I don’t know about you, but 2025 was a long year for me – in a good way – and I have no intention of letting 2026 blow past uneventfully either. But there was a great deal of closure in entertainment media last year: Hollow Knight: Silksong, Hades II‘s full release, the Switch 2 console, the Fantastic Four in the MCU, the debut of the all-new “DCU”, and the (likely) end of the Mission Impossible saga all became realities at last after years of hype, Xbox completed its transformation into a third-party publisher after years of… the opposite of hype, and this site finally hit at least a-post-per-month inside one calendar year, which has been a goal of mine for a decade. After all that, it kinda feels like massive targets for anticipation are running low, and the prospect of 2026 carries a fair amount of uncertainty.
That is, until you take a glance at the release schedule.
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey dwarfs everything else on the film calendar, but Iñárritu, Fennell, Spielberg and Eggers are set to join him on the film-bro-favourite dias with Digger, Wuthering Heights, Disclosure Day, and Werwulf respectively (though that last one sadly may not make 2026 here in Aus). The morbid curiosity of millions of nerds will converge when Avengers: Doomsday and Dune Part Three both allegedly land on December 18 – less than a week before I post my first movie-related countdown of the year. The anxiety will be real, but before then we will have seen a new Spidey, James Gunn-universe takes on both Supergirl and Clayface, a new Michael Jackson biopic, the debut of The Mandalorian on the big screen, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, and new cinematic incarnations of both Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter.
And speaking of which, we’ve got another promising year of fighting games brewing! Riot Games’ 2XKO will be properly out within weeks of this post, with Invincible VS and Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls set to join the arena by year’s end. Elsewhere Capcom will be looking to extend ‘The Streak’ with Resident Evil Requiem and Pragmata, Bond will be back in gaming where he belongs with IOI’s 007 First Light, Nintendo’s first full year with the Switch 2 looks stacked with quality support (Fever, Fortune’s Weave and Duskbloods, baby), and Valve’s promising Steam Machine will test just how big of a gap Microsoft has left in the hardware space.
Of course, one question looms above all others: will the “before GTA 6” memes FINALLY end? But for me, it’s all about the keys The Pokemon Company and Square Enix still hold to my heart. Pokemon’s 30th anniversary promises an imminent Gen 10 announcement, but I just cannot wait for the release of Pokemon Champions and all of the battling community implications to follow. As for Square, well, they really could make 2026 something special by dropping trailers for Dragon Quest XII or the finale of the Final Fantasy VII remake trilogy – let alone releasing either game.
But before all that potential chaos goes down, here are the links to all ten countdowns (and all 100 countdown items) that look back on the best of 2025:
Vagrant Rant 