

Games That Will Blow You Away In 2020

They say that good things come to those who wait. In that case, these games are going to be pretty darn spectacular. Multi-year development cycles are pretty common in the video game industry — games are hard to make, after all, and creating a truly great game takes a lot of time — but fans have been looking forward to the following titles for quite a while.

But the shape of 2020 is coming into focus, and it's looking gorgeous. With the next generation around the corner, many of these upcoming games represent the swan songs of their various platforms. But now that developers have figured out the current gen down to the last molecule, expect these games to squeeze every last ounce of power out of them, and possibly redefine how we even thought of them.

Here are the best games coming out in 2020.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps - March 11

You don't need cutting-edge 3D graphics to create a beautiful game. Just look at Ori and the Blind Forest. At this point, development of Moon Studios' sidescrolling Metroidvania started over seven years ago, and yet the game still looks better than almost anything else on the market, modern or otherwise.

Somehow, its sequel, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, looks even better. The game's overall sense of style is roughly the same, but Ori's moody natural environments and mysterious creatures are even more vivid and detailed than before, making the plucky little forest spirit's world feel more vibrant than ever. Ori's platforming elements seem to be just as tight and compelling as they were the first time around, too.

Oh, and did we mention that Ori has an adorable owl pal this time around, too? It's almost too charming to handle. We can't wait to see what other surprises Moon Studios has in store for Ori and the Will of the Wisps' 2020 debut.

Nioh 2 - March 13

Before Ghosts of Tsushima, before Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and a mere week before For Honor, Nioh brought feudal Japanese action to consoles around the world. In 2020, Team Ninja hopes to recapture its past glory with Nioh 2, which will return players to Japan for another dose of punishing, Dark Souls-style combat.

That's good news for fans of the first game, and if you liked Nioh, expect more of the same. Team Ninja doesn't expect the sequel to diverge much from the original blueprint. That's fine with us. There are a few small alterations coming, of course. Nioh 2 will ship with a fully-fledged character creator, meaning that, this time, the main character's looks and personality are in your hands. Deaths will be "more satisfying," whatever that means. Oh, it's also going to be hard. Creative director Tom Lee says, "This time around, the gloves are off," so, y'know. Watch out.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons - March 20

In most Animal Crossing games, your avatar moves in to an established village that's already full of houses to explore and critters to meet. In Animal Crossing: New Horizons, you start with nothing. That's just one of the ways that New Horizons, the first true Animal Crossing title for the Nintendo Switch, is shaking up the series' long-established formula — but it's far from the only one.

Now, you can place your furniture outdoors. You can create a character with any skin color that you want, without resorting to weird "tanning" hacks. Instead of buying furniture, you can make your own using New Horizons' fully-featured crafting system — assuming that you've already gathered the right materials, of course. It has true multiplayer co-op that supports up to eight people at a time. It has an in-game cellphone, with which you can earn "Nook miles" by completing tasks, giving you rewards for doing things that previous games would've ignored.

And that's just the beginning. Animal Crossing is designed to last for years, and it should take us a while to discover everything that New Horizons has to offer. Honestly? We wouldn't have it any other way.

Doom Eternal - March 20

Doom didn't really need rescuing — almost three decades after launch, its co-creator is still producing content for the original game — but 2016's reboot was a welcome addition anyway. id Software's modern take on its flagship franchise preserved all of the speedy brutality that made Doom an international sensation and added a few new wrinkles along the way. In Doom, you only get needed rewards like health and ammo if you're ultra aggressive. Either you take the fight to the demons, or you don't play at all.

Want more? You're getting more. Doom Eternal doesn't radically upend its predecessor's formula, although new gimmicks like zero-gravity environments and a grappling hook that propels you towards enemies for fast and brutal close-up kills should create even more opportunities to unleash carnage and chaos on Hell's unsuspecting forces. Besides, Doom Eternal is giving us new multiplayer modes, including Battlemode, which pits two player-controlled demons against a lone space marine.

Or, to put it another way: it's id doing what id does best. The company has been making Doom for a quarter of a century. Judging by everything we've seen, it has another hit on its blood-soaked hands.

