The summer is upon us, and for video game fans everywhere, this means one thing: lots of summer showcase events. Over the past week, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo have all shown off their upcoming games with flashy presentations, leaving us eager to dive into new experiences over the next year. Though Sony’s was arguably the lightest in terms of big new announcements, there were still several major surprises that got us hyped up. In case you missed it, here’s all the big news from Sony’s 2026 Summer State of Play.
Major PlayStation Exclusives
If there’s one thing that console fans love, it’s exclusive games for their favorite system. In that regard, Sony showed off a trio of interesting PlayStation exclusives, kicking up plenty of discussion in the process. First, the show kicked off with an extended gameplay trailer for Marvel’s Wolverine, featuring hectic action, bloody combat, and some fast-paced traversal. Time will tell if Wolverine is received as warmly as Insomniac’s last game, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, but we’ll find out when Wolverine releases on September 15 of this year.
The first big surprise announcement of the show came in the form of Until Dawn 2, a “choose your own adventure” style horror story that follows a group of ghost hunters who check out a tropical island and get more than they bargained for. Interestingly, Until Dawn 2 is not being created by the developers of the original game, Supermassive, but instead, the smaller studio, Firesprite, who have mostly developed PlayStation VR games in the past.
Finally, the big game of the show was the spin-off, God of War: Laufey, set in the same universe as God of War (2018) and God of War: Ragnarok. Instead of another Kratos-focused adventure, this action game follows Faye, the deceased wife of Kratos. Refusing to kneel to death itself, Faye must travel through the afterlife, battling gods and creatures of mythology in order to secure her family’s future. Based on the 20+ minute gameplay trailer, God of War: Laufey looks to be loads of fun, but we’ll have to wait until mid-2027 to try it for ourselves.
Big Day for Third Party
For better or worse, Sony’s Summer State of Play was dominated by third-party announcements. While there weren’t a ton of brand new games revealed, we did receive plenty of new trailers for previously announced games, including Marvel: Tokon, Dune: Awakening, Onimusha: Way of the Sword, Silent Hill: Townfall, and Ace Combat: Wings of Theve. A couple of anticipated titles received official release dates, including Control Resonant (releasing August 27, 2026) and the Tomb Raider remake, Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis (pushed back to February 2027).
Still, there were a handful of new games announced from third-party developers, several of which were a complete surprise. Ubisoft made some waves by announcing a remake of their award-winning platformer, Rayman Legends Retold. Developer S-Game offered a sneak peek of the upcoming action game, Phantom Blade Zero. Horror fans were eating good with a first look at Team Clout’s gory first-person horror game, ILL. Finally, my favorite of the bunch, the Stuntman franchise is getting resurrected with Stuntman: Hollywood, which puts you behind the wheel while performing stunts from movies like Fast and the Furious, Miami Vice, and Back to the Future.
Beyond these big-name games, there were a handful of smaller announcements sprinkled between, including the new fishing and cooking game, Bancho: The Chef, a yokai hunting action game called Kemuri, and a dinosaur survival title from Amazon called The Lost Wild. Generally speaking, reactions to this State of Play presentation have been mixed, and while fans are excited for all the new upcoming games, it seems like Sony has pumped the brakes on big exclusives. I’m excited to check out God of War: Laufey and Marvel’s Wolverine, but Until Dawn 2 is a bit of a headscratcher. Either way, it looks like there’s no shortage of new games for PlayStation 5 fans, even if most of them are coming from third-party developers and will be released on multiple platforms.
