4 – Task Force Admiral
If you were to ask me what’s going to be the most influential strategy game set in World War 2, in 2026, I would have to say that it is, without a doubt, Task Force Admiral. Not only that, but TFA might also be one of the best wargames ever made if it reaches the end of its Early Access phase with all promises fulfilled, which most certainly seems like it will. This is a real-time wargame in proper real-time, where players take control of a Task Force against the Imperial Japanese Navy. What made it so special in my eyes was the sheer amount of detail and simulation it packs. Everything is minutely simulated, and the planes even have flight physics! Despite all of this attention to detail and how complex the whole thing is, the game makes decision-making so simple that someone who has never heard a thing about naval warfare could pick it up and start playing. Most wargames could only dream of having a user experience that’s this good.
The decision-making boils down to the essentials of a Task Force commander. Where, when, and how to strike. That’s it. The rest is busy work. Get those 3 right, and you’ll win the battle.
3 – Slay The Spire 2
The original Slay the Spire is a game I have very fond memories of (I’m writing this, as if the game came out 30 years ago or something), because it was one of the titles that kept me company during the summer of 2019, while I was travelling, and kept me entertained, night in and night out, without fail, for two whole weeks. Well, when I heard the news about Slay The Spire 2, my heart pounded with excitement. Is this the game that’s going to keep me company in the summer of 2026? It certainly looks like. Slay The Spire 2 takes everything that made the first one special (the roguelike nature, the fantastic deck-building, and the insane strategies you could pull off while playing it) and just adds more of the same. New graphics, new enemies, new cards, new strategies, new combos, and that’s all that Slay The Spire 2 needed to be successful, and that was all it did. You know what? It worked wonders, earning its 3rd spot in my list.
2 – Xenonauts 2
Is this the second time I fooled you? Maybe, because technically speaking, Xenonauts 2 came out in 2023, but also technically speaking, it went gold in 2026, so there’s not a whole lot to argue here. What’s there to say is that the second installment of Xenonauts did everything right. After a rocky start, with the game being in development for years, and I still remember playing its demo in GoG, for some reason, in the end, everything turned out alright, and Xenonauts 2 is probably the second-best alien-wallop simulator in the market, right after XCOM. If you love a more complex version of XCOM or long for the gone-by days of 90s strategy, then Xenonauts 2 is the game to go with. It took the formula of the first game, added new graphics, and the game is now set in 2009, and there’s more of everything: new weapons, vehicles, technologies, aliens, maps, challenges, and strategies to explore. Overall, the whole thing is a polished masterpiece, and some might even call it a game that’s more XCOM than XCOM ever was.
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