Our favorite game announcements from the 2026 Summer Game Fest season

Game showcase summer has begun: these early weeks of June fill the void of E3 with video game announcements, capping off with Summer Game Fest 2026 itself on Friday. But saying this week is all about Summer Game Fest feels inaccurate; while that may be the main event, there are many other showcases happening over the week, taking advantage of our eagerness for new release news. And trust me, there will be plenty of new releases, demos, and announcements over the next week or so to fill your Steam Wishlist.

You should check the full Summer Game Fest schedule for all of the gaming showcases happening, but if you don’t have time to watch every showcase yourself, we’ve picked out a few of our favorites to recommend. These are the Summer Game Fest games that have caught our eye and reserved a spot in our coveted shopping carts.

Our favorite games from Thinky Direct

Thinky Direct focused on puzzle games across several genres, but these were our favorites from the show:

• UvsU: You vs You is a Claymation game that requires you to complete puzzles literally against yourself and the only way to fully complete the maze are to overcome yourself.
• Granny Detective Society lets you take on the role of a mouse with too much time on her hands and left to do what every good natured elderly mouse would do — be a nosy neighbor spying on the town around her.
• Hello Again lets you take on the role of a ferret stuck on a mysterious island stuck in a time loop. Explore the island and solve mysteries of your kooky island mates reliving the same day.
• While most of the games were lighthearted, Funeral for the Sun has you exploring an abandoned town to solve the mystery of the fire that took hundreds of lives, as well as a far more ancient secret behind it.

The Thinky Direct curator page makes it easy to find these titles and more as well as demos available now.

Our favorite games from the MIX Summer Game Showcase

With nearly two hours of independent games, MIX offered several interesting upcoming releases.

• Neighboorhoods is a claymation city builder on a smaller scale, focusing on  rebuilding a few blocks at a time.
• Pixel Washer is a power washing game where you play as a pig on a mission to clean the town, one mud pile at a time.
• Infamous Keeper is a Dungeon themed tower defense game where you set up your pit of nightmares in the vein of the famous Dungeon Keeper franchise. Defend your dungeon from those pesky heroes trying to ruin your day by doing good.
• Pale Tide lets you and your dog go and explore and scavenge the land, rescue survivors and build your bunker up as you’re also are on the lookout for zombie hordes.
• My Otter Friends allows you to play as an otter, rebuilding a devastated island rescuing your animal friends, all while being way too adorable.

You can find all of these games and more on the MIX Summer Game Steam page.

Our favorite games from Midsummer Night Scream

In this horror themed showcase, everything was guaranteed to give you chills. For me, most of those chills were in my wallet after adding 18 games to my Wishlist.

• Donut Panic lets you live the nightmare of being a donut shop employee. While that is scary enough, things turn twisted as your start to having nightmarish hallucinations forcing you to retreat to your panic room.
• Out Fishing is a first person fishing game with camp building mechanics. As peaceful and cozy as can be. After all, nothing scary has ever come out of the water.
• Crush Landing is the latest in Akabaka’s romantic eldritch visual novels. A living comet has crashed into your life. Can you keep her satiated and perhaps find love before reality fully warps around her?
• Gretel and Hansel is a stunningly gorgeous nightmare where you play Gretel as she searches the woods for her abandoned brother Hansel in this hand painted point and click adventure.

Visit the Midsummer Night Scream page to be like me and add a ton of games to your wishlist.

Our favorite games from Six One Indie Showcase

Sixty one games in 90 minutes offers a lot of great games, here are some stand outs

• Sloppy Forgeries asks you to do your best to make pixel perfect replicas of famous paintings, but accepts you when you do your worst.
• There was a strange theme of classic games taking on a nightmarish twist, with Death Pong being sadistic beer pong,  Black Jacket making you play 21 in Hell, and Blocks for Babies shifting from cute Tetris to Doom.
• Abide is a stunningly gorgeous and nightmarish 1st person stop motion horror game.
• Wax Heads is a record shop simulator where you get to perfect your playlist while befriending your off the wall customers.

Demos and preorders can be found on the Six One Indie Steam page

Our favorite games from Black Voices in Gaming

Black Voices in Gaming offered up games by black creators. here are a few that caught our eye.