Resident Evil: Resistance / Resident Evil 3 Remake - April 3

After Resident Evil 7 reinvented Capcom's defining horror franchise and the Resident Evil 2 remake proved that there's still life in Resident Evil's classic formula, Project Resistance seemed like an odd choice for the next big Resident Evil game. It's not a survival-horror adventure. It's an asymmetrical competitive game that pits a team of four survivors against a single, player-controlled opponent called The Mastermind, similar to Dead by Daylight and Friday the 13th.

Well, okay, kind of similar. In Project Resistance, the team of four never meets the Mastermind directly. Instead, the Mastermind sits behind their ultra-powerful control panel, following the survivors' progress via security camera and unleashing traps and monsters as they see fit. For the team, it's a virtual Resident Evil escape room controlled by a human intelligence. For the Mastermind, it's a "Resident Evil-maker" and supervillain simulator.

Traditional? No. Interesting? You bet. The Resident Evil franchise is full of mediocre spinoffs, but Project Resistance shouldn't be one of them. Though Capcom has re-branded Project Resistance as Resident Evil: Resistance and plans to release it as part of the Resident Evil 3 Remake package, the clever spin on the multiplayer experience could still make a meaningful contribution to the series.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake - April 10

At long last, Final Fantasy 7 Remake is coming. Well, part of it is: at E3 2019, Final Fantasy 7 director Yoshinori Kitase confirmed that the first episode of Final Fantasy 7 Remake fills two Blu-ray discs' worth of content, and yet only takes Final Fantasy 7 Remake through Midgar, the original game's opening area.

Kitase doesn't know how many more games it will take to finish the whole story, nor how long they'll take to make. We'll play the first part anyway. Final Fantasy 7 Remake's battle system, which looks like a mash-up of Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy 15, and Final Fantasy 7's turn-based battles, works surprisingly well, and seeing Square Enix's most beloved characters rendered in such loving detail never gets old.

So, yeah, it's disappointing that we won't be able to re-acquaint ourselves with Cid and Yuffie quite yet, and that Final Fantasy 7's big plot twist — you know the one — is still years away. Still, Midgar is arguably Final Fantasy 7's best setting, and it's going to be great to get to know it a whole lot better. We just hope the rest of the story isn't too far off. We've been waiting long enough.

Trials of Mana - April 24

It took 24 years for the sequel to Secret of Mana to reach the United States. Now that it's here, we're getting two different versions. With Collection of Mana, you can play the Super NES original in English, in America, for the first time ever (officially, anyway). If you'd rather play something a more modern, Square Enix has you covered, too: Trials of Mana is getting a 3D remake, and it's only a few months away.

Don't let 2018's lackluster Secret of Mana remake scare you off, either. Square Enix has learned from its mistakes. The Trials of Mana remake is a brand new game that shares a story with the original, but little else. The combat system has been totally revamped, the minimap now has waypoints to help track quest objectives, and the world map is full of new secrets to discover.

Narratively, Trials of Mana is interesting, too: as in the original game, you choose three characters (from six) when you begin, and your party's interpersonal relationships change based on who you select. It's been a long, long time since Square Enix delivered a legitimately good Mana title. In 2020, the series returns to form.

Minecraft: Dungeons - May 26

Minecraft won't ever get a sequel. Quite frankly, it doesn't need one. Spin-offs, though? Keep 'em coming. In 2015, Mojang and Telltale Games teamed up to give the blocky sandbox title a plot — kind of, anyway — with Minecraft: Story Mode, an episodic narrative adventure, while in 2020 Minecraft is going old-school. Minecraft: Dungeons might look like another voxel-based building game, but it's really a retro-style dungeon crawler, complete with young men and fair maidens to rescue, waves of monsters to defeat, and plenty of loot to collect.

Mojang promises that Minecraft: Dungeons will be full of new content. Even if you're an experienced Minecraft player, Dungeons will introduce you to environments, mobs, and items that you've never seen before. Everything still has that good, voxel-y Minecraft flavor, though. As Mojang explains, Minecraft: Dungeons' combat system is the same one that Minecraft players have been enjoying for close to a decade. If you, like many others, prefer to play Minecraft with friends, you can do that here, too. Minecraft: Dungeons supports parties of up to four players, and will reward groups with bigger and better items that scale accordingly.

