Top 25 Most Anticipated Games of 2016

Top games to look out for in 2016

Title: Life is Strange Limited Edition
Expected Release Date: 22/01/2016
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC

Follow the story of Max Caulfield, a photography senior who discovers she can rewind time while saving her best friend Chloe Price.

The pair soon find themselves investigating the mysterious disappearance of fellow student Rachel Amber, uncovering a dark side to life in Arcadia Bay. Meanwhile, Max must quickly learn that changing the past can sometimes lead to a devastating future.

Title: Lego Marvel’s Avengers
Expected Release Date: 29/01/2016
Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PC, Wii U

Avengers Assemble! The LEGO Marvel videogame franchise returns with a new action-packed, Super Hero adventure. Join the LEGO Marvel’s Avengers team and experience the first console videogame featuring characters and storylines from the critically-acclaimed film Marvel’s The Avengers, the blockbuster sequel Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, and more. Play as the most powerful Super Heroes in their quest to save the world.

Title: Street Fighter V
Expected Release Date: 16/02/2016
Platforms: PlayStation 4, PC

The legendary fighting franchise returns with Street Fighter V! Powered by Unreal Engine 4 technology, stunning visuals depict the next generation of World Warriors in unprecedented detail, while exciting and accessible battle mechanics deliver endless fighting fun that both beginners and veterans can enjoy. Challenge friends online, or compete for fame and glory on the Capcom Pro Tour.

Street Fighter V will be released exclusively for the PlayStation 4 and PC. Through a strategic partnership between Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. and Capcom, the next generation Street Fighter experience will offer cross-platform play that will unite fans into a centralized player base for the first time ever. The path to greatness begins here: rise up!

Title: XCOM 2
Expected Release Date: 05/02/2016
Platform: PC

XCOM 2 is the sequel to  XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Twenty years have passed since world leaders offered an unconditional surrender to alien forces and XCOM, the planet’s last line of defense, was left decimated and scattered. Now the aliens rule Earth, building shining cities that promise a brilliant future for humanity on the surface, while concealing a sinister agenda below and eliminating all who dissent from their new order.

Only those who live at the edges of the world have a margin of freedom. Here, a force gathers once again to stand up for humanity. Always on the run, the remnant XCOM forces must find a way to rise from the ashes, expose the insidious truth behind the occupation, and eliminate the alien threat once and for all.

Title: Firewatch
Expected Release Date: 09/02/2015
Platforms: PlayStation 4, PC

In Firewatch you play as a man named Henry who has retreated from his messy life to work as a fire lookout in the Wyoming wilderness. Perched high atop a mountain, it’s your job to look for smoke and keep the wilderness safe. An especially hot, dry summer has everyone on edge. Your supervisor, a woman named Delilah, is available to you at all times over a small, handheld radio — and is your only contact with the world you’ve left behind.

But when something strange draws you out of your lookout tower and into the world, you’ll explore a wild and unknown environment, facing questions and making interpersonal choices that can build or destroy the only meaningful relationship you have.

Title: Far Cry Primal
Expected Release Date: 23/02/2016
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC

Welcome to the Stone Age, a time of extreme danger. When giant mammoths and sabretooth tigers ruled the Earth, and humanity was at the bottom of the food chain. As the last survivor of your hunting group, you will learn to craft a deadly arsenal, fend off fierce predators, and outsmart enemy tribes to conquer the land of Oros and become the Apex Predator.

You will play as Takkar, a seasoned hunter and the last surviving member of your group. You have one goal: survival in a world where you are the prey.

Title: Tom Clancy’s: The Division
Expected Release Date: 08/03/2016
Platforms: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC

We live in a complex world. The more advanced it gets, the more vulnerable it becomes. We’ve created a house of cards: remove just one, and everything falls apart.

Black Friday – a devastating pandemic sweeps through New York City, and one by one, basic services fail. In only days, without food or water, society collapses into chaos. The Division, an autonomous unit of tactical agents, is activated. Leading seemingly ordinary lives among us, these agents are trained to operate independently in order to save society.

When society falls, we rise.

Title: Dark Souls III
Expected Release Date: 24/03/2016
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC

As fires fade and the world falls into ruin, developer FromSoftware and director Hidetaka Miyazaki continue their critically-acclaimed and genre-defining series with Dark Souls III.

Fans and newcomers alike will get lost in the games hallmark rewarding gameplay and immersive graphics.

Now, only embers remain.

Title: Quantum Break
Expected Release Date: 05/04/2016
Platform: Xbox One

When time breaks, catastrophe becomes your playground. As hero Jack Joyce, you’ll fight your way through epic disasters that stutter back and forth in time. But surviving this unstable world–and halting the end of time itself–is only possible by mastering your new time powers.

