We’re well into June, so that makes it time for one of my regular annual features, where we look at some of the movers and shakers I’ve covered in my regular Weekly Spotlight features here every Sunday, and see how the Retro Arcadia Game of the Year 2026 Top Ten Countdown is currently shaping up! Back at the start of the year, I didn’t really see it shaping up how it has at all, having cancelled my Xbox Game Pass subscription a good few months previously, but since they saw sense and reduced their outrageous new pricing to something more palatable, we’ve been reunited and it shows! Not really sure what I’d have done if we hadn’t been, although there’ll be a few hints as we go! Anyway, enough chat. I’ll add a few more comments at the end, as well as a few honourable mentions, but for now, let’s jump in and count down my current top ten games of the year, as they stand halfway through it…

10. Bomcat (PC)

While most of this list put itself together, I had three games that could easily have ended up in this position, but one look that screenshot and I couldn’t resist! This is a vibrant homage to the glory days of single-screen arcade platforming, just like you think you remember but not really! There’s the best of all sorts you will remember though – Donkey Kong, Rod Land, Burger Time, Crazy Climber, Pipi and Bibi’s and so on, but with a modern flourish, if not so much a more forgiving modern sensibility… Don’t let the choice of Easy Mode and Hard Mode fool you because there’s only one choice here, and that’s fast and rough either way! You play a bipedal cat who’s got to infiltrate a bomb factory and rescue a damsel in distress by clearing stages filled with fiendishly placed ladders, platforms, meanies and their own unique gimmicks. You do this by picking up the bombs carelessly left lying around and throwing them at the four computer terminals positioned around the screen, then once they’re all destroyed (together with anything else in the vicinity, including you), the barrier protecting the boss will disappear for you to deliver the finishing blow. Then do it all again! This thing plays like a dream (or precision-jumping, reflex-stretching nightmare), as addictive as it is challenging, and it looks and sounds like an eighties wonderland, with impossibly colourful, character-filled, effects-laden pixel art, and the most sublime chiptune tribute, all as bang up to date as can be, however much your memory is telling you otherwise! 

9. MLB The Show 26 (Xbox Series X)

One of these years I’ll decide that this is either at number one or not in the list at all but for the time being, here we are again! As usual, a new MLB The Show comes with all the razzmatazz of a big‑budget sports sim, although having experienced some real graphical showcases elsewhere this year (case in point what’s at number one below), in-game really isn’t all that – competent at best, with textures and lighting that look like they were lifted from several entries ago, and some of the crowd models from several generations ago! That said, the presentation overall leans so heavily on TV authenticity that the jank does at least remind you you’re playing a game rather than watching it live. The various modes return largely intact – Road to the Show, Franchise, Diamond Dynasty, the historical story thing – tweaked but by no means transformed, and the on‑field action is still the familiar blend of effortless pitching, timing‑based hitting and animation‑driven fielding. It’s all incredibly polished, and there are tweaks here too, such as the new challenge rules, but there’s no escaping it’s last year’s game in a new baseball cap otherwise. But that also means it’s still fantastic to play, with such great rhythm to everything, from bat hitting ball to the whole nine inning back and forth. Okay, I’ll always prefer an actual video game version of baseball to a broadcast simulator (see my top ten here), but when you get to the baseball itself, it’s so much fun and so hard to not just have one more inning! 