Even if retro-style dungeon crawlers aren't your thing, keep your fingers crossed that Minecraft: Dungeons delivers. Mojang says that the action-RPG is just the first of many Minecraft-themed titles in development, and we can't wait to see what shows up next.

The Last of Us Part 2 - June 19

If you thought that Joel's journey in The Last of Us was brutal, you ain't seen nothin' yet. In The Last of Us Part 2, a direct sequel to Naughty Dog's award-winning action-adventure game, Joel's teenage charge, Ellie, takes center stage for a story that looks even more harrowing than the series' inaugural outing.

We're not kidding around. One of The Last of Us Part 2's early teasers kicked off with a woman getting strung up by the neck in advance of being gutted while her allies' arms are smashed with a hammer. It's just as gruesome as it sounds, and later promotional materials make it look like Ellie's experience will be just as harrowing — and we haven't even gotten to Ellie's new love interest, who looks like she meets a dour fate in The Last of Us Part 2's release date reveal video (the game has since received an indefinite delay due to the coronavirus).

The Last of Us Part 2 will also ramp up the original's tense, survival-game style combat, and introduce a bunch of new characters and post-apocalyptic settings to explore. At least some familiar faces will be there to guide us through the horror: both Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson return as Joel and Ellie, respectively, while series creator Neil Druckmann is back as co-writer and co-director.

Ghost Of Tsushima - July 17

Two AAA games have revealed the industry's fascination with feudal Japan. One, Game of the Year winner Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, is a third-person action adventure game by FromSoftware, the people who brought you Dark Souls. The other, Ghost Of Tsushima is a third-person action adventure game by Sucker Punch, the people who brought you Sly Cooper and Infamous. Both combine stealth with more straightforward action. Both put a big premium on swordplay. Both feature grappling hooks.

Confused yet? There are a couple of ways to keep the two games apart. While Sekiro is a relatively linear experience, Ghost of Tsushima is an open-world game. Sekiro is set in a stylized, surreal world with few links to reality. Ghost of Tsushima goes out of its way to be as realistic as possible, to the point where Sucker Punch hired a "historical sword-fighting expert" to make sure the combat was kosher, and took a trip to Japan just to record native bird songs. When playing Ghost of Tsushima, you can even switch the dialogue to Japanese-only (with English subtitles) to squeeze out a little more historical accuracy.

The biggest difference between the two games, though? While Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice released in March 2019, Ghost of Tsushima won't launch until June 26, 2020. That's probably for the best. Both games look great, and we'd hate to see Ghost of Tsushima get lost in all of Sekiro's Souls-fueled hype. Best to keep them far apart.

A Total War Saga: Troy - Aug. 13

In 2019, the Total War franchise flirted with fiction with Total War: Three Kingdoms, which had a mode based on the classic Chinese novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. In 2020, it's going full-on mythological. Total War Saga: Troy claims to "uncover the truth behind Homer's Iliad." There's the catch: there's very little evidence that the Trojan War ever actually happened.

That's not going to stop Creative Assembly from trying to make Total War Saga: Troy realistic. The Iliad's most famous characters, including Achilles and Hector, will appear in the game, and Homer's epic poem gives the campaign its basic structure. Otherwise, Creative Assembly is trying to make a game that's as historically accurate as possible. Your soldiers can pray to the gods and get bonuses, for example, but it's not clear if anyone is actually listening.

Naturally, you can expect Total War Saga: Troy to contain the same mix of turn-based strategy and real-time tactics that Total War is known for, streamlined in the same way that Thrones of Britannia and Fall of the Samurai were. Troy won't span an entire era, but it'll be epic just the same. Anything less would do the source material a disservice.

Microsoft Flight Simulator - Aug. 18

Microsoft Flight Simulator was never sexy, but don't dismiss it as a niche title. It was published continuously from 1982 to 2006 and sold millions of copies along the way. Microsoft Flight Simulator's community is still thriving, too. You can understand why Microsoft decided to bring it back.

This isn't your daddy's Flight Simulator, though. While the old one was strictly a PC game, the new edition will also arrive on the Xbox One. More importantly, it looks amazing. The new edition of Flight Simulator sports 4K graphics that are so detailed that Microsoft reps worried that people wouldn't believe that its trailer was made from in-game footage. Microsoft also claims that it's leveraging two petrabytes worth of data, as well as its Azure AI system, to make Flight Simulator's world as realistic as possible. From what we've seen, we believe it.