Push cinematic action to the next level in this time-fractured world. Freeze time to gain the upper hand. Warp past enemies. Turn time-frozen objects into weapons with a single touch. With time itself in your arsenal, combat is never predictable.

Title: Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End
Expected Release Date: 26/04/2015
Platform: PlayStation 4

Set three years after the events of Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, Nathan Drake has presumably left the world of fortune hunting behind. However, it doesn’t take long for adventure to come calling when Drake’s brother, Sam, resurfaces seeking his help to save his own life and offering an adventure Drake can’t resist.

On the hunt for Captain Henry Avery’s long-lost treasure, Sam and Drake set off to find Libertalia, the pirate utopia deep in the forests of Madagascar. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End takes players on a journey around the globe, through jungle isles, urban cities and snow-capped peaks on the search for Avery’s fortune.

Title: Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst
Expected Release Date: 24/05/2016
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC

Mind, hands and controller working in perfect unison, the impulses from your brain effortlessly translated into fluid movement on the screen. This is the main experience of Mirror’s Edge Catalyst.

Faith is your extension into Glass city, she is your avatar in this world, and through her you will learn to master the urban landscape, allowing you to directly partake of all the thrills and elegance of parkour running. Faith’s agility is yours, as is her speed and proficiency.

As your skills grow so does your reach and gadgets will expand it even further, making seemingly impossible locations available to the daring. If you’re good enough all of the city will eventually become your playground.

Title: Deus Ex Mankind Divided
Expected Release Date: 23/08/2016
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided directly follows the aftermath of the Aug Incident, a day when mechanically augmented citizens all over the world were stripped of control over their minds and bodies, resulting in the deaths of millions of innocents.

The year is now 2029, and the golden era of augmentations is over. Mechanically augmented humans have been deemed outcasts and segregated from the rest of society. Crime and acts of terror serve as a thin veil to cover up an overarching conspiracy aimed at controlling the future of mankind.

Title: Scalebound
Expected Release Date: (Delayed to 2017)
Platform: Xbox One

In Scalebound, the next great adventure from critically-acclaimed developer PlatinumGames and renowned Game Director Hideki Kamiya, you will experience the journey of a young loner, Drew, who is pulled into the strange, beautiful and dangerous world of Draconis.

There Drew is bonded to a fearsome and noble dragon, Thuban, the last of his kind. These two, lone-wolf heroes thrown together by fate must learn to fight as one to defeat the powerful enemies that threaten Draconis, Earth and a vast universe of parallel worlds.

Title: Horizon Zero Dawn
Expected Release Date: 2016
Platform: PlayStation 4

In a lush, vibrant, post-apocalyptic open world, colossal mechanized creatures roam a landscape that they have torn from the grip of mankind.

Human evolution has, over time, regressed to a tribal hunter-gatherer existence, surviving amongst towering forests, imposing mountain ranges and the atmospheric ruins of a bygone civilisation – while the savage machines have become all-powerful.

You are Aloy, a skilled hunter who relies on speed, cunning and agility to stay alive and protect her tribe against the strength, size and raw power of the machines. Against overwhelming odds, you must embark on a compelling, emotional journey to uncover the secrets of a forgotten civilisation, the ancient artefacts they left behind, and to learn more about the advanced technologies that will determine the fate of the planet – and of human life itself.

Title: Mafia III
Expected Release Date: 2016
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC

Mafia III is an upcoming third-person shooter and the third installment in the Mafia Series, being a sequel to Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven and Mafia II. The game is developed by Hangar 13 and published by 2K Games, and it will be released in 2016 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

Mafia III was officially announced in July 2015, with the first trailer unveiled on August 5, 2015. The game will take place in 1968 in New Orleans, with the player assuming the role of Lincoln Clay.

Title: Overwatch
Expected Release Date: To release before 06/21/2016
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC

Overwatch features a wide array of unique heroes, ranging from a time-jumping adventurer, to an armored, rocket-hammer-wielding warrior, to a transcendent robot monk. Every hero plays differently, and mastering their abilities is the key to unlocking their potential. No two heroes are the same.

Whether you’re engaging in combat on the front line, providing defensive cover with your energy shield, or supporting your allies by amplifying their damage, every hero’s abilities are designed to be effective as part of a team. Learning to utilize your abilities in concert with your teammates’ is the key to victory.

Title: Mass Effect Andromeda
Expected Release Date: December 2016
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC

The game takes place in the Andromeda Galaxy, “far away from and long after the events of the original trilogy,” and is “very much a new adventure.” The player character will be a human who can be either male or female.

Although there will be little to no reference to characters from the original trilogy, a few cameos are expected.Choices made in the original trilogy may be recognised, but will not be the main focus of the game.

