With Summer Game Fest, or new E3, now on the gaming shelf, we can look to the future for games. There were more than 750 games announced throughout 15 showcases during the event, leaving a ton of games to get excited about, cover, and check out demos before they launch.
Meanwhile, things at Xbox are not going well. A few game studios owned by the company are rumored to be on the chopping block. Studios with award-winning games.
The first Dark Deity premiered during the final E3 ever. Now five years later, the conclusion to the RPG was announced during SGF. The third game in the tactical RPG series is inspired by classic Fire Emblem titles. Featuring 28 characters, 74 classes, and more than 100 weapons, it’s made by a team of five at Sword & Axe LLC.
It came as a surprise announcement during the IGN Live Indie Loop showcase and one that I am certainly excited for. With each iteration, the dev team wanted to add more depth to the game, adding new mechanics to keep it from getting stale. The second game added more enhancements via graphics and polish. The third
is adding a morale system that measures how well your army is doing in battles. It impacts what actions they can take and their end result. A higher morale means more attacks as you rally your army, while a lower morale means your army may rout.
The first was well-received by fans but got mixed reviews. The second received much more and better reviews on Steam and also released on consoles. There is no release date for Dark Deity 3 as of yet.
The third game in the Plague Tale series is coming this summer. Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy is set 15 years before A Plague Tale and follows the character Sophia. Introduced in the second game, Sophia is a young sea farer, she’s totally a pirate, as she searches to answer questions about her past.
Releasing on August 27, 2026, the game is a prequel to the saga and does not feature Hugo and Amicia. It would be unlikely as they aren’t even born when the game is set. Amicia is 15 during the events of the first and second game. Sophia is on a quest to uncover the Minotaur’s Island which sounds like it may blend a bit of magic and myth with the real-world, ala Percy Jackson style. The games are fantasy survival horror so having a magical element would make sense for the third in the series. It’s teased in the description by eluding to a “mythic hero drawn from the oldest legends.” My francs are on Theseus.
Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy will be available on Steam, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S on August 27.
The team at Tactical Adventures is adding more to the character creator for Solasta 2. It’s still in Early Access, but players now have access to sliders and more presets. The sliders don’t seem to impact height though, which is something that is needed and is a feature Baldur’s Gate 3 did not ever implement. An odd choice, and one that could make for more character customizations.
There are also muscle sliders to beef up or tone down your characters. As well as a pitch for voice with five different pitch levels. No new voiceover was recorded, as the team says it wasn’t in the budget. Other additions include the ability to save your character and edit and use in later campaigns. Yay not having to create a new character if you want to test out a class.
There will be more to come in the future with a new class in Q3 and several updates planned for Q4 of 2026.
Xbox may be getting ready to announce layoffs at the company and closures of some of its game studios. This coming after an Xbox Wire blog where CEO Asha Sharma said the company will end the year at around a 3% accountability margin, leading to a decrease in annual revenue by around half a billion dollars for Xbox. “Going forward, this cannot continue,” wrote Sharma.
This news does not bode well for a few of the studios Xbox acquired over the years. There is fear that smaller developers such as South of Midnight’s Compulsion Games , creators of Kiln Double Fine, and Hellblade developer Ninja Theory may be closed. Many of the teams released award-winning games including South of Midnight earning an Annie Award for Best Character Animation and 2026 Peabody Award.
A report from Bloomberg states that many of the studios are seeking to speak with Microsoft gaming leads in an effort to not be shutdown.
Meanwhile, as reported by the Game Business, Head of Xbox Game Studios Craig Duncan has resigned after being with the company for a year and a half. Xbox Chief Content Officer Matt Booty will act in is stead until a replacment is hired.
Also out the door is Xbox Game Studios chief of staff Louise O’Connor. She worked at Rare in 1999 on Conker’s Bad Fur Day. She also voiced Leafos in Viva Piñata. When Everwild was canceled in 2025, O’Connor left the Rare to become chief of staff at Xbox.
Retro games will be getting their own digital showcase this summer as part of Pixel Arcadia. The event will celebrate retro games with a focus on projects made by independent teams. Featuring developer insights and commentary instead of quick trailers, the showcase plans to focus on storytelling and the people who make the games.
Pixel Arcadia is set for August 24, 2026 at 1:00 pm CST. There will be HD remakes, modern retro-inspired releases, and hardware built for classic gameplay. No games were announced as of yet, but fans can expect retro vibes with old school looks similar to arcade games and older more nostalgic classics.
“Pixel Arcadia is a dedicated space for retro games fans, one that celebrates this important part of the industry by honouring the trailblazers of gaming past and looking ahead to evolutions of iconic franchises,” said Al Hibberd, CEO of Pixel Helix
The kind of games you can expect to see come from the pre-HD era. These can be anything before the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 days, at least according to Pixel Arcadia’s FAQ section.
In other news I visited the Pokémon Fossil Museum recently and thoroughly enjoyed my time. As I’ve been playing a lot of Two Point Museum and have a genuine interest in paleontology I appreciated the exhibit even more. It blends the study of actual fossils with their Pokémon counterparts in a fun, engaging, and knowledgeable way.
Plus, it was really cool to see life-sized Pokémon and learn about how they are based on real-world creatures found in fossils.
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