Microsoft Flight Simulator won't be for everyone — it's complex and doggedly realistic, and its charms lie mostly in cruising around and taking in the scenery — but if you're one of Flight Simulator's legions of fans, its time to celebrate. The king is back.

Wasteland 3 - Aug. 28

It took 26 years for Wasteland, the late '80s role-playing game that inspired Fallout and its sequels, to get an official follow-up. Wasteland 3 is arriving a lot faster. Unlike modern Fallout titles, which combine role-playing games with a healthy dose of first-person shooting, Wasteland 3 takes place from a top-down perspective and features turn-based tactical combat. Don't let that scare you off. Every choice you make in Wasteland 3 matters, including how you position your troops and which weapons you use to battle your foes.

Thankfully, you won't be battling through Wasteland 3's apocalypse alone. As you work to strengthen your home base, both player-created characters and NPCs will help you gather supplies and fight off baddies. A brand new dialogue system, featuring writing from the team behind Torment: Tides of Numeria, promises to give you the deepest and most personalized Wasteland adventure yet. You can even play with a friend. Wasteland 3 comes with a complete multiplayer campaign in which you and a buddy lead separate squads on missions — but story choices still affect both teams, so make sure your travelling companion is trustworthy.

Meanwhile, Wasteland 3's setting is brand new. Instead of venturing through an arid, radioactive desert, Wasteland 3 plunges you into snow-covered, post-apocalyptic Colorado, where you're just as likely to freeze to death as meet your demise at the wrong end of a gun. Developer InXile's boss, Brian Fargo, plans on retiring once Wasteland 3 ships, ending an almost 40-year-long game industry career. 

"It seems like a good time to drop the mic," Fargo says, so get excited. From all indications, he's planning to go out with a bang.

Marvel's Avengers - Sept. 4

Though originally scheduled for a May release, Crystal Dynamics has delayed the Marvel's Avengers launch to Sept. 4, 2020. It has Captain America, Iron Man, Black Widow, Thor, and the Hulk as playable characters (sorry, Hawkeye) and stars some of the best-known voice actors in the game industry. It features an original plotline, which sees the Avengers fall from grace after a mission goes bad, and it'll be updated regularly after release. All new heroes will be free.

Here's what we don't know: what it actually is. E3 2019 demos confirmed that the game would be a third-person action title. Comments from staffers indicate that Avengers will be a live-services title like Destiny or The Division, albeit one with a bigger focus on story. Does that mean that we'll be able to grind either solo or with friends to earn new gear, alternate costumes, and stat upgrades? It sure sounds like it.

Yeah, Avengers doesn't look amazing, but Crystal Dynamics' Tomb Raider reboot was great. We're reserving judgement until we know more. The dearly departed Diablo-like MMO Marvel Heroes was pretty cool, after all. A higher-budget, story-driven take on that general concept? Yeah, we'll assemble for that.

Genshin Impact - Sept. 28

Yes, at first glance Genshin Impact looks a lot like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but don't go smashing your PlayStation 4 just yet. Once you get beyond the similarities — and, to be fair, there are many of them — you'll find that Genshin Impact differs from the Switch's flagship title in a few key ways. 

Its combat is much faster, with a bigger focus on action. In Genshin Impact, you can switch characters, and its all-female cast should be a boon to players who dream of playing Breath of the Wild as Zelda. Genshin Impact looks like it'll have a more plot than Zelda, too, which should give you a good reason to venture out into the wilderness and explore.

Besides, Genshin Impact is coming to the PlayStation 4, PC, and mobile devices, none of which can play The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (not legally, anyway). If you don't have a Switch, Genshin Impact is the closest you're going to get to Nintendo's masterpiece. Hey, it's better than nothing.

Watch Dogs: Legion - Oct. 29

Ubisoft's Watch Dogs franchise has always been wildly ambitious, but it has also struggled to live up to its lofty goals. As a result, you can understand why some people are skeptical of Watch Dogs: Legion's big hook. Ubisoft claims that the game will let you recruit and play as any person in Legion's dystopian take on post-Brexit London, with the storyline adjusting accordingly.

