Indholdsfortegnelse for February 2026 i Edge

Developer/publisher Nyamakop Format PC, Xbox Series Origin South Africa Release TBA Ben Myres, creative director at Johannesburg-based studio Nyamakop, B was holidaying in London with his family a few years ago. One afternoon, his parents went to the British Museum. “We met up in the evening,” Myres says, “and my mother was furious.” At the museum, she had seen the Nereid Monument, an ancient tomb from what is now Turkey, that was stolen and brought to the UK brick by brick. “She was aghast at the scale of looting,” Myres says. “Stealing a building is wild. There’s that joke: why are the pyramids in Egypt? Because they were too heavy to take to the British Museum.” Myres’ mother suggested this might make a good game. “I could never figure out how to make…

Game Romeo Is A Dead Man Developer/publisher Grasshopper Manufacture Format PC, PS5, Xbox Series Release February 11 Even if you were skilful enough to avoid being killed in Romeo Is A Dead Man, it would be worth dying at least a few times. Rather than the words ‘Game Over’ or ‘You Died’ being plastered across the screen, the action cuts to a model of Romeo’s head, which rapidly dissolves into a red mess, accompanied by a horrifying scream. That’s followed by a short animation in which Romeo’s mother spins a large wheel like a gameshow host; you must stop it to receive some form of boost when you revive. Then the melting face sequence plays in reverse, Romeo’s skin reforming. And it’s back to the action. It’s a brusque interruption even…

Developer Lunar Software Publisher Raw Fury Format PC (tested), Xbox Series Release Out now There’s a particular door in Routine – between one of the tram stations and the living quarters that house (or, rather, used to house) the occupants of the game’s fastidiously designed Moonbase – that illustrates why Lunar Software’s long-awaited debut is so frightening. It’s operated by a nearby console, which looks like a free-standing cash machine, the kind you might see in a newsagent. When you press the console’s ‘unlock’ button, it malfunctions; now you have to connect the CPU to your Cosmonaut Assistance Tool (CAT), a functional hybrid of VCR, dial-up modem and set of spanners that runs on 50-ampere-hour lithiumion batteries, and has a special button for manual degaussing. The rudimentary operating system…

Developer Bandai Namco Studios, Sora Ltd Publisher Nintendo Format Switch 2 Release Out now Kirby has always had a bit of a weight problem. For all that he eats, this little pink ball remains as light as helium, the rare platforming hero who can treat gravity – that fundamental force of not only the universe but the genre – as more or less optional. He’s floated between many types of game over the years, and with Air Riders Kirby alights on a genre he’s visited before, one in which weight might matter even more than it does in a platformer. When we enthuse about racing games, it’s often owing to how well they capture the sense of tyres gripping road, the satisfaction of judging just right how far you can…

Developer/publisher Studio Chyr Format PSVR2, Quest 2, Quest 3 (tested), Quest 3S Release Out now The first challenge you face in Hotel Infinity is perhaps the trickiest of all: can you find a two-by-two-metre square of clear floor-space in your home? While this VR game can technically be played in Stationary mode – standing or sitting while steering your in-game movement with the thumbsticks – that would mean abandoning its ingenious‘roomscale’ design, which has your feet carrying you for miles without ever leaving the same patch of living-room floor. It’s worth pushing aside sofas, turning tables or doing whatever you need to do to make the space, because out of this four square metres Studio Chyr conjures marvels. It begins simply enough, with a revolving door. You enter from…

Developer DokiDoki Groove Works Publisher Square Enix Format PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Switch 2 (tested), Xbox One, Xbox Series Release Out now There’s reason to approach Octopath Traveler 0 with a degree of cynicism. It’s both a prequel and T a reworking of a free-to-play mobile RPG, itself a spinoff from a series whose latest entry couldn’t quite square the circle of its ensemble narrative. Plus, attractive as it may be, Square Enix’s HD-2D visual style is starting to suffer from overexposure. It’s a relief, then, that this addition marks the series at its most generous. Ironically, given the prior USP of an eight-strong ensemble cast, this results from a more conventional RPG structure: a single custom protagonist embarks on a journey to retrieve and seal away powerful rings held…

Once again the snow is falling on New York, and specifically upon Golgotha cemetery, where a man in a black leather trenchcoat and a paisley tie stands at the grave of his wife and daughter. In a gruff voice, he recounts a decade of grief and guilt – rather than his family still being alive, he wishes he was dead, too. Suddenly, three other guys appear. “Excuse me,” says one. “You Max Payne?” As the first shots are fired, our protagonist dives for the nearest cover, his family’s headstone. Bullet by bullet, the sculpted marble is chipped away until the only thing left visible is a single word, engraved in block capitals: ‘PAYNE’. You might only see it for less than a second, but this remains one of Max Payne…

