One of the earliest big reveals in the live show also delivered one of the biggest surprises. A cinematic trailer for Game of Thrones: War for Westeros revealed a first look at the new real-time strategy game set in the world of A Song of Ice and Fire. In it, a shockingly realistic version of Jon Snow (Kit Harrington, reprising his role from the show) stands off with the Night King amid a fiery battlefield reminiscent of the series’ penultimate episode. A voiceover kicks in, saying, “You may think you know how the game is played, but this is not the game you know.”

With that, the Night King kills Snow with spear through the chest, followed by a scene of one of Daenerys’ dragons being shot out of the sky by a ballista bolt. That’s definitely not how the story goes, right? In PlaySide Studios’ take on Game of Thrones, players will be able to play through different scenarios that rewrite the narrative of the show in solo and multiplayer modes — and might just deliver on the head canon fans have made up that deviates from the TV show’s controversial ending.

In typical video game showcase fashion, Summer Game Fest revealed a big-name IP to huge applause before the rug pull, revealing it’s exclusively in VR. This time around, the scene was slightly inverted as host Geoff Keighley did a little comedic bit reading a personal note from an unnamed goofball who ends up being Deadpool. (The letter’s signed with a “wet one on the lips” from Wade.)

Exclusive to the Meta Quest 3 and developed by Twisted Pixel, Marvel’s Deadpool VR is a bloody action game packed to the brim with dry jokes and visual gags and uber-violence, which could be fun if it weren’t already something done to death with the character’s pop culture oversaturation in recent years. And while you might expect the trailer to at least have some energy, the voicework done by actor Neil Patrick Harris (doing an OK Ryan Reynolds impression) is as sleepy as the gameplay looks.

In one of the strangest trailers of the show, Felt That: Boxing showed what a Rocky-styled story would look like if it was acted entirely by Muppets. From new developers Sans Strings Studio, the game follows Ezra “Fuzz-E” Wright, an apparently unadoptable orphan who must fight his way through the Tournament of a Million Punches to save everything he loves.

A wildly surreal parody of boxing movie tropes, the game’s visuals appear to be entirely created using digital puppetry and looks to play like a gonzo version of Punch-Out from the perspective of a felt puppet taking massive beatings. Its music also comes courtesy of Flying Lotus, adding to the bizarre Adult Swim vibe of the tone.

After already announcing new characters Rocket Raccoon and She-Hulk for the upcoming beat-em-up Marvel Cosmic Invasion, retro studio Tribute Games brought down the house in the YouTube Theater with unexpected reveal of Scott Pilgrim EX, due out in early 2026. The company made their name with the beloved old school arcade pastiche Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game back in 2010, and EX looks to be an even bigger, crazier sequel with seven playable characters and an all-new story made with the involvement of series creator Bryan Lee O’Malley. Frankly, it was the first of very few major surprises of the night.

Wedged in between the cozy cute games and colorful anime fare was an absolutely grotesque display of body horror from developers Team Clout called ILL. A first-person survival horror game with photo realistic visuals, ILL looks like Resident Evil on meth, seeing players creep through shadowy basements and hallways as oozing, slippery mutated bodies creep around and lunge at the screen.

Hyperrealism drives home some deeply unsettling sights, like the skin flaps of a monster’s head dangling with viscera after a shotgun blast, but the kicker is a bodycam-style sequence of a mangled, toothy infant sprinting maniacally before the player kicks it into a filing cabinet. It’s impossible to unsee.

In periodic palate cleansers from the horror outings, Summer Game Fest showed off multiple feel-good teasers for cooperative games that follow the trend of last year’s breakout Split Fiction and 2023’s It Takes Two with cozy takes on two-player puzzling.

Lego Voyagers is a 2.5D isometric adventure game that has two players embodying little one-eyed Lego bricks, making their way across the world with a soothing ambient soundtrack. Like last year’s Lego Horizon Adventures, Voyagers has lush visuals that perfectly recreate the whimsy of an imaginary Lego world but leans more heavily on the physics-based puzzle solving than all-out action. Another called Out of Words is a fully handcrafted stop-motion animated game that works as a 2D platformer for two players locally or online.

Unveiled for the first time at Summer Game Fest, Wu-Tang: Rise of the Deceiver is the first game featuring the eponymous hip-hop clan since 1999’s Wu-Tang Shaolin Style. A spiritual successor, Rise of the Deceiver sees a new generation of warriors take up the mantle in search of the missing Wu-Tang members. A three-player co-op game, it’s an action RPG with fully customizable characters and gear.

Featuring an anime-inspired aesthetic as well as a surreal stop-motion-like style, Rise of the Deceiver is visually impressive, even just from the short glimpses seen in the trailer. Music will clearly be a huge aspect off the game, with a dynamic experience that utilizes and remixes classic Wu-Tang tracks and a soundtrack curated by producer Just Blaze.

While, for the most part, the show was most a dud, you’d be hard pressed to say it was offensively bad. Except for this guy.

In a non-sequitur following the silence of the previous teaser, Ian Proulx, CEO and co-founder of 1047 games, appeared standing on stage donning a hat that made everyone do a double take. It read: “Make FPS Great Again.” To hype up the release of his studio’s game Splitgate 2, Proulx took aim at easy targets like Call of Duty while touting his capital-G Gamer credentials as an old school Halo player. Leaning on a giant baseball bat, the developer boldly stated that Splitgate 2, out now, is “fucking awesome” with the kind of conviction usually reserved for overserved dudes at the bar that you’re desperately trying to ignore.

In an evening filled with mundanity, this moment served as the sole instance of unadulterated cringe.

With only a handful of groundbreaking announcements, many of the show’s best offerings came from big updates to games that are currently available. In a confusing live-action teaser starring wrestler Kenny Omega in various forms of cosplay, Capcom showcased the next wave of DLC characters for its flagship fighting game Street Fighter 6, including Sagat, C. Viper, Alex, and Ingrid — all coming individually between summer 2025 and spring 2026.

In an equally weird but also much more awkward stage presentation, IO Interactive’s CEO Hakan Abrak revealed that, on top of the studio’s forthcoming game 007 First Light, the world of James Bond will be coming to its stealth game Hitman World of Assassination with the inclusion of Mads Mikkelsen’s villainous banker LeChiffre from 2006’s Casino Royale. Mikkelsen himself appeared on stage to discuss his love for the character in a scripted banter that didn’t quite play as smoothly as his poker expert character from the film.

Midway through the live show, fans were thrilled to see a video appearance by Maggie Robsterson, voice actor for Resident Evil Village’s villain Alcina Dimitrescu. Surely, this would mean that the recently rumored Resident Evil 9 would be announced. But excitement turned to deflation as Robertson turned over the presentation to Resident Evil director Jun Takeuchi who cheekily announced that the announcement of the next game would be coming soon. It was a huge letdown.

And then it wasn’t. The showcase ended with a bait and switch reveal of the sequel, called Resident Evil: Requiem, due Feb. 27, 2026. While it was great to finally get a glimpse of the next entry in the franchise, the whole schtick felt like an arbitrary ploy to inject some life into the proceedings. The trailer alone would’ve sufficed.