Summer Game Fest Live and various other live events and showcases littered throughout early June have talked up dozens of upcoming games to get excited about. But just as Steam is filled with too many games for anyone to keep up with them all, it can also be hard, if not impossible, to keep up with all of these early June announcements and demos. That’s where we come in.
Below, you’ll find our picks for some of the numerous games that caught our eye but you may have missed, perhaps because it didn’t get a showing during one of the big events like Summer Game Fest Live, Nintendo Direct, or the Xbox Games Showcase, or because, again, there are so many games. Whether it’s jaunts through your hometown with a sledgehammer, a long-awaited 1.0 release of a game coming for Stardew Valley’s crown, making a deal with the devil, or trying to convince a woman that you actually are her daughter and don’t deserve to die, there’s sure to be something to add to your wishlist.
Virtue and a Sledgehammer
I’m a sucker for destruction in games. Give me a sledgehammer with robots and structures to smash with it, and I’m going to dive in. Give me that within the context of a game that appears to have a spooky vibe and explores the feeling of no longer feeling at home in your own hometown through the lens of old friends and family being replaced by robots? Now you really have my attention. — Chris Pereira
Time Strike
I’ve already noted my enjoyment of destruction in games, but Time Strike also capitalizes on my interest in messing with time and how you fundamentally interact with a game from moment to moment. Superhot excelled with its approach to how time worked in a first-person shooter, and Time Strike looks to be taking that further by letting you pause time to consider your next action, which can include causing walls, bullets, or other objects to be flung at your foes. Sign me up. — Chris Pereira
Sunset Summit
We’re seeing an incredible surge of mountain-climbing games, not to mention what’s often deemed to be friendslop (fair or not). That makes it more challenging to stand out in the space, yet Sunset Summit has still caught my eye: the 8-player limit, freeform climbing, long jumps, floating platforms, quirky-looking characters, pogo sticks, checkpoints, and edible beans that make you fly (!) all seem to combine for a more casual experience that feels like it could nicely complement my friend group’s more competitively oriented game rotation. — Chris Pereira
Into the Wind
A calm seaside town where you have to make deliveries with your motorcycle sounds nice, if perhaps unremarkable (though I should note, those deliveries can sometimes be giant, living sea creatures). But that motorcycle can also turn into a plane with guns, which can be used to fend off sky pirates as you also spend your time seeking out your missing uncle, bringing decorations back to your home (earning you bonuses), and dealing with challenges stemming from terrain, weather, the weight of your deliveries, and ensuring you have enough gas. It looks like there’s more than enough here to keep me engaged in a way that delivery games sometimes don’t. — Chris Pereira
Grave Seasons
After following its development for literal years, I finally got the chance to play Grave Seasons at this year’s Summer Game Fest. Despite building up what I presumed were impossibly high hopes for the farming-sim-meets-horror-whodunnit, I walked away from my demo absolutely elated by what I played. In Grave Seasons, the sleepy town of Ashenridge is violently awakened when a string of grotesque murders begins. Your farmer then takes it upon themselves to get to the bottom of things, using journals, polite conversation, an old crowbar, and the power of deduction to do so.
Though the killer is not randomized (a fact developer Perfect Garbage was careful to emphasize following inaccurate rumblings online), you can expect a lot of replayability from this title. According to the studio, there are multiple, year-long campaigns to play through and each one features a killer selected at random from a pre-existing pool of potential murderers–many of which you can even romance. When not witnessing grisly deaths and supernatural horrors, you’ll be able to farm and flirt to your heart’s content. In fact, Perfect Garbage admitted you could play the game as a straight farming sim and ignore the call to prevent your neighbors deaths–just don’t be shocked if your crush winds up with an axe sticking out of their skull. — Jessica Cogswell
Red Kiss
If like so many of us you finished up 2025’s Dispatch and were dismayed by the lack of games with a similar gameplay loop, Red Kiss is here to save the day. In this “seductive narrative RPG” you play as a recently turned vampire in a Cold War-era Berlin. However, you’re not just a vampire–you’re an Agur, a psychic dispatcher tasked with sending out vampiric spies to help gain influence over the city. While this conceit alone was enough to sell me on the game, Red Kiss’s trailer is hypnotizingly stylish. With its boldly lined characters, dramatic color palette punctuated by crimson and indigo, and thrumming electronic music, Red Kiss promises style on par with your favorite Persona game alongside strategic, narrative-driven gameplay. “Coming soon” can’t come soon enough. — Jessica Cogswell
Fields of Mistria
Yes, I have already put well over 60 hours into Fields of Mistria, but that doesn’t stop its 1.0 release from being my most anticipated game release of 2026. When it comes to Stardew-likes (for the love of god, let’s not make that an actual genre name please), I’d argue that Fields of Mistria is not just the best, but that it actually surpasses Stardew Valley in just about every way possible. It approaches the genre with a far more interesting angle and narrative than its competitors, and adds more variety and polish, too. Its stellar writing, swoon-worthy characters, anime-inspired art direction, and sheer amount of things to do make Mistria a world I love getting lost in. I highly suspect the 60 hours I’ve spent in this lush and lovely town will be doubled long before 2027 rolls around. — Jessica Cogswell
Super Yooka-Laylee Kart
The kart racer is a genre mainstay, and lots of developers have attempted to put their own spin on the concept. Super Yooka-Laylee Kart caught my attention by riffing on what Yooka-Laylee already is: a retro throwback. The visual style of SYLK recalls Mario Kart Super Circuit, which just isn’t a style that we often see imitated. I love modern kart racers like Mario Kart World and Sonic CrossWorlds, but the Super NES and N64 era that dawned the kart racer had its own feel that isn’t often imitated, so I’m excited to see how this will iterate on it. — Steve Watts
Hidden Folks 2
I’ve waited 10 years for the follow-up to Adriaan de Jongh’s 2017 hidden-object puzzler, Hidden Folks. Drawn by hand, the black-and-white landscapes sprawling across bustling cities, lively forests, and roaring factories set the benchmark in a sub-genre of puzzle games that you’d usually only enjoy in the backs of kids’ magazines at the dentist’s office. Clicking around an interactive environment to cause chaos and create the events in which you’d find the hidden folks on your checklist is the ingenuity of the game’s design. – David McCutcheon
