I saw a video on spawnwave that talked today about what games people are enjoying in 2026 right now. And the different reactions of different social media/sites.

I personally am loving Wild Blue Skie s. Its just starfox. Thats what I want to play!

BALL x PIT is a whole lot of fun. I didn't think it would be but it keeps getting better and better.

I also liked FTL back in the day so I picked up Void War . Its like warhammer + FTL and its fantastic.

EDIT: You all are great! Keep them coming! So many games (video games and otherwise) in this list!

I am enjoying Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries. Ended up restarting the campaign when I went bankrupt in game. Turns out keeping 75% of all the mechs I salvaged was a poor choice. This time I've kept my mech inventory focused, and it is paying off.

American Truck Simulator!

It's exactly what it sounds like. You drive a truck. You make deliveries. Beautiful scenery, relaxing drives, plus some challenge when it comes time to back up to the loading dock. It's really chill and it's awesome.

(There's also Euro Truck Simulator 2 which is literally the exact same game but in Europe, if that's more your thing.)

-- Frost

I played through BrokenLore: LOW recently. I thought it would be another one of those crappy horror games made in an hour, but this one was actually alright. I even went ahead and platinum'ed the achievements.

I've also enjoyed making chemicals in Alembic. Making a big canister of fluorine gas and dropping pure cesium into it is fun.

I also played through the demo of Misohagi Crossing recently. The dev is a Japanese person branching into the Western market, so I gave it a look.

I signed up for the Undershroom Playtest. I found the idea of being chased by those jaw figurines dentists have to be hilarious.

I've also dabbled in playing some AI games and H games recently. Most of the AI games are simply crap, though I did play a demo of one that showed promise.

I've been enjoying Wasteland 2 on my Xbox, and Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor on my phone.

I played ballxpit for a bit, I'm playing Deadly Days Roadtrip right now, it's a survivor with a backpack leveling mechanic

I'm always playing at least one game. On days where I work and I don't have as much time as I'd like (I work very little anyway so I still have plenty) I'm playing GTA V Enhanced and Link's Awakening DX HD. On days I'm off I'm playing GTA V Enhanced and No Man's Sky. I love all of these games dearly. I unintentionally am playing 3 of my favourite games of all time rn lol.

You might like Spin Tires, Mud Runner and Snow Runner. Drive logging trucks through the wilderness and stuff.

I was down with the flu for a week, so I a) started Broken Sword...for REAL this time. b) charged up my 3DS for the first time in years and am just playing a lot of CrossworDS Plus or whatever.

Tonight I started Pokemon Heartgold, but I can't lie, didn't play them back in the day and don't understand the appeal. I'm going to try though.

Ballest. It's track mania but with a marble. Time trial courses. Small-ish community so world records are kinda possible to achieve. And it's like 3 bucks or something and being updated.

Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave. I am going really slowly and playing one chapter of each story at a time before switching to the next one. I like the map exploration aspect a lot.

final fantasy 1 and dog witch

I've picked up Nine Sols again. I like parry games and this is sort of like Hollow Knight meets Sekiro. I couldn't get into Hollow Knight but almost instantly got into Nine Sols, for whatever reason.

Going through LocoMoto. A small Sweedish game. Came out in 2025, and thr studio was promptly closed.

Cute game. You, a legitimate anthropomorphised animal, drive a train around, kinda like Zelda Spirit Tracks. Do quests, cart people around in your train, solve mysteries... really chill music as well.

Spongebob Battle for Bikini Bottom (the OG not the remaster)

Love just cruising through the game with speedrunning strategies and modding it.

Slay the Spire 2. No matter how hard I try to escape, all roads lead back to the spire.

I think I spent probably 20+ hours playing Control Resonant this weekend. Crazy good game.

Been playing the hell out of Hogwarts Legacy. WAY better then I ever imagined it would be and I’m not even a Harry Potter fan. In fact, I never saw a single movie.

I played crow country and i loved it! Right now i dread to install more games because i had a lot of things to do.

Pillars of Eternity with the new turn based combat!
I've been waiting for it for a long time!

