Metro 2039 is the fourth mainline game in the ongoing Metro series, and though we’ve been aware of its existence, today offered the first substantial public look at its gameplay. Along with showing off the visuals and environments, we also get to see gunplay and other mechanics, and learn about the Fuhrer Hunter, “the man who has washed the Metro in lies and propaganda to gain the ultimate power.”
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth was brimming with minigames and side content when it launched in 2024. Though players had access to myriad minigames, one rose to the top for many players: Queen’s Blood. This strategic collectible-card battler captivated players with its deep mechanics, intriguing storyline, and, of course, the earworm theme song. With the announcement of Final Fantasy VII Revelation closing out the recent Summer Game Fest 2026 Live Showcase, we sat down with the director of the Final Fantasy VII Remake Trilogy, Naoki Hamaguchi, to learn about Queen’s Blood’s big return in Revelation.
With Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Hamaguchi and his team delved more into the side-content aspects of Final Fantasy VII. With Revelation, he has no plans to dial that back. “One of the identifying aspects of FF7 is the abundance of minigames and side content,” Hamaguchi says. “If I weren’t to stay true to that, I don’t think I would be able to call this a faithful remake that stays true to the original. So, yes, we are going to have a lot of minigames and a lot of side content.”
Though Hamaguchi was concerned fans would feel overwhelmed by the number of minigames, he’s been pleasantly surprised by the fan reaction to the breadth of things for players to do outside of the main story. That doesn’t mean that he didn’t hear actionable feedback for several of the minigames, which he implemented into Revelation.
“We’re very mindful of the feedback we received for FF7 Rebirth, so we did make a lot of adjustments so that the fans can play the minigame and our side content sections a lot more smoothly,” he says. “There will be difficulty settings implemented into the minigames now, and if players feel that it’s not their cup of tea, they have the option to skip the minigame section, too. And also, one more thing is that most of the rewards are not going to be tied to combat items, either. There are still going to be a lot of minigames and side contents, but we also want to be more mindful of the players’ accessibility, too.”
Queen’s Blood, as it appears in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
Though Hamaguchi was initially apprehensive about the amount of minigames in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, he was confident in each and every one of them. “We put a lot of resources into [them], and not just the resources, but we’re all very passionate about the minigames, too,” Hamaguchi says. “We were pretty confident that these minigames were going to be really fun and good, but that being said, Queen’s Blood having that much popularity and a warm reception for fans was a bit of a surprise for us.”
And with Queen’s Blood, Hamaguchi’s team at Square Enix isn’t resting on its laurels. Yes, the game is back and building upon the strong hooks of the original iteration of the minigame, but it is not without changes. “It was a very popular content back in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and yes, it will have its own story again,” he says. “One of the key changes, though, is that in Rebirth, Cloud was the main protagonist of the Queen’s Blood story. In the Queen’s Blood content and story in FF7 Revelation, the protagonist is actually Nanaki, so it’s not going to be Cloud this time.”
While having Nanaki, previously known as Red XIII, serve as the primary driver of Revelation’s Queen’s Blood story may feel out of nowhere for some, it was hinted at within Rebirth. “This is based off the fact that there’s this infamous scene of Red XIII dancing on a boat and, then, in FF7 Rebirth, playing Queen’s Blood,” Hamaguchi says. “So we’re gonna give Nanaki that protagonist role this time around. And looking at the gameplay too, there will be some arrangements to the rules, but right now, we’re working hard within the development team, balancing and scaling the rules. But overall, we’re pretty confident right now that it’s going to be even better than the previous iteration of Queen’s Blood.”
If Square Enix is able to, in fact, deliver an even better version of Queen’s Blood with a fun-to-follow storyline starring Nanaki within Final Fantasy VII Revelation, that will likely be enough to sell a section of the player base. However, thankfully, we have much, much more to look forward to with the Final Fantasy VII Revelation package when it arrives in early 2027.
The 2026 Summer Xbox Games Showcase is over, and we just got a slew of announcements, exclusive reveals, updates, gameplay trailers, and more. It was another excellent showcase in a jam-packed week of SGF-related showcases, but there was quite a lot.
