By Nelson Schneider - 02/04/26 at 09:35 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! Unfortunately for us, the loaf-shaped, fur-covered, wiggly-nosed, pointy-toothed creature did indeed see its shadow, so we’ve got more Winter ahead of us. Will the imploding-building of Industrial Gaming provide us with something new to play during the extra 6 weeks of Winter? Will Indie developers come to the rescue? Or will we have to face our backlogs instead? Let’s dig into it!
We fortunately won’t have to get our shovels too dirty in February. It looks like there’s only one piece of Licensed Swill – a game based on the ‘My Hero Academia’ anime/manga – while there are zero Casual Trash games and zero Annualized Releases. There are a few Noteworthy Ports that are actually deserving of a mention: Three RPGs from yesteryear, “Dragon Quest 7,” “Tales of Berseria,” and “WiZman World” are getting thrown at a new audience (though, of those Noteworthy Ports, one is very much more noteworthy than the others).
On the other hand, there are quite a few legitimate, new multi-platform releases coming in the Shortest Month of All the Year. “Resident Evil Requiem” will definitely get Chris frothing. “Tides of Tomorrow” is a story-rich, choices matter game with the most annoying asymmetrical multi-player mechanic since “Demon’s Souls.” “Calamity Angels: Special Delivery” is a Compile Heart/Idea Factory RPG, so you know where it belongs (in the trash). “High On Life 2” is a sequel to the crude comedy FPS that none of the MJ Crew have gotten around to buying/playing yet, so we don’t know whether or not to care about a sequel. “Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties” is... yet another ‘Yakuza’ Sandbox game. Lastly, “ChromaGun 2: Dye Hard” is a sequel to a ‘Portal’-style First-Person Puzzle game that really failed to make an impression on much of anyone.
In exclusives, EVERYONE is getting a little somethin’-somethin’... except Xbox (LOL, Xbox). Steam is getting the timed exclusive release of the latest Stealth outing of the goblin from “Of Orcs and Men,” “Styx: Blades of Greed.” PlayStation is getting “Nioh 3” (because Sony Ponies EFFing LOVE Soulslikes) and a Visual Novel called “Cooking Companions.” I’m not sure which is worse... aw, who am I kidding? “Nioh 3” is obviously worse! Finally, Nintendo is getting a Visual Novel for the Original Switch, “Path of Mystery: A Brush with Death,” and is bringing the first-party thunder to the Switch 2 with... uh... “Mario Tennis Fever.” No, I don’t think they’re trying very hard either.
If I got it for free, I wouldn’t mind having “Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined” in my Steam library... but I’ve still got my old PS1 discs and Retroarch-compatible ISOs of said discs, so the ‘reimagined’ part would have to be pretty extreme to make me pay money for it. Other than that, I’ll pass on everything else coming in February – and in some cases with EXTREME PREJUDICE.
Backlog Embiggened: +0
