The PS5 gets more exclusives and a new God of War

Well, what do you know. For a year that will go down in video games history as “the year of GTA VI” – assuming Rockstar does not drop the ball yet again – there surely are a lot of other noteworthy AAA and AA titles scheduled for release before late November. As a result of its dominant market position, the PS5 is getting almost all of them (while keeping a few for itself). Sony’s latest State of Play presentation made this abundantly clear by either unveiling or confirming release dates for no less than 19 different titles, from a variety of publishing partners, all of them coming at some point in 2026. This is shaping up to be a truly amazing year for gaming even if GTA VI does get postponed again. At this rate, maybe it… should?

As expected, Sony drove the point home with its own output. Marathon is out in a few weeks (a closed beta will start on February 26th), Saros is scheduled to arrive on April 30th (it looks spectacular in its latest trailer) and Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls launches on August 6th. The ultra-impressive 4v4 fighter will offer an initial roster of 20 characters (three new X-Men were unveiled) and an Episode Mode, which will work as a Story gameplay option presented as motion comics. Yours truly found the closed beta version the title that run in December extremely promising and is looking forward to spending some quality time with it come summer.

In other first-party PlayStation news: Ghost of Yotei Legends, the title’s multiplayer expansion, will be out on March 10th, the PC version of Death Stranding 2 (complete with technical enhancements) will be out on March 19th and the original God of War trilogy is getting a PS5 remake (by Santa Monica Studio themselves although a release date is not yet set). Marvel’s Wolverine most probably deserves a State of Play – or two – of its own, so no updates on that one were shared during this presentation.

A new God of War, third-party PS5 support in full swing now

In the same State of Play presentation Sony casually announced and released a new PS5 God of War title… but maybe there’s a reason for that. See, God of War: Sons of Sparta is not a mainline GoW title but a 2D, side-scrolling, pixel-art prequel rumored for some time as a side project. It follows Kratos in his young years, training as a Spartan warrior way before becoming the god-killer and eventual god PlayStation fans are familiar with. It looks interesting – as a game as well as a creative choice on Sony’s part – and it’s now available at the PlayStation Store for $29.99 (Standard Edition) or $39.99 (Digital Deluxe Edition with plenty of extras).

Apart from Sony’s own output, though, the range of titles coming to market for no other games console but the PS5 – the PC is almost a given at this point and rightly so – is impressive enough on its own. Kena: Scars of Kosmora will be out this year, as will Silent Hill: Townfall, as will Big Walk. Co-operative, cool-looking stealth title Yakoh Shinobi Ops will be out in 2027, while Konami’s Rev.Noir, Krafton’s Project Windless and Bad Robot Games’ 4:Loop do not have a release date yet, but they are all confirmed as PS5 exclusives.

Needless to say that PS5 owners will have access to every other multi-platform AAA release already confirmed for 2026, from Resident Evil Requiem, Pragmata and 007: First Light to Star Wars: Galactic Racer, Control: Resonant and Beast of Reincarnation. Every single AA title unveiled during the latest State of Play – such as Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse, Brigandine Abyss, Crimson Moon, and Rayman 30th Anniversary Edition – is obviously also getting a PS5 version, as is almost any other important 2026 release not made specifically for PC.

With a PS5 this strong, we’re in for a very long cross-gen transition

With PlayStation officially having Microsoft’s full support when it comes to Xbox games too, it’s hard not to think of the PS5 as the default game console format now: the platform the overwhelming majority of console titles will target going forward. That’s not necessarily a good thing, yet here we are.

If nothing else, this high level of third-party support may be a sign of things to come: with the PS5 approaching 100 million units sold worldwide and Sony seemingly not in any rush to release the PS6, publishers will now focus on the former for a very long time. If three or so years of PlayStation cross-gen releases (the case between PS4 and PS5) seemed like a lot, then we may have to go through four or even five between the PS5 and the PS6.

In other words, Sony’s current system – released all the way back in November 2020 – could still be getting new games in 2033. Then again, this PlayStation generation did not play out like any other in the past in terms of hardware, so why would things be any different in terms of software? That’s true, but what is also true is that prolonged cross-gen periods – like the one we just went through – hold the latest, most potent systems back, essentially asking of consumers to pay for power and features not utilized until much, much later. Not ideal.

In any case, it seems that PS5 gamers can look forward to one of PlayStation’s best years in 2026 as far as both game quantity and game variety are concerned. When it comes to game quality… we’ll just have to see, no?