Maybe that's too good to be true, but so far it looks like Watch Dogs: Legion will live up to the hype. Hands-on reports say that identifying and recruiting agents is just as fun as it sounds. Once you have a character on your roster, you'll need to use them carefully, too. Every character has a different skillset — some are good at hacking, for example, while others defeat foes through brute force — which opens up a variety of different ways to handle missions, but if they die they're gone for good.

Ubisoft knows how to make open-world games, and Watch Dogs 2 was a big step forward, so stay cautiously optimistic. If Legion works, it could be one of 2020's most impressive game. Besides, you can be a murder grandma. Who doesn't want that?

Cyberpunk 2077 - Nov. 19

CD Projekt Red has provided a steady stream of updates about Cyberpunk 2077. We know that the game has been in development since at least 2012 and that it's a spin-off of Cyberpunk 2020, a pen-and-paper role-playing game. We know it's set in a sprawling and wide-open metropolis called Night City and its characters will speak multiple languages. If you want to know what everyone is saying, you'll either need to buy in-game translator implants, or load up on language courses at the local community college. 

Players will be able to experience other characters' memories using something called a "Braindance," and there'll be a Cyberpunk 2077 multiplayer mode sometime after launch in addition to the single-player storyline. Oh, and Keanu Reeves plays a pretty significant role.

Cyberpunk 2077 is supposed to be a number of orders of magnitude bigger than the developer's last game, The Witcher 3, but should also be just as densely packed with stories to experience, characters to meet, and things to do. That's a big undertaking, which is probably why over 400 people are currently working on the game. Cyberpunk 2077 sounds incredibly ambitious, but as The Witcher 3 proves, CD Projekt Red knows what it's doing. It's hard to follow up one of the greatest games of all time, but if any studio can do it, it's CD Projekt Red. Don't worry. They've got things under control.

Empire of Sin - Fall 2020

Designers Brenda and John Romero are as close as it gets to video game royalty. As a tester, writer, and game designer, Brenda helped make Wizardry one of the most important role-playing game franchises of all time. John co-created Doom. When the husband-wife duo announce that they're making a new game, you better pay attention.

Empire of Sin is set in Chicago during Prohibition and charges you with taking over the city's criminal underworld by 1933, when the 21st Amendment makes booze legal again. In order to do so, you'll take the role of a mob boss — most of whom are inspired by real people — and recruit from a pool of 60 underlings to establish underground casinos, brothels, distilleries, and speakeasies. Combat against rival gangs unfolds as turn-based, XCOM-inspired tactical battles, and your underlings' personalities affect how shootouts unfold.

Brenda Romero has wanted to make this game for 20 years, and publisher Paradox Interactive specializes in strategy-heavy historical simulations. Empire of Sin could be the best strategy game of 2020. All the pieces are there. The Romeros just need to put it all together. History suggests they very much will.

Avatar - Late 2020

Remember Avatar, the James Cameron movie that also happens to be the highest-grossing movie of all time? If not, you're not alone. Avatar might've made bank at the box office, but it hasn't really had much of a lasting impact. That's not stopping Cameron from producing a whole mess of sequels, however, or video game publisher Ubisoft from getting to work on another Avatar tie-in.

Ubisoft's new Avatar game will run on the company's Snowdrop Engine, which currently powers The Division, and is being presented as a companion to the new films, not a direct adaptation. At the very least, Pandora's lush jungles seem like fertile ground for the kind of open-world adventure games that Ubisoft is known for, and while the company didn't quite nail their first attempt, there's no harm in trying again.

Just don't expect to get your hands on Avatar any time soon. Ubisoft says that the game won't launch before the company's 2021 fiscal year (which begins on April 1, 2020, because accounting is weird), and that the release date will, ideally, be tied to one of the Avatar sequels' theatrical releases. Given that Avatar 2 currently has a Dec. 17, 2021 release date — and that assumes it's not delayed again — it seems like a turn of the decade arrival is optimistic at best.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon (Yakuza 7) - Holiday 2020

It took almost 15 years, but thanks to the one-two punch of Yakuza 0 and Yakuza Kiwami, Sega's long-running series has finally broken through in the West. Now that Yakuza is a global sensation, what's next? Why, changing it completely, of course.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon isn't an action-heavy brawler. It's a turn-based RPG. Yep, that's right: instead of punching, kicking, or throwing your opponents directly, you'll select your moves from a menu. The action doesn't stop during combat: pedestrians will go about their business as you fight, and characters involved in combat will move around, making positioning a key strategic element. Still, the move to an RPG-like battle system is a major change.

