushed to 2027 to give Control 2 the spotlight. Remedy has mastered the art of the "AA+ game"—titles that look like $200 million productions but are built with much tighter, more creative teams.
The Return of the Weird FPS
We are seeing a genuine "boomer shooter" evolution this year. It’s not just about pixels anymore; it’s about style.
John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando is finally coming out on March 12. It’s a 4-player co-op horde shooter that feels like a lost 80s action movie. If you miss the days when games didn't take themselves so seriously, this is one to watch.
On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, Marathon from Bungie is still slated for a "2026 window," though Bungie has been quiet lately. It’s a neon-soaked extraction shooter that looks nothing like Destiny. The pressure on this game is immense—Bungie needs a hit, and they need one badly.
Actionable Insights for the PC Gamer in 2026
- Don't build a new PC for GTA VI yet. Since the PC version is likely a 2027 or 2028 affair, wait for the next generation of GPUs (the RTX 50-series or 60-series equivalents) to actually hit reasonable prices.
- Watch the "Early Access" Graduates. Games like Witchfire are finally hitting version 1.0 this year. Often, the best new PC games coming out aren't the ones on billboards, but the ones that have been cooking in early access for three years.
- Check your storage. The average install size for 2026's big hitters like Crimson Desert is hovering around 150GB. If you’re still running an HDD or a small SATA SSD, it's time to move to an NVMe drive.
- Keep an eye on January 20. There's a major Life is Strange reveal happening that is confirmed to be a 2026 title. It looks like it’s returning to the Max and Chloe storyline, which will likely break the internet for a few days.
2026 is going to be a year of playing the "other" games. While the console world loses its mind over Rockstar, PC players have a chance to dive into some of the most mechanically interesting RPGs and shooters we’ve seen in a decade. Just keep your expectations for "Day One" ports low, and your excitement for the weird indie-AAA crossover high.