8. Reigns: The Witcher (PC)

As a fan of both the swipe-driven casual kingdom management of the original Reigns on  iOS, and the epic majesty of The Witcher 3 on PlayStation 4, I couldn’t resist their coming together in the new Reigns: The Witcher, however unlikely it sounds! Not sure why I’m playing on PC this time, other than I came across it on GoG and in my excitement didn’t think to look elsewhere, because the format is way more suited to a touchscreen, but it works fine with a mouse, while the presentation is simple, stylishly minimal and straight to the point, keeping you focussed on the super-accessible, fast-paced and effortlessly addictive gameplay, strung together by equally fast-paced and dryly familiar writing. The Witcher’s lore is a strangely good fit to the Reigns structure as well, with monster-hunting bounties, political intrigues, personal tragedies and a lot of moral ambiguities all micro-condensed very nicely into this quick-fire, card-flipping format (plus a bit of rhythmic tile-based combat), where you need to stay alive and keep the four forces of power in balance, all by swiping the left or right choice on the current card on the screen. Makes you wonder why you spent hundreds of hours getting there previously… Obviously, entirely different, but if you fancy a really fun, bite-size reunion with Geralt, then I can’t think of a better way, which includes that other stupid card game he likes playing!

7. Trepang2 (Xbox Series X)

I didn’t know a thing about Trepang2 when it appeared on Game Pass, but what a ridiculously good time it turned out to be! Also turned out not to be a sequel to anything I’d never heard of like I first assumed either, although having just finished F.E.A.R. 2 on PlayStation 3 (more here) when I first played it, it could easily be a modern entry in that series! It’s a supernatural first-person shooter but with all the faff stripped-out and the carnage dialled up to eleven, as you play Subject 106, an amnesiac super‑soldier who escapes an evil mega-corp black‑site then goes total Rambo through decadent paranormal research facilities, cult-occupied castles and haunted underground lairs, in an attempt to uncover (and violently take down) the sinister organisation that seemingly created and imprisoned him. And it’s fast-paced, ferocious chaos all the way, with exaggerated slide‑kicks that send heavily armoured soldiers tumbling like skittles, meaty-feeling shotguns that detonate entire rooms into clouds of dust and broken glass everywhere, and bullet-time machine-gun bursts that decorate every encounter in this explosion of sparks and debris and dozens of bloody limbs. Behind all the spectacle, it might not be the best-looking game ever, but it moves great and it’s backed by a bombastic but also surprisingly thoughtful soundtrack… And a whole orchestra of loud bangs as well, obviously! There’s loads to find and do here too if you want it, but the main story mode certainly doesn’t outstay its welcome, just focussing on being big, dumb and stylish, totally over the top and giving you a load of fun for a mindless few hours! 

6. Super Meat Boy 3D (Xbox Series X)

I’m rarely in the mood when it comes to 3D platformers, so I’d likely never have given this a chance had it not been for the subject matter, but I think I was on level three of Super Meat Boy 3D when I realised how much of a good time I was having, not in spite of it being a genre I’m not that keen on, but because it was proper new Meat Boy regardless! And for context, three levels is well under a minute in! Anyway, I’ve been a fan since the 2010 original’s brutally precise but instantly retryable 2D original, and I liked its similarly challenging auto-running follow-up from 2020 too, and apart from being 3D, this is familiar territory again, as the cube of meat called Super Meat Boy once more heads off to rescue Bandage Girl from the evil Dr. Fetus. It’s all rotating sawblades, fiendish traps and menacing bosses again too, and they not only look great here, but the fixed yet dynamic camera absolutely nails perception of depth and your place in each breakneck level, so negotiating all these hazards is as seamlessly intuitive and effortlessly rhythmic as when it was all in two dimensions. Gets ridiculously hard though, but never unfairly or cheaply so, and once you get going, you wouldn’t want it any other way. Which also goes for the outwardly cute but utterly sinister presentation, with those persistent blood trails especially an ongoing and increasingly in-your-face reminder that you just need to get good! Maybe not my favourite game type, but I’ll always take more Meat Boy when it’s this much fun!