Hollow Knight, but I am taking a break since I just cannot seem to beat the Traitor Lord boss. Every boss before that I managed in a couple tries but this one really beats me. Even got the top nail upgrade now, still hard. I'll get him eventually...

Super fun, but ethically you should pirate this one.

Got it free on PSN.

And PSN gives JKR a royalty... Still, hard to pirate on PS hardware you don't really own.

I'm currently quiet busy with other stuff and don't play too much. I mostly play older games, a few years old or even retro. Recently played Civilization 4, because that's one of the favorites in the series, so I wanted to see how it compares to the other games in series. I also started playing racing simulation on PC. Automobilista 2 is probably the best game for single players, as I'm not interested in playing online (yet). The twist for myself is, that I started playing with gyro controls, which gives it a whole new life to racing games. Maybe I buy a wheel soon! This sales event in Steam made my Pile of Shame even bigger; it's out of control.

And then there are the emulated retro games I'm going back to and try Mods and Romhacks out in RetroArch for various systems. Currently doing patches for 16 bit 90's console games such as Super Nintendo and Mega Drive / Genesis. Edit: Ah I forgot. A few days ago installed Quiver Launcher, that handles downloads and install of decompiled or recompiled games for PC. Playing F-Zero native on PC is something else.

spawnwav e

Did something went wrong here or is this intentional? I find it hilarious to link the last letter only. :D No need to change, just asking, it's quiet funny. BTW Spawnwave is my favorite Gaming related news channel for many years now. :-) (Besides Mr. Sujano for Retro news.)

i keep getting SO CLOSE to beating hornet and she kicks my ass every time.

Why?

i've been playing Broken Age and I'm really enjoying it. just started the second act.

Also started ghostrunner 2 But that first boss is unforgiving.

I had Hogwarts Legacy on my radar for a long time, but didn't want play it until I watched the films. So one day I sat down and watched all 10 main films (I think its 10 parts, right?) and they are way more amazing that I thought to be! To a degree that I am a little bit small fan of Harry Potter now. :-) Great films I highly recommend watching it, it was a mistake not watching the films back then.

As for the game, I then purchased it and tried out. It's a nice game and I need to go back to it. Stopped playing because I had so much to play and put it back for a while (then forgot about it).

So…. I didn’t pay for it. And I own my PS5. And frankly, I don’t really care that royalties are made. It’s a good game and the developers deserve their cut.

Rowling went crazy

I just finished Pragmata (had to speedrun the last few levels to fit in Control: Resonant, which I feel bad about - but I'd had C:R preordeted for ages and love anything from Remedy... Anyway, I digress.)

Pragmata I thought was good, and Capcom deserve some credit. An actual new IP, a genuinely fun and different game mechanic, visually looks good - and is bright and striking rather than regulation brown - and was just good fun to play. My only criticism would be that the dialogue/plotting felt like it was kinda rushed - like they skipped a couple of chapters and you go from "just met" to "devoted partners" in one scene and missed the plot/character development needed to get from A to B. I feel bad saying it though, because it's a decent and topical plot and has some genuinely affecting moments.

Credit where due; I hope it does OK because God knows it's hard enough to find games doing anything new these days.

Is that before or after Traitor Lord? I already fought her like 3 times!

Ah okay, I never cared what the political talk is, as long as it does not affect the media I'm watching (or playing). She didn't even work on the game Hogwarts Legacy, and the game is not even about Harry Potter himself.

I'm currently playing "It Takes Two" with my wife. Super fun co-op game!

This one is quite hard iirc, i too struggle with it for some times. Mantis and their erratic movement always catch me offguard. The same as Nosk.

Control: Resonant

I think I'm 25-30h in and I don't want to put it down. Idk how long it is, but all the Remedy Universe games are such a treat, I don't want it to be over. I'm enjoying the melee-focused combat more than the first game's TPS combat, I think.

She still gets money for it. And then uses that money to fund anti-trans TERF stuff. Depending on your ideals there may be some cognitive dissonance there is all.

I think probably the most novel thing gold/silver did back I the day was a real-time clock and day of the week tracker. This meant you had to log in at certain times to hunt certain pokemon, or attend certain events. This isn't as impressive today, but at the time was a whole new level of immersion fans had never seen before, in any handheld game really.

