This past year has been a parade of fantastic games, with major hits and small-studio darlings bubbling up what felt like every single day. That doesn't mean players' appetites for more are any less voracious, of course; if you're like me, your Steam wishlist is a landfill of release-date-pending games that promise to propel our medium even further.
As the calendar prepares to turn over, and in the spirit of neverending insatiability, let's take a look at the 20 most wishlisted games on Steam and dissect every last detail we can, like grubby little horseshoe crabs with so much digital detritus.
20. Vindictus: Defying Fate
Vindictus may not have been the biggest MMO around when it originally came to Steam in 2012, but its third-person ARPG-style brawling proved irresistible for a contingent of players who didn't mind the grind. Upcoming spinoff Defying Fate seems to reimagine the game for a post-Elden Ring world, pushing dodges and counterattacks firmly into the spotlight. Assuming it can replicate the appeal of inspirations, I can see this really appealing to a particular kind of Souls fiend—the sort of player who'd rather grind out canned missions and bosses endlessly than trawl through a big open world.
It's hard to say when it'll release, but given that a decently polished demo has already made the rounds, within the next year feels realistic.
19. Gothic 1 Remake
The worry with remakes, for me, is always that they'll sand off the edges that made the source material appealing. Gothic is a cult classic for a reason—it's a weird, grimy, ambitious sandbox, and by most accounts, pretty damn janky even accounting for the fact that it's over 20 years old. Rather than aim for broader appeal this time, whatever that would mean, Gothic 1 Remake seems poised to double down on the original game's absurd ambitions, promising "complex life simulation on a scale hardly ever seen before." That's the kind of wild sales pitch I like to see, and it's no surprise that players are already lining up to see what the fuss is about.
Gothic 1 Remake has a demo on Steam already, and it's set to release in Q1 2026.
18. Reanimal
Coming from the creators of Little Nightmares, Reanimal has a pretty cool pitch: a co-op horror adventure game where brother and sister "go through hell to rescue their missing friends." Given the success of Hazelight hits like Split Fiction and It Takes Two, it's no surprise that something like this has some serious potential; like everything else, screaming in terror is more fun in voice chat with a friend. Just be sure to give your pals a heads-up if you're going straight from Peak and Jackbox to this.
Reanimal is set to release Feb 13, 2026.
17. Mouse: PI for Hire
Some say that graphics don't matter, but a game like Mouse seems to blast that sentiment away with an oversized cartoon revolver. Combining Doom-esque boomer shooter gunfights with the visual stylings of rubberhose animation—Steamboat Willie and other early works from Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks in particular—it's one of those games you can't help but pray is as fun to play as it is gawk at. It takes the cartoon violence gimmick pretty far from the looks of it, with the player's loadout ranging from shotguns and cheese to chainsaws and TNT. Here's hoping I'll be able to drop a piano on someone's head from a few stories up.
Mouse: P.I. For Hire is set to release Mar 19, 2026.
16. ILL
A grisly horror shooter with "tactical" firefights and an incredibly succinct name, ILL is set to be pretty stomach churning if the trailer is any indication. Crawling severed fingers, a mutated zombie baby, and some of the most detailed dismemberment I've seen showcased in a game are all fair play in Team Clout's debut. It's the sort of thing that would have had concerned parents rioting politely in the streets a few decades ago, and I'm keen to see if it can prove as disquieting as its trailers make it seem. ILL indeed.
ILL was just announced earlier this year with no demo or release date in sight, so I think it's safe to say we're at least a year out.
15. Steam Machine
Hey, this isn't a game! Maybe not, but Steam users are no less interested in this Linux-based not-quite-a-console mini PC from Valve. It's easy to see why; the Steam Deck was a huge hit, and the notion of a frictionless way to play PC games on a TV without lugging your tower into the living room or running a cartoonishly long cable is an appealing one. Let's just see that price tag before we all get too excited.
The Steam Machine is set to release in "early 2026."
14. Chrono Odyssey
It's a big photoreal MMORPG that promises open world exploration, action combat, and straight-up time travel; or "time manipulation," at least. The Steam page promises the standard suite of MMO challenges: dungeons, PvP, crafting, and so on, but it also makes mention of the Chronotector, an item that lets players rewind time and "explore past generations of the open world." It's a bold pitch, to be sure, so it's no surprise why the game is turning heads even before release.
Chrono Odyssey is set to release in Q4 2026.
13. Quarantine Zone: The Last Check
If you've ever seen a zombie movie, you're familiar with the haphazard camps humanity slaps together to try and recreate some semblance of the order we lost during the apocalypse. They tend to be pretty dismal, sure, but can you imagine trying to run one of these shindigs? Well, you'll have the chance in Quarantine Zone, a Devolver-published base management sim where one unaddressed zombie bite might be the last mistake you ever make. There's no playground quite like an ethical gray area, so I'm excited to see how this turns out, especially as a fan of the base management side of State of Decay. Given Quarantine Zone's placement on this list, it seems I'm not alone.
Quarantine is set to release in 2025, but with no date set in the middle of December, I wouldn't hold your breath. There is a demo you can try already on Steam.
12. Witchbrook
If it turns out even a fraction as good as it looks, Witchbrook will no doubt hit the cozy gaming scene like a lightning bolt. A co-op life sim in a seaside town realized with gorgeous pixel art? I'm already there. Me and my friends are all witches and can fly around together on brooms? This is the stuff dreams are made of. With Haunted Chocolatier far off in the horizon, this may be just the ticket to tide over Stardew Valley sickos for the foreseeable future—assuming it can stick the landing.
Witchbrook is set to release at some point in 2026.
11. Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era
Heroes of Might and Magic has a long, winding history; it's refreshing, then, that the appropriately titled Olden Era hopes to take the tactical RPG back to basics. Developer Unfrozen affectionately homaged Darkest Dungeon with its debut RPG, Iratus, so the studio seems as good a candidate as any to usher in a new age of strategy roleplaying goodness. Whether it'll live up to the '90s classics is yet to be seen, but any sort of fresh start for the venerable series seems worth looking forward to.
Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era is set to release at some point in 2026, but there's a demo available already on Steam.
10. Half Sword
Somewhere between slapstick comedy and the unrelenting violence of medieval warfare, there lies Half Sword. Its aging demo is so popular that it was a hit at the most recent Steam Next Fest, which as PC Gamer's Lincoln Carpenter put it, "just proves the timeless appeal of physics-based swordfights." Fans of Chivalry and Mordhau will certainly want to keep an eye out for the dueling simulator when it finally charges pointy end-first into early access.
Half Sword will release in early access in Q1 2026.
9. Unrecord
Unrecord has made the rounds on social media a few times now for its startlingly realistic visuals and unique pitch. From the perspective of a police officer's bodycam, the game promises intense immersion and "tough moral dilemmas." The Steam page also states that choices made in dialog will affect how the resulting combat encounters play out; it sounds like an intense setup for a narrative FPS.
Unrecord has no release date in sight; it's the studio's debut game, so I'd give it at least a year.
8. Ark 2
Ark 2 already has a pretty messy track record. Not only was it supposed to release in 2023 (it didn't), and then again in 2024 (it still didn't), but it's set to come out alongside an animated TV show and stars, of course, Vin Diesel riding a dinosaur. No matter how weird Ark might seem to newcomers and outsiders, at least it'll always have Vin Diesel riding a dinosaur. The venerable survival crafting game is still plenty popular in its original and remastered versions, but Ark 2 promises to be bigger and better. Here's hoping it can deliver.
Ark 2 has no clear release date, and at this point, I'm too afraid to guess.
7. Blight: Survival
Blight: Survival has a unique pitch for a co-op survival horror game. You, three friends, a monster-infested medieval hell hole, and a loop inspired by roguelites and extraction shooters. As the game's Steam page puts it, "Will you go back and secure your spoils or risk it all and push forward? How far are you willing to go?" The fighting looks gruesome and souls-inspired, which should be a nice, horrific counterpoint to action-forward horde shooters like Darktide and Helldivers.
Blight: Survival has no release window yet, but its devs gave a simple response as to when we'd get one: "it's too early to tell." Suffice it to say, not any time soon.
6. Slay the Spire 2
Slay the Spire has cemented itself as one of the most celebrated deckbuilding games ever made, which PC Gamer's Evan Lahti called a "genre-bending achievement" in his 2019 review. Slay the Spire 2 might have been conceptualized via coin flip, but it promises more of one the acclaimed games in recent memory—there's no mystery as to what's got so many people nabbing it for their wishlists.
Slay the Spire 2 is set to release in March 2026, though no specific date has been set.
5. Kingmakers
Kingmakers has one of the most ridiculous premises I've yet seen in a game: you're a soldier with a modern arsenal of guns and grenades, and you have to travel back to medieval England, arm the locals with superior firepower, and "stave off the apocalypse." Perhaps the coolest aspect of Kingmakers is that its battles appear truly huge, with thousands of individual soldiers slicing each other apart, getting flattened by air strikes, and running each other over in pickup trucks—a senseless display of anachronistic overkill. That it's playable in co-op is just icing on the cake.
Kingmakers was set to release earlier this year, but was delayed indefinitely; given its lofty ambitions, I'd give it a while.
4. Resident Evil Requiem
It's Resident Evil; that it's hotly anticipated should come as no surprise. It looks to be just as chilling as the last several games in the series, with a classic mystery that takes our poor protagonist through hell and back. It looks more like an iteration than a reinvention, but given how good Resident Evil has been lately, that's fine by me.
Resident Evil Requiem will launch on Feb 27, 2026.
3. Light No Fire
When Hello Games first showed off No Man's Sky, it became what felt like one of the most ambitious and anticipated games in the medium's history. It released with a disastrous thud, but eventually came into its own with years of excellent updates that, little by little, molded the game into the sci-fi survival epic it originally promised to be. With so many years of experience under its belt, hopefully Hello won't need the redemption arc this time, and Light No Fire will end up every bit as absorbing as trailers make it look. Like No Man's Sky before it, it's a hell of a sales pitch: a fantasy survival adventure with a planet "the size of Earth."
Light No Fire has no release date, but it's been in development for seven years. My guess is that it'll be at least another year.
2. Deadlock
Deadlock is like no other game on this list in that I've already played it for over 150 hours. Valve's next MOBA is already playable via a not-so-private invite-only test, but it's pretty early days, with unfinished art assets galore and overhauls hitting the test build every few weeks. That said, it's already shaping up to be a breathtaking competitive shooter; each new hero is more wild than the last, and the addition of slide-jumping and verticality to a Dota-like strategy game makes for a potent blend of influences.
Deadlock has no clear release date, though it's getting more polished every day; my assumption based on how Dota 2 rolled out is that we'll get news of a public test relatively soon, and a full release much further down the line.
1. Subnautica 2
Subnautica is a breathtaking blend of survival, exploration, and thalassophobia, and it's long been hailed as one of the best games in its genre. PC Gamer's Philippa Warr called the original game "beautiful and terrifying," and its sequel Below Zero got similar props from reviewer Rick Lane in his review. If Subnautica 2 can match the splendor of its predecessors, it should be a rare treat for survival game fans of every sort—regardless of how messy the ongoing lawsuit between its publisher and its studio's founders has been. Given the legacy it's working with, Subnautica 2 is a fitting entry for the top spot of this list.
Subnautica 2 will come to early access on Steam in 2026.
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