Gears of War: E-Day

Before Marcus Fenix became the soldier we know, there was Emergence Day. Fourteen years before the original Gears of War, Marcus and Dominic Santiago are young soldiers confronting the moment the Locust Horde erupts from beneath Sera and humanity realizes that its world has changed forever.

That gives E-Day an opportunity to recover something the original game did exceptionally well: horror. The Locust aren’t supposed to feel like ordinary targets. They’re an unknown force suddenly appearing from beneath civilization, and the new game is leaning into that fear, brutality and uncertainty.

The campaign supports solo play, split-screen cooperative play on console and online co-op, while Horde Siege evolves the franchise’s familiar wave-based multiplayer formula.

CONTROL Resonant

Remedy Entertainment isn’t simply making another Control. CONTROL Resonant expands the strange universe of the original into a larger supernatural action RPG and shifts the spotlight to Dylan Faden.

Released after years of confinement, Dylan enters a Manhattan being reshaped by a paranormal crisis. His sister Jesse is missing, reality is coming apart and Dylan has to understand a growing collection of extraordinary abilities while confronting whatever is transforming the city.

Expect the Remedy trademarks: impossible architecture, reality-bending events, deeply strange storytelling and the feeling that something just outside the player’s understanding is controlling the room. This time, however, the scope is considerably larger and melee combat plays a more prominent role.

Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse

A Belmont is picking up the Vampire Killer again.

Set in 1499, twenty-three years after the events of Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse, Belmont’s Curse centers on Rose Belmont, daughter of Trevor Belmont. Paris is burning, monsters are emerging from the darkness and Rose finds herself pulled into the conspiracy behind the violence.

Konami, Evil Empire and Motion Twin are approaching the series as a fast, fluid 2D action-exploration game. Defeated bosses can be sealed inside Rose’s tarot cards and transformed into Arcana, allowing players to use their abilities while exploring.

Weapons, relics and multiple equipment combinations add another layer to combat while the visual design pushes the Gothic atmosphere that has defined Castlevania for decades.

Final Fantasy Resonance

Square Enix is asking a pretty interesting question: What if Final Fantasy had continued pushing pixel art forward?

Final Fantasy Resonance is the franchise’s first full HD-2D entry, combining detailed pixel art with dimensional environments, cinematic camera work and a battle system rooted in the series’ turn-based history.

The adventure revolves around the Crystals and a group of companions bound together by fate. The new Visions system allows players to call upon echoes of familiar Final Fantasy heroes and use their abilities in battle. Those abilities can then be combined to create different character builds and strategies.

Chocobos, airships, jobs, crystals, summons and turn-based combat? This one seems very aware of exactly which part of the Final Fantasy fanbase it is talking to.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4

Modern Warfare 4 puts global conflict back at the center of Call of Duty.

The campaign begins with war erupting on the Korean Peninsula following a full-scale North Korean invasion. From there the action expands across the globe, including close-quarters fighting in New York, chases through Paris, nighttime SAS operations in Mumbai and large-scale battles over occupied territory.

Captain Price returns, but the campaign also introduces the conflict through the perspective of young South Korean soldiers attempting to survive a rapidly collapsing front line.

Beyond the campaign, multiplayer, Warzone integration and the return of DMZ give this year’s release several different lanes for players who essentially live inside Call of Duty once the weather gets cold.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Some games become classics. Others become part of the language that future games use.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time belongs in the second category, and Nintendo is rebuilding Link’s landmark 1998 adventure from the ground up for Nintendo Switch 2.

The story remains timeless: Ganondorf seeks the Triforce, Link must become the Hero of Time, and the fate of Hyrule rests on a journey across years, temples and one of gaming’s most recognizable worlds.

This isn’t simply the old game running at a higher resolution. Nintendo has announced completely overhauled visuals, voiced cutscenes, expanded dialogue, symphonic orchestral music, enhanced movement, modernized camera controls and other additions designed to bring Ocarina into the current generation.

For players who were there in 1998, this is a return trip. For a younger generation, it may be the first opportunity to understand why people have been talking about this game for nearly three decades.

Mega Evolution: Delta Reign

Mega Evolution: Delta Reign arrives November 6 and the latest expansion in the Mega Evolution Series features Mega Evolution Pokémon ex, helpful Trainer cards, and special illustrations, ensuring that players feel like royalty.

This expansion includes over 135 cards, with more than 20 Trainer cards and over 35 cards with special illustrations. It features the powerful Mega Rayquaza ex, as well as Mega Golurk ex, Mega Malamar ex, and Mega Golisopod ex.

That mystery may actually work in its favor. In a season dominated by some of the largest names in gaming, sometimes the game worth watching is the one we don’t already know everything about.

Grand Theft Auto VI

And then there is the game that almost doesn’t need an introduction.

Grand Theft Auto VI takes Rockstar back to Vice City and introduces Jason and Lucia, two people whose attempt at an easy score goes very wrong. What follows pulls them into a criminal conspiracy stretching across the state of Leonida.

Rockstar has built its reputation on creating open worlds where the city itself becomes a character. This time the studio is working with a fictionalized Florida: beaches, highways, nightlife, swamps, social media absurdity, crime and the particular chaos that only Vice City can provide.

Music will again be a major piece of that world. Rockstar has announced a 34-track collection of original music accompanying the game, further blurring the line between a video-game release and a broader pop-culture event.

There are big releases on this list. There are legendary franchises on this list.

But November 19 belongs to Vice City.