Looking back on the gaming hardware stories of 2025, it’s clear that the first six months belonged to Switch 2. After June 5, however, the playing field was wide open again, and Xbox soon picked up the baton. Just three days after Nintendo’s console launched, Xbox announced the handheld ROG Xbox Ally. Then, less than a month after Ally’s release, Valve threw its hat back into the hardware ring, revealing the Steam Frame VR headset, Steam Controller and Steam Machine. The latter offering has drawn the most attention, as it contributes to an increasingly porous division between gaming PCs and consoles. A squat black cube that’s designed to sit under your TV, and a chunky handheld for playing PC games on the move? Not so long ago, if you were…

The creators of Spiritfarer are returning to their hand-drawn animation style in At Fate’s End, but there are visible differences. Art director Jo Gauthier explains that “sharp silhouettes and bold colour palettes are at the forefront,” rather than the watercolours used previously. And while artist Eyvind Earle remains an influence, Gauthier references animated film The Last Unicorn and the landscape art of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot as part of the eclectic brew. “As artists who love the history of art – even the politics of it – we are always learning about it, and trying to incorporate it into our games in some meaningful way while making sure our art remains true to ourselves.” The result is a fantasy world that’s “majestic but slightly desolate,” At Fate’s End creative director Nicolas…

CONTROL RESONANT Developer/publisher Remedy Entertainment Format TBA Origin Finland Release 2026 Seven years after the events of Control, the reality-warping, New Weird-inspired Hiss has escaped the confines of the Oldest House and taken over New York. You play as Dylan Faden – after assuming directorship of the FBC at the end of the original game, your sister Jesse has gone missing. Rather than relying on guns, combat is now melee-based. And while Remedy won’t use the phrase ‘open world’, you are free to explore large sections of Manhattan and complete objectives in whatever order you choose. Expect the twisted, trippy visuals of Controland the nightmare sequences in Alan Wake 2, but on a much greater scale. TIDES OF ANNIHILATION Developer/publisher Eclipse Glow Games Format PC, PS5, Xbox Series Origin China…

Games such as Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Layers Of Fear and Outlast operate on a simple horror rule: if the player doesn’t have any weapons and can’t fight back against the enemies, they will naturally feel more vulnerable and therefore more scared. But that mechanical structure – the run-and-hide horror pioneered by Atlus with Hell Night, then explored by Frictional with Penumbra – can also produce the opposite effect, whereby, because you don’t have any weapons, you know intrinsically that the game will never make you directly confront any of the enemies. By implication, the absence of a combat system means you’re free from the pressure, the weight and the anticipation that come with eventually having to face your fears. While its chunky, side-mounted buttons and flickering little monitor help…

Developer Treyarch, Raven Software Publisher Activision Format PC (tested), PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series Release Out now Alongside the central campaign (which can be played solo, but is better experienced in co-op) in Black Ops 7, Treyarch and Raven introduce a mission-driven mode called Endgame. Here, the citystate of Avalon – first seen in last year’s Black Ops 6 – is opened up to you and becomes fully explorable. Divided into four zones, each of which contains incrementally tougher enemies and challenges, it’s seemingly an attempt to overhaul and develop the quasi-open-world DMZ game type that launched, largely to ambivalence, with the reboot of Modern Warfare II. Endgame has the basic structure of DMZ, but with more substantial objectives and a better-defined progression system. Given that we’re now…

Developer/publisher AdHoc Studio Format PC (tested), PS5 Release Out now Being a superhero is one of the most accessible power fantasies. Ideas of invulnerability, super strength or super speed are all deeply appealing, whether you’re feeling powerless with limited ability to Do Good or wish to enact a little vigilante justice. (Only Superman seems to be immune to the desire to simply put someone in the bin.) It’s a spectrum you get to mull over in the opening moments of Dispatch’s first TV-style episode, as you dangle a mook out the window in pursuit of information for a revenge quest. Let him fall, or not? But your character, Robert, both is and is not a superhero. At the beginning of the game he is Mecha Man, a title held by…

Developer/publisher Santa Ragione Format PC Release Out now Andrea Lucco Borlera’s idiosyncratic debut is shaped by his childhood memories and his A celluloid obsessions. Horses is steeped in film history, and no cinematic moment encapsulates its tone like the opening of Luis Buñuel’s 1929 short Un Chien Andalou. We see a man standing on a balcony holding a straight razor, gazing into the night sky. A visibly artificial Moon is about to be bisected by a cloud. Then a young woman’s eye is split open by a blade similar to the one held by the man, no explanation provided. It’s all there: the denouncement of realism; the stream-of consciousness montage; the determination to shock. A firstperson nightmare unfolding over a fortnight-long stint at a farm where humans are kept as…