• Ourlands is a chill island designer game. sit back, relax, and design your very own piece of paradise.
• Bathroy-Heritage of Blood is a side scroller where you are the vampire princess seeking revenge agasint your mother, the foul Elizabeth Bathory.
• Black Sailors is a tactical naval game where you take revenge on European colonizers off the Brazilian coast.
• Skate around town doing odd jobs to fix your car, jam out to music, or just fall in love in Rollergirl.

Head to the Black Voices in Gaming Steam page to Wishlist and check out more games.

Our favorite games from Sony State of Play

While primarily focusing on first party games exclusive to the PlayStation 5, the showcase did feature a few games that will be available else where.

• There was no way to write this and ignore Marvel’s Wolverine. Fully embracing the M rating, this game is almost everything you would want in a Wolverine game. If it ever came to PC too, it would be everything you would want in a Wolverine game.
• The other massive game of note, taking up 20 minutes of the 1 hour and 15 minute runtime of the presentation was God Of War Laufey, picking up where Faye’s  story ended in 2018’s God of War. Faye has awaken in the afterworld she did not expect, and lots of violence followed, just what you want from a God of War title.
• Until Dawn 2 brings us the every choice of life and death that the first game gave us, now on a tropical island as ghost hunters try for reality tv gold, and the consequences there of.
• Stuntman: Hollywood is a return to the classic driving series letting you drive some of the most iconic cars of movies and television.
• The Lost Wild is a survival game of evading dinosaurs. It will be hard to evade them when all I want to do is hug them. I guess I am just going to lose a lot.

Games are available to Wishlist on your PlayStation 5.

Our favorite games from Latin American Games Showcase

Celebrating games coming out of Latin America, here are a few of our favorites

• Croak and Solve, a noir detective game where you play as the most cynical species of all: a jaded frog.
• Bulbo’s Belief System gives us a puzzle game for the absentminded as challenges are solved based on what you remember and what you forget.
• There were a surprising number of food themed dungeon crawlers, with Deep Dish Dungeon, Final Flavor, and Dungeons & Desserts feeding your craving for adventure.
• Take a look in your uncles old desktop computer to find the secret of your inheritance, and the horrors it hides in Desktop Explorer.
• The Outer Frame has you try and solve and cover up mysteries and deal with the consequences of your mistakes.

Find demos and wishlists on the Latin American Games Showcase Steam page.

Our favorite games from Women-Led Games

With 60 plus games to chose from, these stood out.

• The Regreening is a gorgeous farming sim about restoring a devastated land to bring it back to life.
• Frieda is Changing tells a coming-of-age story in a point and click horror mystery.
• Job Fit for a Devil is an adventure game where you play as an imp in the service of Peter the Great.
• In Horses of Hoofprint Bay, you build up your horse ranch in this cozy hand-drawn point and click.

As always, Steam has a curated page for all the listed games at Women-Led Games.

Our favorite games from Summer Game Fest

The main event with the biggest announcements happen here.

• 12 years after the release of the first ground breaking game, Alien Isolation 2 returns for the ultimate deadly hide and seek game.
• 1666 Amsterdam is a action game where you play as a witch and a cat. you can play the prologue now on Steam and Epic to check it out.
• Cinematic narrative adventure meets stealth tactics in Crossfire.
• The Final Fantasy 7 retelling comes to an end next spring on all platforms at once in Final Fantasy 7 Revelation.

See the steam page for more details at Summer Game Fest 2026.

Our favorite games from Day of the Devs

The post Game Fest indie pallet cleanser offered more games off the beaten path.

• Dreadmoor is a first person fishing survival game that made us all yell “Anna Game”.
• From the team that gave us Duck Detective comes a cozy-creepy mystery of who wants to kill your sweet grandma in Apple Crumble.
• Tenebris Somnia is a 2d horror game in 16 bit style that shifts to live action cinematics to fully build the tension.
• Mr. Records lets you fill the shoe of an elderly record store owner enjoying his retirement and using music to influence adventures he finds himself in.

Visit the Day of the Devs Steam page to find these titles and more.