Like a Dragon is also the first entry in the main Yakuza series that doesn't star Kazuma Kiryu, whose story ended in Yakuza 6. Instead of Kazuma, you'll control a new character, Ichiban Kasuga. At least Yakuza's other signature features — the dense, explorable neighborhoods, the glut of silly minigames, and so on — are back for the latest installment. Yakuza is often compared to Grand Theft Auto, but it's really an RPG at heart. Now, it finally plays like one, too.

World of Warcraft: Shadowlands - Q4 2020

For its eighth expansion, World of Warcraft takes players to the Shadowlands, a purgatory-like realm where characters go after they die, but before they're resurrected. However, the five new zones (and the eight new dungeons) and new plotline are less important than some of the other big changes Shadowlands brings with it. 

When Shadowlands launches, the entire World of Warcraft leveling experience will be revamped. Instead of topping out at level 130, all character progression will be smooshed into a mere 60 levels (existing top-level characters will start at level 50), and new characters will be able to level up by working through the previous World of Warcraft expansion of their choice. Character customization will be deeper than ever, too, and upon reaching level 60, you'll be able to join one of four Covenants, which give you unique powers.

Best of all, though, is Torghast, Tower of the Damned, a roguelike-inspired dungeon that changes every time you enter. Climbing Torghast will earn you permanent upgrades, but you'll also get temporary buffs that change your experience with each run. Tired of grinding through the same World of Warcraft dungeons over and over? The ever-changing Torghast is exactly what the doctor ordered.

Overwatch 2 - TBD

Did somebody say "story missions?" 

Yes, that's right: we're finally going to get to know what Overwatch is all about. While Blizzard's ultra-popular hero shooter has detailed lore and a roster full of memorable characters, the game's plot has been confined to spinoff media like comics and cinematics, a couple of limited-time events, and occasional lines of dialogue. In Overwatch 2, that changes. In addition to the six-on-six multiplayer battles that Overwatch is known for, the upcoming sequel will introduce four-player co-op missions that tell an actual story. It's about time.

That's not all, of course. In addition to the PvE content, Overwatch's core competitive mode will get a major revamp with new maps, new heroes, and new modes. In "Push," for example, two teams will try to escort a payload to their respective goals by hassling a friendly robot. Overwatch 2's PvP upgrades will come to the first Overwatch as well, but elements like the story missions and souped-up graphics will be exclusive for the sequel. If you really want to explore the Overwatch universe, you'll need to double-dip.

Diablo 4 - TBD

After years of denials, unconfirmed rumors, and one deeply unsatisfying tease, Diablo 4 is official, and it looks like Blizzard is doing its best to make up for past mistakes. 

Diablo 3's brightly colored, cartoony art style? Gone, in favor of a pitch-black gothic vibe, a la Diablo 2. Classes like the Sorceress, another Diablo 2 favorite, are back after missing the last installment. There are more ways to upgrade your characters than ever before, meaning you can put together a build that perfectly suits your preferred monster-bashing style.

All this, and a bunch of brand new online functions, too. See, unlike previous Diablo games, Diablo 4 takes place in a shared open world. Not only can you tackle the game's various activities in any order that you want, but other players will show up on your map as you roam the overworld. You don't have to group with them, but they'll be there regardless (dungeons will still be instanced, if you prefer to hunt for loot solo). There'll be PvP, too. Basically, it's Destiny's framework in Diablo's world, so clear out your calendars. Diablo 4 is going to keep you busy for a while.

Gods & Monsters - TBD

Like most big game publishers, Ubisoft has a reliable stable of established franchises that it tends to cycle through. Gods & Monsters, on the other hand, is brand new — to a point, anyway. The "storybook adventure" game clearly take a lot of cues, at least visually, from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, with some of Nintendo's Kid Icarus thrown in for good measure.