5. Forza Horizon 6 (Xbox Series X)

In a very different way, Forza Horizon 6 is beautiful too. It arrived on Xbox Game Pass a few weeks ago, and it’s the stunner in every respect that we expected nothing less than! Once again, it rides the line between arcade racing and driving simulation (and then some!) just about perfectly, but this time sets you (and over five-hundred cars) loose across Japan, and it’s never looked better, sounded better, played better or had anything like this much to sink your teeth into. It’s polished to the point of obsession, from the outrageous lighting and weather effects to the way the tyres bite into the tarmac. And then there’s the locations, which more than ever are the beating heart of the game, whether you’re drifting around the fast and furious streets of downtown Tokyo, or going wild around waterlogged cherry fields under the majestic gaze of Mount Fuji – there’s a sense of purpose about everywhere and everything in it, and that purpose is entirely your enjoyment! I guess one small criticism, having visited the assault on the senses that is Tokyo many times, is that it’s a bit lifeless here, although it’s very easy to forget that this is just a game! The campaign (if that’s the right word) is enormous, built on exploration and discovery as much as the mass of Horizon Festival race events, and also seamless co-op and multiplayer stuff, with Time Attack Circuits, Drag Meets, Car Meets and all sorts more. Then there’s all those cars to collect and upgrade and customise, houses to buy, garages to build, challenges to complete, secrets to unlock, events of your own to create… It seems to go on forever! If you don’t exclusively listen to the Sub Pop station then the soundtrack might seem to as well, with nine radio stations to choose from, spanning metal and rock, alternative and indie, hip-hop, drum & bass, electronica, synth-wave, modern classical and, of course, a bit of J-pop too! Something for everyone, which goes for the rest of the game as well, with all of its gameplay options, the fantastic handling, the gorgeous visuals, and I’m going to start repeating myself now, so let’s just say this is the best one yet and more besides! 

4. Mixtape (Xbox Series X)

There might not be a lot of actual “game” to Mixtape but what a game! It arrived on Xbox Game Pass and elsewhere a couple of months back, and is built around the soundtrack to three mid‑nineties, Northern Californian late‑teenagers making their final memories together the night before one of them moves away. It’s all warm, hazy and unashamedly nostalgic – and if you were of that age around that time, perhaps unnervingly so too! And you just kind of drift along with it, as it plays out more or less like a narrative walking‑sim through vignettes that last as long as the current song on the titular mixtape, seamlessly switching from present day to memories of lazy summers hanging out in bedrooms, going on bike rides, underage drinking, renting videos and visiting the crappy local funfair that all brought you here. Visually, it’s authentically of‑the‑time cinematic, cleverly blending mixed-media realism with this kind of slower frame rate, almost stop‑motion 3D animation, and where every individual page of this interactive scrapbook you’re travelling through has its own artistic identity. Which brings us to that soundtrack – and I’m almost hesitant to get into it too much because it’s so intrinsic to the experience and I don’t want to spoil it! It’s not just the cool‑as‑you‑like contemporary alternative sounds you might be imagining either (although there’s plenty of them too), but spans all kinds of stuff you might have come across at the time, back to the sixties, and it’s mostly recognisable without ever being a greatest hits compilation. And equally important, the three main characters behind it aren’t the annoying, whiny American teenagers I was imagining I couldn’t relate to and wouldn’t be spending more than five minutes with before I started! They were just the teenagers you probably remember being, creating the same memories of the small things that would mean the world for a lifetime. And maybe you were even listening to the same soundtrack — there was certainly a lot of mine coming and going in there, with the likes of The Smashing Pumpkins, Jesus and Mary Chain, Siouxsie, Roxy… And then something else I won’t spoil but whose opening notes hit me like a punch in the gut, like nothing in a game ever has before, and then it only went and did it all over again with another just a couple of minutes later! Literally a wreck, and the most impactful ending I think I’ve ever experienced. Thank you Johnny Galvatron. That was beautiful.

3. Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors! (Xbox Series X)

As much as I literally played it to death when it came out back in 2022, I have absolutely no idea what I’d have wanted a sequel to Vampire Survivors to look like… I do know it wasn’t Vampire Crawlers though, but I’m pleased to report it’s doing just fine so far all the same! Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors! (to give it its full title) takes the destructive and wildly compulsive snowball-effect thrills of the original and bizarrely turns them into this turbo-charged, turn-based, tactical deck-building dungeon-crawler with a super-old-school, overtly bargain bin vibe! It’s all first-person perspective now, with you shuffling around these vaguely familiar and totally lurid heavy-on-the-pixels locations, filled with the even more lurid and gloriously 2.5D undead, as well as treasures, unlocks, upgrades and all sorts, and no need to worry about all that nerdy card nonsense either, because once the built-for-fun system clicks, there’s a rhythm here that isn’t quite equal to Vampire Survivors but you’re going to struggle to put an end to regardless when you realise bedtime was an hour ago! You explore, encounter, play your cards, unleash some world-ending combos, reap the rewards, equip your upgrades, then do it again until you die trying, when you can reap some more persistent rewards and do it again, er, again. Marvellous! It’s almost unfair to compare this to the original, when it was such an out of nowhere cultural phenomenon that was never going to be repeated, but that hasn’t gone anywhere if you want more of the same, and this sits very weirdly but almost perfectly alongside it! 

2. Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterly Remake (Xbox Series X)

From what I remember, the original PlayStation 2 game from 2003 was always a bit niche, overshadowed by Silent Hill and Resident Evil, and on one hand maybe a bit too Japanese for its own good, while on the other, it got a generic local renaming, Project Zero 2: Crimson Butterfly, which probably hurt its cause here even more! Bit of a quiet masterpiece of survival-horror all the same though, that would become the very definition of a cult hit, and together with the series going dormant for many years (although it actually got the remake treatment already on Wii back in 2012), it’s a pricey addition to your library nowadays, so this new version was very welcome to me, having never had a copy, albeit not for the want of trying! The plot is classic Japanese folk-horror meets ghost story, as sisters Mio and Mayu stumble upon the abandoned All Gods Village, where a failed ritual has left it frozen in time and haunted by the understandably irked spirits of its former inhabitants… They soon also stumble upon the Camera Obscura, which Mio must use to fend off vengeful ghosts, as simply trying to escape the village turns into a tragic tale of sacrifice and sorrow, where Mayu suddenly has the leading role. It’s all built on dread rather than spectacle, which the original seemingly pulled off spectacularly regardless, and this does the same again, not only with the expected lick of very atmospheric paint and mournful new sound design, but it more or less plays like a modern game now too, although I’ll always argue fixed cameras still make for better scares! Not that it’s lacking there in the slightest, but a bit more polish wouldn’t have gone amiss – lighting can be off, animations stiff, “combat” even more so, and some environments look more upscaled than remade. It’s still a beautifully haunting and consistently unsettling experience all the same, with no denying it knows its J-horror, and there’s loads to uncover and get easily sidetracked by too. And while it could potentially have been a bit more transformative, I absolutely loved my time with it – it properly got it hooks into me from the very outset, and there were so many times I was just left with a big grin on my face, at least until I remembered how much I’m inevitably now going to spend on finally getting hold of the original as well!

1. Resident Evil Requiem (Xbox Series X)

I’ve been toying with the idea of a favourite video game series countdown for ages, and although I haven’t done the maths yet, there’s no doubt that Resident Evil is going to be up there at the business end with the likes of Silent Hill, Metal Gear and Castlevania… Which is why a new entry in the series is always such a huge deal for me, and also partly why I’m now on play-through number six already! It’s a return to Capcom’s well-trodden brand of tense, resource-limited survival-horror with plenty of blockbuster action (not to mention blockbuster bosses) on top, taking you back to the equally well-trodden streets of what’s left of Raccoon City, as dual-protagonists Grace Ashcroft, a new-to-the-series FBI agent, and old friend Leon S. Kennedy (now a federal counter-bioterrorism agent) investigate ongoing mysteries seemingly tied to the original outbreak there. Abandoned or not, the place (and everywhere that gets you there) looks absolutely stunning too, densely packed with grim, gore-drenched environmental detail, and the most atmospheric lighting, cinematic menace and wild special effects, while everything living, dead or otherwise inhabiting the place is as naturally (if sometimes a bit waxily) realistic or the utterly grotesque opposite as required, with so much flourish and seamless polish everywhere you look. It’s truly spectacular from start to finish!