It was also incredible that they had the new jhoto region, but also the entire gen 1 kanto region (set a few years in the future). I remember that was just mind blowing that this was even possible.

But if you're not feeling it, don't force yourself through it. The Pokemon games aren't for everybody.

Dune: Awakening, doing singleplayer because I have nobody to play online servers eoth and enjoying it a lot

Assuming you are right, she is not the only one who gets money. The developers were a full team creating the game, the publisher is not her. You can ignore the entire world and focus only on her, or you are fair and focus on everyone involved.

Z.o.t.a.

Eta

Z.a.t.o

I encourage you to read the Wikipedia article I linked. She is highly politically active and was a pivotal influence on directly harming trans rights. She is also highly litigative and will sue anybody that is against her.

Here's one quote from the article:

In June 2020 the Equality Act was blocked in the United States Senate. The Republican Party senator James Lankford cited Rowling's essay as part of his reasoning for opposing the bill.

She also doesn't believe asexual people exist, she believes that women are defined by their biological birth sex, she backed legislation to make it more difficult to change genders, she deliberately misgenders people, and she created her own sexual assault crisis shelter specifically to exclude trans women from it.

I think it was particularly interesting that the actors for Ron, Hermione, and Harry, all opposed Rowling's opinions.

Supporting the brand is supporting her, full stop. Supporting her is supporting anti-trans politics. You can choose to ignore that, that's entirely up to you; but it is a choice nonetheless.

I do not support anti-trans politics, in fact I don't care. She is not the only person in the world, so I'm not pirating a videogame that a publisher and team of developer has spent millions and ton of time into a project, where she has no influence on the game. You can choose to ignore everything else and focus on this single person only.

An analogy to a different topic, but illustrating the issue I have with your logic: With your logic, I have to stop using Linux, because Microsoft has WSL integrated into Windows. Plus Microsoft is using Linux too. Anyone supporting Linux supports Microsoft too.

I just 100%ed vampire crawlers, and jumped over to cobalt core. Crawlers resonated more with me than the original survivors game, the mechanics are really neat and the game is not afraid to let your power levels grow beyond ridiculous levels.

Ace Combat 8 and Mortal Shell 2

Your logic doesn't follow because firstly you're not paying for Linux generally as an average user; and secondly it doesn't involve Microsoft in any way whatsoever if you use Linux.

There is a direct pipeline here. You buy the game -> a cut goes to Rowling as royalties -> she invests that money in anti-trans stuff. It's very straightforward.

I'm not the person who wrote the original reply, so I'm not suggesting piracy. Personally I just don't interact with her products at all anymore. I don't read the books, watch the movies, or play the games. Full boycott.

Again; it's entirely your choice. I'm not trying to make you feel bad or guilt trip you or convince you to boycott her or anything of the sort. That's your own decision. I'm only providing information and education. If this information makes you feel bad, it might indicate something you should think about and make a proper decision about, either way.

Finally getting around to playing Baldur's Gate… the original. I haven't played 3 yet, for some reason I decided I want to play the games in order lol

I don't care about her political views, as long as it does not affect the media I'm watching or playing. Also buying a game is supporting more than a single person getting royalties, it's also about the publisher and developers of the game, which has way more impact. It is her decision and not mine to be against a group of people.

YOU state that the royalties from my money are directly used to silence or attack those group of people. Which is a claim you can't backup, but use an argument to support your own view and try people to stop paying her money. I will not pay anything if my money is really used for that, but that is something have to be proven first.

Been enjoying Going Medieval for single player, it's the perfect little castle builder fantasy, though building an actual castle takes a very long time when you're still learning the game. But! That incentivises starting out small, feels like you get to see actual historical development rather than just arriving at the big final castle.

Multiplayer it's Big Walk, what an absolute delight! Loving that the intro is so gentle, but there's clearly a lot of depth.

It in fact affects every aspect of her life, her media included
You can also confirm these things trivially easy and ohhh I get it now, you're a troll. Congratulations, I fell for it too.