The biggest influence on Gods & Monsters, however, might actually be Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, which also played with ancient Greek mythology. In fact, at E3 2019, Ubisoft confirmed that Gods & Monsters was created by the people behind Odyssey and was inspired by what they learned while making that game. Accordingly, it's an open-world adventure in which you play as a forgotten Greek hero who's on a mission to help the gods reclaim their powers. You'll do so with the help of your bow, your sword, and your telekinetic powers.

So far, Ubisoft hasn't revealed much beyond a cinematic trailer, so it's possible that Gods & Monsters will change before release. It doesn't need to. Zelda with monsters from Greek mythology? We've already signed up.

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Quarantine - TBD

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Siege, the latest entry in Ubisoft's series of tactical multiplayer shooters, is going strong four years after release. So, now that it's time for a sequel, how can Ubisoft make the new game special without cannibalizing its existing player base? Easy: make the goals less competitive and more cooperative, and add monsters.

Rainbow Six: Quarantine is inspired by Siege's limited-time Outbreak event, but it's not an expansion. It's a stand-alone title. In it, teams of three government operatives will team up to take on an alien parasite that threatens all of humanity. It's a pretty far out there premise, even for Ubisoft's increasingly sci-fi-oriented Tom Clancy franchise, but Quarantine's first trailer does give us some major Dead Space and Prey vibes. That's a good thing.

Ubisoft hopes that Rainbow Six: Quarantine will do for player-versus-environment co-op what Siege did for PVP. It certainly has an excellent foundation to build on, and Ubisoft has learned a lot since Siege's rocky launch. Stay tuned for more very soon.

Starfield - TBD

Bethesda revealed its next big single-player role-playing game, Starfield, at E3 2018. The company didn't share a whole lot of information — the brief announcement trailer isn't much more than a planet, a distant space station, and a logo — journalists and fans have managed to uncover a few pieces of information. In short: Starfield sounds really, really good.

Starfield will have sci-fi trappings. It's Bethesda Softworks' first new intellectual property in a quarter century. While Starfield's setting might be new, the game reportedly stays true to the "publisher's role-playing foundation," offering players an open world to explore and the freedom to make choices as they see fit. In other words, if you've played the later Elder Scrolls and Fallout games, you're going to get more of the same.

Similarly, while Bethesda hasn't said when Starfield is coming out, it's possible to make an educated guess based on the existing facts. Bethesda tends to work on only a few games at a time and it's still perfecting the problematic Fallout 76. Bethesda's Todd Howard also hinted that Starfield may not launch until the next console generation, which would put it at 2020 at the earliest. That might feel like a long time, but it's been 25 years since Bethesda created a new franchise. You can wait just a little bit longer.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild sequel - TBD

Forget Pokémon, Animal Crossing, and Fire Emblem. After Nintendo's E3 2019 presentation, people were only talking about one thing: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is getting a sequel. Nintendo didn't reveal a title, or a release date, or any plot information. It didn't matter. The Breath of the Wild sequel stole the show anyway.

Since then, fans have analyzed every frame of Nintendo's Breath of the Wild sequel trailer for clues. Zelda can be seen adventuring alongside Link sporting a stylish, shorter hairdo, leading many to assume that she'll be a playable character. A mummy featured in the video looks a lot like Ganondorf. People think they've caught glimpses of the Twilight Mirror in a few shots, and it sure looks like Link is infected by an old, ancient evil. That can't be good.

Meanwhile, series producer Eiji Aonuma claims that the sequel will be darker than Majora's Mask, the creepiest game in the Zelda series, and might be influenced by games like Skyrim and Red Dead Redemption. The next chapter of the Breath of the Wild saga is probably years away. If it's even half as good as the original, we're willing to wait.

Bayonetta 3 - TBD

A catsuit-clad, lollipop-sucking witch who loses her clothing when she attacks seems like a weird mascot for family-friendly Nintendo, but then there's nothing normal about Bayonetta. The glammed up, hair-flinging action hero might've been designed as creator Hideki Kamiya's "ideal woman," but don't let the Bayonetta series' fanservice-heavy presentation turn you off. It's more style than sleaze, and besides, there's a vastly compelling action game lurking underneath all that camp.

