From Dynasty Warriors to Clair Obscur: what gamers are playing in 2026

From Dynasty Warriors to Clair Obscur: the real map of gaming

The new Switch is being unveiled the day after tomorrow, along with the powerful launch game that will accompany it. That is the schedule shaping the conversation these days, with the release of the new Dynasty Warriors —the best since the third one, according to those who have already tried it— as an appetizer, and one name hovering above all the rest: Clair Obscur, already being compared, without embarrassment, to this decade's Final Fantasy X. The industry moves billions, but the question that really matters remains the same one as ever: what are we actually playing?

The answer, taken as a whole, paints a sector split in two. On one side, the blockbuster that demands hardware: some complain that Flight Simulator 2024 and Indiana Jones don't run on an RX-580 and that spending more than 1,000 euros on a ray-tracing card isn't in the plans. On the other, a back-catalogue built on classics, remasters and rock-bottom prices. A Just Cause 2 for 3 euros is being reclaimed as a gem discovered too late. Money is tight and judgment is getting sharper.

Clair Obscur and the 30-person studio that makes Ubisoft uncomfortable

The most talked-about case is Clair Obscur. A 30-person studio, made up of former Ubisoft employees, has devoured supposed triple-A games in two days, according to the most common verdict. The irony is thick: the very profiles the big corporation laid off or let go are now behind one of the year's biggest releases. The comparison with Final Fantasy X is no small thing, because it speaks to an entire generation that learned to cry over a JRPG.

On top of this comes Expedition 33, which recently released a free DLC and whose soundtrack, composed by Lorien and Alice, is being singled out for praise. Some argue that, if they keep this level up, they could be among the best the industry has ever seen. The detail matters: in a market where audio is outsourced, a small studio can afford the luxury of having its own sonic identity.

The 30-hour wall in the JRPG

Metaphor Refantazio illustrates the other side of the coin. Around the 30-hour mark, the genre's classic wall appears: either it clicks and you binge it to the end, or you click with it and smoke your way through to the finish. The solution adopted by more than a few has been to drop the difficulty to the minimum, because playing it tough on hard mode without a guide leads to fights that crush you without mercy. It's by Atlus, the same people behind Persona, and yet some still prefer Persona.

The pattern repeats in other titles. Wukong goes from hard to easy: the first act is the most brutal and then it softens. And it has one advantage that sets it apart from soulslikes: here you lose nothing when you die. No XP, no souls, no pogre. That design choice, deliberate or not, widens the audience without betraying the veteran player.

Cyberpunk, RDR2 and the feeling that everything is the same

The most uncomfortable criticism isn't aimed at any specific game, but at the format itself. An open world with great atmosphere but empty, where you do the same thing over and over and you're aware of it from the first hours. The diagnosis extends to Cyberpunk 2077 itself, with playthroughs abandoned at the 20-hour mark. And the suspicion of age creeps in: the feeling that all games are the same.

Against that, the defense of the open world done right rests on Rockstar. Red Dead Redemption 2 set the bar sky-high, and the demand for an RDR3 coexists with the certainty that GTA 6 will arrive first, which on PC will take at least another year and a half. Patience is measured in years.

Parry, controllers and the price of nostalgia

In terms of gameplay, the parry has become a dividing line: some people read the word and break out in a cold sweat. The alternative is the dodge with generous iframes, which makes accessible what used to be elite-only territory. It's the underlying debate about whether developers deliberately casualize the first game in a saga only to toughen up the sequel.

Meanwhile, nostalgia has a price, and sometimes it's free: Total War Rome 2, Three Kingdoms and Pharaoh given away on Amazon Prime Gaming for Epic; Shogun 2 free on Steam back in the day; Thief and SiN remasters courtesy of Nightdive. And a statistic that sums up the era: the credits of Assassin's Creed Shadows last two and a half hours, with manager, financial and marketing names and titles repeated to exhaustion. Id Software was half a dozen guys in 1992.

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The exact point where the analysis gets stuck is the usual one: if the best game of the year is signed by a 30-person studio and the most expensive one by a staff of thousands, something in the industry's cost structure doesn't add up. Nobody has yet managed to explain which of the two models will pay the payrolls of 2030.