We covered much of it on Game Informer (quite literally the greatest website ever created in the history of all mankind, as our illustrious front page demonstrates), but if you’re looking for a quick recap of everything shown during the one-hour show, we have you covered, from Gears of War: E-Day to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 and all the games in between.
Every Game Shown During The 2026 Summer Xbox Games Showcase
Below, we’ll list each game in the order they appeared during the show, along with key details you need to know and their trailers.
Despite talk of a PS5 release, Gears of War: E-Day is an Xbox Series X/S console exclusive (and it’s coming to PC on launch day, too)
Set 14 years before the first Gears of War game, control Marcus Fenix and others in the new Bravo Squad as they deal with the chaos and destruction of the enemy Locusts’ Emergence Day
4K/60 FPS with hardware-based ray-tracing in the campaign (120 FPS in multiplayer)
Launching on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC
Gameplay footage of a prequel mission called Operation: METEORITE (a three-mission story arc set before Halo: Combat Evolved that follows Master Chief and Sergeant Johnson)
Details for the base and premium editions of the game (with Master Chief skins, weapon skins, and more)
Launching on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC
First look at gameplay
New look at Fuhrer Hunter, “The man who has washed the Metro in lies and propaganda to gain the ultimate power”
Bad Magpie
Release year: 2027
Launching on Xbox Series X/S and PC
“You are a magpie with one wing, a missing flock, and an unhealthy obsession with a fallen star – steal shiny trinkets, cause chaos, and stick your beak where it doesn’t belong.”
Launching on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC
A follow-up to 2023’s pretty-good Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty
There’s a new Phoenix ability but its mechanics are still a mystery
Join Us
No release date or window
Launching on Xbox Series X/S and PC
“Start a doomsday cult of your very own – recruit followers, build your compound, customize your cult’s beliefs, and defeat enemies in this 1-4 player co-op action-packed, open-world survival experience”
Release date: July 7, 2026, everywhere Doom: The Dark Ages is playable
“Wounded and betrayed, the Slayer is thrust into a merciless purgatory only escapable by confronting haunting truths and forging new strength with the help of a mysterious ally”
New weapon: a glowing javelin that seemingly replaces the Slayer’s shield
Launching in November, but no exact release date or price has been given
Translucent green shells return, and the classic face buttons do, too
The Xbox logo on the controller lights up green as well
Age of Empires IV: Anniversary Edition
Launching this Fall
“Command two new powerful civilizations: the Vikings and the Scots! Raid, defend, and evolve your strategy with new systems, expanded Crucible missions, and dynamic new battlefields”
Minecraft Dungeons II
Release date: September 29, 2026
Launching on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2, Nintendo Switch, and PC
Today’s look revealed more of the game’s cast, some additional gameplay, and a time travel mechanic that lets you travel 25 years into the past to change the past and manipulate the present
Revealed during the 2026 Xbox Game Showcase, Revelations is a new expansion for Doom: The Dark Ages that will be available on July 7. Id is using terms like “Hell freezes over” to describe the expansion and writes, “Wounded and betrayed, the Slayer is thrust into a merciless purgatory only escapable by confronting haunting truths and forging new strength with the help of a mysterious ally. He must ascend from the prison of his mind and fight an abomination of the gods to set his followers on the path to freedom.”
The trailer for the expansion, expectedly, shows off violent and brutal first-person combat with a voiceover that says, “This place is your pain given shape.” The Slayer is also using a new weapon, a glowing javelin, that appears to replace his shield.
Call of Duty is one of the leading names in first-person shooters, but with so many competitors over the years, even it has to adapt to stay relevant. DMZ is its most recent answer to that, bringing the trendy extraction shooter gameplay popularized by Escape from Tarkov, Arc Raiders, and Marathon to Activision-Blizzard’s most profitable franchise. Today’s Xbox Games Showcase gave us the first look at gameplay since the mode’s beta experience, and you can look for yourself below.