If you've never played Bayonetta 1 or 2 or you only know her from her role in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, here's a little bit of what you can expect in Bayonetta 3: High heels that double as guns. Arms-dealing bartenders. Weapons named after classic folk ballads. Shape-shifting powers. Hordes of demons. Levels inspired by Dante's Inferno, of all things — the work of classic literature, not the polarizing video game adaptation.

It's basically Devil May Cry with the absurdity (and sex appeal) cranked up to 11, and it's glorious. Not that we'd expect anything less from PlatinumGames. Fast-paced madness is Platinum's bread and butter, as evidenced in games like Mad World, Vanquish, and NieR: Automata. We're not sure when the Switch-exclusive Bayonetta 3 will see the light of day, but we can understand why Nintendo would want to be in the Bayonetta business. We do, too.

No More Heroes 3 - TBD

If it weren't for the fans, Travis Touchdown wouldn't be back. No More Heroes creator Goichi Suda said as much to Polygon just a few days after No More Heroes 3's trailer debuted. Sure, in early 2019 we got Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes, but that's more like a collection of minigames than a real sequel. Still, it proved to Suda that, even almost a decade after No More Heroes 2, the No More Heroes fanbase was hungry for more. He's more than happy to oblige.

So yes, as in the original No More Heroes, there will be motion controls. There will be an open world to explore and menial jobs to perform. There will be a convoluted, borderline nonsensical plot — something about aliens and a city in the ocean this time around — and plenty of assassins to fight. Fan-favorite characters like Sylvia and Kimmy Howell will be back. All that, and Travis might be training a protege this time around, too. It's full of action. It's zanier than you can possibly imagine. In other words, it's No More Heroes.

Persona 5 Scramble - TBD

When Nintendo revealed Joker was coming to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, fans assumed that his flagship game, Persona 5, was headed to Nintendo's red-hot console as well. Their hopes seemed all but confirmed just a few weeks later, when a mysterious Switch game called Persona 5 S snuck onto Atlus' release schedule. "S" as in "Switch." Get it?

Well, surprise! Persona 5 S isn't a Persona 5 port at all. It's a spinoff called Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers. While the core Persona games mix dungeon-crawling with social simulation, Persona 5 Scramble is an action game that puts Joker and the rest of Persona 5's heroes against never-ending hordes of enemies, which they can decimate with their of flashy powers. If the trailer looks kind of familiar, there's probably a good reason for that, too: Persona 5 Scramble is developed by Omega Force, the company that makes Dynasty Warriors and spinoffs like Hyrule Warriors and Dragon Quest Heroes, and it doesn't look like the studio is venturing too far from its roots.

The Persona series has a long history of popular and quirky spinoffs and there's no reason to think that Persona 5 Scramble won't be one of them. Atlus hasn't confirmed a Western release for Persona 5 Scramble just yet, but given the franchise's rising profile on these shores, we're guessing it's only a matter of time. And hey, at least Scramble is a real surprise. We never saw it coming.

Spelunky 2 - TBD

Yes, we're getting a legitimate Spelunky sequel. That's all you really need to know. In 2008, Derek Yu's free, procedurally-generated platformer arrived and helped kick off the indie 2D platformer renaissance, making roguelikes (or, at the very least, roguelike-likes) into a major thing. Now, Yu, Mossmouth, and Blitworks want to give us more? All we have to say is: yes, please.

Spelunky 2 isn't just more of the same, although honestly, we'd be pretty okay if it was. It's got a new hero in Ana Spelunky, the daughter of the original's iconic lead. Levels will be split into two "layers," adding a third dimension to exploration (don't worry, though: all movement still takes place on a 2D plane). New liquid physics make transversing Spelunky 2's underground labyrinths more fun — and dangerous — before, and Yu promises that Spelunky 2's levels will feel more interconnected, interesting, and polished than before.

If you're a Spelunky veteran, Yu hopes that you'll be able to jump right in and pick up where you left off. Spelunky 2 should be more friendly for newcomers, too, although if you haven't played the original yet, you've still got some time before Spelunky 2's 2020 release rolls around. Like we said, the game is free. Why wouldn't you give it a shot?