Summer Game Fest Play Days just wrapped up and there is a ton of incredible stuff for PlayStation players to get excited about this year! I spent my day at Sony Tower digging through the demo stations and getting serious hands-on time with 11 upcoming PS5 titles — here are three that blew me away, starting with one of the best horror sequels in decades.
**Alien: Isolation 2 (TBD)** is exactly what you'd hope for from Creative Assembly more than a decade after Amanda Ripley's original terror at the Selgrov station on Savastopol. I played through this prologue as a Weyland-Yutani executive arriving by rover to investigate an explosion, and within minutes we're trekking barefoot into woods toward what looks like wreckage but is actually the KG-348 lab — yes, THE one where Amanda jettisoned her xenomorph from Savastopol Station before space. The chunky tactile controls are back in force: mash X to crank generators (I literally smashed my thumb on it), Crouch with Circle and duck behind tables/objects while L1+L3 lets you peek around corners like a paranoid stalker, flares light via button press for distraction when no motion tracker exists so YOU become the sensor. Smart creature that opens cabinets and checks underneath your cowering table — I almost got swallowed because it actually stopped to verify whether Musashi was hiding there. Same brutal formula: can't kill this alien but only hide from it with tight audio design doing double duty on proximity alerts.
**Control Resonant (September 24, Remedy Entertainment)** reframes the entire story as Dylan Faden — Jesse's brother and protagonist of Alan Wake 1/2 lore — stepping in after The Oldest House falls to Hiss during a seven-year stalemate while FBI evacuates into New York City. What thrilled me is how aggressively fast this thing plays now: Circle lets you dash twice before touching ground, X double-jump with hold for levitating mid-air (I spent the demo flying between rooftops like Spider-Man), and Triangle cycles through secondary forms of that shapeshifting Aberrant weapon while L1/R1/R2 map to distinct paranormal abilities. Combat rewards pure aggression because fallen enemies drop healing items so you stay in flow combat rather than retreat-and-heal — I'm talking full combo chains off a head-cobbled boss made entirely from road signs, steel girders and chunks of concrete that swings them like wrecking balls at your face (90 minutes flew by). Jesse's not protagonist but remains critical to the story through her space-transcending contact with Dylan which tracks back beautifully into Alan Wake 2 lore.
**Onimusha: Way of the Sword (September 25, Capcom)** opens things up in a beautiful Kyoto temple complex where Musashi and his talking Oni gauntlet investigate villagers being blessed by what appears to be their local deity — turns out it's a Genma impersonator who twists wishes into body-part-harvesting nightmares. One man asks for no more knee pain so loses both leg AND knee, genius move if you think about it. More exploration than our previous linear demo with multiple side-paths full of crafting materials and enemies; the combat remains deeply satisfying: dodge perfectly (Circle), parry strikes (L1) or deflect held-parries by pressing X to break opponents' guard before executing them in brutal fashion against that Genma boss whose supernatural tentacles grab villagers straight from prayer positions.
Between SGF Play Days, PS Plus events and a couple of press-only previews I've been watching — this has easily become one of the stronger years for PlayStation games so far with three massive releases on my radar by September alone!
Source: https://blog.playstation.com/2026/06/08/summer-game-fest-2026-hands-on-and-more-details-on-11-upcoming-ps5-games/
**Alien: Isolation 2 (TBD)** is exactly what you'd hope for from Creative Assembly more than a decade after Amanda Ripley's original terror at the Selgrov station on Savastopol. I played through this prologue as a Weyland-Yutani executive arriving by rover to investigate an explosion, and within minutes we're trekking barefoot into woods toward what looks like wreckage but is actually the KG-348 lab — yes, THE one where Amanda jettisoned her xenomorph from Savastopol Station before space. The chunky tactile controls are back in force: mash X to crank generators (I literally smashed my thumb on it), Crouch with Circle and duck behind tables/objects while L1+L3 lets you peek around corners like a paranoid stalker, flares light via button press for distraction when no motion tracker exists so YOU become the sensor. Smart creature that opens cabinets and checks underneath your cowering table — I almost got swallowed because it actually stopped to verify whether Musashi was hiding there. Same brutal formula: can't kill this alien but only hide from it with tight audio design doing double duty on proximity alerts.
**Control Resonant (September 24, Remedy Entertainment)** reframes the entire story as Dylan Faden — Jesse's brother and protagonist of Alan Wake 1/2 lore — stepping in after The Oldest House falls to Hiss during a seven-year stalemate while FBI evacuates into New York City. What thrilled me is how aggressively fast this thing plays now: Circle lets you dash twice before touching ground, X double-jump with hold for levitating mid-air (I spent the demo flying between rooftops like Spider-Man), and Triangle cycles through secondary forms of that shapeshifting Aberrant weapon while L1/R1/R2 map to distinct paranormal abilities. Combat rewards pure aggression because fallen enemies drop healing items so you stay in flow combat rather than retreat-and-heal — I'm talking full combo chains off a head-cobbled boss made entirely from road signs, steel girders and chunks of concrete that swings them like wrecking balls at your face (90 minutes flew by). Jesse's not protagonist but remains critical to the story through her space-transcending contact with Dylan which tracks back beautifully into Alan Wake 2 lore.
**Onimusha: Way of the Sword (September 25, Capcom)** opens things up in a beautiful Kyoto temple complex where Musashi and his talking Oni gauntlet investigate villagers being blessed by what appears to be their local deity — turns out it's a Genma impersonator who twists wishes into body-part-harvesting nightmares. One man asks for no more knee pain so loses both leg AND knee, genius move if you think about it. More exploration than our previous linear demo with multiple side-paths full of crafting materials and enemies; the combat remains deeply satisfying: dodge perfectly (Circle), parry strikes (L1) or deflect held-parries by pressing X to break opponents' guard before executing them in brutal fashion against that Genma boss whose supernatural tentacles grab villagers straight from prayer positions.
Between SGF Play Days, PS Plus events and a couple of press-only previews I've been watching — this has easily become one of the stronger years for PlayStation games so far with three massive releases on my radar by September alone!
Source: https://blog.playstation.com/2026/06/08/summer-game-fest-2026-hands-on-and-more-details-on-11-upcoming-ps5-games/