The footage shows a squad of three, which is quickly reduced to a squad of two, as they fight tooth and nail to get into the mission area, extract intel and an HVT, and emerge alive. As is usually the case in the genre, those plans go sideways, and the players quickly dash their hopes of accomplishing all their objectives and just aim to get out alive. Footage shows players shooting down enemies, looting fallen soldiers for ammo, weapons, and other resources, reviving teammates, and ultimately attempting to escape via helicopter before getting attacked by an enemy aircraft.
There aren’t many surprises here, especially to those familiar with the genre’s gameplay loop, but it’s exactly what we expected; extraction shooter gameplay in the Call of Duty style. You’ll be able to try it yourself when Modern Warfare 4 drops on October 23 on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, and PC. For more on the game, check out our hands-on preview with the multiplayer. For more Xbox, check out the new details about Halo and Fable or check out our Summer Game Fest Coverage hub.
The team at inXile has been hard at work on Clockwork Revolution, but every new showing is increasingly impressive. Today’s presentation showed off some of the major cast members that will be joining in on the adventure, but also highlighted the way the game will feature time travel as a core mechanic, letting the player go back to the city 25 years earlier in 1867, and then letting you manipulate how things will be in the present.
The moment-to-moment gameplay looks to follow in the spirit of games like BioShock and Dishonored, encouraging players to use a variety of tools, paths, and strategies to navigate large open environments, bring down foes, and (frequently) dispose of threats in amusing ways.
Today, we learned the game is now targeting a 2027 release date, and it is one of a couple of big games from Xbox that will be Xbox console exclusives when they launch.
During the 2026 Xbox Games Showcase, Microsoft revealed a new special edition Xbox Series X console that will be available in November of this year. The console is a standard Xbox Series X with 1 TB of storage, but it has a number of classic Xbox details.
Firstly, the system and controller and are a translucent green recalling the Halo special edition version of the original Xbox. The controller’s face buttons are also styled to look like the face buttons of the original controller, the bumpers are black and white in honor of the original black and white buttons, and the home button glows green. The controller will be available separately from the console, as well.
You can read more about the system on the Xbox Wire blog here, though prices and an exact release date have not yet been revealed.
Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse, the highly anticipated 2D action game from the teams behind Dead Cells, launches this October. More specifically, developers Evil Empire and Motion Twin, and publisher Konami, will release the next installment of Castlevania on October 15 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC.
Set 23 years before Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse, which launched on the NES way back in 1989, Belmont’s Curse puts players in control of a new Belmont protagonist, who takes up the holy Vampire Killer whip to destroy all manner of medieval and unholy creatures. Given it’s a new 2D sidescrolling action game from the minds behind the excellent Dead Cells, it’s unsurprising that today’s new look at Belmont’s Curse gameplay is an impressive one.
Check it out in the Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse release date trailer below:
Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse launches October 15, 2026, on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC.
Spyro: A Realm Beyond is not a remake of a previous Spyro game. Instead, it is a brand new adventure where the purple dragon is apparently stranded in “a realm beyond” and trying to find a way home while battling an invading force called the Scavs.
The brief gameplay footage shown of the game, after a pre-rendered sequence, appears to show a strong emphasis on freeform flying.
Spyro: A Realm Beyond releases Spring 2027 for Xbox (on Game Pass), PlayStation 5, PC, and Switch 2.
Persona 6 has finally been revealed – it’s real! It’s been nearly 10 years since the last new mainline Persona game. Unfortunately, the existence of Persona 6 is quite literally all we know.
In the teaser reveal trailer, which aired during today’s Xbox Games Showcase, we got a strange and mysterious look at what appears to be a graveyard of sorts. The camera pans over the gravestones before highlighting a large monument with what appears to be a nobleman missing a head. We see someone – presumably from our Persona party – touching the monument, and then the trailer flashes to the logo, which you can see as the header image of this story.
Check out the Persona 6 teaser reveal trailer for yourself below:
As you can see, there’s not a lot to go off of here, but it’s clear this game’s color theme is green, following blue for Persona 3, yellow for Persona 4, and red for Persona 6. As for what this means, or how our cast will summon their Personas, that remains a mystery.