In fact, I reckon the opening in particular (see a couple of screenshots above) is as good-looking as gaming currently gets, and it’s making a play for as good as proper horror in gaming gets too, as terrifying as it is exhilarating through its joyfully self-indulgent, intentionally ludicrous but mostly coherent narrative, which shifts you between Grace and Leon, and their unique gameplay styles, pacing, camera perspectives and “investigative” strategies… And plenty of perfectly hammy voice-acting, which is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to fan-service! Elsewhere, the visceral, raucous and generally meticulous contribution of the sound design is almost on a par with that of the visuals – lights off, isolating headphones on, and after those singing zombies you’ll never sleep again! There’s the usual suite of modes, upgrades, collectibles, extras, cosmetics, replay-unlocks and other reasons to keep going back for more too, as I’ve now more than demonstrated! I still need the dust to settle a bit more to see where this sits alongside its predecessor, Resident Evil Village (covered here the week before this came out in preparation), which I’d previously counted second favourite in the series only to my top three game of all time, Resident Evil 4. One thing’s already for sure though – if this isn’t still my Game of the Year in December, then 2026 will have been a very special one!

There we go! And it turns out I’d have probably bought some games had I not renewed Game Pass, including at least half of the titles here that were available on there! No Nintendo Switch games, which I wouldn’t have seen coming at the start of the year though. Makes up for quite how predictable what’s at number one was! A couple of honourable mentions now, and as I said earlier, either of these could have been in that number ten slot instead on any other day! Firstly, Raccoin (on Steam), a ridiculously addictive coin-pusher like you used to get at the seaside that will have you questioning what on earth you’re doing with your life while you’re loving every second! Then there’s Replaced (on Xbox and pictured above), a stunning modern pixel art cyberpunk-noir platform-puzzle adventure-type-thing that maybe just outstayed its welcome for me a little bit. And as this is supposed to be a retro gaming affair, quick shoutout to Game Boy-style isometric pixel art adventure meets perspective-puzzler Cassette Boy (which I did buy on Xbox), and Atari 2600 homebrew Catty Bird too, which isn’t what you’re thinking and I love that these things keep on coming!

Coming back to outstaying your welcome, I don’t want to do that here, so it’s lucky I don’t really have too many predictions about what might make its way into this list come Christmas! I’m not interested in Grand Theft Auto in the slightest, and Halloween might be one of my favourite movie franchises but one versus many stealth ain’t for me, and I’m not sure what’s left… Dune: Awakening is finally coming to something I can play it on, but that’s been out elsewhere since last year. And likewise, I don’t have anything to play the new Silent Hill on. There is Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse, of course, which I’ll inevitably buy, but the art style’s not really grabbing me yet. And I did have an absolute blast with a Steam demo for an upcoming idle clicker of all things called Just Open The Door (pictured above), where you earn money by doing exactly that to buy more doors and hire workers to open even more doors and so on. Had it on the go for days until I completely maxed out the demo, so maybe we’ll just say that’s definitely in with a chance and then we can be pleasantly surprised by anything else that turns up! And with that, I’ll see you in six months to find out what happened!

As always, I’ll never expect anything for what I do here but if you’d like to buy me a Ko-fi and help towards increasingly expensive hosting and storage costs then it will always be really appreciated! And be sure to follow me on Instagram, X (formerly Twitter) or Threads for my latest retro-gaming nonsense, and also on Bluesky, which is under my real name but most of it ends up there too if you prefer!