Among the first games published by the newly founded Electronic Arts in 1983 was Archon: The Light And The Dark. An action/strategy hybrid, it pitted two armies against each other; deployed on either side of a black-and-white chequered board, they would move in turns and duke it out in realtime whenever they met on the same square. It was a massive success yet didn’t kickstart a new chess-like subgenre. For decades, the industry remained more interested in deep simulations or securing marketing-friendly licences to embellish traditional chess titles than in messing with the game’s principles. Recently, however, priorities have changed, as Tim Keenan, creator of Below The Crown, discovered. Keenan’s latest resulted from more than a decade of mulling over an idea to fuse what he describes as the “elegant…

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NEAR MISSES Sektori PC, PS5, Xbox Series Made by ex-Housemarque programmer Kimmo Lahtinen, Sektori is a twin-stick shooter in the Geometry Wars mould with a ferocity that comes from the bloodline of Resogun. Blasting waves of hostile shapes is the basic requirement, but the confined arenas also have a habit of changing shape at short notice. To help thin the crowd, you have a recharging ‘Strike’ that bull-charges enemies, plus a Gradius-style power-up ladder and Roguelike-inspired cards that you select from for further boons. With mean bosses, dazzling light patterns and thumping bass, the crucial ingredients are all present and correct. Tingus Goose Android, iOS, PC Probably the strangest game of recent times, as a smiling, cartoony body horror interweaves the reproductive systems of humans, plants and geese, plus a…

Developer Sam Eng Publisher Devolver Digital Format PC (tested), PS5, Switch 2 Release Out now Combos in Skate Story are typically quite brief and simple. There’s no mashing the face buttons to chain together increasingly improbable manuals. Six-figure scores are so rare that, within the game’s eccentric lore, they’re considered to be almost mythical. Although the visual design may be bold and maximalist – neon colours, kaleidoscope effects, skyboxes that look like infinity mirrors – implying a similar approach to your interactions, your skating repertoire is limited to grinds, manuals, nollies and two tiers of flip tricks. On the surface, that might make Skate Story sound like it’s missing something: how can you have a skating game without grab and vert tricks? But by focusing on a fastidiously modelled set…

Developer Necrosoft Games Publisher Ysbryd Games Format PC (tested), PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series Release Out Now Picture an early scene in Demonschool, the fourth game and first RPG from Necrosoft Games. College student and demon hunter Faye loiters in a cemetery. The gravestones are illuminated by pale-orange evening light. A lone dog lingers, waiting for its owner. It’s a beautiful, ominous, yet oddly peaceful place. Then the demons arrive, and it’s hard not to feel a little disappointed. The game begins as Faye enrols at a mysterious academy in a place called Hemsk Island that teaches fighting skills to gifted students such as her. She soon realises that the island is in the grip of greater powers, and class assignments will be less theoretical than practical, involving…

Developer Eyes Out Publisher Blumhouse Games Format PC (tested), PS5, Xbox Series Release Out now Sleep Awake is presented like a dream. In a world where anyone who succumbs to sleep is at risk of disappearing, protagonist Katja explores a labyrinthine city whose population invents bizarre methods for warding off proper rest. As a result of its premise and Katja’s consistently disoriented viewpoint, the game unfolds through the unsettled logic of a mind only barely holding onto reality. Part of this impression comes from a bewildering overabundance of proper nouns. Sleep Awake is thick with terminology, with everything from The Crush and The Hush to The Fathom and The Fringe for you to distinguish between as you learn about its world. Yet as difficult as it is to initially situate…

Developer Tribute Games Publisher Dotemu Format PC, PS4, PS5 (tested), Switch, Switch 2, Xbox Series Release Out now Whether or not you’re a keen follower of the Marvel Universe, seeing it in videogame form remains an attractive prospect. From Midnight Suns to Rivals to Tokon, the number and range of heroes to call on, with abilities that slot into various genres, looks like a ready-made feast. And so it is with Marvel Cosmic Invasion: the notion of another scrolling beat-’em-up with polished pixel art is instantly elevated by its 15-strong roster, fighters equipped with a special power for every bulging muscle. That alone won’t make this game a world-beater, of course, and Cosmic Invasion doesn’t exactly make the punchy kind of entrance you’d expect of a hero such as Wolverine…

Simogo Legacy Collection Developer/publisher Simogo Format PC, Switch, Switch 2 Original release 2010–2015 The real game in any collected-works compilation is always the same: spot the scarlet thread. Here is a design team’s soul laid bare across its back catalogue, so what’s the leitmotif? Where’s the recurring preoccupation that brings it all together? This is tricky with a studio such as Simogo. Simogo Legacy Collection pulls together all of the smartphone games made by one of the most intriguing and restless design teams to have emerged in the past 15 years. And each entry, perhaps by design, is nothing like any of the others. Drop in at random. One game apes ’60s espionage serials and often trades in word puzzles, while another invokes the watery children’s-book art of the illustrator…