Title: No Man’s Sky
Expected Release Date: June 2016
Platform: PlayStation 4

No Man’s Sky is a game about exploration and survival in an infinite procedurally generated galaxy. Whether a distant mountain or a planet hanging low on the horizon, you can go there. You can fly seamlessly from the surface of a planet to another, and every star in the sky is a sun that you can visit.

Where you’ll go and how fast you’ll make your way through this universe is up to you. It’s yours for the taking. Explore uncharted solar systems and catalogue unique new forms of life. Every planet’s landscape is different from the next, and populated by species never before encountered.

Find ancient artefacts that could reveal the secrets behind the universe. Choose whether to share your discoveries with other players. They’re exploring the same vast universe in parallel; perhaps you’ll make your mark on their worlds as well as your own.

Title: Final Fantasy XV
Expected Release Date: 2016
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One

In a matter of days, the Kingdom of Lucis is to sign an armistice, ending a long and bitter conflict with Niflheim. Ahead of the ceremony, Prince Noctis, heir to the Lucian throne, sets forth from his homeland to formalize the union of states through his marriage to the Lady Lunafreya of the imperial province of Tenebrae.

The offer of peace, however, is no more than a ruse to lower the Lucian shield, and the imperial army takes the crown city and its sacred crystal in one fell swoop. En route to his destination, Noctis is shocked to learn that he, his father the king, and his betrothed are believed dead.

Overnight, the dream of peace has faded into a distant memory. His world crumbling around him, Noctis has naught but his resolve and his loyal companions to see him through the trials to come.

Title: Gears of War 4
Expected Release Date: 2016
Platform: Xbox One

Gears of War 4 is an upcoming third-person shooter video game developed by The Coalition, and published by Microsoft Studios for the Xbox One. The game is set to be released in 2016.

It will be the fifth installment in the Gears of War series and the fourth main installment. It will be the sequel to Gears of War 3.

Title: Dead Island 2
Expected Release Date: 2016
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One

Welcome to Zombie California! Slay and survive with style in this co-op playground. Explore the vast Golden State, from lush forests to sunny beaches.

Wield a variety of over-the-top, hand-crafted weapons against human and undead enemies. Upgrade your vehicles, grab your friends, and take a permanent vacation to the zombie apocalypse. Paradise meets hell and you are the matchmaker!

Title: Homefront The Revolution
Expected Release Date:
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC

Homefront: The Revolution is an open-world first person shooter where you must lead the Resistance movement in guerrilla warfare against a superior military force.

A living, breathing, open world responds to your actions – you and your Resistance Cell can inspire a rebellion on the streets and turn Occupation into Revolution, as oppressed civilians take up the fight.

But your enemy has the advantage – superior technology, firepower, heavy armour and air support. You must learn the art of guerrilla warfare  – ambush, sabotage, infiltration, deception – and fight a running battle through the war-ravaged suburbs of Philadelphia.

And the single player campaign is just the start – in Co-Op you and your friends can form your own Resistance Cell and become renowned as Heroes of the Revolution.

Title: Unravel
Expected Release Date: 2016
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC

Unravel is an upcoming physics-based puzzle platform video game developed by Coldwood Interactive and published by Electronic Arts. The game centers around its protagonist, Yarny, a small creature made of red yarn, who explores the world around him by using his own body. As Yarny moves, the twine which he is made of unravels, creating lines which the player must use to solve puzzles and progress in the game.

On this mechanic, Sahlin has stated, “It’s always fun to play with physics. It’s not just about solving puzzles. It’s also a big part of how you move. Sometimes it’s just traversing, navigating. Since you always leave this trail behind you, you can always grab it and climb on it and swing on it. You can do these really cool things when you combine stuff.”

Title: The Last Guardian
Expected Release Date: 2016
Platform: PlayStation 4

In a strange and mystical land, a young boy discovers a mysterious creature with which he forms a deep, unbreakable bond.

The unlikely pair must rely on each other to journey through towering, treacherous ruins filled with unknown dangers. Experience the journey of a lifetime in this touching, emotional story of friendship and trust.

Title: The Legend of Zelda
Expected Release Date: 2016
Platform: Wii U

The Legend of Zelda  is the working title of an upcoming action-adventure game in development by Nintendo for the Wii U home video game console. It is the nineteenth main installment in Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda series and the first original Zelda game developed with high-definition (HD) graphics. The game will feature an open world in which players can find different ways to approach areas.

Nintendo originally planned to release the game in 2015; however, in March 2015, producer Eiji Aonuma stated that the company was no longer aiming for a launch that year. In an interview at Electronic Entertainment Expo 2015, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé affirmed that the game will be released in 2016.

For all of the above mentioned video games, the expected release dates are subject to change dependent on the development studio and publishers of each title.

Darryl Linington
Follow @Darryl Linington on Twitter