Our favorite games from Southeast Asian Games Showcase

games highlighted from the Southeast Asia region.

• Hellheart Breaker is a rougelite dungeon crawler dating sim where those you don’t romance are your enemies.
• In Full Bloom, a cute little game about feeding a pet…. I mean a surrealist horror. Same thing as cute.
• Play as a puppeteer in a nightmare world in the action adventure game Nightmare Circus.

Check out the steam page for demos.

Our favorite games from Wholesome Direct

Games as cozy as hot coco with extra marshmallows.

• Dressmaker is the game none of us know we needed in our lives, but several of us wishlisted it.
• Moonlight Peaks lets you be a vampire farmer. What more would you need?
• Design and Conjure lets you take on the role of a new witch returning home and restoring her town.

Check out the Steam page for more info.

Our favorite games from Story-Rich Showcase

Story-Rich is a new showcase this year highlighting narrative games

• Penguin Colony is a Lovecraftian penguin game that actually appeared in 3 different showcases today and looked like a different game each time.
• Thousand Hells: The Underworld Heists is a narrative tactical game when you design your character and your team before venturing into Hell.
• The Hearth & Harbour is an upcoming restaurant management game from the team that brought us The Pale Beyond.
• Grave Seasons is about life in a cozy town with a murder problem. be careful who you date as they may just be the killer.

The Story-Rich Steam page links to all these games and more

Our favorite games from Green Games Showcase

Games that have a positive impact on the environment, or shows what happens when we don’t take care of it.

• Maintain your own little cozy floral shop in Leafy Corner.
• Explore and clean up a mystical island in Muri: Wildwoods.
• Strange Seed has you play as a blob who evolves parts of other animals to overcome obstacles.

All of these and more on Green Games Showcase Steam

Our favorite games from Gayming Pride Parade

The First ever Pride event during Summer Game Fest.

• Rizz Dungeon: Skeleton Key to My Heart is a dungeon crawler that lets you date monster girls. What more could you ask for?
• Spill the Beans is a whodunit where the person who did it was you– now to frame someone else.
• As someone who could probably use a British drag queen to  assist in thier dating life, I am just going to have to settle for Kitty Powers’ Matchmaker Makeover.

Sadly there is no steam page for this showcase, which is weird as it was an official event on the main channel.

Our favorite games from Access-Ability Summer Showcase

Highlighting games that try to make themselves playable to everyone.

• SuperWEIRD is a multiplayer automation game where you and your friends build production lines. the game features multiple options to assist you in setting up the perfect environment to play in.
• Life Below, an underwater coral reef builder, features a ton of features to make it customizable to play with many  control setups.
• Tennis Academy is an anime style tennis game that can be played blind.

Visit the Access-Ability Steam page for more.

Our favorite games from Future Games Show Summer Showcase

Aside from a 20 minute look at Exodus, FGS offered up some more fresh looks at upcoming games.

• My Cannibal Family lets you build up your own carnival, and use it to kill guests — which was the best part of Rollercoaster Tycoon anyway.
• Shark Dentist is an upcoming horror roguelike where you need to clean the teeth of the great predator, who does not want their teeth cleaned.
• Not exactly the release date I was hoping for, but Hellraiser: Revival is due out this year.
• Vampire Survivors has an upcoming expansion: Legacy of the Blood Moon.

Check out the Steam page for more details.

Our favorite games from Frosty Games Fest

Celebrating games coming out of Australia and New Zealand.

• Run a post-apocalyptic hot dog shop with questionable ingredients in Doomsday Diner.
• I am going to be honest. I don’t know what this RPG is about, but Janet DeMornay Is A Slumlord (and a witch) looked so unhinged, it needed the wishlist add.
• Edwin Earstwhile: Medical Examiner is a Victorian era medical mystery game.
• Verbal Void lets you play as a trio with neurodivergence where conversations and combat feel one and the same.

These and more are available on Steam.

More games coming soon!

Though the summer showcase season is coming to a close, there are still a few more showcases to go — which means more games to add to this list. We’ll keep giving you highlights of our favorite games, with links so you can wishlist them yourself  we will be giving you highlights and where to find them, so be sure to check back daily!